“They need the Missing Man. I’m just...me. I’m not interesting. You know that.”
“You can’t save your mother,” he says bluntly. “You can save the people here.”
His words are like bullets in my gut. “Maybe I can’t save her, but I can be there with her. She shouldn’t have to die alone.” Saying it out loud makes my stomach roll.
Peter looks as if he wants to shake me. “These people will face worse than death without you. They’ll fade. They’ll disappear. You could stop it!”
“I can’t! I have responsibilities that come first.”
“Responsibilities you fled from.”
“And that was a mistake! I shouldn’t have come here...”
“You were meant to be here.” He takes my hand. “Meant to be here with me.” He stares into my eyes and steps closer. I can feel his breath soft on my face. He leans his forehead against mine.
Suddenly, I feel as though I can’t breathe. My hand shakes. It’s still on his arm, and I know he can feel it shaking. My whole body trembles. “You’re only saying that because of these...‘powers’ I have, whatever they are.”
“I went to see the Missing Man to know if you could stay. I couldn’t let myself care about you if I thought you might leave. And here you are, with his powers, still talking about leaving. Can’t you see how much they...how muchI...need you? I’m tired of being alone, Lauren. So very tired.”
I feel a lump in my throat. I swallow hard. His voice sounds so raw. His eyes... I want to reassure him. But I can’t. “I’ll come back. When I can. I won’t... I’ll come back and help. But I have to do this first. Please, try to understand.”
He steps back from me. “You won’t come back. You’ll sink into your life again, and you’ll convince yourself this was a dream or hallucination. You’ll assume the Missing Man will take care of it, that it’s not your responsibility. You have your own life, dreams, future. This isn’t real. That’s what you’ll tell yourself. And meanwhile, you will be destroying us. This. Me.”
“My mother needs me. Mymother.Has there ever been anyone like that for you?”
He draws his hands away from mine. His expression is unreadable. “No.”
I suck in a breath, but I don’t know what to say to that. “No one?”
“Everyone always leaves me.” He turns his back on me and studies the bike-wheel bear sculpture. He spins it. It looks like a carnival ride, all the bright colors blurring together. “That’s what I’ve lost, Lauren. Everyone. When my parents died, I was alone. So I came here and became the Finder. This town became my family. People I found became my aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends. And then one by one, they left. Returned to their real lives. Butthisis my real life. This is my home. Finding people is who I am and what I do. And leaving me...is what everyone does. I thought you were different.Clairethought you were different.”
“I’ll come back.”
“You won’t.”
“I will.”
“I should have left you in the void. I should have let you fade. He would have stayed here if it weren’t for you. He wouldn’t have—”
“You’re blaming me now?”
“Yes! You’re choosing to leave!”
He isn’t going to understand. “I’m sorry,” I say. I cross my arms and put my hands on my shoulders. It’s the nearest I can come to approximating the Missing Man’s position. I don’t know if that’s essential, or if it’s just the words, but I do it anyway. “You were lost...”
He whips around at my words. His coat billows around him. His eyes are as stormy as the inside of the void, dark and swirling. He looks wild, as feral as the dogs that hunt in the alleyways. “Don’t.”
“You are found,” I finish.
He’s saying words. I can’t hear him. But his mouth shapes the words “Come back.” And then “I love you.”
I look into his eyes as he fades, as the paintings fade, as the walls fade, as everything dims and disintegrates around me into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-One
Beep, beep, beep...
I can’t breathe.
