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"Yeah?"
"Shouldn't the gate be closing now?" she screamed, her voice already hoarse from competing with the wind.
I looked at it, edges as strong as ever, but the gale picking up speed. Leaves and small branches spun past us and through the gate, one smacking my cheek and leaving a stinging welt in its wake. And still the gate stood, permanent and strong and greedy, pulling for more life to come through, just as it had done when everyone in that world had been forced through into ours.
Well, bleep.
Chapter Forty-Four
NEVER FOREVER
Vivian was screaming something, but I couldn't hear her over the shrieking wind. We all stumbled farther from the gate and into the trees, where we could lean against their trunks to escape the pull.
Gasping for breath, Lend looked at me, his face open with fear. "What now?"
"Yeah, what now?" Vivian asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" I shouted. "I've never done this before! The gate before sucked the souls through and that was that! I didn't have to do anything!"
"How did they close it when they got pulled through to our world?" Lend asked.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the dream. "The sylph! The one who whipped up enough energy to open it! It closed when the sylph got pulled through to this side. "
"So it got closed from this side?"
"I think so!"
"Maybe it can only be closed from. . . " he stopped.
"The other side," Vivian finished.
"Oh no," I whispered. "Oh no, oh no, oh no. "
Lend looked stricken. "No, it's okay. It'll be okay. " He was talking fast, like his tongue was trying to sort through his thoughts and pick something useful out of them. "We can. . . we can both go through. We'll still be together. "
"But I don't want that life!"
"I know, neither do I. But we can't let that gate destroy this world!"
"No, we can't. Okay. We'll still be together. " I sniffled, letting out a choking laugh. "And at least I won't have to decorate that stupid dance, right? And it won't matter which college I get into. " This time my laugh was definitely more a sob.
Lend leaned forward and smashed his lips against my forehead, and I closed my eyes, letting myself rest against him. We'd fought so hard to stay here together, and now we'd have to give it up.
It sucked. It gave new meaning to the word suck, really. They'd have to change the definition after this ultimate suck to beat all suck.
"Evie, do you have any left?" Vivian asked.
"What?" I pulled my face away from Lend and looked at her.
"Any souls. Do you have any left?" She was staring intently at my chest.
"I. . . no. " My heart sank even further. The only soul I had left was my own. I would be making an even bigger sacrifice than I thought. "Maybe we could leave it open?"
A small sapling, ripped from the ground by its roots, flew past us toward the gate.
"I think we can safely assume it's only going to get worse," Vivian said, her tone flat.
I nodded and nodded and nodded again, like the motion could buoy me up for what had to be done. "Okay. We'll be okay. I'll go through and use. . . use my own soul to close the gate. "
