With a snap, my insides shatter, wood pummeling bone. The impact tears me from my skis and throws me backward into the snow.
I lie there, eyes closed, a deafening ring in my ears. The stars shimmer as I blink myself conscious, my warm breath curling like smoke from the wreckage.
There’s no pain. Not at first. Just a low groan. The unsettling sense that something is broken. My hat’s gone, and the back of my head is drenched and cold. The last of my friends’ shouts fade downhill.
I have to catch up to them. I have to get up.
I move my . . .
My legs don’t respond. No pain, no cold, nothing. . . . I feel nothing below my waist. Nothing but fear as it seizes me.
Shit, Jack. What the hell have you done?
I open my mouth to shout for help but the words won’t come. I can’t get enough air. Pain sharpens against my ribs. It swells until there’s no room for breath or thought or anything else.
Please, no! Don’t leave me here!
The night slips in and out of focus, the pain gripping me in waves. Snow seeps into the neck of my coat. Into my gloves. My heart slows, my hands shake, and my teeth . . . God, my teeth won’t stop chattering.
You screwed up, Jack. You’re going to die.
“Only if you choose to.”
My breath stills. My eyes peel open at the sound of a woman’s voice. They roll toward the forest, searching, barely able to focus.
Please . . . help me! Please, I can’t . . .
The roots of the trees seem to snake up from the ground, writhing above the snow as if they’re alive. My eyes drift closed again. I’m seeing things. Hallucinating. Must have hit my head. But when I force them open, the roots are still moving, braiding themselves together, forming a raised path above the snow.
A woman appears at the end of it.
Mom? Her name catches painfully in my throat.
“You may call me Gaia,” she says.
No. Not my mother. My mother would never come. Has never come.
The woman’s long white dress glows against the dark, her shape becoming clearer as she approaches. The walkway under her feet grows, extending toward me with each of her steps. The woven roots twist and fold into a set of stairs a moment before she descends them, then unravel behind her, disappearing into the snow.
She kneels beside me, her silver hair falling around her face as it comes slowly into focus. Everything but her eyes. They glimmer like diamonds. Or maybe I’m crying. My breath sputters. I taste blood. Suffocating on the smell of copper and iron, I reach for her in a blind panic.
Am I dead?
Her hand’s warm against my cheek. She smells like flowers. Like the mountains in springtime.
“Not yet. But soon,” she says. “Your spleen is ruptured. A rib has punctured your lung. You will succumb to your injuries before your body can be recovered.”
But my friends—
“They will not come back for you.”
No. I’m imagining this. She can’t possibly know these things. But deep inside, I know this is real. And I know that she’s right. Every word cuts. Every breath tears through me.
“I offer you a choice, Jacob Matthew Sullivan,” she says. “Come home with me and live forever, according to my rules. Or die tonight.”
Home. A wave of pain crests inside me. I grab her wrist as the crushing weight of my last breath pulls me under.
Please, I beg her. Please, don’t let me die.
1
Out Like a Lamb
March 12, 2020
JACK
“Hold still!” Fleur barks. “I might cut you.”
“I thought that was the point.” At least, that’s how we agreed to do it. Fleur wanted a less vicious method than last year. I wanted something quick and clean. After a lengthy debate about the multitude of ways she could kill me, we finally settled on the knife.
My head swims. I stare at the horizon over her shoulder just to keep myself from falling. I’m burning up just standing this close to her, and it’s too hard to look in her eyes. Her pink hair lifts on a breeze, all tangled up in the red light of the transmitter in her ear and the blood-orange glow over the Virginia foothills behind her. Beautiful. Like something out of a fever dream.
“What the hell are you doing, Jack?”
I shake off the voice in my head, so woozy with fever I almost mistake it for my own. Chill knows exactly what I’m doing. I’ll catch hell for it in three months when I wake up, but for now, I don’t have the energy for the lecture he’s spouting in my ear. I let Fleur catch up to me. Let her corner me here, because I was tired of running, and I just wanted more time. Just a few more minutes face-to-face with her before I go. To choose how we say goodbye this time.
Fleur gnaws her lip, the tip of her knife pressing into the skin just below my ribs, jarring me back to the moment. Spring’s here, and my season’s over. Our time’s up, and now it’s her job to send me home.
I feel a little lost just thinking about it. The Observatory won’t ever be home. The second I die, I’ll be completely cut off from her, yanked across the world through the ley lines like a deflated balloon and locked underground, sequestered in hibernation until next winter. I waver, the sharp edge of her blade making me feel a little untethered.
Deep worry lines crease her brow as she adjusts her grip.
I can’t stop staring at her frown, the way she licks her lip when she concentrates.
There’s an arm’s length between us. She’s too far away.
My voice goes gravelly. “My liver’s a little higher.” Chill swears at me. “It’s deep. Between the third and fourth rib. You should probably come closer.” Through my transmitter, I can hear Chill’s head thunk against his desk.
The air thins as Fleur steps forward. Close enough for me to smell the lilies on her breath. To feel the heat of her shaky sigh against my face. I thought this elevation would buy me more time—the ice, the terrain, the trees shading the winding trails of the national forest—but she’s so warm, I can’t—
“Better?” she asks. I wince, light-headed as the point of the knife digs in, and her dark eyes flick to mine.
I nod, unable to form words when she’s standing this close. I study the contours of her mouth, wondering what it would taste like. I can’t imagine any way I’d rather die. “If you’re squeamish, we could try something else.”
She freezes. “Like what?”
“Jack?” Chill’s voice rises. “I don’t like where this is going.”
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t say no. In a second, it’ll all be over. Just a flash of pain and light and I’ll be gone. But just once, I want to know what it’s like to kiss her before I go. I tip my head closer. Close enough to let her close the gap if she wants to.
Her breath comes out on a tremble. My pulse ratchets up as her mouth slants toward mine. Just before our lips brush, she jerks sharply back. Across the short gap between us, I can hear Poppy screaming in her ear. Fleur’s cheeks flush to match the redwood blooms on the tree behind her—blooms I swear weren’t there a minute ago. “We can’t do that,” she tells me. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Why?” I snap. “Because Poppy says so?”