“Do you think we’ll find him?” she asks, her voice practically a whisper.
I look up.
There’s a yearning there—something more than general concern in her tone. I turn fully to meet her eyes, but she won’t look at me.
She’s suddenly blushing.
“I don’t know,” I say to her. “I hope so.”
“Me too,” she says softly.
She rests her head on my shoulder. We stare out, into the distance. Let the silence devour our bodies.
“You did an amazing job, by the way.” I nod at the valley below. “This is beautiful.”
Alia really outdid herself. She and Winston.
The monuments they designed are simple and elegant, made from stone sourced from the land itself.
And there are two.
One for the lives lost here, at the Sanctuary, two days ago. The other for the lives lostthere, at Omega Point, two months ago. The list of names is long. The injustice of it all roars through me.
Alia takes my hand. Squeezes.
I realize I’m crying.
I turn away, feeling stupid, and Alia lets go, gives me space to pull myself together. I wipe at my eyes with excessive force, angry with myself for falling apart. Angry with myself for being disappointed. Angry with myself for ever allowing hope.
We lost J.
We’re not even sure exactly how it happened. Warner has been virtually comatose since that day, and getting information out of him has been near impossible. But it sounds like we never really stood a chance, in the end. One of Anderson’s men had the preternatural ability to clone himself, and it took us too long to figure it out. We couldn’t understand why their defense would suddenly double and triple just as we thought we were wearing them down. But it turns out Anderson had an inexhaustible supply of dummy soldiers. Warner couldn’t get over it. It was the one thing he kept repeating, over and over—
I should’ve known, I should’ve known
—and despite the fact that Warner’s been killing himself for the oversight, Castle says it was precisely because of Warner that any of us are still alive.
There weren’t supposed to beanysurvivors. That was Anderson’s decree. The command he gave after I went down.
Warner figured out the trick just in time.
His ability to harness the soldier’s powers and use it against him was our one saving grace, apparently, and when the dude realized he had competition, he took what he could get and ran.
Which means he managed to snag an unconscious Haider and Stephan. It means Anderson escaped.
And J, of course.
It means they got J.
“Should we head back?” Alia says quietly. “Castle was awake when I left. He said he wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah.” I nod, get to my feet. Pull myself together. “Any update on James, by the way? Is he cleared for visitors yet?”
Alia shakes her head. Stands up, too. “Not yet,” she says. “But he’ll be awake soon. The girls are optimistic. Between his healing powers and theirs, they feel certain they’ll be able to get him through it.”
“Yeah,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Wrong.
