He’s already gone.
I can’t fall asleep that night. My brain refuses to stop working, replaying my conversations with Adrienne, with Cross, with Gray and his friends. I resist the urge to reach out to Cross again, because it’s late and he barely sleeps as it is. When we were kids, just two young strangers secretly chatting in our heads, he told me about his recurring nightmare of drowning in an underwater cave, a nightmare that left him paralyzed with fear each time it came. If he’s managed to fall into a peaceful slumber tonight, the last thing I want to do is deprive him of it.
I shift beneath the blanket, unable to find a restful position, and I find myself thinking about my mother, wishing I had memories of her. Good ones, bad ones, just…anything.But I can’t even picture her face. When I try, it’s nothing but a blurry shape, a fuzzy recollection.
As I lie there, staring at the ceiling, my mind suddenly flashes to the Blacklands. To a cool spring afternoon when I was six years old. Uncle Jim often left me alone in our little clearing while he hunted or went to get us water, but that day, when he returned from the creek, I immediately noticed that his demeanor was subdued, his eyes rimmed with red.
“You look weird,” I accused, in that frank way children communicate. “And your eyes are puffy.”
He’d shrugged and said he’d just washed his face in the creek.
At the time, I hadn’t realized what a dumb response that was. As a six-year-old, I didn’t question it. It wasn’t until years later that I connected the red eyes to the fact that he’d been crying.
A few days after that, he came to sit next to me on the grass, his expression somber.
“I need to tell you something, little bird,” he began, his voice gruff. “I received some news about your mother.”
“Mama?” My face lit up. “I miss Mama. Is she coming to see us?”
“I miss her, too. But no, we won’t be seeing your mother again.”
“But I wanna see her. Why can’t I see her?”
“Because she died.”
I blinked in confusion. I understood the concept of death, because my father had died the previous year, but the notion that my mother wasalsodead…it wouldn’t penetrate. Nobody hadtwodead parents. For some reason, that was inconceivable to my child brain.
“Your mother died,” Uncle Jim repeated. “Do you understand what I’m saying? You can’t see her again because she’s dead.”
I remember sitting there in silence, I don’t know for how long. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get hysterical. I sat quietly, until finally, I stood up and went to help Uncle Jim tend to the fire.
Now I curse myself for not asking more questions that day. Years later, Jim would reveal that my mother was executed by the Command—while conveniently omitting she’d been loyal to the Company and not the Uprising.
Your mother’s name is Marina Serrano.
Yeah, thanks, Jim.
He couldn’t have provided a few more details? Amorselof insight?
Who was she, this Marina Serrano? This woman I thought was one of the good guys.
And who the hellarethe good guys? Because I sat with Adrienne today and listened to her describe pulling and severing threads in people’s minds until they were brain-dead.
How is that supposed to reassure me that I’m fighting for the right side?
Who fucking decides what’s right and wrong, anyway?
Groaning into my pillow, I roll over for the hundredth time. I wish I had someone to talk to about this. Someone to help me make sense of the chaos in my head. Usually, that person would be Wolf. And if not him, then Tana.
An ache settles in my chest at the thought of my best friend. Tana and I used to speak every day. Now we go days, often weeks, without contact. I suspect that if I didn’t make the effort to connect with her, she’d be content with never speaking to me again.
Tana blames me for what happened to her and Griff. I know she does. But I don’t regret striking that deal with Cross, convincing him to send them to labor camps instead of the firing squad. She can hate me all she wants, but I wasn’t going to let my best friend die.
Still, her continued silence has left a gaping hole in my life. We’ve been friends since we were eight years old. I feel her absence in a soul-crushing, visceral way that makes me want to cry whenever I dwell on it.
Before I can stop myself, I open a path and nudge at her mind. It’s usually hit or miss whether she responds, but tonight she surprises me by linking.
“Hey. I know it’s late, but I just wanted to check in.”I hear the awkwardness in my voice. I’m sure she does, too.“How are you?”
