He looks at me and doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to defend himself or explain. He said what he wanted, and that’s it. Just like how he’s always been.
“You never even told me you were a Nyte,” I whisper.
“I didn’t know. Not until after everything happened. You know I’ve never been physically strong like Nytes, and my gift isn’t an obvious one. That Nyte—somehow he knew you and I were gifted. He knew about me even though I didn’t.” His jaw clenches. “I found out later what my gift was.”
“And then you went and joined the rebels.”
“There were a few steps before that.”
“Why?” I demand, but I don’t know what exactly I’m asking, and now tears are streaming down my face and that makes me even angrier because I’m not sad, he hasn’t won, I’m just pissed. But I don’t know what or who I’m mad at.
He watches me with that sad look again, and I scrub my arm across my eyes to get rid of the stupid tears. Suddenly it feels like the ground has been ripped out from under my feet. Everything I’ve done these last nine years has been to find my brother—to kill him—and now that I’ve finally caught him, it’s to discover that everything I thought I knew might’ve been a lie. If what he’s saying is actually true, I don’t know where that leaves me.
I don’t want to deal with this right now. I can’t deal with this right now. I need time and facts—but more importantly, there’s something else I need to be doing.
I stand up off of him. “Take me back.”
“What?”
“Take me back down there. My friends need me.”
His eyebrows crease together. He sits up slowly. “Alary, you’re hurt. The Order—they’re not going to win this one. You could die.”
“I’m not going to abandon my friends. They’re dying while we talk. If there’s something I can do to save them, I will.” I stare him down, remembering Paul, thinking of Jay, still fighting—hopefully—and of all the Order members I came to know who are trying to hang on right now.
He hesitates. “I don’t want to put you back in the middle of danger.”
“I’ll go even if you don’t. And if you try to stop me, I will kill you.” I should kill him now—he’s a rebel—but I still don’t know what I want to do about that yet.
I glare at him, and he watches me with that damned unreadable expression he’s always had. Finally, he sighs. “I won’t be able to save you again.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I won’t die. I’m stronger than you think.”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “I know. You’ve always been stronger than I think. Which is saying something, because I’ve always thought you were the strongest person I know.”
Unexpected pleasure hits me. Which is not something I want to be feeling right now, from him, during this disaster.
He sighs. “All right. Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you there. But that’s all I can do.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “But you better be ready. Because I won’t hesitate to kill you if I see fit the next time we meet, Gabriel.”
22
LAI
WE’RE LOSING. BADLY.
I tried to call a retreat, but there’s nowhere to run. Rebels at our backs and pouring in from every side. It’s all I can do to keep together the group of Order members I’ve managed to rally around me. The longer we fight, the more of us fall. My heart twists every time I see one of my friends on the ground, unmoving, no thoughts coming from them. From those who are still alive, panicked thoughts pound into my head, each one more frenzied than the last. When one of them abruptly disappears, my heart misses a beat and my breath catches and won’t come back.
This is all my fault.
It’s hard to breathe. I swing my spear and keep fighting, but I know we can’t win. There are too many of them. They trapped us perfectly.
My fault.
I kill anyone standing in my way, fueled by guilt and uncontainable grief. If I just keep moving, I can hold it all off. If I just keep killing the people who are killing my friends, I can stave off everything.
A break in the crowd of rebels reveals exactly who I was both hoping and dreading to see. Ellis, plunging her way through our remaining numbers toward my group, her sword like a shadow of death.
My calls of retreat must’ve given me away as the Order’s leader. Even from this distance, I can tell Ellis’s eyes are locked on me. Everything moves in slow motion. Will she attack my group first or go straight for me? I won’t lose anyone else. I refuse.
Ellis reaches us. Her eyes flash and I yell, “Fall back!” as I rush forward to meet her. I don’t look to see whether my friends listened to me.
My helmet’s visor hides my face. Ellis won’t know it’s me—just how I want it. How I need it.
We run at each other. Her sword connects with my spear, and the clang of metal on metal resounds around us. My arms shake with the force of both our swings.
“Thought you were clever, didn’t you?” Ellis asks through our crossed weapons. Her voice is soft, deadly. “Sorry, but this is where your meddling stops.”
I don’t answer as we break apart. When she runs for me again, I remember when she first taught me how to fight with a spear, positioning my elbows so they weren’t in so tight, fixing my footwork, smiling hugely when I was finally able to get it all right at the same time.
Now, her sword comes swinging at my side. I block with the shaft of my spear and try to aim a kick at her side, but she slips back and comes in for another strike.
Luke and Sara and I sitting in that old storage closet, ignoring the outside world, our responsibilities as soldiers, just talking. Just being friends.
I’m too slow to sidestep her sword. The blade nicks my side. She pursues the opening with an upward thrust of her sword, but I spin around behind her and bring my spear down on the back of her leg. She manages to dodge in time, but I feel my blade graze her.
Going to my and Sara’s room after Luke’s death, after we found the letters he left us, me crying. But not Sara. She just looked at me, blank as death, like she couldn’t understand my grief. The fury that burned in her eyes when she left the military.
Our weapons cross, and we keep pushing and pulling, back and forth, streaks of flashing metal.
Sara telling me that fighting was like dancing, really. Stay light on your feet and strong. Remember your balance. “There, see? You can do it.”
I shout as I thrust my spear toward her, blind with rage or pain or guilt—everything the same, everything overwhelming, pressing down on my chest, suffocating, dying—but I lunge too far.
Ellis ducks beneath my shaft, and when she comes up swinging her sword, the blade cuts straight through my right arm above the elbow.
I don’t register it at first. I don’t even feel it. I look at where the rest of my arm used to be, where empty space suddenly exists, and then it slams into me like a building’s weight all at once. I scream as I fall to my knees, unable to stand it, everything converging, blurring and crushing in its intensity. Electrifying pain explodes over the remains of my arm. Black edges my vision.