Burn (Pure #3)(69)

Birds or rodents? A fox? She remembers the stitched arms of the blind creatures that Kelly set loose—their roving eyes, the way they touched her hair. She shivers. It’s not them. She knows that, but she can’t shake the feeling of them touching her. What would they have done if she hadn’t gotten away? She draws her arms in across her chest and stares into the darkness, hoping for something small and harmless to reveal itself. Please be a bunny, she thinks. A little bunny. I could really use a bunny. The last bunny she saw was years ago, and instead of fur it had thick scarred skin, dark and wrinkled, its ribs poking through in warped slats. But it was still a bunny, with long ears and sharp front teeth, and it scampered off, afraid of her. Scamper off, she pleads with the bunny that’s probably not a bunny at all. Please scamper off.

The cold night sky shifts with dark clouds, thick with smoke. She wants to get out of the wind and sleep. That’s all. She’s tired—deep in her bones and joints. It’s a fatigue that seems to have crashed down on her.

More rustling. She crouches. Her adrenaline starts to kick in, but it’s not enough. She doesn’t have the strength to fight. She doesn’t want to be eaten here, mauled to death—not now. She pulls the backpack off and holds it to her chest. She looks down at the doll head, its glassy eyes glinting in the dull light, as if pleading with her for protection. She failed Wilda and the others—the doll head seems to know, and it’s as if it has lost some faith in her.

More rustling, footsteps. She grips the doll head and backpack and freezes.

And then she hears her name. The rough voice of Bradwell. She sees him, between two thin trees. He opens his wings, streaked dark with rain. “Pressia,” he says.

She stands up slowly. He came after her. She’s angry that he doesn’t have enough faith in her, but then she’s relieved to see him. Her heart kicks up.

“Look at me,” he says.

And she does: the meat of his shoulders, the long spokes of his collarbones, the twin scars on his cheek, and his eyes, his lips—all wet with rain. His skin, like hers, has lost the golden tinge from their time in Ireland. But the wings—that’s what he wants her to look at. Some of the feathers shine. Others are tattered. The quills are thick and strong. She says, “I see you.”

“All of me.”

“I see all of you.” He’s like a dream. He’s staring at her as if really seeing her for the first time in so long.

“I had to try to find you.” How did he track her down?

“I had to go,” she says.

“I know, but I didn’t get to say what I needed to.”

“And what’s that?”

He runs his hands through his wet hair. “You think I don’t imagine being inside that Dome, inside those academy classrooms, in the dance halls with you? I do. But not the way you do. You see yourself fitting in.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You think it’s possible. You can imagine what it’d be like to have your hand back, to have your scars gone. Me? I don’t have that kind of imagination. I can only see myself as I am. And every time I imagine myself there, I see how they would look at me. To them, I’m sick. I’m diseased. I’m a perversion of a human being.”

“You’re not any of those things to me.”

He rubs his knuckles together. She knows this is hard for him—excruciating. “We were born to die, Pressia. We’re the ones no one really expected to survive. So my life is a mistake; it’s only something that was given to me by accident. It’s not mine. It’s borrowed.” He walks up close to Pressia. He whispers, “Sometimes I think I’d go back if I could. I would bleed to death, bound to my brothers. But then I know I’d rather go back further than that. If I could, I would die with you on the frozen forest floor. We were wet and cold and naked. That’s how we came into this world. We could have gone out like that together.” He touches his forehead to hers. He closes his eyes. “I know why you did what you did. But now I’ve got that stuff in my blood, and I’m no longer who I am. You can’t love me.”

“But I do.”

He says, “Don’t.”

She says, “I’m trying not to.”

She reaches up over his shoulder and lets her hand run down one of his soft, wet wings. It feels silken. He touches the crescent-shaped burn curved around one of her eyes then cups the head of the doll in his hands.

“I can’t let you go,” he says.

She leans in toward him, close, the rain beading on her eyelashes. She puts one hand on his heart and can feel it pounding. “I have to.”

“I know.”

“How long will you give me before you use the bacterium?”

“Not long. Anything could happen to you in there. Cap was right about that too.”

“It’ll take me a day to get there at least. So how long will you give me?”

“I don’t know.”

“If I get to Partridge, I can get a message to you.”

“Within three days?”

“I can try.” She wants to kiss his wet lips. She misses him so much her chest aches. Tell me you love me, she wants to say. Tell me you love me like you used to.

And then he dips toward her and kisses her on the mouth, the rain still coming down. When he pulls back, she’s breathless.