questions the way they did. Jamie sat with me. He patted my back now and then.
Wes was already buried in the dark grotto beside Walter. He had died four days ago, the night that
Jared and Ian and I had sat watching the family in the park. I would never see my friend again, never hear
his voice…
Tears splashed on the stone beneath me, and Jamie’s pats increased in tempo.
Andy and Paige were not here.
Lily was not here.
“She’s not… doing so well,” Jamie had murmured when he’d caught me scanning the room for her. I
didn’t want to know any more. I could imagine well enough.
Aaron and Brandt were not here.
Brandt now bore a smooth, pink, circular scar in the hollow space beneath his left collarbone. The bullet
had missed his heart and lungs by a hair and then burrowed halfway through his shoulder blade trying to
escape. Doc had used most of the Heal getting it out of him. Brandt was fine now.
Wes’s bullet had been better aimed. It had pierced his high olive-skinned forehead and blown out the
back of his head. There was nothing Doc could have done, even if he’d been right there with them, a
gallon of Heal at his disposal.
Brandt, who now carried in a holster on his hip a boxy, heavy trophy from the encounter, was with
Aaron. They were in the tunnel where we would have stored our spoils if it had not been occupied. If it
was not being used as a prison again.
As if losing Wes was not enough.
It seemed hideously wrong to me that the numbers remained the same. Thirty-five living bodies, just like
before I’d come to the caves. Wes and Walter were gone, but I was here.
And now so was the Seeker.
My Seeker.
If I’d just gone straight to Tucson. If I had just stayed in San Diego. If I had just skipped this planet and
gone somewhere entirely different. If I’d given myself as a Mother like anyone else would have after five
or six planets. If, if, if… If I had not come here, if I had not given the Seeker the clues she needed to
follow, then Wes would be alive. It had taken her longer than me to figure them out, but when she did,
she didn’t have to pursue them with caution. She’d barreled through the desert in an all-terrain SUV,
leaving bright new scars across the fragile desert landscape, each pass getting closer.
They had to do something. They had to stop her.
I had killed Wes.
They still would have caught me in the first place, Wanda. I led them here, not you.
I was too miserable to answer her.
Besides, if we hadn’t come here, Jamie would be dead. And maybe Jared, too. He would have
died tonight, without you.
Death on every side. Death everywhere I looked.
Why did they keep her?Mel snarled.Why didn’t they kill her right away? Or kill her slow—I don’t
care how! Why is she still alive?
Fear fluttered in my stomach. The Seeker was alive; the Seeker was here.
I shouldn’t have been afraid of her.
Of course, it made sense to be afraid that her disappearance would bring the other Seekers down on us.
Everyone was afraid of that. Spying on the search for my body, the humans had seen how vocal she was
about her convictions. She’d been trying to convince the other Seekers that there were humans hiding in
this desert wasteland. None seemed to take her seriously. They had gone home; she was the only one
who kept looking.
But now she’d vanished in the middle of her search. That changed everything.
Her vehicle had been moved far away, left in the desert on the other side of Tucson. It looked as though
she’d disappeared in the same way it was believed I had: pieces of her bag left torn nearby, the snacks
she’d carried with her chewed open and scattered. Would the other souls accept such a coincidence?
We already knew they would not. Not entirely. They were looking. Would the search become more
intense?
But to be afraid of the Seeker herself… That didn’t make much sense. She was physically insignificant,
probably smaller than Jamie. I was stronger and faster than she was. I was surrounded by friends and
allies, and she, inside these caves at least, was all alone. Two guns, the rifle and her own Glock—the
very gun Ian had once envied, the gun that had killed my friend Wes—were trained on her at every
moment. Only one thing had kept her alive until now, and it couldn’t save her for long.
Jeb had thought I might want to talk to her. That was all.
Now that I was back, she was condemned to die within hours whether I spoke to her or not.
So why did I feel as though I was at the disadvantage? Why this strange premonition thatshe would be
the one to walk away from our confrontation?
I hadn’t decided if I wanted to talk to her. At least, that was what I’d told Jeb.
Without a doubt, I didnot want to talk to her. I was terrified to ever see her face again—a face that, no
matter how I tried, I could not imagine looking frightened.
But if I told them I had no desire for conversation, Aaron would shoot her. It would be like I’d given him
the order to fire. Like I’d pulled the trigger.
Or worse, Doc would try to cut her out of the human body. I flinched away from the memory of the
silver blood smeared all over the hands of my friend.
Wanda? They’re just going to shoot her. Don’t panic.
Should this comfort me? I couldn’t avoid the imagined tableau. Aaron, the Seeker’s gun in his hand; the
Seeker’s body slowly crumpling to the stone floor, the red blood pooling around her…
You don’t have to watch.
That wouldn’t stop it from happening.
Melanie’s thoughts became a little frantic.But we want her to die. Right? She killed Wes! Besides, she
can’t stay alive. No matter what.
She was right about everything, of course. It was true that there was no way the Seeker could stay alive.
Imprisoned, she would work doggedly to escape. Freed, she would quickly be the death of all my family.
It was true she had killed Wes. He was so young and so loved. His death left a burning agony in its
wake. I understood the claim of human justice that demanded her life in return.
It was also true that I wanted her to die.
“Wanda? Wanda?”
Jamie shook my arm. It took me a moment to realize that someone had called my name. Perhaps many
times already.
“Wanda?” Jeb’s voice asked again.
I looked up. He was standing over me. His face was expressionless, the blank facade that meant he was
in the grip of some strong emotion. His poker face.
“The boys want to know if you have any questions for the Seeker.”
I put one hand to my forehead, trying to block the images there. “If I don’t?”
“They’re ready to be done with guard duty. It’s a hard time. They’d rather be with their friends right
now.”
I nodded. “Okay. I guess I’d better… go and see her at once, then.” I shoved myself away from the
wall and to my feet. My hands were shaking, so I clenched them into fists.
You don’t have any questions.
I’ll think of some.
Why prolong the inevitable?
I have no idea.
You’re trying to save her,Melanie accused, full of outrage.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
.
No. There isn’t. And you want her dead anyway. So let them shoot her.
I cringed.
“You okay?” Jamie asked.
I nodded, not trusting my voice enough to speak.
“You don’t have to,” Jeb told me, his eyes sharp on my face.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
Jamie’s hand wrapped around mine, but I shook it off. “Stay here, Jamie.”
“I’ll come with you.”
My voice was stronger now. “Oh, no, you willnot. ”
We stared at each other for a moment, and for once I won the argument. He stuck his chin out
stubbornly but slouched back against the wall.
Ian, too, seemed inclined to follow me out of the kitchen, but I stopped him in his tracks with a single
look. Jared watched me go with an unfathomable expression.
“She’s a complainer,” Jeb told me in a low voice as we walked back toward the hole. “Not quiet like
you were. Always asking for more—food, water, pillows… She threatens a lot, too. ‘The Seekers will
get you all!’ That kinda thing. It’s been hard on Brandt especially. She’s pushed his temper right to the
edge.”
I nodded. This did not surprise me one bit.
“She hasn’t tried to escape, though. A lot of talk and no action. Once the guns come up, she backs right
down.”
I recoiled.
“My guess is, she wants to live pretty dang bad,” Jeb murmured to himself.
“Are you sure this is the… safest place to keep her?” I asked as we started down the black, twisting
tunnel.
Jeb chuckled. “You didn’t find your way out,” he reminded me. “Sometimes the best hiding place is the
one that’s in plain sight.”
My answer was flat. “She’s more motivated than I was.”
“The boys’re keepin’ a sharp eye on her. Nothin’ to worry about.”
How many times had I rounded this corner, my hand tracing along the inside of the pointed switchback,
just like this? I’d never traced along the outside wall. It was uneven, with jutting rocks that would leave
bruises and cause me to trip. Staying on the inside was a shorter walk anyway.
When they’d first showed me that the V was not a V but a Y—two branches forking off from another
tunnel,the tunnel—I’d felt pretty stupid. Like Jeb said, hiding things in plain sight was sometimes the
cleverest route. The times I’d been desperate enough to even consider escaping the caves, my mind had
skipped right over this place in my speculations. This was the hole, the prison. In my head, it was the
darkest, deepest well in the caves. This was where they’d buried me.
Even Mel, sneakier than I was, had never dreamed that they’d held me captive just a few paces from the
exit.
It wasn’t even the only exit. But the other was small and tight, a crawl space. I hadn’t found that one
because I’d walked into these caves standing upright. I hadn’t been looking forthat kind of tunnel.
Besides, I’d never explored the edges of Doc’s hospital; I’d avoided it from the beginning.
The voice, familiar even though it seemed part of another life, interrupted my thoughts.
“I wonder how you’re still alive, eating like this. Ugh!”
Something plastic clattered against the rocks.
I could see the blue light as we rounded the last corner.
“I didn’t know humans had the patience to starve someone to death. That seems like too complex a plan
for you shortsighted creatures to grasp.”
Jeb chuckled. “Gotta say, I’m impressed with those boys. Surprised they held up this long.”
We turned into the lit dead-end tunnel. Brandt and Aaron, both sitting as far as possible from the end of
the tunnel where the Seeker paced, both with guns in their hands, sighed with relief when they saw us
approaching.
“Finally,” Brandt muttered. His face was etched in hard lines of grief.
The Seeker halted in her pacing.
I was surprised to see the conditions she was kept in.
She was not stuffed into the tiny cramped hole, but comparatively free, stomping to and fro across the
short width of the tunnel. On the floor, against the flat end of the tunnel, were a mat and a pillow. A
plastic tray was tilted at an angle against the wall at about the midpoint of the cave; a few jicama roots lay
scattered near it with a soup bowl. A little soup was splattered out from where that lay. This explained
the clatter I’d just heard—she’d thrown her food. It looked as though she’d eaten most of it first, though.
I stared at this relatively humane setup and felt an odd pain in my stomach.
Who didwekill?Melanie muttered sullenly. This stung her, too.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Careful,” Aaron cautioned. “She’s an angry little thing.”
I nodded.
The others stayed where they were. I walked down the tunnel alone.
It was hard to lift my eyes, to meet the gaze that I could feel like cold fingers pressing against my face.
The Seeker was glaring at me, a harsh sneer twisting her features. I’d never seen a soul use that
expression before.
“Well, hello there,Melanie, ” she mocked me. “What took you so long to come visit?”
I didn’t answer. I walked toward her slowly, trying hard to believe that the hate coursing through my
body really did not belong to me.
“Did your little friends think I would talk to you? Spill all my secrets because you carry a gagged and
lobotomized soul around in your head, reflecting through your eyes?” She laughed abrasively.
I stopped two long strides away from her, my body tensed to run. She made no aggressive move
toward me, but I could not relax my muscles. This was not like meeting the Seeker on the highway—I
didn’t have the usual sensation of safety that I felt around the gentle others of my kind. Again, the strange
conviction that she would live long after I was gone swept through me.
Don’t be ridiculous. Ask her your questions. Have you come up with any?
“So, what do you want? Did you request permission to kill me personally, Melanie?” the Seeker hissed.
“They call me Wanda here,” I said.
She flinched slightly when I opened my lips to speak, as if expecting me to shout. My low, even voice
seemed to upset her more than the scream she anticipated.
I examined her face while she glared at me with her bulging eyes. It was dirty, stained with purple dust
and dried sweat. Other than that, there wasn’t a mark on it. Again, this gave me an odd ache.
“Wanda,” she repeated in a flat voice. “Well, what are you waiting for? Didn’t they give you the okay?
Were you planning to use your bare hands or my gun?”
“I’m not here to kill you.”
She smiled sourly. “To interrogate me, then? Where are your instruments of torture, human?”
I cringed. “I won’t hurt you.”
“No. They just… they didn’t want to kill you until they had… consulted me. In case I wanted to talk to
you first.”
Her lids lowered, narrowing her protruding eyes. “Do you have something to say?”
I swallowed. “I was wondering…” I only had the same question I’d been unable to answer for myself.
“Why? Why couldn’t you let me be dead, like the rest of them? Why were you so determined to hunt me
down? I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted… to go my own way.”
She leaped up onto her toes, shoving her face toward mine. Someone moved behind me, but I couldn’t
hear more than that—she was shouting in my face.
“Because I wasright! ” she shrieked. “More than right!Look at them all! A vile nest of killers, lurking in
