“Well, you don’t have to be an ass about it,” Alexa says.
“I’ve told you three times now not to walk so close.” Cass. Loud and clear, definitely Cass. “We’re not together anymore, Alexa. You don’t get to act like we are.”
“And why exactly aren’t we together, Cass?” She flings his name at him like it’s covered in acid. “What happened to forever? What happened to escape?”
I want to tell her, want to shout He didn’t leave on purpose!
To unspool the full truth of why he left, though, would be to unravel all their secrets. I hate seeing Alexa like this, but I can’t jeopardize Lonan’s trust in me. Not after all we’ve been through.
“This isn’t the time, Lex.” Cass’s voice is steady, intense. It slices like a knife.
“When would be a better time? You’ve hardly bothered to say two words to me since you showed up on our beach. What are you doing here, anyway? How?” The pitch of her voice rises, shakes. It’s the most honest thing I’ve heard out of her yet. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it—to escape without me! To leave me behind!”
Hope’s quiet voice pokes a hole in the tension. “This really doesn’t seem like the best time, Alexa.” We are all at a standstill now, a volatile collection of humanity in this claustrophobic tunnel.
“It isn’t like that,” Cass says. He’s losing his grip on even, emotionless speech. “I didn’t leave you behind, but thanks for the accusation.”
“You should stop,” Phoenix says under his breath.
But Cass doesn’t hear him, or doesn’t listen. “Since you’re begging for the truth, though, how’s this: I haven’t trusted you since the day you tied that rope around my neck. You’re gorgeous, Lex, but you’re unpredictable and you’re selfish.”
He yanks the lantern out of Phoenix’s grip. Shadows and light dance on the cave walls, following him as he makes his way, alone, toward the white patch of sun at the very end.
“That was too far and you know it, Cass.” Lonan’s voice bounces from the tunnel walls; our footsteps chase after it. This is the first time we’ve been the leaders of the pack. And we do lead, but not by much—Alexa steps on my heels more than once, trying to get to Cass, but Lonan and I are careful to keep her behind us. There’s been enough bloodshed today.
“Last I heard, honesty was a virtue,” Cass replies, his voice cutting through the darkness.
“Last I heard, so was kindness.”
Phoenix snorts. “You’re one to talk, Lo.”
“Name one unkind thing I’ve done today,” Lonan says. And maybe I’ve been wearing kindness-colored glasses all day, but I can’t think of anything. Sure, there was our disagreement just after the cliff ledge, and earlier, the knife he held at his throat. But the sum of those was kindness, greater than its parts.
“You ate the last of my venison jerky,” Phoenix says.
“That was yesterday. Try again.”
But he doesn’t try again—none of us do—because now we are bathed in late afternoon daylight and the dimming embers of the glass-jar lantern, having finally reached Cass and the far end of the tunnel. More than that, we are stunned silent, stunned still.
There’s a lodge.
A multitiered, grass-roofed, warm-glow-in-the-windows lodge is nestled no more than fifty yards away, amid a thick hedge of foliage. Glassy, onyx-black water curves around the foliage wall, snaking all the way back around to the mouth of our tunnel. A rickety plank walkway hugs the entire length of the canal, and closer to the lodge, a series of roughly hewn canoes bobs idly in the water. I’m guessing those aren’t meant for us.
So who are they meant for?
“The lights are on,” Hope whispers. “The lights are on.”
Electricity.
Humanity.
We are not alone.
But we’ve known that for a while now.
“Water, walkway, or back to the nets,” Lonan says. “Those are our options.”
A half laugh escapes me. “You say that as if we have options.”
“I like to be thorough.”
“Do you think that’s where they took Finnley?” Hope says, pushing her way through the group. “It looks . . . cozier than I imagined.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Cass says, giving Alexa a pointed look.
“Leave it alone,” Lonan says.
Alexa doesn’t respond, but I’ve been around her long enough to pick up on her stubborn way of expressing gratitude. She gives Lonan this look now: a subtle narrowing of both eyes, with the sentiment of a wink and the focused intent of telepathy. I’ve never seen the expression on any other person. It makes me wonder what else is left to discover of humanity.
“So I think we can rule out going back to the nets,” I say, eager to get on with this. Finding Finnley, dead or alive—finding the lab—finding answers. “The water doesn’t really seem all that viable. At the very least, the walkway to the lodge seems like the most obvious option.”
Something doesn’t sit right about taking the walkway, though, and not because of its rickety planks. In the most basic of ways, the Wolves have won, and it sickens me: they’ve created in me a petri dish of suspicion. Nothing can ever be simple again, I fear.
“Do what you want,” Hope says. “I’m going to find her.” She stretches one long, thin leg out from the cave. Once she’s firmly on the wood, she shoves her hands in her pockets and walks away from us without a backward glance.
It’s a very un-Hope thing to say, a very un-Hope thing to do.
Losing the people we care about can do that, I guess. Change us. Make us desperate enough to head straight into enemy territory with nothing but our demands to keep us company.
Cass runs his free hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t go alone,” he calls after her, glancing from Phoenix to Lonan. He’s twitchy, exasperated.
“Then come with me,” she says. She doesn’t slow down in the slightest.
Lonan doesn’t want to, I feel it in his hand—it’s just as warm as before, and just as soft, but somehow there are more angles.
But Alexa steps out after her, jumps to the walkway with the grace of a cat. She lifts her chin to Cass, like, See? I’m not the selfish person you think I am. His expression doesn’t change, so it’s hard to discern exactly why he steps out next—for Alexa? For Hope? For his own conscience? Who knows.
What I do know is this: it takes only one follower to start a movement, and another follower after that to give it momentum. It is the momentum that compels Lonan and me across the walkway, and Phoenix, too, most likely. I try to find comfort in Lonan’s words, back at the cave—that seeking out enemy territory for the sake of finding the cure, and the Atlas Project science, has been part of the plan all along. That it’s necessary.
I try to find comfort, but it doesn’t want to be found.
Best way to find what you’re looking for, Lonan said, is to draw out the enemy and force them to lead you straight to it.
But is that really what’s happening here?
Perhaps we are the ones who are being drawn out, and not the other way around.
FIFTY-SIX