We leave Finnley’s sneakers as they are, laces knotted to the handle of Phoenix’s pack.
“Turn back, or keep going?” I am fragmented. We all are. “Do you honestly believe there’s more to all this”—I gesture widely at the bridge—“than just death traps and blood?”
Phoenix drapes an arm across Lonan’s shoulders. They continue to the far platform, and I have my answer: they want to press on.
“Do you honestly believe they’d go to so much effort to make a trap,” Lonan says, breathing hard under Phoenix’s weight, “if there wasn’t something they were trying to hide?”
I only hope we find what we’re looking for on the far end of this blood-drenched day. The cure to defuse the Wolves’ spies, the Atlas Project science that could crack the foundations of this war—we desperately need both if we plan to purchase peace and freedom, sand and sunsets. I wish I knew, for certain, that these bridges were the best approach.
It’s a gamble, it’s a mind game. We are either the stupidest people alive for hurtling headfirst into do not go this way, or the most brilliant. We are either the blindest people alive for continuing, or the most strategic.
Hope and I work together to pull Alexa up. She blinks, eyes glazed over, her skin paler than I’ve ever seen it. Lonan goes back for Cass after he’s delivered Phoenix to the platform.
None of our gashes are deep, life-threatening—it is more like we’ve been attacked by a flock of origami cranes, paper-thin slices that crisscross over our feet and ankles and all the other bits of exposed skin that came into contact with the shards. We will heal.
All of us but Finnley.
I risk a look over the edge, my first in some time now. I’m not looking for her broken body, or for height-induced terror. I look for closure.
I find none of the above.
We are so high up there are treetops below us, a tier of leaves so dense it’s impossible to see what’s beneath it. The leaves are thick, so thick—but not thick enough to catch her. Dizziness hits me like a cannonball. I dig my fingers into Hope’s shoulders.
Steady, Eden. Steady.
“That bridge was insane,” Cass says. He sits on the platform, back against bark, legs splayed out. His head lolls to one side.
in?sane | in-’sān | adj.—in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction
“Insane,” I say. “Adjective. In a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction.” The trees turn from green green green to black and white. “Yes.”
Lonan shoves a bottle of water in my face. “Eden. You’re losing it.” He opens my mouth, pours water in, a little at a time. It trickles out of the corners of my mouth, and I cough. “Swallow,” he tells me.
swal?low | ‘sw?-lō | noun—a bird. A bird who sings, and feeds on insects as it flies. A bird whose wings break as it falls through the trees to the jungle floor below.
“I broke her wings,” I say. “I broke her wings and she fell through the trees.”
Lonan presses his thumb into my wrist. We are alive, my pulse says. We are alive and Finnley is not.
We are alive because Finnley is not.
“Look at me.” Lonan has eyes I want to swim in. “And listen to me. Are you listening, Eden?”
E?den | 'ē-d?n | noun—a place or state of great happiness; an unspoiled paradise
“I’m not happy, I can’t ever be happy,” I tell him. “I’ve spoiled everything.”
His eyes are an ocean, and he won’t let me dry off. “You can be, and you will be. This is not your fault.”
Not. Your fault.
Hope’s eyes say it’s my fault. Lonan’s fault.
Or maybe Hope’s eyes are just looking for someone to blame.
Maybe I’m looking for someone to blame.
Lonan is still talking at me. “You didn’t build this bridge,” he says. “You were trying to save her,” he says. “This is not your fault,” he says. “You nearly died trying to save her,” he says.
Maybe it’s that that has me in fragments.
My rainbow of death, my impossibly gray choices.
White stars prick at my vision, and then black black black floods them out.
FIFTY-THREE
WHEN I OPEN my eyes again,
I have a raging headache,
the world’s colors have evened out,
and I am alone with Lonan on the platform.
The planks’ edges dig through my thin T-shirt and into my back, through my hair and into my skull. My shoes are off again—the soles have been picked over, scrubbed clean. It must have taken a lot of effort. Lonan’s rubbing something into the tiny slices on the soles of my feet, and already, they’re stronger. Not tender like before.
“What is that?”
“Raw honey and witch hazel,” he says. “Speeds up the healing process.”
“You had this before, when you told Hope to stay behind because of her leg?”
He gives me a small smile, a shrug. “I save the good stuff for people I’m certain I can trust.” He pulls something from his pocket—the last remaining piece of what looks like a silk tech medicine card. “Let it dissolve under your tongue.”
I take it from him. “Pain meds?” It’s light blue, meaning it’s nothing too loaded.
“Strong enough,” he says, “and you won’t have any side effects.”
I close my eyes, cover them with my palms. Dig my fingertips into their corners where it throbs. “This isn’t the last of your supply, I hope?”
Another shrug. “Just take it, Eden.” He gives me a small grin. “For every piece I’ve used, there are another ten times I’ve just gritted my teeth instead. I’ll be fine.”
This headache is killing me, so I place the med tab under my tongue and let the saliva do its work. The relief is immediate. “Thanks for that,” I say. “Really.”
“I’d do it again,” he says, his eyes on mine in a way that makes me blush.
“So . . . um.” I look away, clear my throat. “How long have I been out? Where are the others?”
“Do you want the good news first?”
“I was out long enough for there to be news?” It takes effort to push myself up to a sitting position. I brush the hair out of my face. Open my eyes because I can’t close them forever.
He hands me a bottle of water, and I guzzle it. “This is the end of the network,” he says. “No more bridges, anyway.”
“And that’s good news?”
“There’s a ladder carved into the side of this tree—Alexa and Hope found it.”
“I don’t see how that’s good news.”
“That’s not all,” he says. “They found another cave.”
“Caves have not, in our history thus far, been good to us.”
“They found another cave with a net attached to it. A big, wide net with no trace of anything that might slice a person up,” he continues. “Right underneath our death bridge.”
This: this is good news.
“Is Finnley—did she—”
His grin turns grim. “We don’t know. What we do know is that she isn’t on the net.”
“Do you think, for sure, that it would have caught her?”
“It’s as big as an Olympic-sized pool, Eden.”