Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles #1)(90)

Then there’s a jarring motion when whoever is carrying me jumps from the steadily rocking platform we were on, to something soft and crunchy. The jar tears at my shoulder and I want to scream, but no sounds escape me. It’s all echoing in my head.

Soon, the steady sound of footsteps and the new, different rocking motion put me back to sleep. Back to the dreams of pain and blood.

I wake when a sharp pain in my arm tears me from my nightmares. Mother! is all I can think.

There’s some type of glasses over my eyes. Everything is a shade of gray. I try to claw them off, but my arm won’t cooperate.

“You won’t want to take those off yet, Miss,” a deep voice says. “Your eyes haven’t adjusted to the light here and we don’t want you to go blind on top of fixin’ up this here wound.”

I turn my head and the first person I see is a withered old man with dark skin and silver hair. I start thrashing around, trying to get away. I won’t let him get me. I have to get away. Find … someone, and get away.

“Shh. Evie, it’s okay. He’s a friend. He’s going to help you,” a familiar voice says.

I look around to find the source of the voice. The room is familiar, yet not. The furniture is all strange and metal. The room scares me more than the strange man. I stop searching when I see a face I recognize. A young man with dirty blond hair and gray eyes.

He smiles when my eyes latch on to him. He reaches out and cups my cheek. “How are you feeling?” he asks. He kisses my lips and pulls me closer into a hug without waiting for an answer. “Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to be too late.”

I don’t say anything. I’ve no idea what to say. He hugs me tighter and his mouth sends tremors throughout my body when he leans in close to my ear.

“I love you,” he whispers.

My eyes widen. He loves me? My stomach flutters, but I don’t know why. How could he possibly love me? What does he want from me?

I stutter out the only thing I can think of to ask. “Who are you?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



I’ve been here for a few days now, yet I still can’t remember anything from before then. Flashes now and then, but nothing substantial. Nothing that I can say I know is the truth. The only thing I know for sure is that here is not my home.





—FROM EVIE’S JOURNAL





I’m on the Surface. I finally made it. I try to look at the sun as it sets, but the bright orangey yellow is still too painful, even with my dark glasses. It’s beautiful, though. Like nothing I’ve ever imagined. More than I could ever have dreamed. I like sunset best, when the light doesn’t hurt my eyes so much, and the heat of the sun is bearable on my pink skin.

The doctor says my sunburn would fade faster if I stopped going out into sunlight, but how can I? It’s fascinating and wonderful and irresistible.

Mother was wrong.

I let the wet sand dribble through my fingers, enjoying the rough wetness. Then I tilt my head to the side and wonder who Mother is. I picture a woman with honey blond hair and a pretty smile, but I know that’s not who I’m thinking of.

I sigh. Why can’t I remember anything?

I glance down at the clean white bandage on my shoulder. It has something to do with this, I know, but all I can remember is getting shot and then hiding inside some kind of ticket booth.

It hurts like crazy. I have to have it packed every few hours. Not exactly an enjoyable experience, but if I don’t do it, I could get an infection. That’s what the doctor tells me.

So I do what he says and hope it heals soon so I can go home.

Home? I don’t even know where that is.

It surely isn’t here, where all the people save one are unfamiliar. Where even the sea and sand is strange. I have visions of glass and metal walls. Hard, concrete floors. Not the wood and metal structures built haphazardly a few meters from the shoreline.

Right now I’m stuck sleeping in what I’m told is the hospital. When I heal completely I’ll be allowed to live elsewhere, but for now I need to stay near the doctors. It’s not much of a hospital as far as I can tell, just a few small, worn rooms. But the people who watch over and take care of me are kind. I’ve been here only a few days, but they already count me as one of them.

“You’re Gavin’s,” one girl told me this morning when I asked her why everyone was being so nice. “That makes you ours.”

I don’t know exactly what that means, but I have to admit it’s been on my mind since she said it, and it makes me happy.

The sound of footsteps crunch behind me and I jump up and spin around, half afraid the monsters from my nightmares are coming for me. But I relax when I see Gavin walking toward me with his hands in his pockets. He comes every day, but only when I’m sleeping. At least that’s what I’ve been told by one of the girls who takes care of me. Apparently he doesn’t want to pressure me.

But I’ve missed him, somehow, and I wish he had come to see me when I was awake sooner. It gives me tingles in my stomach just to see him.

“Hi,” he says, and kicks some sand with the toe of his shoe.

“Hi,” I say back. Although I’m enormously pleased to see him, I’m shy as well. I sit back down and clasp my hands together in my lap.

“Can I join you?” he asks.