22. Sawyer
SAWYER
Luna doesn’t breathe heavily. Her strides don’t shorten. She never stumbles.
It’s impressive… Emasculating, but impressive.
Hiking is in my blood. It’s my thing—the first thing that drew me to my island, all steep hills and sunset waterfalls. I’ve hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, trekked Chile’s Torre Del Paine, climbed Africa’s Kilimanjaro.
But I’ve never met anyone with Luna’s lung capacity.
“Are you a runner?” I ask when I can’t hold the question in any longer.
I slow my gait when I spot the trip wire, the same one from my earlier scout while my solemn athlete was apparently starving.
We’re only three thousand one hundred and forty nine steps away from where I turned around. Maybe four thousand from the mines.
After all this time, after countless hours spent in this forest, it took one flippant slip from Zephyr to find them.
She appeared like a ghost in the forest this morning—creepy as hell but not unlike her. On the walk to the compound, we caught a glimpse of a Keeper on the mysterious path I still had not been able to track.
“Where are they headed?” I’d asked, expecting nothing from the question. Light fishing, mindlessly almost, nothing but a reflex.
“The mines,” she’d answered promptly.
“Ah.”
“I feel bad for them,” she’d sighed. “It’s a three mile hike, a whole mile past the cave you had prepared for the prisoner. The poor Keepers used to get caught in the traps so often that we had to remove them from the area.”
All this time searching… only for it to be in the exact spot I hadn’t looked, that I never would’ve looked.
I’d been following the minefield, convinced the traps were to keep people from the money.
But the traps aren’t for the money.
They’re for the babies.
The mines are protected solely by the Keepers, so many of them in the area, I turned around. It’d be a disaster to get caught by myself.
But with the girl… On an innocent hike through the forest…
“Yes,” Luna says.
I squint and turn my head toward her.
Right. I asked if she was a runner.
“For endurance. I’m not big into runner’s high, but I like to keep my body prepared for anything.”
Obviously.
She steps in front of me despite my instruction to stay behind, let me watch for traps. Her pace is faster, strides more even, graceful. The flashlight I brought is off and in my pocket, so only the last sliver of sun lights our way.
“In about six-hundred steps, the boobytrapped area is going to thin. Until then, you should stay behind me.”
Six-hundred-forty-two steps. Approximately. Add a few for her shorter legs.
Pausing, she gives me a strange look before falling into stride beside me. “You’ve been out here before?”
“A few times… It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I gesture around the woods like I’m appreciating nature. It’s not hard. I’d live outdoors if I wasn’t such a bitch about the cold.
“Uh huh.” She isn’t convinced. Probably because we’re walking very pointedly through a fucking minefield. Lying to Luna would be easier if she were dense.
It’s strange that she doesn’t ask me where we’re going or what we’re doing out here. Strange but not surprising.
Over the last few days, she’s been unexpectedly pleasant.
I expected her to push me, snap at me, unleash rage she no longer has to hold inside, now that the training room is off the table.
It took a day for me to realize what it is she’s trying to do.
I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so busy cringing.
She wants me to fall for her. And is foolish enough to believe I’m capable.
She thinks she can stroke my humanity, feed my ego, and hold my hand all the way toward the exit where she’ll burn me the second she’s able.
She thinks she’s a manipulator. Two nights ago, when I crawled into bed beside her at half past midnight, it became obvious.
She’d rolled over to face me. I was stunned for a moment, my eyes locking with hers in the dark. I wondered how they could captivate me even while shadowed.
“Are you okay?” she’d whispered in the sweetest voice I’d ever heard.
I’d nodded and asked her the same.
“You’ve been gone all day. I was worried something happened…”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Luna. I promise. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Her lips curved upward as she scooted my way. She pulled hair away from her face before gently resting her hand beside me, her middle finger grazing my pec in an intentionally subtle way. “What about me?”
The way she asked it… The tone of her voice…
It was intentional. Intentionally sweet. Intentionally innocent. A lie, if a question could ever be that.
I was grateful for it. I’ve never been so grateful for someone’s dishonesty.
I curved my lips into the same sad smile she donned and nodded. “You’re fine, beautiful… I promise.”
And so began our little game.
In the tense moments we were together, I listened to her talk about herself like she was finally opening up, noting every inflection in her voice that told me she was lying.
Like… She doesn’t live in New York. Or if she does, she hasn’t been there long. I caught it in a simple slip up when she mentioned taking walks from her apartment in the city center to central park. When I asked her to clarify, she mentioned Manhattan.
No New Yorker calls it the city center. It’s just the city.
Simple slip, but it was enough.
I asked if she was from there, and she started to spin a story about long summers in Florida with her grandparents and going to a school upstate.
She mentioned loving the beach, and I smiled ear to ear while I faced away from her, undressing for bed.
She said she was from Miami, the East side when I prompted, and I told her watching the sunset from South Pointe was one of the most glorious sights of my life.
She agreed, claiming she and her grandmother would watch it from the front porch, a game of chess set between them.
You can’t watch a sunset from the East side. Only a sunrise.
And the little slips went on and on. The more she pretended to reveal, the more I smiled and slipped in random nonsense of my own.
She wanted more, so much more. I was glad to be away, and when we were together, I shifted from amused to guilty.
Amused at her attempts, guilty because I understood why she was doing it.
“So, I should tell you…” I wipe sweat off my forehead. “This is our last night together. Aurelius has informed me that tomorrow evening, he’s planning on having you brought to the Elders’ home…
“I’m not suggesting training, but… I think it might be a good idea to do a little trial run of your ceremony tomorrow morning.
Just to run through how to act, what you should say.
What facial expressions to make and when.
I can’t stress enough how important it is that you get everything right.
These people will be easy to fool, so don’t worry, but—”
“You know, Sawyer, somehow, I think I’ll be fine. Believe it or not, you aren’t the only one capable of pretending to give a shit about something. Or someone.”
I glance at her, wishing she’d lift the scarf she’s wearing back over her mouth.
The drones work by facial recognition, and while my face has already been wiped from the system, Luna’s hasn’t.
If I were comfortable getting caught alone, I would’ve left her at the house.
I’d rather not get caught at all, if possible.
“Okay then.” I huff. “Glad you’re prepared.”
“Besides, you’ll be right there with me at the ceremony. Right?”
I flick my gaze at her perfectly straight face. Nothing in her eyes suggests that she’s testing me.
“Of course I’ll be there… I just want to make sure you’re prepared. I’m not pretending to care about you, Luna. I—”
Her loud exhale cuts me off. I don’t even try to finish.
I stop abruptly and throw my arm in front of Luna to prevent her from going any farther. I keep my eyes focused in front of me. When she furrows her brow, I point at the spot of disturbed earth. “Bear trap under the leaves.”
I walk in front of her carefully and take her arm to guide her around the trap.
When I look at her, she isn’t focused on the ground like I’d expect.
She’s staring down at the burn scar on my arm, her face hardened like she’s annoyed.
Or angry. Or full of hate. Probably a mixture of all three.
She looks like she’s picturing me swallowed up by flames and wishing the fire had finished the job.
When she notices me staring, she points her gaze forward. We walk slower even as we’ve passed the heaviest section of traps. I know where most of them are. The cult might believe they’re clever for having them, but for someone like me, they’re nothing but convenient markers.
“I’d ask how you got your scars, but I know you’d lie.”
My burns inflame just from her words, like the fire is licking me all over again. It’s funny. At the time, I hardly felt it. So much adrenaline pumped through my system that pain, while present, was dulled. It was afterward that the pain became severe.
“Why do you think I’d lie?”
She answers immediately.
“Because you lie about everything.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I keep my eyes on the ground and look as though I’m concentrating on not snapping our legs. It amazes me that she doesn’t seem worried. It speaks to the work that we’ve done. Whether she likes it or not, her trust for me is deepening. At least physically.
“Is it a compulsion for you or do you just care that little about me?”
I’ve been content with ignoring her, but the pain in her voice has my ears perking.
“Neither.”
Luna laughs bitterly, kicking up leaves as she strides without a trace of sweat on her forehead. “Okay.”
A drop of moisture rolls down the bridge of my nose, tugging gently on the tip. I wipe it away with the sleeve of my hoodie.
“I lie when I need to lie, Luna. Don’t take it personally.”
“You lie because you’re a liar. You’re lying right now.”
And you aren’t?
I don’t voice the question, however fair.
Because I don’t think the lies alone are bothering her.