CHAPTER 8

The bus was musty and tinged with the smell of someone’s tuna sandwich. We were winding through terrain that had us on switchbacks, the bus shifting into lower gears, jolting over rough pavement.

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to get my head in a position that wasn’t killing my neck, and closed my eyes.

I hoped this worked.

Getting caught at the border would be as good as admitting guilt, as far as the Circle was concerned. Maybe we should have appealed to someone after all. Begged the Circle to believe us. Maybe I should have just confronted Lydia. I knew she was in Jerusalem.

In those too-short days between when I’d gotten my mother back and when I lost her forever, we’d argued. It was almost all we’d done.

We should leave, she’d said. Go somewhere safe.

Safe no longer existed, I’d countered. Not now that the Circle knew what I was. So we didn’t run. We stayed. I was too confident in the goodness of human beings.

This time, we’d made the opposite choice. If I was wrong again, it could mean all our heads.

My eyes flew open.

Through the gap in the seats, I could see Stellan in the next row up, his head against the streaky window, snacking on a bag of chips from a bus station vending machine. Some weird flavor of Cheetos. All the words on the bag were in Hebrew. He’d used Jack’s phone to call Anya’s nanny twice more, and had finally reached her. I knew he’d told her to go to the safe house and stay there. I wondered if I was the only one who’d noticed his foot was still bouncing nervously anyway.

Jack was beside me, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. I couldn’t tell whether he was actually asleep. Across the aisle, Elodie was on her phone, working on the program to get us across the border.

If we got caught, Stellan and I would probably get a trial, as Circle family members. Jack and Elodie—

My chest got tighter. I closed my eyes again.

This time, I actually did drift off, because suddenly, I woke with a start. I couldn’t breathe. I sucked in gasp after gasped breath. I was drowning. I was—

I was on a bus. It was dark and bumpy and dry. I could breathe fine. It didn’t make the tightness in my chest subside. It didn’t make the images in my head—the blood, the screams, the Circle with guns to our heads—go away. Jack opened one eye and looked at me, and I hugged my arms around myself and shivered. Outside, the bus’s headlights illuminated a warning sign. I squinted. It had Hebrew, Arabic, and at the bottom, English: Beware of camels near the road.

The bus came to a sudden stop. Jack sat up straight and peered over the seats. Ahead of us, Stellan did, too. Two soldiers with guns and sniffing dogs got on. My whole body went cold.

Jack put a stiff arm around me. “They’re not looking for us,” he murmured into my ear. “They’re checking for bombs, but we don’t want them to see your face anyway. Pretend to be asleep.”

I leaned my head on his chest, letting Elodie’s blond wig hide my face, and he pulled his cap lower and leaned on my head.

The soldiers went past us to the back of the bus, then through to the front again. I opened one eye. They hadn’t so much as looked at us. I relaxed, and felt Jack’s arm tighten around my shoulders with the same relief. For just a second, I accidentally leaned into it.

“You okay?” he murmured. It was not a Keeper asking his charge whether she was safe.

I nodded.

“I don’t mean just that little scare. You’ve been—”

I sat up. “I’m fine.”

“Are you—”

“I said fine.”

Across the aisle, Elodie peered after the soldiers. Stellan glanced back at us, and I saw his eyes flick to Jack’s arm still resting around my shoulders.

The second the soldiers stepped off the bus, I scooted away from Jack, and he folded his hands in his lap.

The bus started back up and rattled on. My chest didn’t feel any less tight.

“If you’re not fine, it’s understandable,” Jack said quietly. “You’re allowed to be sad. You don’t have to pretend you feel nothing. I know you don’t want to talk to me about it, but keep it in mind.”

I wasn’t pretending. I was doing it on purpose, and this was exactly why. In the past couple of days a few emotions had snuck in, and now they were all rushing back at once. That was probably why kissing Stellan at the party had triggered those flashbacks, too, and all of it together meant I was having a really hard time functioning as well as I should. Hence turning it off.

It wasn’t cold at all in here—in fact, it was stuffy—but I couldn’t stop shivering.

When Jack realized I wasn’t going to answer, he began thumbing through his phone. He cursed under his breath.

“What?”

He handed me his phone.

Rome. The Vatican. At the head of the story was a photo of dozens of emergency vehicles assembled in the iconic columned square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, their blue lights garishly illuminating the church’s façade. The same mystery virus had struck there just hours after it had hit in Jerusalem, killing half a dozen priests.

Stellan turned, and I handed him the phone. This was just what we’d talked about as we hurried through the streets in Jerusalem. His bet on exactly where the Saxons would hit next was wrong, but the sentiment was right.

“Religious extremism,” he said. “So that’s their strategy. Two of the world’s most important religious cities hit. Get ready for a lot more chaos in the world.”

I felt sick.

Elodie crossed the aisle and sat next to Stellan, who scowled at her. She snatched the phone.

“And we’ve just been at the Vatican retrieving the Alexander relic,” Jack said. “It’ll be easy to blame this on us within the Circle, as if they needed more evidence. How long do we think before the Circle go to desperate measures to stop it?”

“Because being out to kill us isn’t desperate enough?” Stellan retorted.

Jack frowned. “That’s not what—”

“Desperate measures like uniting behind a dictator,” Elodie said. The two of them ignored her, scowling at each other.

“They had almost none of our blood left,” I said, changing the subject. “They must have found a way to use just a tiny bit when they aerosolized it, which means they could do it again.”

I flipped through more news on Jack’s phone.

He was right. With the virus now showing up halfway around the world, no one knew who and what to be afraid of, so they were afraid of everything. It was a disease, brought in by foreigners, some were saying. The “biological weapon” theory was still popular. It really didn’t help that the virus killed in such quick and spectacular fashion, or that grisly cell phone videos of it happening had showed up on social media after every attack. In some countries people were fleeing the big cities, causing hours of gridlock on the freeways. In others, there were lines outside hospitals—like they could really do anything.

“Is it really just about power?” I couldn’t stop thinking it. “Lydia keeps saying it’s about how much they love their family, but I don’t think she really knows what love means.”

Jack sat back in his seat. “I don’t know. Love can cause people to do some pretty ugly things.”

Elodie reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears until she realized the hair wasn’t there. “Anyone who thinks love and hate have to be opposites is wrong.” She darted a glance at Stellan, then at Jack.

“The border will be even harder to get through if people are this nervous,” Stellan said, ignoring her.

Every time I took a breath, my lungs seemed to shrink. As the sun came up, I watched the landscape go by. It was dry. Stubby trees and sunbaked greenery, pastel in the morning light. The occasional stand of palm trees. It looked like the more desert-y parts of Southern California. Soon, we’d gone through a resort town on the sea and the bus stopped for immigration procedures.

Elodie had finished the program that would upload when we were within range of the immigration computer. She’d handed out our fake passports—I was Brittany Barnes, from Michigan—and we’d rehearsed the story. In the concrete box that passed for the bathroom where we got off the bus, I had to give Elodie her wig back, to match our passport photos.

She adjusted it in the mirror. I could tell she didn’t want me to see it, but the tension that had built up in her during the bus ride loosened the second she had it back on.

“Thank you for letting me use it,” I said. She looked at me warily, like she wasn’t sure whether the friendliness was real. Neither Jack nor Stellan had said a word directly to her the whole bus ride. I could see why they were upset with her, but from her side, it must have been terrible keeping this secret from every friend she had. And their reaction now must have been exactly what she was afraid of. It wasn’t even my stress and it was making my chest tighter. “I understand why you didn’t tell us. They do, too, even if they’re not acting like it. I’m sorry.”

She glanced at me in the cloudy mirror and sighed. “It’s okay. I almost had you murdered once, so I guess we’re even.”

I turned off the single faucet and the pipes screeched in protest. “Do you mean Prada? That was you?”

“It was an accident. I only meant for them to get some information out of you. It was very suspicious having you show up like you did, you know. But they were new to the Order, and they got overzealous. And then Luc and Stellan killed them, and that was such a pretty dress that got ruined . . . Not my best plan.”

I wiped my wet hands on my leggings. I had assumed that the attack that had left me bloody and terrified in a ball gown on my first day in Paris was Lydia and Cole, too, before they knew who I was. I remembered running down the stairs, being chased by a guy with a knife. I remembered dead bodies on a checkerboard floor, the black and white streaked with red.

Outside, there was a salty breeze coming off the sea, and the fresh air should have made me feel better, but didn’t. By the time we got to the front of the line, all of us tense and anxious, my chest had tightened so much, I could barely breathe.

We were waved to the desk, and handed over the four passports as a group. The official flipped through them, and then frowned. He asked about our entry stamps, and we launched into the dumb tourist act we’d rehearsed. We had entry stamps on another piece of paper, but oops, were you supposed to keep them? Elodie was saying to me.

I could barely reply with, Oh no, did you throw them away with the brochure for the Dead Sea the hotel gave us?

While we were arguing, Elodie was letting the program upload. I could see her glancing down at her phone. I met her eyes, and she shook her head slightly, her brow pinched.

The official’s hand drifted to his gun. It might have been unconscious, but my chest got even tighter, like there was a balloon inside it, expanding and crushing my lungs. He took our passports and went into the booth. We could see the computer screen, and him typing things into it. A red screen came up. He looked back at us, typed something else. Another red screen.

“Okay?” Jack muttered beside me.

I nodded.

“What’s wrong?”

Maybe there was something wrong. For hours I thought I was just nervous, but it was starting to feel like more than that. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I just feel weird.”

“Weird how?” Jack sounded alarmed. It didn’t help. I must have looked really bad. He rested a warm hand on my back. “Do you need to sit down?”

I tried to swallow. It was hard. What if I could catch the virus? What if that was the reason my chest felt tight? Maybe it took longer to kill me because I was the source.

There was a soldier patrolling, and he stopped in front of me, frowning, his gun held across his chest. “What is wrong with you?”

“She had too much to drink last night,” Elodie said, shooting me a look that said, What is wrong with you?

I gave the faintest smile.

Elodie let out a flirty laugh and pointed at our bus, distracting the soldier with some dumb question about tours. He gave me one last lingering glance, and then moved to talk to her. I could tell Jack was practically buzzing with alarm, mentally searching for what he could use for first aid. “Avery—” he whispered.

Stellan hadn’t spoken to any of us since we’d gotten off the bus, but now he stepped up and slipped a casual arm around my shoulders.

“What are you doing? She needs—” Jack started to protest.

“I don’t think you actually know what she needs.” Stellan drew me out of the line, and I could see Jack deciding whether to follow and make a scene.

“Leave me alone,” I murmured to Stellan, knowing I should be more annoyed than I was capable of right now. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re shaking and sweating. That’s not good at a border crossing where they’re already on alert.”

“Can I catch the virus?” I glanced at the back of the soldier with the gun, now walking away from Elodie, and at the official inside the booth, trying our passport numbers one more time. One more red screen. We weren’t going to get through. We were going to get turned over to the Circle.

Stellan pulled me farther away and drew me close, his head to mine like we were obnoxious tourists who didn’t know that a border crossing was a time to lay off the PDA. “Are you having a hard time breathing?” he murmured.

I nodded against his forehead.

“I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“This isn’t in my head,” I snapped. “I literally can’t breathe.” It felt like a fist was tightening around my sternum. It was getting a lot worse, and fast. I felt my vision starting to swim. I was going to die in the middle of the desert on the hot asphalt. “I’m sorry. I’m going to leave you to deal with all this alone. I’m sorry—”

Stellan took my face in his hands. “Kuklachka, listen to me.”

I’d told him not to call me that. And unlike in the hospital, having his face so close to mine wasn’t helping this time. I pictured it all again—kissing him. An explosion. Screams. Blood. I took gasped breath after gasping breath, but I didn’t push him away. His hands were suddenly the only thing keeping me upright.

“It’s not just in your head. It’s real. But I do think it’s a panic attack.”

I shook my head.

“It’s a terrible feeling, but it’s not going to hurt you. You’re probably not breathing out all the way, so then you can’t breathe in.”

I could only hear some of the words. Breathe. Panic. My entire world narrowed to my chest, and to the air I couldn’t get into my lungs.

“Look at me.” He shook me a little. “Avery. We need to get you looking calm before the border official comes back.”

I blinked a few times and his face swam into focus.

Stellan held my face tighter. “Purse your lips like you’re whistling,” he ordered in a whisper. “Now blow out. Push out all the air you can. More.” He pressed a hand into my stomach. There wasn’t any more air. But I contracted my stomach as hard as I could, and pushed out another breath. “More. Good. Now pause.”

I did, trying to trust him, even though it hurt. My chest hurt. My lungs hurt. A tear slipped down my face. “Now breathe in slowly, through your nose, into your stomach,” he said. “Try to push my hand out.”

I can’t, I wanted to say, that’s the problem, but I concentrated on his fingers through the thin fabric of my T-shirt, concentrated on my stomach expanding under them. It was at least ninety degrees out, and I was so cold.

“Good. Now out through the pursed lips again. Slowly. As much air out as you can. More. And in again. Push my hand.”

It was the third breath before I realized that I was very definitely breathing. It still wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t getting worse. A few more breaths, and I could breathe almost normally again. I blinked up at Stellan, and his eyes searched mine, far more concerned than I had realized.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

He rested his chin on the top of my head with a heavy sigh. I leaned my forehead against his beachy tank. His heart was going a mile a minute. His fingers tightened on my stomach and he pulled back, his eyes on the horizon behind me.

“Are you okay?” I said.

He pulled away. “Get yourself together,” he said roughly. “At least until we get across the border. Keep up those breaths and it shouldn’t get worse.”

The door to the guard shack banged open and I jumped. Inside, the red screen was still up on the computer. My chest started to tighten again and I breathed, out out out in. I shot a glance at Elodie, and she gave the barest shrug and frantically pushed buttons on her phone.

“When did you say you came into the country?” the official said. The question sounded innocuous enough, but the three more guards with machine guns behind him made it look less so.

“Only just yesterday,” Elodie said in her fake, heavy British accent. Breathe into my stomach, then out. Elodie glanced at her phone again, and her face relaxed. “Try one more time?” she asked. “I’d feel so bad about holding up the bus when I’m sure we’re in there. Please?” The rest of the line behind us shifted impatiently.

The official’s eyes narrowed. “Step out of line,” he said, but he left someone else to deal with the rest of the group while he took our passports back into the booth one more time. This time, mercifully, the screen popped up green.

We all let out a heavy breath at once.

Elodie turned to me as we were making our way back to the bus. “Are you all right?”

I glanced up at Stellan. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m—sorry. Let’s get on the bus before they change their minds.”