“The way we’re always okay?The way none of us have ended up dead?Yes.Because things always turn out well for us.”Leander clenched down on the urge to scream.Xi was such a numpty.
“We’re still here.”
“And how many of us aren’t?”Leander demanded.“I saw Ireen that day, you know.The druggies she was living with, they knew we were friends.They wanted someone to take her to the hospital, so they called me.By the time I got there....”Leander closed his eyes.He hadn’t seen the bodies of Tecca or Karn...or Finn, and Petel had disappeared without a body, but he often imagined Ireen’s empty eyes in their faces.And then he had worked hard to remember nothing about any of his friends at all.
Xi winced as he forced his body up and sat on the edge of the bed.“We’ve all had shit hands in this game, but we do the best we can.It’s what we’ve always done.If this Nie family is more than we can handle, we’ll leave.”
Leander had envisioned himself having a normal life here.Working in a small village.Raising Shanlin.“I shouldn’t have wanted more.When you have more, when you love more, it’s just more that the world can take away from you.”
Xi hissed with pain as he stumbled to Leander’s side, where he almost collapsed.
Leander looked down at him.“You idiot.You should be in bed.”
Xi clasped both his hands.“Never say that you’re sorry that you loved any of us.When I was first taken, knowing that there were people who loved me was the only thing that helped me keep my sanity in that government school.”
“It was my fault,” Leander whispered.“They wouldn’t have caught you if it weren’t for me.”
Xi frowned.“That’s not true.”
Leander pulled his hands free and stared at them, the long fingers and calloused pads.These were the hands he’d used to touch those damn plants in biology class.“Freshman biology.I made the plants grow.They were looking for someone with talent.”
Xi rocked back on his heels.“Christ.You thought that all these years?”
Leander locked away every emotion except hatred and glared at Xi.“The damn government wanted weapons, and I put up a flag to show where they could find one.A nice, young, untrained, easily brainwashed weapon.Of course they were looking after that.”
“Leander.”Xi ran his fingers through his hair.“Within a week, they knew I controlled shadows.I couldn’t have done anything to those plants, and they knew it.If they had thought the plants were a clue, they would’ve kept looking until they found you.I don’t know if the teacher even reported that.”
“Of course she did.They all spied on us.”
“The group home spied on us,” Xi said.“I couldn’t sleep because of that damn light they left on in the hallway all the time, and I thought it was so late that no one would notice, so I wrapped shadows around it.”He pressed his lips together for a second before continuing.“I just wanted to sleep through the night for once, and we had a math test the next day.I didn’t think it was a big deal.I still don’t know whether someone saw me or if they had hidden cameras, but they came and got me in the morning.”
“What?”Leander’s world tilted, and suddenly all the pieces of his life didn’t fit together neatly.It was like a jigsaw puzzle, only he had pieces for two pictures, and he couldn’t get them to fit.
A dark laugh slipped out of Xi.“I was so worried about a 10th grade math test that I screwed the rest of my life.”A whine escaped.Leander didn’t know whether it was the memory or the physical pain, but he stood and got a hand under Xi’s elbow.
“Come on, you idiot, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”He pulled Xi to his feet and eased him back to the bed.
“Have I said ‘thank you’ for saving me from the poison?What you did was kind of awesome,” Xi said.
“You were bleeding out of every orifice, and blood oozed from your skin.I don’t think ‘awesome’ is the correct word.”
“You saved my life.That is awesome.”
Leander hesitated before answering.Another day, he might have dismissed the entire conversation, but he was emotionally raw, and Xi’s near death was only part of that.“We’re the only two left.How could I do anything else?”
Leander thought of happier days when they’d claimed the corner of the lunchroom closest to the line.Other kids didn’t want to sit where the lunch ladies could watch, but the seven of them...that had been their territory.Seven group home kids within a year or two of each other in age, all holding onto each other and believing they could survive the evils of the world if they just stayed together.
Creek’s capture had been the first crack in that idealism, but now he was the last shard of childhood Leander possessed.He sat on the bed next to Xi and made him lie down, pulling the sheet up over him.“Stay down before you get sick and die.I didn’t save you from poison just for you to kill yourself with stupidity,” he snapped.
Xi grinned at him.“Got it.No dropping dead from stupidity.I will put that on my to-do list.”
Leander huffed.Creek’s hand way lying on top of the sheet, his skin still waxy.Before he could talk himself out of it, Leander grabbed that hand and held tight.Maybe he was being an idiot, but he wanted to believe for just one second they had a chance.He had learned over the years that it only took a drop of hope to get yourself out of bed even on the darkest of days, and today...Today was dark.
Chapter Sixteen
Leander wanted to close his eyes, but the motion sickness grew worse when he did.He understood the streets were far too narrow for carts and horses, but the solution of a tiny carriage carried by men seemed...silly.However, Xi was too weak to walk far, and the men carrying the two-person chair had argued that it was bad luck for Leander to get out.They’d been almost panicked at the thought, so Leander had resolved himself to being jostled through narrow streets.Luckily, most people stepped aside when their litter came around a bend.
Leander glanced out the back window, lifting a curtain.Shanlin was still there, following the litter with half a dozen young men and women.One girl kept leaning over and pointing to things before talking to Shanlin.His head swiveled from side to side like a seesaw.
