looks at me like she feels sorry for me.
That’s enough to straighten my spine.
I spin around, my panic transforming quickly into anger. I home in on Warner, sitting in the corner like a useless sack of meat. “What about you?” I say to him. “What do you think about this? You’re okay with letting your own brothers die?”
The silence is suddenly suffocating.
Warner doesn’t answer me for a long time, and the room is too stunned at my stupidity to interfere. I just broke a tacit agreement to pretend Warner doesn’t exist, but now that I’ve provoked the beast, everyone wants to see what happens next.
Eventually, Warner sighs.
It’s not a calm, relaxing sound. It’s a harsh, angry sound that only seems to leave him more tightly wound. He doesn’t even lift his head when he says, “I’m okay with a lot of things, Kishimoto.”
But I’m too far gone to turn back now.
“That’s bullshit,” I say, my fists clenching. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re better than this.”
Warner says nothing. He doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t stop staring at the same spot on the floor. And I know I shouldn’t antagonize him—I know he’s in a fragile state right now—but I can’t help it. I can’t let this go, not like this.
“So that’s it? After everything—that’s it? You’re just going to let James die?” My heart is pounding, hard and heavy in my chest. I feel my frustration peaking, spiraling. “What do you think J would say right now, huh? How do you think she’d feel about you letting someone murder a child?”
Warner stands up.
Fast, too fast. Warner is on his feet and I’m suddenly sorry. I was feeling a little brave but now I’m feeling nothing but regret. I take an uncertain step back. Warner follows. Suddenly he’s standing in front of me, studying my eyes, but it turns out I can’t hold his gaze for longer than a second. His eyes are such a pale green they’re disorienting to look at on his good days. But today— Right now—
He looks insane.
I notice, when I turn away, that he’s still got blood on his fingers. Blood smeared across his throat. Blood streaking through his gold hair.
“Look at me,” he says.
“Um, no thanks.”
“Look at me,” he says again, quietly this time.
I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I give in. I don’t know why there’s still a part of me that believes in Warner and hopes to see something human in his eyes. But when I finally look up, I lose that hope. Warner looks cold. Detached. All wrong.
I don’t understand it.
I mean, I’m devastated, too. I’m upset, too, but I didn’t turn into a completely different person. And right now, Warner seems like a completely different person. Where’s the guy who was going to propose to my best friend? Where’s the guy having a panic attack on his bedroom floor? Where’s the guy who laughed so hard his cheeks dimpled? Where’s the guy I thought was my friend?
“What happened to you, man?” I whisper. “Where’d you go?”
“Hell,” he says. “I’ve finally found hell.”
I wake in waves, consciousness bathing me slowly. I break the surface of sleep, gasping for air before I’m pulled under
another current
another current
another
Memories wrap around me, bind my bones. I sleep. When I sleep, I dream I am sleeping. In those dreams, I dream I am dead. I can’t tell real from fiction, can’t tell dreams from truth, can’t tell time anymore it might’ve been days or years who knows who knows I begin to
s
t
i
r
I dream even as I wake, dream of red lips and slender fingers, dream of eyes, hundreds of eyes, I dream of air and anger and death.
I dream Emmaline’s dreams.
She’s here.
She went quiet once she settled here, in my mind. She stilled, retreated. Hid from me, from the world. I feel heavy with her presence but she does not speak, she only decays, her mind decomposing slowly, leaving compost in its wake. I am heavy with it, heavy with her refuse. I am incapable of carrying this weight, no matter how strong Evie made me I am incapable, incompatible. I am not enough to hold our minds, combined. Emmaline’s powers are too much. I drown in it, I drown in it, I
gasp
when my head breaks the surface again.
I drag air into my lungs, beg my eyes to open and they laugh. Eyes laughing at lungs gasping at pain ricocheting up my spine.
Today, there is a boy.
Not one of the regular boys. Not Aaron or Stephan or Haider. This is a new boy, a boy I’ve never met before.
I can tell, just by standing next to him, that he’s terrified.
We stand in the big, wide room filled with trees. We stare at the white birds, the birds with the yellow streaks and the crowns on their heads. The boy stares at the birds like he’s never seen anything like them. He stares at everything with surprise. Or fear. Or worry. It makes me realize that he doesn’t know how to hide his emotions. Whenever Mr. Anderson looks at him, he sucks in his breath. Whenever I look at him, he goes bright red. Whenever Mum speaks to him, he stutters.
“What do you think?” Mr. Anderson says to Mum. He tries to whisper, but this room is so big it echoes a little.
Mum tilts her head at the boy. Studies him. “He’s what, six years old now?” But she doesn’t wait for him to answer. Mum just shakes her head and sighs. “Has it really been that long?”
Mr. Anderson looks at the boy. “Unfortunately.”
I glance at him, at the boy standing next to me, and watch as he stiffens. Tears spring to his eyes, and it hurts to watch. It hurts so much. I hate Mr. Anderson so much. I don’t know why Mum likes him. I don’t know why anyone likes him. Mr. Anderson is an awful person, and he hurts Aaron all the time. In fact— Now that I think about it, there’s something about this boy that reminds me of Aaron. Something about his eyes.
“Hey,”
