He winces, then lowers his forearm so I can no longer see the brand. “Yes,” he says, barely getting the word out.
“Why?” I need to see the truth in his eyes—I need to believe him. My legs fidgeting beneath me, still ready to run, my lungs drawing in short bursts of air, while my mind tries to slow my thoughts.
Darkness rims his eyes, the burden of too many things inside him. Words he’s never said aloud. “Theorists will do anything to get what they want,” he says. “And they only wanted one thing.” His dangerous, sorrow-scorched eyes lift, squared on me, a subtle twitch in his shoulders. “They wanted you. The Astronomer.”
My vision sways a little, my heart pressing, pounding, against my ribs.
“They’d kill anyone to get to you,” he continues. “Anyone who they thought might know something. They didn’t care who died. They were cruel and inhuman, even when they claimed they were looking for a cure, a way to save everyone. But they weren’t saving a single person—they were killing.” I feel desperate to say something, a feeling in my throat like I’m holding back all the night sky, and yet not a single word forms. My thoughts too tangled up.
“We couldn’t watch anyone else die,” he continues. “Couldn’t help them murder innocent people.” His expression falls to the ground, and I can’t deny the sadness I see in the weary slant of his eyes. “I knew I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t let Holt—” His voice breaks off again, then re-forms, a firmness to his words now. “Wethought we could sneak away after dark and we wouldn’t be seen. We were camped outside a farming town called Lohaw, and we tried to leave on foot, but one of the men on night watch spotted us.” He breathes, like he’s trying to keep the memory from overtaking him. “He shot Wells first. It happened so fast, I barely heard it. And he just dropped to the ground. Just—” Noah pinches his eyes shut, a twitch in his hands, and it takes a moment before he looks at me again. “I managed to get the rifle free before he could fire another shot… but then Holt was there—” He looks away, out to the flat, blue lake, tears alight in his eyes, the long-buried pain and fury finding him. He crosses his arms over his chest, as if he’s suddenly cold. “I had a knife and we fought, Holt tried to stop me, but I—” A part of me wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to finish, but I need to hear it all. I need to believe him. “I dug the knife along his throat…. I tried to kill him.” He shakes his head, then grates both hands behind his skull before letting his arms fall back to his sides. “I got away into the trees. But Wells was dead, and I thought maybe Holt was too. I didn’t even look back—” His shoulders flinch, just barely, but I catch it. And I know, I sense, he’s leaving something out, something he doesn’t want to say. Maybe only because it hurts too bad. Or maybe it’s something else.
“I want to believe you,” I say, because I do, more than anything. “But I don’t know how.”
Noah’s eyes are weighted against mine, like there is a new, raw hurt inside his rib cage. “I can’t prove any of it,” he says, tears starting to wet the edges of his eyelids, emotion caught on each word, and he lifts his arm so I can see the brand—the mark he can’t erase. “But this is not who I am.” He swallows, unblinking. “It never was, notreally. And now I’m a traitor. If they found me, they’d kill me.” His eyebrows tug down, mouth parted only a little—the place where he hides all his sadness. All his hurt. His mouth that I want to touch for reasons I don’t understand, his face that I’m not sure I can trust.
If he’s lying, if he betrays me, if he leads me to the sea and then reveals who he truly is, if he hands me over to those men—then it will all be for nothing.
“Vega,” he says, and my name sounds like desperation on his lips, like need and forgiveness and a part of him that just might break. “Please.” The hurt reaches his eyes, watering at the edges, pain tucked into the shape of his mouth. It’smewho’s causing him pain.Me.Because he needs me to believe him. Needs me to not slip away into the trees and leave.
Because he needs me as much as I need him.
We are bound to each other, whether I trust him or not. I won’t reach the sea without him. He’s leaving something out in his story, some part he won’t say. But for now, I have to trust that there is more truth in his words than lies.
“You made a promise to August,” I remind him. “To protect me, to bring me to the sea.”
His gaze doesn’t break from mine, and I let myself stare back at the dangerous, uncommon green of his eyes, tracing the form of his mouth.
“Will you keep that promise?” I ask, my body still tensed, chin lifted, observing every flicker and twitch of his eyelashes, looking for any hint of a mistruth.
His jaw hardens, but his eyes are still soft, damp, fearful even—afraid I’ll slip away. His mouth falls open. “Yes. I will get you to the sea, no matter what it takes. I promise.”
My shoulders begin to relax. A settling in my rib cage. I want to fight it, resist, but I can see the honesty in his eyes—mostly—and we each have our own secrets, mine monstrous and bottomless. And likely far more dangerous. I can’t leave him now. I exhale the breath I had been holding in, my hands unclenching. “I trust you,” I say, my voice almost breaking, and it feels like my own promise. An agreement between us. A pact. We will reach the sea, together. Or maybe not at all.
He is my map, my way there. I need him.
For now, I will trust him.
A moment passes, I step closer to Noah, and my mind reorganizes itself, spins forward and back. Recalling the story he told, of escaping the Theorists, and the name he said, the man who he fought. “Holt is their leader?” I ask.
Noah’s eyes flick to the lake, prisms of light dancing across the surface of the water under the late-afternoon sun. “Yes.”
I think of the man who took Odie back at the miners’ cabin. The scar cut lengthwise along his throat, how he stared back at me when I pointed the rifle at his chest—like he was used to getting what he wanted and he wouldn’t be dying that day. Not by my bullet. “Does he have two different-colored eyes?”
Noah flinches—a look of unease sweeping over him as he turns back to face me—and he nods.
“I met him,” I say. “He stole Pa’s horse, and all his tonic.”I could have killed him,I think. I had a chance to take his life, but I didn’t.
“If you met him,” Noah says, “then you’re lucky you’re still alive.”
I feel a crackling, indescribable ache in my ears, like the rubbing together of two autumn leaves. And when I look into the star-flecked, impossible galaxy of Noah’s eyes, I see only the boy I need him to be. Not the Theorist brand on his skin. But a boy who has come this far with me, who feels more like a cool summer breeze in the valley than a dagger against my throat.
His mouth parts, eyes damp, and he says, “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.” He breathes, like the words are a firestorm inside him, burning his throat. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, not even Holt. They’ll have to kill me first.”
The air feels trapped in my ribs like a lost bird.
I bend forward and pull off my boots, feeling the warm sand against the soles of my feet—while Noah’s eyes watch me. If I’m going to trust him, I have to show him who I am.
He was wrong when he said he has more tattoos than me.
