Connected

Chapter 15

How is this even possible? How could we still have our Counters? They are supposed to disappear after meeting, right? We have always been told that they disappear after meeting and after the Spark, was it all a lie? If not, then why do we still have ours? We are soulmates, right? We experienced the chime and the electricity, so we have to be, right? I look at Apollo, his eyes filling with fear. He lets go of my hands and starts pacing, and I sink to my knees and push my hand to my eyes, trying to rub away the previous tears and prevent any more from falling. I drag my hands down my face, eyes closed, dropping my hand in my lap and dropping my head. I can hear Apollo still pacing and mumbling to himself, only making out little bits and pieces, but enough to know he is asking the same questions.

"How... she has to be...why are they still... they're supposed to be gone by now...."

When I open my eyes, still trained on my lap, they go wide, and I try to call out to him.

"Apollo..." I say, coming out weak and raspy. He doesn't hear me, so I try again a little louder.

"Apollo..." he still doesn't hear me and keeps pacing and mumbling.

"APOLLO, freeze," I yell.

It was probably a little louder than I should have been, but I need him to pay attention. He stops dead and looks at me, though my eyes are still in my lap.

"I need you to listen to me for a minute and do exactly as I say, okay?" I ask, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice.

"Okay..."

"I need you to take two steps towards me, stop, then two steps back."

I hear him hesitate a moment before taking the steps forward and backward. I don't even need to look at him to tell he is moving because the Counter tells me. I stand up and look at him, a smile spreading across my face and confusion covering his.

"Look at your Counter, and don't look at me, okay?" he looks down at his wrist.

I start to walk backward, and I see his eyes go wide just like mine had. I start walking toward him, and his head shoots up to look at me as I do. Just like they did when he walked toward me, as I walked away and toward him now, the Counters ticks up the further away we are and ticks down the closer we are. When we are in front of each other, it goes back to zero, but this time, we only hear the bell; no Spark follows. We test this one more time, each of us going to opposite sides of the room. We watch our wrists as I start walking toward the middle first, the numbers ticking down, then stop. I look at Apollo, and he starts walking toward me, eyes trained on his wrist, looking up at me as the number gets smaller and smaller. When he reaches me, and the number hits zero, he wraps his arms around me, and I do the same, then we hear the bell.

"Looks like it's more a Tracker than a Counter, for us anyway," he laughs.

"I can live with that. It gives me hope," I say

"What do you mean?"

"All my life, I have..." I freeze and snap my mouth shut

I put my finger to my mouth, motioning for him to stay quiet. I walk over to one of the windows and crouch down, only sticking my head up enough to hear what was going on outside. Then I heard the engine, and it was close, too close.

"Their coming, we need to move. Now." I look over at him, his eyes filling with anger and swirling with the fear that had been lingering.

I run over to him and grab his hand, and we run down the stairs as quietly as possible. When we hit the bottom, we see the headlights getting brighter on the tree line. We can't leave through the door, or they would see us, despite it still being dark out. I look around for a way out, but before I realize what I'm doing, my feet start moving slowly toward the small doorway on the back wall. My brain catches up, and I pull Apollo after me into the dark staircase leading downstairs. We descend into blackness, but when we reach the bottom, my vision shifts, and I can see everything. I don't know how or why I can see in such darkness, but it's like the first time I was here, all of my senses are heightened. I must be the only one because I feel Apollo's grip on my hand tighten, as though if he lets go, I will disappear forever. I look back at him, and I can see the fear on his face and his eyebrows knit together. I squeeze his hand reassuringly, and a little of the fear disappears, so I make our way over to the corner where, luckily, the crate from before is there.