SOJOURNER (III): tmr gally

32: I should be bait

Ella 32

"Are you feeling better?" Harriet asks.

Sonya nods. All of the flashlights are in the middle of our circle, spread out amongst the crowd so we can clearly see each other's faces. The light flickers across Sonya's eyes.

"Yeah," she begins. "I think I just ate something bad."

"What about your head?" Teresa persists. She forces her back to straighten. Her face contorts as if it is being stretched by putty.

"It's just the wound."

"Wounds don't ooze pus," Teresa mutters, glancing up at Sonya.

Sonya shrugs. Her shoulder brushes over mine. I can feel her heat beside me. I wonder if she still has a fever. I wonder if she is burning up from the inside.

"Trust me," she begins. "I'm more than fine."

She is lying. Her skin is pale, and warm, and wrong. No one argues with her though, since we can't seem to pick through the lies for the truth. Marie has died. She fell on top of me and died. I can still feel how warm her blood was. How it ran off her skin and into my hair, and how I wanted to scream, but didn't want to die either.

"So, what's the plan?" Harriet asks. "When do we get them? Sooner than later, I hope."

"They're probably travelling at night," another girl, with dark black hair that blends into our surroundings, offers up. "It's too hot up there to be on the surface for more than a few hours."

"It's mostly white people too," Sonya sighs, looking around the room. "Bloody paler than me."

"Those sticks wouldn't make it out there for more than a minute."

There are only three white people left alive here. Teresa, Sonya, and Saph. All the others have died, not that there were many to begin with. I wonder if Leo, Dawn, and Michelle have lived. I wonder if the other boys have lived.

Eli is dead though. I am here, for some reason that I didn't cause. Four artists, and four authors. Our hands are made for the delicacy of art, not the brutality of the desert. Trapped here, and I would rather figure out why before I meet WICKED next. Being unprepared will only lead me to disaster.

No matter how hard I try, I can't remember anything for a minute.

"What do you know about those people, anyway?" The girl with the black hair turns to Teresa. "You are our in."

"I'm not being a part of this," Teresa gets up, moving out of the circle.

"Come on, seriously?" Another girl demands. I do not know her name either.

"We aren't supposed to contact them except to get Thomas." Teresa shrugs, stepping back into the light. She wants to listen but also wants us to stop and neither of those things are going to happen.

"That's what we are doing," another girl offers.

"Well ahead of schedule," Teresa crosses her arms. "Are you planning on walking with him underground for miles? Days?"

No one answers. Honestly, I don't particularly care when we kill Thomas. The more inconvenient Teresa's life becomes, the better.

"So, what's the plan?" The girl with the dark hair smiles, leaning in.