I tugged at more knots surrounding him. They were all almost completely loosened, like a cat’s cradle about to collapse.
“I failed you. You killed me. We both came back.” He studied my expression. “I’m going to believe what the wind told me . . .”
He waited for me to confirm or deny what the wind had said. I kept silent.
He nodded. “But even if the wind hadn’t told me, I already knew. You’re fighting to come back to me, and I’m fighting to get back to you.”
Ahead, a dim glow bled through the tunnel. We were almost to a connecting track that would lead us up and out.
If he was going to make a move, it would be soon. Before we left the underground.
He tilted his head again, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. I wanted to reach up and brush it away. He smiled as if he knew.
“I won’t fault you for doing what you have to do. Just don’t fault me for the same.” He nodded toward a light glowing in the distance. “I think we’re on the right track.”
I frowned at his retreating back. There was something very strange about all this. First, a human couldn’t ride the ghost train. A corporal being couldn’t ride an incorporeal object. Second, Finn was more himself than he’d been since before the games, except for the fact he was a massive, tangled knot of illusion. Third, the pull of Jagger’s will was weaker than I’d ever felt it, like an echo instead of a shout.
I watched as Finn hopped onto a chunk of fallen concrete and then jumped over another. My throat tightened. It was exactly how he’d climbed the rocks in Central Park when we were kids. He’d hop on the boulders and jump from one rock to another, grinning over his shoulder at me, gesturing for me to hurry after him. Right then, he turned and flashed me the same smile.
“Coming?” he asked, holding out his hand in the same exact gesture he’d done for years. “Mari?”
A broken noise escaped my throat.
It was him.
It had to be him.
Illusion or not, it was Finn.
I ran down the abandoned track, jumped the rubble, and then leaped toward him. He caught me with a surprised grunt.
“I—” Love you, I’d meant to say. But the words were cut off and ripped from my throat.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I?—”
It hurt. It felt as if a molten-hot knife were sliding down my throat. It closed, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The longer I fought to say the words, the tighter my throat clamped.
Finn nodded and slowly set me down. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
I drew in a gasping breath. The musty tunnel air cooled my burning throat and my scalding lungs. I shuddered and closed my eyes, turning my face away from Finn’s probing gaze.
Then, quietly, he asked, “Can I hold you?”
My lungs burned again; my throat spasmed. I couldn’t say yes, but I didn’t want to say no.
I held still and hoped he’d take that as assent. This was Finn, wasn’t it? Was this him?
After a long moment, he said quietly, “I’ll take that as a yes. If it’s a no, feel free to stab me again.”
Then, very carefully and very gently, he wrapped his arms around me. He didn’t hold me close. He didn’t press his body against mine. He held me loosely in the circle of his arms. All the same, it was almost impossible to stand in the bath of his golden light. I held still and quiet, my eyes closed, my chin down, my face pointing toward the ground.
The only sound was the combination of our breathing, another distant train, and the rhythmic ocean whoosh of my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
He went to pull his arms away, but I quickly shook my head. It hurt—it was agony—but it would hurt more for him to leave me.
