| |
Kazem. My Kazem. I can’t breathe. I...I can’t... He’s... he’s Enhanced.
Once it’s done, you’re never the same. I had faith that Shweta would be able to fight it , return to us, but Kazem? He’s not a Seer. He’s... he’s my sweet and kind and fun boyfriend. My partner. My everything.
And he’s gone. His humanity just... gone.
Maggot moves back, runs to the trucks. Everyone’s running. Jumping into trucks. And I can’t move. I’m sitting on the grass. I dig my hands into the ground, trying to feel something, anything, how dirt gouges its way under my nails. Feeling the hardness of it.
“Kacey, come on!” Clive calls as he runs into view. “We have to go now.”
But I don’t move.
I can’t move.
Clive runs up to me, and then somehow he’s strong enough to move me. It doesn’t make sense, but he’s pulling me along—maybe I’m just going with it, I don’t know. But we’re running and the door of a silver truck is open, and people pull me in. Winston and SJ and two Yarrow women. Clive climbs in after me. The door slams shut. Six of us in in the back.
“Kacey, swap places with me.” Evor’s voice.
In a daze, I see he’s in the front of the truck’s cabin, next to Celena who’s driving.
“Help her,” Evor says. “I want her in the front where she’s got more room. She’s concussed.”
“Again?” Celena snorts.
Hands and arms move me, voices instruct me. My knee thwacks into the middle console as I climb over it, as I’m pushed over it, as I slide past Evor’s body. Then I’m in the passenger seat. Huh. Left-hand drive. Not been in one of these before.
My head hits the window—the truck’s bouncing over uneven ground.
Celena’s driving fast, keeping up with two trucks ahead of us. There’s another a few hundred meters to our right, keeping parallel with us. And I can see more in the wing-mirror, all of them kicking up so much dust up around them. The land’s hazy with it. Are these all of us, these trucks?
I turn, frowning. “Are the Enhanced behind us?”
“Ask Maggot on the radio,” Celena says, thrusting a hand-held radio into my lap. “I can’t do that at the same time as driving. Not if I’m trying to avoid blowing a tire.”
“Blowing a tire?” Clive sounds worried.
“There are so many ditches. It’s not even a road.”
“We didn’t adjust the tire pressure for offroad driving,” one of the Yarrow women says. “Didn’t have time. But it’s more likely to cut a tire. Not blow a tire.”
“Suspension’s more likely to break. Damage to the alloys, et cetera,” the other Yarrow woman says.
“Just ask Maggot if the Enhanced are still chasing us all,” Celena says. “Kacey!”
I lift the radio, but it’s unfamiliar. Should it be? I don’t know how to use it. I turn to the people in the back, and Clive takes it from me. He speaks into it. I hear Maggot’s voice, but I can’t make out her words. I look out my window, see Sian’s face in the driver’s seat of the truck that’s parallel to us on our right. Sian. Was she injured? I can’t remember. I touch my forehead. All I remember is Kazem... Kazem and Shweta and...
I crash into Celena as I try to turn, try to see into the other trucks. “Where are they? Kazem and Shweta.”
“Just sit down!” She shoves me back into the passenger seat. “Put your goddam seat belt on.”
“I want to see them!” I yell. “I need to see—”
Excruciating pain fills me. Every ounce of me. M y body, my soul.
“What—"
Celena shrieks and the world lights up in a white flash—a flash that sears and burns everything I can see onto the insides of my eyelids. I scream, reaching out for something, anything—but my hand brushes nothing.
There’s nothing here.
Nothing at all. Everything’s gone and...
#
...AND I OPEN MY EYES to singing and dancing and the tempo beat of a drum. Darkness, moonlight, candles.
“All right, Kacey?” It’s Maggot, Maggot laughing as she sloshes a drink about. The earthy smell of the bitter ayahuasca wafts over me.
I’m back here. Back at the moon party.
The... No. I frown as I see Celena. She’s just behind Maggot, not up on the hillside, and her arm’s in a sling. A sling. She sprained her elbow two weeks before we attempted to take over New Zeralzi. She had the sling on until the day we did the raid. The day she stole that pregnancy test from a chemist, the day before the siege. And the only Moon Party we had when she was wearing a sling was two days before we went raiding, three days before the takeover of New Zeralzi.
The reset has happened again, throwing us further forward in time.
Maggot is frowning at me. “I...” Her frown deepens. She’s not smiling now. She looks sad. “I didn’t mean to make her this way,” she says.
“What?” I stare at her.
“My daughter... it’s hard, being a mother and a leader. And I just... I feel like I’ve let her down.”
I stare at her, because I don’t know what to say. Tears glaze Maggot’s eyes.
“I’ve never really been a mother to her,” she says. “So focused on this.” She waves her arm vaguely and her drink sloshes over the side of the cup. “All of this.” She looks down at her drink, at her hand. She’s shaking, really properly trembling. “Something’s... wrong.”
My heart pounds. “You remember?” Is that what’s happening? It’s not just Shweta and I who remember now? It’s extending—because the pocket’s getting bigger, just like Caia-Lu warned? More people are remembering.
“Remember what?” Maggot asks, frowning.
“The time loop.”
Maggot stares at me. “I think we’ve both had too much to drink.” She frowns, sadness overtaking her countenance. “I should find my daughter.”
She stumbles off, moving slowly, so slowly. Her feet drag, her whole body’s dragging. The distorted eyes of the tiger tattoo on her back, just visible above her low-backed purple cami top, watch me.
I shudder.
“Oh, Kacey, thank goodness. There you are!” a low and beautiful voice cries.
And I turn and see her. Shweta. Untamed eyes. Alive.
I breathe out hard, and then we’re rushing toward each other. My arms spring around her, hers around me, and we hold each other close. I’m shaking, or she’s shaking, or we both are and—
“A different start,” she says. “Hana’s not here.” Her face crumples. “A different pathway.”
“At least you’re not Enhanced,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.
But Shweta doesn’t look like she cares about that. Her eyes are heavy, and she is shaking.
“Where’s Kazem?” I ask. More and more people are dancing around us, to the music—but I notice some of them are stopping now, frowning, in just the way Maggot was. The way she still is.
“I think they can sense something’s wrong,” Shweta says. “Maybe a feeling of déjà vu, but they can’t quite remember.”
I nod. “The time loop’s got bigger.”
“So killing Ysabelle didn’t stop it,” Shweta says. “That’s useful to know.” She points behind me. “Especially as I believe she’s right there.”