I walked through the woods feeling less afraid than the first time I’d ventured out on my own. As the sun came up, I pushed my new pair of sunglasses onto my face that Tiffani had supplied me with, and let myself enjoy how pretty the snow looked on the branches, covering the whole place in winter wonderland glamour.
The Vampires would be in bed now. Well, the ones who hunted on the surface. I didn’t know what happened to the others that lived below ground. Could they be up all day?
I had no idea. I hoped I never needed to know the answer. I was going to live with the wolves—the good ones—and if I was lucky, I would never have to fight the Vamps again. I’d delivered my message, finished my task, and in a few minutes I would be arriving at their camp with still three days to spare.
My insides warmed at the thought of seeing Jason. Maybe he’d be asleep, and I could wake him. Maybe he’d be up pacing, waiting for me. I grinned at both images. So what? I was a romantic and I was happy to be returning to my boyfriend.
With a song in my soul, I rounded the corner. The tents should be up ahead.
Except they weren’t.
My heart sped up as I walked forward. Had I screwed up the location? I pulled my map out of my pocket and looked at it. No, I was correct. This was where I was supposed to be.
This was where the tents had been.
In fact, I could see the clearing in front of me where they had stood. Patches of ground not covered by snow were a certain indication of their former presence there.
“Hello!” I screamed out in the distance knowing no one would be there to answer.
They’d left. They’d picked up their stuff and they’d left without me.
No. No. No. This wasn’t acceptable. They weren’t supposed to have done this. Maybe they didn’t. I bit down on my lip. Maybe they’d left me a clue. Jason would have done that. He would have left me something to find out where they’d gone. I ran to the clearing looking all around.
The only things I could see were twigs and branches. Nothing. Not one physical reminder that the pack had ever been here at all. I was such a pathetic investigator I couldn’t even tell how long they’d been gone.
I squatted down and looked at the dirt on the ground.
Okay.
There had to be a solution to this.
He wouldn’t leave me.
No way.
He’d be back.
I would wait.
I sat down on the dirt, not caring that the ground was cold. It was dirt and not snow because the tents had covered them so recently, the snow had not had time to fall where the tent had been. That had to mean something.
They’d be back. Sometime in the next three days, Jason or another pack member, would come back to pick me up.
They knew I was supposed to come.
They wanted me to.
I didn’t move a muscle as I sat in the dirt hardly breathing because of my fear of the pain. If I let myself breathe, if I let myself think, if I let myself blink an eyelash, then the pain would start.
And this pain I couldn’t survive.
Physical pain? Yes. This? Absolutely not.
This was why I held myself back. This was why I never said those words to anyone but Jason. This was why it was stupid, stupid, stupid to let yourself care too much about anyone.
They die. They get drunk and forget to feed you. They have their own families and occasions there are endless reminders that you don’t quite belong. They leave you—after you’ve been through hell to get back to them—sitting in the dirt in the woods.
Oh no. There I’d done it. I’d started thinking about it, and just like I’d imagined it would, the pain hit me like a sledgehammer on my chest.
Jason was gone.
I suppose they could have had to run away for some reason, but I highly doubted it. No, it was more likely they decided to leave because they got tired of waiting or—and this was the possibility I’d dreaded having to face—they’d never intended to stay in the first place.
One week?
Who sets time limits like that?
Who leaves your son’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend alone in a Vampire lair?
A man with no intention of seeing her again. Or maybe it was worse. Maybe Jason had known how this was going to play out from moment one. They’d worked it out.
Andon needed something from me. He wanted me to see the humans in the cage. Maybe he felt guilty about it. Just as likely was that he had his own agenda for forcing that on me. In any case, what is the best way to make a stupid, lonely sixteen-year-old girl do what you want?
Convince her that your cute son wants her and only her for the rest of his life. All of it had been too good to be true, and I had walked right into it.
I covered my face with my hands. There were so many questions I didn’t ask, so many things I didn’t pay attention to, because Jason had been there to capture my entire existence.
Jason who lay drugged and unmoving when I left. Jason who that girl had screamed was hers as she ripped me off of him. Jason who had held me close and not pressured me for sex. Jason who snuck into my bedroom and held me even after his father had told him he couldn’t.
Was he a phony? Had it all been for show? Or had his father not wanted us together?
I looked up as a silhouette of a man appeared in the clearing of the woods. My heart picked back up. Could it be?
It was someone I knew, someone I had not counted on seeing ever again. And whose welfare I should have, maybe, cared more about. How he had gotten to where I was I had no idea but for the first time in my life, I was happy to see my father’s face.
“Rachel,” he spoke softly so I almost missed it. “Right now, for a second, you looked so much like your mother I thought I had stepped back in time.”
I swatted at my eyes. He didn’t like to see me cry. It only made him drink more. “Nope, sorry, Dad. It’s just me.”
He looked around. “What are you doing on the ground here alone? Keith said you had gone off to be with Werewolves. I thought that sounded crazy, but I came to say goodbye. I couldn’t let you leave without doing that.”
“They left me. They were supposed to be here and they aren’t. Whatever happened, they’re not where they said they would be.”
He came and sat down beside me in the dirt. I could smell the distinct aroma of whisky on both his breath and his clothes. Clearly, being Upwards hadn’t made his drinking problem poof away.
“Why would they do that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I have a feeling I was part of a large elaborate hoax.”
“A hoax that involved this guy, this wolf you were coming to meet?’
“Yes, Dad.” I was shouting now. “A boy who played me like a fool or who did what his father wanted despite what it would mean to me. I don’t know. In any case, it sucks and I really can’t make you feel better about it right now.”
“Okay.” He patted my back, awkwardly, but I appreciated the effort. “We can just sit here.”
That seemed like a good idea. It was what I was going to do anyway, and if he wanted to give me some company—well, fine.
One thing about my dad, when he says ‘we’re going to sit’, that’s what we do. He didn’t try to talk, didn’t ask me any more questions but sat, silently, next to me for what might have been hours. I lost track of time.
The sun moved in the sky. My stomach didn’t grumble. I doubted I would want to eat anything ever again. I closed my eyes. The cold from the ground seeped up through my coat and into my insides where it found a nice warm place to destroy.
I had once thought that the Warriors changed. Their bodies became leaner and so did their soul. They lost their sense of humor; they weren’t interested in the goings on around Genesis.
Now I just wondered if it was this place. If the world above Genesis was too hard, too unforgiving, too filled with plots and untruths for us to ever survive up here.
I’d thought Jason and I could be a family up here. Together. The two of us making it better if for no one else than ourselves.
I’d been wrong.
A noise in the distance startled me, and I turned to look as my father stood up. “What is that?”
My father hooted. “It’s a car.”
I stood next to him. “A car? Like the ones on television?”
“Like the ones we had when I was a child.”
“You remember them?”
He rolled his eyes. “Despite what you think of me, Rachel, I haven’t lost all my faculties.”
“You’re well on your way.”
He nodded. “Probably.”
Another thing about my dad, he always told the truth. Even if it was his version of it.
The car pulled up—I guess technically it wasn’t a car. I wasn’t sure what to call it, but it was bigger than the cars I’d seen in black and white movies—and my father and I stood there like statues, unable to move. It took me a moment to realize who had arrived because I had, stupidly, decided that maybe Jason had gotten a hold of a car and had come back to me.
Still, even as my heart sank deeper into the pit of despair that was my stomach, I had to smile. I knew the four people in that car, and I’d never been happier to see anyone.
Tia was the first to get out, almost before Chad had turned the thing off. It was on my mind to ask him how he powered up the vehicle and when he’d learned to drive, but then my best friend was in front of me grabbing me by the shoulders.
“No, I don’t care what you want. You can’t go off with the wolf. If we have to, we’ll find a way so he can stay here with you. It’s totally unacceptable that I won’t see you anymore.”
“Tia…”
She kept talking. “I’ll tell him so. Forget it. You’re not leaving.”
“I’m not.”
She blinked. “You’re not?”
I pointed at the sunglasses on her face. “How do you like your first trip Upwards?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “everyone is up now. Dad says he’s afraid the whole habitat is going to blow up. You should see everyone wandering around and then Chad showed up with this car. Well, never mind. We’re not letting you leave. End of story.”
She turned around. “Tell them, boys. She’s not leaving.”
Micah leaned against the car next to Keith. I hadn’t seen him since I’d been back, and as I stared at his face, the one that had filled my heart with so much glee just weeks ago, I felt nothing but friendship towards him.
He’d always be that. It was an amazing revelation. Even with all the plans I had made in my heart towards Jason going away, Micah did nothing for me romantically.
He smiled. “Don’t leave, Rachel. Tia will be a mess if you do.”
Keith didn’t smile. “Where is the wolf pack?”
“You know,” I answered, “I wish I could tell you. I guess I placed more importance on the timing than they did.” I could feel the tears starting again and I pushed them back down. They could come later. When I was alone. “You might have been right about the whole thing, Keith.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel.” He didn’t move, which I appreciated. The fact that I had Tia and my father so close was about as much physical contact as I could stand in my personal space. “I didn’t want to be.”
“Couldn’t keep those coordinates I gave you to yourself?”
He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Apparently not.”
Chad finally spoke from where he stood on the other side of the vehicle. “Do I need to hurt someone for you, Rachel?”
“No.” I rubbed my face. “I think there’s been enough violence for an eternity.” I pointed at the vehicle. “Where did you get the car?”
Chad’s whole face lit up. He patted the car like it was his pet. “This is not a car, it is a Sports Utility Vehicle and I found it, years ago, when I first came Upwards. A couple of the guys helped me move it to the habitat—it took months and we ended up basically having to take it apart piece by piece—and then I fixed it up using old manuals I found in the library.”
My father moved forward. “How do you power it?”
“Gasoline.”
“Where are you getting the gas?”
“Well…”
I interrupted. “Can we go home?”
Everyone turned to look at me. “I’m about three seconds from losing it. I mean really losing it. I feel like the biggest idiot whoever walked the planet, and I’d really like to not be here when that happens. So can we go home?”
Tia put her arm around me. “Yes. I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“No.” I sniffed, as the pressure threatening to turn me into a weeping mess got worse. “You all came to get me. I can’t tell you what that means.” I looked up at my dad. “If you had come and they’d been here, I might not have been so happy to see you. I think that makes me a really, bad person.”
Keith shook his head. “Rachel, Isaac Icahn is a really bad person. You’re not a bad person. I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t wanted to take off and run away from the habitats at least one hundred times a week. Hell, I left my habitat and crossed an ocean to get here. I’ll never see my family again. I don’t exactly think any of us are in a position to judge.”
Keith’s words made the tears that had been threatening overflow the dam that had been holding them back. They hit me so hard I wasn’t sure I could remain standing. I bent over at the waist and cried harder than I ever had before in my life.
I don’t know exactly what I was mourning. It was more than Jason, although his loss was the most prominent. But I think it was more than just him. I had made the biggest mistake of my life in trusting my heart to someone I’d just met, something inside of me died.
I wouldn’t have believed it of myself. All the years I’d taken care of my father who should have taken care of me, all of the years I’d crossed the bridge to Warrior town by myself, should have taken care of any vulnerability I had left. The Warrior training was designed to make us hard, make us capable of handling any eventualities that hit us.
But it wasn’t until I met and lost Jason that I truly understood the meaning of loneliness, and I think that’s what really had me crying, bent over in Tia’s arms, like my world was ending.
Because it was.
Chad picked me up in his arms, and no one spoke a word until he’d placed me in the back of the car. His Sports Utility Vehicle had an open backseat. He wrapped me in blanket as he made sure I was warm and comfortable before he handed his keys to Micah and told him to drive.
Micah hooted as he ran around the side of the car. Keith climbed in the front next to him, which left Chad, Tia, and my father in the open back with me. It could have been a traveling group of clowns for all I was aware of their presence. My eyesight was blurred under my glasses, and I couldn’t form words to save my life.
Chad sat next to me, and I leaned on his shoulder. Maybe it was wrong, to cry on Chad about the loss of another guy. But he didn’t seem to mind. Gently, he stroked my hair while my father discussed with Tia her first impressions of the outside world.
It was meaningless conversation and eventually the bumps of the car driving over the rough terrain lulled me into a state of zoned out numbness. Darkness fell around me as I leaned on Chad’s strong shoulder and cried away the remaining pieces of innocence I had stupidly hung on to for such a long time.
When I woke up, I was inside of a tent. For a second, I wondered if I’d imagined the Jason not showing up thing, but then I heard Tia’s loud remarks going on outside of where I slept.
I rubbed at my eyes as I stood up and stretched. My muscles were stiff like I hadn’t used them in a week, and I wondered how long I had slept. I stepped out into the next small room where I saw Tia sitting on the floor with her mother, Carol, and her three younger siblings, Lamont, Silas, and Grady. I smiled at the way Tia looked sitting there with all of them. Out of the whole family, she was the only girl and her mother had liked ‘different’ sounding names.
“Hello.” I looked down at the floor, feeling foolish and small.
Tia laughed. “I was coming in to wake you. It’s been eighteen hours. I wasn’t sure you were still alive in there.”
“Eighteen hours?”
Tia’s mother stood up. “Yes. You poor dear, you needed rest. I’m glad to see you’re up. We need to feed you and get you out there so you can get to work. The Warriors are barely controlling the chaos of having all the non-Warriors to protect. They could use your help.”
Carol’s not so subtle speech let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not going to be sitting around moping about my lost love now that I was home. It was fine. She was right, of course. It was important to be busy.
Tia’s mom handed me a cup of juice and then she went over to the little area that must have been the makeshift kitchen to fix me something to eat.
I sat down on the ground next to Tia and watched her play cards with her little brothers for a second.
“So why aren’t you out there doing crowd control?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a Warrior yet. They’re keeping to that sixteen and older rule. They only let me come and get you because there were so many Warriors surrounding me. Otherwise, they were going to make me stay here.”
I nodded. It seemed to me if I was capable of wandering around by myself, Tia was more than able to handle the same thing. But I didn’t make the rules. Isaac Icahn had, which maybe meant Tia should start breaking all of them immediately.
“How did I get here?”
She looked up at me, a sly grin on her face. “My brother carried you like he was Prince Charming and you were Cinderella.”
I looked down at the floor. Chad. That was right, I had wept on his shoulder, probably soaked through his shirt. “I’ll have to thank him.”
“Uh-huh.” She put down her cards. “I forgive you, okay? Don’t beat yourself up about thinking you wanted to leave. No one is mad at you for that.”
I loved Tia like my family and my relief at seeing her when she’d arrived in the car had been palpable. But, if I’d thought the gulf between us was wide on my sixteenth birthday, it was an impossible pit to cross right now.
“I’m going to go see if your Mom needs help.”
I needed to keep busy. It seemed like a good idea.