Hidden

I’m not sure how long we travel underground. Time is suspended. It feels as though we’re trapped in the very belly of the earth. Will begins to slow. My eyes have become long accustomed to the darkness, but I still squint at him through the gritty haze of dust as he motions for me to stop.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

I halt, waving an arm out at my side to keep the others from continuing. Will moves ahead, curving slightly until I lose sight of him in the billowing cloud of dirt.

Then it’s just us girls in the dark. I feel the breath of them around me, moist and rasping in the crackling dry air, earth particles floating like fairy dust all around us. I jump when I finally hear the sound of Will’s voice.

“C’mon! It’s clear!”

We eagerly move ahead, following the path he’s carved for us. I’m leading over the uneven ground and the first to see the light ahead. It’s like waking to sunlight. I blink and squint, shading my eyes with my hand. Through the press of ragged earth around us, I make out a jagged opening in the distance. Bits of roots and grass dangle around its edge.

I don’t see Will at all. He’s gone, and for a moment my chest feels tight, my heart fluttering with panic. Then his face is there, popping back inside through the opening that’s scarcely big enough to fit his shoulders. “It’s all clear. We’re not far from where we left the van.” He tosses some clothes at us. “Demanifest and get dressed.”

We comply. Miram, Tamra, and I slip on our clothes. I pass a sweatshirt and pants to Lia, pausing as I see her as a human for the first time. Enormous eyes, freckles, and a nose that upturns ever so slightly. She scarcely looks twelve. The apology is still there in her eyes, and I wish I could take her guilt away from her. She’s too young to feel such heavy responsibility. The burden of who lives and dies in an enkros cesspit shouldn’t be hers.

“Let’s go.” The three girls follow me as I squeeze to the surface. I squint like a mole emerging from its hole. The last of the day’s sunlight is fading, infusing the air with a red-gold hue. Motes dance on the fading beams. I drop on the ground, allowing my fingers to curl into the earth. I inhale a ragged breath of sweet, fresh air. Cassian. The thought of him, left behind, tears through me like a freshly opened wound.

I reach for Cassian inside myself, hoping to find him there, hoping he can sense me. Your sister is safe, Cassian. She’s okay. I’m okay.

I will him to know this, hoping to reassure him. Hoping to give him a reason to fight … to find a way back to us.

Then I feel him. Like a faint cry in the night, his relief comes to me, wraps around me like a warm wind.

“Jacinda.”

I glance up. Will stands at the back of the van, holding one door open and waving us over. His anxious expression reminds me we’re not out of this yet. I rise to my feet, reluctant to go even as I know we must. Leaving, somehow, feels like shutting the door forever on Cassian. Now I feel him, but I know from Mom that the more distance between us, the weaker our connection grows, and this makes my chest tighten with unease. Right now, the only thing I have left of him is our bond.

Will watches me, his gaze intent, and I know he guesses my thoughts. I feel guilty. And then annoyed. I hate that I can’t openly be broken up about leaving Cassian without worrying how that makes Will feel.

Tamra helps Miram to the van. I watch the girl as she clambers inside, reminded of an old woman.

Lia glances from Will to me, clearly hesitant, and I guess she senses the tension. Her gaze lingers on Will and I know she’s trying to figure him out—this non-draki with the draki talent to manipulate the earth.

“It’s all right. Get inside,” I say.

Then it’s just Will and me outside the van … and nothing feels “all right.”

I might have demanifested, but I still simmer beneath my skin. Cassian’s emotions ripple through me as I face Will. Even distracted with this, I want to rail and weep and strike Will for what he did. Sentiments all unfair, I know, but I’m the one standing here feeling every bit of Cassian’s suffering. I’m living it alongside of him.

“Get in,” he says, reminding me that whatever I have to say, now isn’t the time. We’re standing barely outside the enkros stronghold with the enkros running loose. We’re not safe yet.

I move toward the back of the van just as a helicopter rips through the air above us, flying so low it creates a strong wind. Then two more roar past. Reinforcements.

I stare up at the sky and then look away, glance down the hillside, spotting several vehicles driving at high speed along the main road leading up to the stronghold’s gates. In the fading light, I can see the flurry of activity in its parking lot.

“Now! Let’s go,” Will shouts.

I dive into the back of the van.

In seconds, I hear the driver’s door slam shut and we’re moving, engine revving. The van turns sharply, tossing us around in the back. Lia slides into me. I wrap an arm around the girl and steady her as the van rumbles all around us like a purring beast.

Tamra holds Miram, whose gaze drills into me. “What about my brother?” For her, he’s not lost. Tamra attempts to shush her, but Miram will have none of it. “Jacinda?” she demands.

I shake my head, unable to say anything.

“Are we just leaving him?” she presses. “Forgetting about him?”

“He’s gone,” Lia whispers.

Miram’s attention swerves to the girl. “You! Shut up! You made us set that monster loose. This is your fault.”

Lia shudders in my arms and turns her face away, staring stoically at the doors.

“Jacinda?” Tamra slides down beside me and lightly touches my shoulder. Even though it’s Tamra, I jerk from the contact.

Cassian’s terror is all around me now, cloying and deep; it sinks into my pores and roots in my bones. It’s all I can feel, all I am—a creature that lives and breathes fear.

I press close to the cold metal of the van wall. Still hugging myself, I shake, fight the onslaught of Cassian’s emotions.

The most basic part of me longs to break free, but the rest of me clings to Cassian, struggling to keep our connection as the distance between us grows. He’s not lost as long as I feel him.

“Jacinda?” Tamra repeats my name again, insistent for some kind of acknowledgment.

“I’m fine. Just don’t … touch me,” I say through gritted teeth as the sound of another helicopter roars nearby.

Locked in the shadows of the van, all our gazes swing upward, worried the helicopter will spot us. We release a collective breath as the sound of whirring blades recedes.

Cassian’s agony intensifies then, the fear so bitter it floods my mouth and drops me to my side. I can’t care or think about anything else but this. An icy burn penetrates my body. I hiss. Arch my spine. Releasing Lia, I thrust my fists down hard, grinding my knuckles into the unforgiving floor, as if that pressure could offer me some relief.

“Jacinda? What’s wrong?” Tamra cries, her voice a distant echo in my ears.

Another chopper flies overhead, deafeningly loud and then gone, a faint drone as it fades away.

“Cassian,” I get out from between clenched teeth.

It’s not the gray draki doing this to him. I know this with a deep vibration in my bones.

Something else has him … is with him. His fear tastes different … more acrid.

I close my eyes as my agony—his agony—swings into something else.

Dread sweeps over me. I curl into a small, self-contained ball, holding myself tightly.

And suddenly I’m fine. I’m fine. But he isn’t. Cassian isn’t fine. He isn’t anything. He’s gone. Just like that.

Like a string snapped. There’s nothing there anymore. No connection. No bond. No Cassian. It’s too soon for distance to have severed us. The sound of my racing heart fills my ears. I poke around inside myself, hunting for him, some proof that he’s still there. With me. But nothing.

No Cassian.

I lurch up with a gasp and scream his name. “Cassian!”

We pull over hours later.

I’ve stopped screaming, aware that I was freaking out the others. I can’t imagine what Will must have thought stuck behind the wheel, driving to the sound of me in the back. Now I’m just hugging myself again, rocking and swaying as if I were a child in need of comfort. And I am. In so many ways. From the beginning, Cassian has always been there. Even in Chaparral when he wasn’t there, he was there, a constant specter. And then he did appear—never going away even when I wanted him to. Always looking out for me. And now he’s gone.

Tamra tries to comfort me, but I can hardly speak to the others. Especially Miram. How can I look at her and tell her what I know for a certainty? That Cassian is gone. Dead.

At one point, Tamra whispers to her, explaining how Cassian and I were forced into bonding back in the pride—and that I still chose Will.

I see Miram pull back, the fury flashing in the dull brown of her eyes. She turns to me with a look I know well. She loathes me now more than ever. In her eyes, I’ve rejected everything I should have embraced—our pride, the draki way. Her brother. She can’t understand this, and I don’t expect her to.

How could I choose Will over the precious draki prince of our pride? It’s the question I see in her face, and there’s no simple reason I can give.

Then again, there’s nothing simple about Will. I think back to what he can do—bend earth, resist shading, his immense strength—and it’s glaringly inaccurate to consider him a human. But then I can’t think of him as a draki either. And this strikes me as sad. Will doesn’t belong anywhere. Not among humans. Not among draki.

But he belongs with me. The conviction is still there, as senseless and dangerous as always, seeping into my bones, my heart. A fact I wouldn’t change even if I could.

The back door of the van swings open, and Will stands there in the quiet twilight. Dark woods crouch at his back and I know he’s made certain we’re far from the stronghold. Wherever we are, we’re safe for now.

His gaze sweeps all of us before settling on me. The concern is there, shimmering in the hazel depths of his eyes. He undoubtedly heard my screams, but couldn’t stop until now.

“Are you okay?” Will asks.

I hold his gaze. “He’s gone. Cassian’s dead.” My voice chokes on the words, hating to say them. Especially in front of Tamra and Miram, but I can’t hide my knowledge from them forever.

Will is silent. His face reveals nothing. I catch a glimmer of something more in his eyes, but I’m not sure what it means.

Miram lets out a wail and falls into Tamra’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says.

I feel my face threaten to crumple and draw a deep breath, fighting back the burn of fresh tears. I don’t need another meltdown. But it’s horrible. Feeling this grief over Cassian, but unable to show it because I don’t want to be insensitive to Will—don’t want him to think I was in love with Cassian.

A moment of awkward silence passes, and he looks around us. “We need to drive a little more. I’m not comfortable stopping yet, but I wanted to check in on you all. A few more hours and we can eat and get some rest.”

He waits for a moment as if I’m going to respond to this. None of us speaks. The only sounds are Miram’s sobs. I don’t look at him again. I can’t. Not with these horrible feelings churning inside me. Instead, I give a sharp nod.

The doors slam shut. I listen to the crunch of his footsteps and the thud of the driver’s door. In moments, the van is rumbling all around us again and we’re moving on into the night.

“You did this, Jacinda,” Miram whispers heatedly, ignoring my sister shushing her. “You did this. Cassian is dead because of you.”