Crossed

CHAPTER 49 KY

When I pull her to me she feels eager, warm and reaching, but then she flinches slightly and draws back. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I forgot.” She pulls a small tube from inside her shirt. She notices the shock on my face and rushes on. “I couldn’t help it.”

She holds the tube out for me to see, trying to explain. It glints in the light from our headlamps and it takes me a moment to read the name: REYES, SAMUEL. Her grandfather. “I took it when you were all looking at Hunter, after he broke the tube.”

“Eli stole one too,” I say. “He gave it to me.”

“Who did he take?” Cassia asks.

I look over at Indie. She could push the boat away now and leave Cassia behind. But she doesn’t. I knew she wouldn’t. Not this time. If you want to go where Indie wants to go, you couldn’t find a better pilot. She’ll carry your pack and get you through the rough water. She turns her back to us and stands perfectly still under the trees next to the boat.

“Vick,” I tell Cassia.

It surprised me at first that Eli didn’t choose his parents, and then I remembered that they wouldn’t have been there. Eli and his family had been Aberrations for years. Vick must have been Reclassified recently enough that the Society hadn’t had time to remove his tube.

“Eli trusts you,” she says.

“I know,” I say.

“I do, too,” she says. “What are you going to do?”

“Hide it,” I say. “Until I know who was storing the tubes and why. Until I know we can trust the Rising.”

“And the books you brought from the farmers’ cave?” she asks.

“Those too,” I say. “I’m going to look for the right place while I’m following the river.” I pause. “If you want me to hide your things, I can. I’ll make sure they get to you somehow.”

“Won’t they be too heavy to carry?” she asks.

“No,” I say.

She hands me the tube and reaches into her pack for the collection of loose papers that she took from the cave. “I didn’t write any of those pages,” she says, an ache in her voice. “Someday I will.” Then she puts her hand against my cheek. “The rest of your story,” she says. “Will you tell it to me now? Or when I see you again?”

“My mother,” I begin. “My father.” I close my eyes, trying to explain. What I say makes no sense. It’s a string of words—

When my parents died I did nothing

So I wanted to do

I wanted to do

I wanted to do

“Something,” she says gently. She takes my hand again and turns it over, looking at the mangled mess of scrapes and paint and dirt that the rain hasn’t yet washed away. “You’re right. We can’t do nothing all our lives. And, Ky, you did something when your parents died. I remember the picture you drew for me back in Oria. You tried to carry them.”

“No,” I say, my voice breaking. “I left them on the ground and ran.”

She wraps her arms around me and speaks in my ear. Words just for me — the poetry of I love you—to keep me warm in the cold. With them she turns me back from ash and nothing into flesh and blood.