And at the edge of the field of bodies underneath the sheets, I catch a glimpse of neon pink.
I’m moving before conscious thought has time to prompt me. I ignore the burning in my abused lungs, the shaking of my legs. I’m sprinting, the world narrowing to that tiny flash of color. It’s a mistake. He’s alive. They’ve put him with the bodies by accident in the chaos. It happens all the time, they’re sitting there identifying a field of dead men and some of them just get up and walk away.
I need to get to him so he can get treatment.
I throw myself down, sliding in the mud, and rip the sheet away. Alexi’s eyes stare skyward, one cloudy and pale where it’s set in a sea of ruined, scorched flesh. The other half of his face is untouched, almost serene, as beautiful as it was when we first met during training.
My hands hover, trying to find some way to smooth away the damage to his face, to his neck and shoulder. His hot pink hair is muddy and stained with ash, and I run my fingers through it to try to dislodge some of the grime. His voice comes abruptly, painfully into my mind. I wouldn’t be caught dead looking like this.
I’m still trying to clean him up when hands close around my shoulders and try to pull me away. I scream at whoever’s got me, fighting to be released. Voices are shouting in my ear, but I can’t hear them. Then a fist catches me across the jaw, sending me sprawling into the mud, head spinning.
I gasp for air, spitting saliva and blood and then descending into a fit of coughing as my abused lungs catch up with me.
This time the hands that reach for me are gentler. I lift my head. It’s Commander Towers, her blond hair straggly and tied roughly at the nape of her neck, her uniform rumpled and sweat-stained. Her hand is raw and bleeding where she hit me.
“Get yourself together, Chase,” she shouts at me, taking me by the shoulders. Her face is only a few inches from mine. “Get out of here.”
“Sir, I have to—”
“That’s an order!” Her voice is nearly as rough and hoarse and raw as mine. “You don’t get out of here now, I’ll court-martial your ass, you hear me? You’ve done your work and you’ll probably get another slew of medals out of it, for all the good that does any of us, but right now you have to go. You’re done.”
I gape at her, my head swimming. I nod, and we struggle to our feet together, slipping and sliding in the mud. I stagger away, leaving her to return to whatever she was doing before someone came to tell her Captain Chase had gone insane.
Alexi’s ruined face threatens to blind me again, but I push it aside. Because I know where I’m going now. Concussion, minor smoke inhalation. He’ll live.
He’ll be in the makeshift sick bay, not the hospital, with minor injuries like those. I spit out another mouthful of mud and bile and blood, scrubbing my sleeve across my face. I reek of sweat and soot and death, but it doesn’t matter.
Because if Cormac knew about this, if he sat there and smiled at me and touched my cheek so I wouldn’t notice the rebels infiltrating the base—then I’m going to kill him myself.
This dream is about the ghosts on Verona. The girl remembers them, but only when she’s asleep, because there’s no such things as ghosts when you grow up.
She’s at school. The teacher, a tall willowy woman with blond hair in a bun, fights for the students’ attention against sirens and drone engines and, once, the crackling, powdery echo of a distant explosion. Eventually, the teacher gives up and puts down her reader, shutting off the display on the front wall.
“I think that’s enough for today,” she says, her lips pinched tight, her eyes darting toward the clock and back. “Do you want to talk about what’s happening instead?”
The girl looks out the window. For a moment she thinks she’s seeing the reflection of her face—but then it moves, becoming a tiny ball of light, visible only because the window lies in shade. It darts away, then comes back, then darts away again, waiting for the girl.
The green-eyed boy in the desk behind hers leans forward. “Don’t follow it,” he whispers. “It’ll lead you into the swamp.”
The ghost shivers and then zips away. A few minutes later a fire breaks out on the next block, and the girl is herded with the other children to safety.
MY EYELIDS FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY’S glued them shut, and there’s a sharp pain as I force them open. Light jabs at me like a knife, and I squeeze my eyes shut again, waiting until the pulsing dulls a little.