Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dahlia
The Redwind isn’t incredible, windmills are not remarkable, glowworms are just bugs, and Spero is not hope.
He is just a baby.
I stare at Tomar’s hands gripping the steering wheel; the stretched skin over his knuckles is white, and his fingers have his blood smeared across them.
The rearview mirror holds the fading image of Lagos, although he is long gone, and we are miles away now. I am terrified that if I look into the mirror long enough, I will see him standing there.
What if he ran after the truck?
What if he killed them all, broke their bones like he promised he’d do, knowing I would sigh with relief because they were not mine or Spero’s… And now he’s trying to get back to me. To say goodbye… That is all we were going to do anyway.
Say goodbye.
But he did say goodbye.
“You were my great experience, little flower.” His depthless timbre echoes between my ears.
“He will live, right?”
Tomar stares ahead. “I don’t know.”
“He will escape, and you will find him.” I don’t ask this time—I state. I demand. Demand The Cradle, The Crust, our very existence to abide by my words.
“This was the only way. Trust me.”
Trust is such a fragile thing, because when it’s paired with something unacceptable, like grief and loss, then it becomes flimsy. And I hope Tomar is wrong. I don’t want to trust him because I want him to be wrong.
I stare out the windscreen again, but everything seems… Bad. Sad. Wrong. The whirlwind outside is just a horrible vortex that swallowed up my heart when it consumed Lagos right before my eyes.
Every moment that passes drags me further from him, like a chasm opening up between us. The Redwind blurs as more tears rush down my cheeks, then sobs break from my lips, and I shake violently, no longer holding it inside—I love him. I love him so much that I pretended it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t prepared for a goodbye, least of all one like this.
All this time, I silently clung to the idea something would happen, a new development, a magical safehouse for us to grow old in— My world tilts. I quietly hoped that Lagos would choose me over Tomar and the people he helps… When all along, The Cradle had a sadder fate for us.
“You love him… Oh, Dahlia…” Tomar chokes my name out. He tries to speak, but each word barely breeches his lips. “I will look for him. I will look for him, and I will bring him to visit you. I promise.”
It feels like The Cradle is crumbling around me, and I am willing to be buried.
“Take me back to the farmhouse!” I cry. As I say it, I know it’s just a broken plea. It’s too late. I just want to curl up on our pile of blankets and inhale his scent, disappear into the memory of us and forget reality. I could waste away in that memory.
Wracked with sorrow, I barely notice when we enter a large tunnel.
Rushing grey concrete blurs through every window. The Redwind has disappeared, but last-light dots a distant exit. A portal to my new life.
‘To be with my own kind.’ His words. ‘Learn to farm.’
My heart drops.
I want to throw myself from the truck and run back, but I don’t. I have Spero. I need to keep myself together for him.
Just like I did with Maple a month ago, I ram the sorrow down, force through gritted teeth the perpetual imagery of him stepping from the truck, press his last words into the back of my mind, lock Lagos The Rogue into the sad chambers of my heart.
The truck slows down, rolls, and then stops. From the gullies of the tunnel, five human silhouettes cross in front of our vehicle. Even in the shadowy channel, I can make out the shape of rifles in front of them. I might have been scared once, but now I feel very little.
“Only the girl and the infant.” A female calls, her voice crystal clear. A perfect drone of authority.
Tomar turns in his seat; one of his nostrils is plugged with congealed blood, and his shirt is stained around his collar and spotted across his chest.
My wide eyes meet his glowing blue ones, and I realise this is it—the last time I will see him. What should I say?
Nothing is enough.
“It’s happening too fast,” I whisper, my voice a quivering mess.
I watch his throat roll as he tries to hold himself together. “I will look for him. I will die looking for him.”
I nod. “You’re my friend.” It’s a silly thing to say, but… It’s everything.
“I hope so,” he says and leans back to run his knuckles down Spero’s cheek, “Goodbye, special boy.”
I can’t do this. Fear seeps in like ice, so I have to move, act, or everything I feel, grief, sorrow, despair, will solidify and leave me paralysed.
I grab my beibao and bundle up my tiny burden before I slide from the truck. Clinging once again to the motions of merely moving forward, I walk toward the strange woman.
One step.
Two steps.
Goodbye, Tomar.
One little death.