The Five Unnecessaries

Chapter 28

I stared at Alex until I couldn't see him anymore, frozen by his words and the fear he wouldn't make it back alive. But then I sprinted in the opposite direction. Urgency pushed my fear for him away. I pulled out the old compass, hoping it could lead me to the Unnecessary who had placed it in my hands. I ran for her, almost a mile, before slowing down. Only then, because I had no sign of my Unnecessary, did the memory of Alex's eyes send my mind reeling again. If his sister had died, he had a reason to betray the Society. But if he was lying...

With a lurch that killed my arm, I fell over a branch. I looked at the stars again, thinking of my game earlier. In a few hours, we had to get to the EE point, especially if we were all compromised. I got up and kept running. The painkillers still numbed the pain, the glue held, but my arm was swelling.

I dreaded having to search for her and worry, but as I ran up a hill, I could hear a crunch of leaves. I took another four steps before I heard my name.

"Aislyn, I'm sorry. I think I got lost."

She startled me, making me jump despite seeking her so intensely.

"Hey, sweetie, you can jump down. We're okay."

She jumped from branch to branch carefully, but almost too fast to seem natural.

"I couldn't see a lot from up there, although I was trying. I saw you, at one point, but the wind started, and I was too high up. How did you get out? Who was that who helped you?"

"Honestly...?" I trailed off as I reached up to my forehead, where he'd kissed me. "A person who should want me dead."

She looked curious. Thinking I said too much, I added, "They all want us dead, right?"

"So, he was like the Sub-Terra who kept me safe? He was different?"

"Yes," I nodded. That was an understatement.

She stared down at the ground and then turned around back to the border. "I'm really sad, thinking about if she is safe. No one is there to save her, now. They'll be okay, right?"

The wind hit her hair, making it float again in the still night. I spoke, not knowing if he was lying or telling the truth.

"Yes, they will."

My arm throbbed. I told her since we were only seven miles to an EE point in Zone 2, we needed to keep going until we got there. I didn't tell her we had to worry about drones if we didn't get there in time. The pines kept the ground relatively clear for a path in most spots. No wonder Megan had made it back in record time. I prayed she'd made it back alive this time.

We kept a nice thirty-minutes-per-mile pace for a while. The pressure from my swollen arm hurt more than the bullet wound. Walking became trudging. She had my pack and had proudly told me she could carry it. I distracted myself by listing off nearly every name I knew. She had never been named, and so we talked for hours about what she wanted to be called. But the pain got worse. Soon I couldn't feel the beauty in the moments.

As we came up on the EE point, everything seemed louder, awaiting the early dawn. The sound of the animals and insects grow louder than our footsteps. I looked at the MCU again. The pain made it hard to breathe. I felt dizzy, but we were only half a mile out. We reached the small, hundred-yard clearing right before the woods that concealed the station. I turned around, realizing she had stopped. I looked back at scared eyes, like the eyes I'd first seen—only there was no desperation or wanting, just fear and sorrow I couldn't understand.

"Sweetie, what is it?" I asked, falling to a knee.

"I avoid the open spaces," she said, her voice sounding distant—so far away, traveling through the miles of nightmares I couldn't see or imagine. All my nightmares seemed small. I held out my hand, fighting the weight of the fear, hers and mine.