Holt digs the knife into my neck, and I realize he’s going to do it—he’s going to cut out my tattoo. “Tell me how to read it,” he says one last time, his breath like fire against my ear.
My eyes stray past Holt’s head to the open door behind him—the open door—where a layer of red evening sky is now visible, beforeI flick my gaze back. “No,” I say with hate in my throat, a sudden courage spiking behind my eyes. Becausehe’sfound me. “I’ll never tell you, you piece of shit.”
Air leaves Holt’s lungs, a shuddering exhale—shocked by my defiance, shocked by something else. The whites of his eyes expand. The knife drops from his hand to the floor with a clatter. He releases his hold on me, pivoting around.
I swallow,swallow, touching my throat with my palms and gasping for air, trying to keep from collapsing to the floor.
And when I look up… Noah is standing on the other side of Holt, a knife thrust into Holt’s side.
He found me.
The room vibrates, everything shaking back into focus, a slow, shimmering staccato as I draw in another breath.
Only a foot away, Noah shoves Holt back, against the wall where I had been pinned, and the knife in his hand drives in deeper, just below Holt’s ribs.
I blink; I let out a trembling exhale.
But Holt is strangely silent, mouth hung open, soundless, while his eyes bore holes through Noah. A quiet fury.The boy who almost killed him all those years ago.The boy who is a traitor.
Noah presses the knife in deeper, his stare fixed on Holt, as if seeing his past in Holt’s eyes, anger and fury mixed with something else, something I don’t understand. “I should have done this long ago,” Noah hisses.
Air escapes Holt’s lips. “Traitor,” he mutters. “You…” Blood drips from his mouth, stains his teeth, eyes turned huge and manic, staring back at Noah. “… betray me, forher.” Holt’s throatshivers, teeth pushed out. “This blood”—his eyes fall closed, then snap wide—“is yours.”
At the far end of the room, in the open doorway, another figure appears. “Let’s go!” Cricket shouts. “More men are coming.”
Noah yanks the blade from Holt’s abdomen, and Holt slides mutely to the floor. Gutted. “I’m not a Theorist anymore,” Noah growls definitely, voice deep and hard and cut through with something that sounds like pain.
Bright, awful blood spreads across Holt’s white shirt, dripping to the floor, pooling. His hand tries to find the wound. But there’s too much blood.A lake of it.
Noah’s gotten his revenge, and his eyes flash to me, hand reaching out, pulling me to him. “He cut you?” he asks, touching my neck gently, fingertips to my skin, trying to inspect the place where Holt’s blade pierced my skin.
“I’m all right,” I say quickly, not trying to be tough—I just don’t feel any pain. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, the pounding of my heart in my ears, but the blood hardening against my chest doesn’t even feel like my own.
“Come on!” Cricket yells. “We have to go!”
Noah takes my hand, squeezes tight, and I flash one final look at Holt—his mouth sputtering open and closed,open, closed, like he’s trying to speak, but his lungs have lost all air.
I turn to Noah, my own voice lost, the ringing in my ears too loud, and I nod. We sprint down the center of the schoolhouse, his green eyes wild with rage, while the knife in his other hand drips with Holt’s blood.
I hurry over the body lying in the dirt, just beyond the doorway—the man who’d been posted to keep guard—now dead. Slayed by Noah or Cricket. I barely look at him. I don’t want to feel the guilt; I don’t want to tally the number of people who’ve lost their lives because of me. Whether they deserved it or not.
Outside, I blink away from the evening sunlight, struggling to focus after being caged in the dark schoolhouse for days, prisms cutting across my vision.I can’t believe I’m outside. Can’t believe I’m free. Quickly I scan the unfamiliar town spread out before me, boarded up and abandoned, but Noah tugs against my hand—his warm palm pressed to mine. “You okay?” he asks, sensing my hesitation. I nod again, still unable to find any words, and he squeezes my hand tighter, an assurance that he’s not letting go, then pulls me away from the body, from Holt now bleeding out inside the schoolhouse, and down a dusty, narrow alleyway.
I might be free of the schoolhouse, but we still have to get out of this town.
At the far end of the alley, between two slanted wood buildings, Cricket stops and looks back. Her breathing is quick, labored, and I see how much paler she’s become—eyes lost of any color, skin waxy and damp. Like her body is both an unstoppable wildfire and a deep, winter cold she can’t shake. She’s sick,reallysick.
She shouldn’t have come; she shouldn’t even be on her feet.
Behind us, shouts echo through the deserted town, footsteps thundering across the hard ground, men converging on the old schoolhouse. “This way,” Cricket says, her teeth clenched so tightly, I worry they might crack, but we run down another row of buildings, the wind howling through open doorways and shattered windows.We’re nearly to the edge of town, only another block to go—I can see the dry, open landscape beyond—when we hear a series of footsteps pounding closer.Too close.
Cricket drives herself up against the wall of a single-story house, tucked into a thin stretch of shadows. Noah and I do the same, his hard chest pressing to mine, breathing in my ear, his heartbeat against my throat. The scent of him, of green and forest, almost makes tears well in my eyes. He is familiar in ways he shouldn’t be.He found me,my mind repeats. He found me, and he’s protecting me, like he swore he would. Like he promised.
And when I let my eyes flutter closed for the briefest of moments, feeling his heartbeat against my own chest, I realize that he reminds me of home.
A second passes, and the footsteps fade away, moving toward the schoolhouse—they haven’t discovered where we are. Cricket blows out a raspy exhale, her lungs like sand, and peers around the corner of the house, watching.
“We have to get to that line of trees,” Noah says, glancing across the barren stretch of land beyond the town.
