I look at Sage’s bed that’s more tempting than a cigarette. I don’t want to sleep here. Being in her room is too much for me right now. I also know that I’m risking being found by staying.

I find Dena in her room, laying down. I smile when she sees me in the doorway. “Can I talk to you?”

She nods and sits up. “Everything all right?”

A tear falls. “No.” I wipe it and walk until I’m next to her bed. I don’t know what she gave me earlier, but I’m starting to feel its effect. I lean against the bed to keep from falling.

“Orion?”

I know I need to hurry and get this over with. I wait until her eyes meet mine. “Dena, you never saw me. The only thing you know of Orion Draper is that she’s a girl you knew a long time ago.”

She stares vacantly at me.

“Goodbye, Dena.”

I leave in as much of a hurry as I can. My steps are awkward, and instead of bones, I feel like my legs are made of rubber. I make it out of the house and towards the wooded area that connects with the backyard. I keep stumbling around the woods until my muscles completely lose their will to work.

I fall against a tree and know this isn’t good. I hit the grass face first and can’t move. What did that woman give me? My eyes feel like they’ve been drilled shut then cemented over. Am I even breathing? I try to fight the darkness, but it’s impossible. Sleep is coming whether I want it to or not.

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT, Orion Draper. Purely and truly an idiot.”

I laugh as I climb higher. “And you following me makes you an idiot as well, right?”

She laughs. “Right.”

We make it to the top of the building. I look down and watch all of the cars driving by and people roaming the streets. Sage looks like she’s going to—too late. She’s throwing up. She hates heights. After she wipes her mouth on her sleeve, she pulls off her jacket and drops it on the roof.

“I could handle two or three stories, but six stories up a fire escape ladder is completely insane.”

“Well, I’m not sane, Sage. You know that better than anyone.”

Sage sits down and pulls her knees to her chest. I notice her write something down on a small index card. She does that often. I asked her why she does that, and she shrugged it off and said she just writes thoughts down that she couldn’t ever share with anyone else. She said she has to get it out somehow. I asked her what if someone found them. She said she’d be dead by then so it wouldn’t matter. She laughed it off and said she planned on burning every single one of them. I’ve never tried to read them. Everyone deserves privacy.

“Orion?” Sage whispers as she lies back and looks up at the stars. “Do you ever wonder?”

I lie back next to her. “Ever wonder what?”

“Anything. Everything.”

“All the time.”

“Me too.” She turns her head and looks at me. “I hope you’ll forgive me one day.”

I laugh. “Forgive you for what?”

She shrugs. “I’m sure I’ve disappointed you before, and I’m sure I will in the future. Sometimes things happen, and it makes us do stupid things, no matter how much we care about people. It’s those we care about that we hurt the worst. That’s what people say anyway.”

I roll my eyes and shove her shoulder with my hand. “Shut up and enjoy the peace and quiet.” We both laugh and look up at the stars.

Sage starts laughing harder. “Remember that time I was so scared to tell that new kid at school I had a crush on him in the seventh grade?”

“And I told him I’d beat his ass if he turned you down?”

She laughs and nods. “You’re a good friend, Orion. Always have been. And back then, that was real.”

“What do you mean ‘back then that was real?’ ”

She shrugs, and her smile fades. “Things were real then. They aren’t real anymore. Everything is scary and like a dream. I try to convince myself that that’s what this all is. A dream, and we’ll wake up soon back when things were easier.”

I nod in agreement although things have never been easy for me. I’ve always been an outsider. She fits in; I don’t. I look back up at the sky and enjoy this brief moment of peace and quiet.

“ORION,” SAGE SAYS in a hushed panic. She shakes my shoulders to make sure she has my attention. “I need to tell-” she stops at the sound of a gunshot and sirens.

We both automatically start feeling for the warmth of blood and sigh when we realize we’re good.

“Tell me what?”

The sirens get closer, and so do the sounds of gunshots. Sage grabs my hand, and we run. When we come to a stop, Sage covers a scream with her hand as she looks down at the guy she’s been sort-of seeing lying dead on the concrete.

“No! No, no, no!”

She continues to repeat ‘no’ as she kneels next to his body. She listens for a nonexistent pulse. I want to tell her to stop, that he’s definitely dead, but I don’t have the heart.

“They promised!”

Who promised? And what? I think to myself.

I look away as she loses it. What do you say to your best friend at a time like this?

She stands up and forces herself to regain composure. She picks up her bag she threw to the ground and throws the strap over her shoulder. I notice a few index cards falling out, and she quickly sticks them back in. She starts to walk, and I follow.

“Are we just going to leave him there?”

“Yes.” She wipes tears from her eyes. “We’ve already drawn enough unwanted attention to ourselves in the past year. No more. We move on and stay hidden.”

Our new motto. Move on and stay hidden.

I WAKE UP with the sun beating down on my face. What was it Sage? What was it that you wanted—the index cards! I sit up and frantically dig in my shirt to retrieve the cards. I pull them out and spread them on the ground in front of me. I do a quick look-around to make sure I’m alone and in a secluded area. Hell, I slept here all night and what appears to be all day without being noticed. I should be fine. I look at the first index card, written in purple ink.

 

It happened. I joined.

That’s all it says. Joined what? I look at the next card.

Gain trust. Follow. Sacrifice.

The next card is what shakes my bones. Digs all the way to the surface of everything I am and rips it to shreds.

I’m sorry, Orion. You will find this. I know you will because you are strong. I had to die so they could get to you. You had to be weak. You are too strong. I was never a friend. I was the enemy waiting for your abilities to surface. Use them wisely and destroy this note. Please survive and demolish everything they are. Everything I was.

I’m standing without even realizing I’d done so. I slam myself against a tree. My body begins to shake with fury, betrayal, and pain. So much pain. I place my hand over my heart instead of my aching side. My heart hurts far worse. She… She was one of them. She was a part of their plan. A plan to get to me.

“Why me?” I scream out loud. “Why her,” I whisper.

I’m so broken. Lost. My mind is scattered in a million different directions, and nothing is clear anymore. As if it ever was. The one I trusted, the one I trusted more than I trust myself, was against me. The whole damn time! I slide down the tree until I’m sitting. I pull at my hair, and I scream. I don’t care if anyone hears me. What was left of my heart, what I tried so desperately to keep, is breaking, and it hurts.

Felix. I can trust Felix. But how can I be sure? How do I know he’s not a part of this plan too? And Kyle? I’ve never trusted him. I allowed myself to at certain moments when I had no other choice, but ultimately, I don’t. Yes, he risked himself for me by getting Felix and me out of that place, but Sage risked herself for me all the time. Self-sacrificial bullshit means nothing to me anymore.

I begin to cry so hard: my body convulses from the violent sobs. I’m alone. I’ve always been alone. And the Constable want me. No, they need me. They need me so badly that they’ve played this sick, twisted game that makes no sense. They’ve played my mind like a game of cards, and they cheated. This isn’t fair! If they wanted me, why didn’t they just take me?

Then it dawns on me. Maybe they couldn’t just take me. Maybe they fear me. Maybe, just maybe, they needed me to figure all of this out so I’d be weak and falling at their feet, doing whatever the hell it is they need me to do. I’m a threat to them somehow. But how?

“You have won! I give up!”

I have never craved death more than I do right now.