Hunter’s transmitter. The one Julio knocked from his ear during that first battle at Croatan Beach. Marie picked it up, turned it off, and put it in her pocket. We were all so tired, so shell-shocked after Hunter died, I didn’t bother to make sure she’d gotten rid of it. She’s so fiercely protective of Julio, I foolishly assumed she would destroy it before we ever left the beach.
My skin hardens with frost. Marie cowers behind her veil of dark bangs. A cold wind whips across the canyon and blows them from her eyes. “We only turned it on for a few hours,” she confesses. “Until we were a safe distance from the cabin. We thought you’d stand a better chance if we drew them away.”
We?Chill lifts his chin. Woody meets my eyes without a shred of remorse.
That’s why Doug’s team never made it to the cabin. Because our Handlers drew them away. If they hadn’t, we never would have survived that attack.
Marie swallows against the knife at her throat. “If we’d thought we’d be followed here, we never would have come. When we saw the tornado on the news, we figured every Guard in the country would be on their way to Oklahoma to find you. We had no idea she was tailing us. We thought we were clear.”
I close my fist around Hunter’s transmitter. It should be so easy todestroy the damn thing and disappear. Same as we did with the bee back in the Observatory. I should crush it under my foot, kill Noelle, and keep running. That’s what we should have done with that human boy in Tennessee.
A shadowy thought twists inside me. I study Noelle’s silhouette, then Fleur’s. Through the static of a video feed, they could easily be mistaken in the dark. All I need is one video—one transmission of a girl’s magic dispersing into a windy night sky. That’s all it would take to fake Fleur’s death and get rid of the one person who knows where we are.
“No one else knows you’re here?” I ask, thumbing the transmitter.
She shakes her head. “I saw the tornado on TV. The one Doug and Denver were chasing. Doug said it was you, but I wanted to see for myself, to know if the rumors were true.” I feel her eyes searching for mine. “Doug is determined to bring you down. He told Chronos your group was split up in Phoenix. That you and the Spring are the only ones left.”
“Are we?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Noelle says. “I can’t be sure. I wasn’t there.”
Marie’s eyes close. Even if Julio managed to evade the police in Phoenix, he won’t survive long out there alone. Poppy rests a hand on Woody’s shoulder. He swipes at his eyes.
“Chronos is coming for you, Jack. He left London this morning.”
I tamp down a flutter of panic. Lyon said Chronos would only face me once he was certain of his future. Or mine. I block out the memory of Kai Sampson’s face. Of falling through the ice. I block out the sound of Chronos’s voice in my head, telling me Chill and Poppy are going to die. If Noelle’s telling the truth, then we have a day, maybe only hours, until he reaches Arizona.
“And you? Are you coming for us, too?”
Her voice rises. It shakes as if she might cry. “I never signed on for this! Never wanted to be on a death squad, Terminating my friends.”
“Are we still? Friends?” I don’t know why I ask. It would be easier not to know. It’s easier to hurt someone when you don’t stop to ask them how they feel, or what they want. Easier to stop someone’s heart if you never bother to care about what’s beating inside it.
“I don’t know anymore. Everything’s crazy back at school since Gaia and Professor Lyon left campus to find you. Every Season you’ve killed and sent back... they’re all missing.”
“Good for them.” And for us. The more Seasons who manage to escape, the harder Chronos will have to work to find them. Maybe Chronos will finally get tired of chasing us down.
She shakes her head, her face anguished. “You don’t get it, Jack. Those Seasons didn’t run away. Theydisappeared. They dropped off the ley lines without a trace. All the surveillance footage from their transmitters has been wiped from the Control Room servers. Their Handlers are missing, too.”
I reel. The weight of all those lives—lives I’m somehow responsible for—nearly knocks me off my feet. The Seasons who watched us from the fields in Oklahoma, the ones who attacked us at the cabin, and Cyrus, the Summer who tried to kill Fleur at Croatan Beach... Chronos must be killing them. Plucking them off the ley lines before the rumors have a chance to spread.
“Seasons are rioting on campus,” Noelle says. “The whole place is on lockdown. Professor Lyon said you’ve started a rebellion.”
You have inspired them.
The ground feels like it’s being pulled out from under me. WhetherI want to admit it or not, this is as much my doing as it is Lyon’s. “What if he’s right?” I ask in a strangled voice. “What if I did start a rebellion? Whose side are you on?”
A tear catches the moonlight as it slides down her cheek. “Does it matter? If Chronos finds out I let you go, I’ll be the next one disappearing off the lines.”
“Is that what you plan to do? Let us go without a fight?” If she lets us go, she might buy herself some time, and maybe a return ticket to the Observatory if she can convince them she never found us. But if they find out she left us alive, she might as well be in the wind.
“I don’t suppose you’d take a Guard with you?” Noelle asks hopelessly.
Fleur stiffens. Marie’s eyes find mine across the gap. I feel the added weight of Chill’s and Woody’s beside me.
Noelle nods, her brows pulling low as the reality of her fate sinks in.
“That manhunt in Phoenix is all over the news. Every Season in the region will be in sniffing distance soon. Go.” She pushes Marie toward us. “I’ll hold Doug off as long as I can, but it won’t take him long to find you.” Head bowed, she turns away.
