“Thenight. Where we, you know…” I trailed off, embarrassed.
Thad sighed. “Charley, I wish. You have no idea how much I want that. But we can’t.”
His quick dismissal stung. “Why?” I asked.
“Because. We just can’t.”
“You have to give me a better reason than ‘just because.’ That sounds parental.”
“Okay. Because it won’t end well. Because we have no protection here. Because you still have ten months on the island.” Thad’s flat voice turned tortured. “What if you got pregnant? What if something happened to you during delivery? We have no doctors, nohospitals. And I won’t be here to help; that’s a given. And if you did have the baby here, remember only one person goes through the gate. One. You or the baby, not both.”
The horror of that thought sank in.
“And what if you’re still pregnant?” Thad wasn’t done. “Could you both make it through?” He ran his hand through his hair, and in that moment, I knew he’d thought of all these nightmare scenarios before, probably more than once. “I don’t know. And say you both make it, and you have the baby back home. What then? What if I didn’t make it? Now you’re a single mom? At seventeen? I can’t do that to you—”
“Stop!” I said, my voice tight. “That’s the Dark Side talking. You’ll make it.”
“I’m just saying, we can’t.” His voice was flat again.
“Fine. We can’t.” My tone matched his.
I lay with my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “Don’t talk like that,” I said finally. “Like you won’t make it. Don’t even think like that.”
“Look, I believe I’ll make it,” Thad said, but the lie in his voice stung. “But not everyone does. There’s a chance I won’t. So we have to take that into account. Plan for it, eh?”
“No.” Anger tinged with frustration made me snap. “That’s not planning for the worst; that’s giving up.You’rethe one who balked when I joked that eighteen was overrated.You’rethe one who looked horrified that I was quitting. So don’t you dare give up on me now, Thaddeus Blake. Not when you have sixty-two days left and at least that many chances.” I dared him to argue, but he stayed silent, which was worse.
“Tomorrow we’ll go on Search,” I said, determined to make him see reason. “We’ll finish mapping the island and chart gates. We’ll use the mazes, follow our patterns, and if we see a gate, you’ll run your butt off to catch it, you hear?”
“I hear,” Thad said, breaking into a smile. “I love you, Charley.”
“I love you more.” And then I kissed him, more fiercely than he’d ever kissed me. Because I knew Thad could be gone tomorrow, and that he would definitely be gone in sixty-two days.
I didn’t need the labyrinths to tell me that.
CHAPTER
48
THAD
DAY 311, ALMOST DAWN
Charley was asleep. Considering it was still dark, I wasn’t surprised.
It was my turn on watch. I sat with my back against the rock, blade in my hand. So far there’d been no sign of raiders or big cats on this Search, which was good.
And there’d been exactly one gate, which was bad.
We’d been gone for seven days. In seven noons, we’d seen one exit gate. A single, too far away to catch. Equally surprising, it was Miya who’d spotted the gate. Now officially the youngest person in the City, she’d latched on to Jason after Talla’s death and refused to leave his side, so our team had gained a plus one. But it didn’t help.
I was still here.
And I had fifty-four days left.
Charley’s words from a week ago ran through my head.Don’t you dare give up on me now, Thaddeus Blake… not when you have sixty-two days left and at least that many chances…
But she was wrong. If you averaged my odds, I’d be lucky to spy one gate a week. And with just under eight weeks left, I had maybeeight shots. Twelve at best. It wasn’t the Dark Side talking; it was Nil reality.
