Forged(18)

Not any girl.

Emma.

She’s wearing a white sundress despite the cold, her hair hanging over her shoulders in tangled waves. She looks exactly the way I remember her the day we went to Claysoot’s lake and talked about birds. The shock I feel at spotting her here is mirrored on her own face. She backs down the alley, almost fearfully, shaking her head like she doesn’t want me to follow.

“Emma?” I call.

A group of teens pass by, momentarily blocking my view. When they clear, the alley is empty.

I drop the crate. “Emma!”

Blaine grabs my arm, but I shake him off and break into a run, the crate of water forgotten. Blaine’s shouts that I’m seeing things are swallowed by the wind.

I sprint down the alley and spot her at the next intersection. Her white dress is a beacon, screaming against the dreary shades of winter attire. I keep her in my sights, push my legs faster. I’m gaining on her—lost among the grid of streets given the number of turns she’s made, but gaining.

I round another corner. This road dead-ends. Emma spins to face me, eyes wide, then skirts into a building to her right. It’s a textile facility, or was. Looms tower, dusty and skeletal. Cobwebs cling to my face and limbs as I race after her. Beneath my feet, glass crunches, and a breeze drifts through the empty windowpanes.

I hear Emma trip on something. I duck between two looms to cut her off, and find her on the floor, one palm bleeding from the broken glass. She scrambles to her feet, but I’m faster. She cries out in surprise when I grab her arm and push her backward, but I don’t ease up, not even when I’ve got her against the far wall with nowhere to go. Her face is just inches from mine, and it looks exactly like her—that beauty mark on her cheek, her brown eyes gleaming—but so did her Forgery.

“When was the last time you saw me?”

She twists. “Gray, you’re hurting—”

“When was the last time you saw me!”

“In Taem. Outside my room. After Craw . . .” She trails off.

From my belt, I grab the flashlight I no longer go anywhere without. With a click it’s on and aimed at her eyes. She blinks rapidly, tries to shake me off. I keep her pinned there until I see what I need. Her pupils shrink under direct light, then expand when I move the beam away. Drastically. It’s her. I let go, and she pushes me off, rubs her sore arm.

“What is the matter with you? You weren’t supposed to follow me! Didn’t you see me shaking my head?”

“Gray?” Blaine’s voice echoes through the building, and a moment later he stumbles upon the two of us. His expression is nothing but shock—that Emma really is here, that I wasn’t imagining things.

“You have to go,” she says. “Before they come. They’re using me to get to you and you need to leave. Both of you. Right now.”

“You heard her,” Blaine says.

But I’m still staring at Emma, confused, bewildered. “Why did you even show yourself if . . . I don’t . . .”

“They’ve had me in town for a few days, hoping I’d make contact with you. I thought they were crazy—why would you be in some random AmWest town?—but they were holding my mother’s life over my head, so I played along. And then there you were, today, out of nowhere, just standing along the Gulf.” She pauses for a moment to really look at me. Tears pool in her eyes. “Please go. You can’t be here.”

“Gray,” Blaine urges, tugging my arm.

“I’m not leaving you again,” I say to Emma. “Come with us. We’ve got people that can keep you safe.”

She shakes her head. “They’re watching me. You have to leave.” The tears are streaming freely now, down her face, her neck.

“Dammit, Gray!” Blaine actually hauls me backward. I turn and shove him as hard as I can. He stumbles, and when he catches his balance, he is furious. “Will you separate your heart and your head for one minute? Use your brain! This isn’t right. We need to get out of here. Finish the trade and head back to the bookshop.”

“Screw the damn trade, Blaine! Screw the trade, and screw you.”

I turn back to Emma, but she is no longer alone. There’s a man restraining her, his grip tight on her wrist. I don’t know where he came from. I didn’t hear anyone else enter the building, but then again, I was yelling like a madman.

A second man steps between two looms. Like always, a smoke is pinched between his lips. He exhales in my general direction, then smiles.

“Gage?” I don’t mean for it to come out as a question, to sound so obviously stunned.

Emma is screaming for us to run, but there are two more men already bearing down on Blaine. I wish I had a knife, or a gun, or anything other than a worthless flashlight. All that’s left is my fists, and I don’t even have a chance to use them. When I pivot to face Gage, his arm is already swinging, a club barreling at my head.

The world snuffs out like a candle.





EIGHT


I THINK WE’RE ON WATER. It feels like the floor beneath my feet is moving separately from me. My hands are bound in my lap, but I’m able to reach back and check where I was clubbed. I find a massive welt and wince.

I’m lucky it’s not worse. I’m lucky I’m not dead.

“How are you feeling?”