24. Sawyer
SAWYER
“What are you thinking about?” Zephyr asks, her hand resting over mine, voice echoing off the concrete walls.
We’re tucked away in the basement of the Grove, some god awful orange mush in front of us being lit by a long-stem candle—a goodbye meal as she put it. It’s become too dangerous to keep helping me. She has no idea how much.
The corners of our chairs kiss as her leg rubs up against mine. Flirtatious. Seductive. Very Zephyr.
What was she saying?
She was just going on about something—some piece of gossip within the compound. Somebody fucked somebody’s boyfriend.
“You don’t even want to know,” I say with a wink, smoothing my hand up her thigh.
Her brows arch, two thin strips of blonde hair curving as if to say bullshit. She’s good at detecting it, most of the time. Unlike Luna, she never calls me out. “Is that so?”
I nod slowly and twist my body to face her.
She’s always pretty, but for our goodbye dinner, she’s outdone herself.
Long, sparkly earrings dangle all the way to her chin, visible with her hair pulled into a curly updo, like she’s on her way to prom.
Her red dress says likewise, and her face—normally bare—is covered in a heavy coat of the same makeup.
The same that I applied to Luna not even an hour ago.
With the thought comes an unwelcome flash. A glitch. Images flipping through my mind.
Luna with Aurelius.
His hands touching her skin.
Tears blotting her ice queen cheeks.
Her head held underwater, arms flailing as she struggles for breath. The last thought she’ll have before her body quits the fight, and the first thought she’ll have when she’s revived. If she’s revived.
My smile slips as a sharp pinch needles deep within my gut. When blood drains from my face, I hide in the warmth of Zephyr’s neck. My lips are no more alive than the churn of a machine.
A hand clasps my shoulder, soft and delicate and warm—the silver band of a ring pressing through the cotton of my shirt.
A princess-cut stone sets atop the band that’s feminine and fitting for Zephyr.
Not like Luna’s ring, bulky gold with an emerald stone.
Meaningful instead of ornamental. Lost. Stolen twice.
I promised myself I’d find it for her before I left.
I didn’t even look.
Zephyr pulls away. She lets out a half-hearted, bitter chuckle and turns her head when I look at her. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
“What?”
She rolls her eyes and picks up her fork. Stabs the orange mush three times before it’s clear she doesn’t intend to eat it.
This again.
“Babe… I don’t even know who you’re referring to. The girl?”
Her jaw tight, she says nothing.
“I feel badly for her. Am I not allowed to feel badly for her?”
Her head tips back with a humorless laugh she doesn’t explain.
I smooth my hand over Zephyr’s back and scoot until my thigh is pressed against hers. “Sweetheart… Come on.”
“Are you using me?”
I widen my eyes. “What?”
When she finally turns to look at me, there’s suspicion written in every subtle crevice of her face. “The past few days, you’ve barely been here.”
“Zephyr.” I laugh. “I come here every chance I—”
“But you haven’t been here.” She waves to the candlelit dinner. “Present. With me. Your head has been somewhere else, and yet, you show up anyway, asking me things just to tune me out… You’re using me. I know you’re using me. You just…” She shakes her head. Punches holes in a pea.
“If that’s the case, then why am I still here?”
“I don’t know, Sawyer.” She sets down her fork. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I care about you.”
My hands go up then fall to the table, dishes rattling. I speak with conviction. Passion, my eyes locked onto Zephyr’s.
Because it isn’t a lie—not fully.
Of course I care about her, as a person. Zephyr is fun. She’s kind. We play make believe so well together in the imaginary world she’s constructed for herself.
She never challenges. She never judges.
She is Luna’s opposite in many ways. All the ways I have always preferred.
So why then… Why is it Luna who won’t leave my head?
A horn draws both our attention to the small window lighting the basement. The muscles in my shoulders wind tight as the sharp needling sensation returns.
Luna’s ceremony isn’t until tomorrow.
Unless she fucked up, this isn’t about her.
But my mind glitches, again.
Luna spitting in Aurelius’s face, barring her teeth, running her mouth. A whore too impure for purification. A product of failure—mine and hers.
It’s time to go. Now.
“Is there a ceremony today?” My brow furrows as Zephyr and I stand.
She shakes her head, as confused as I am.
“Are they ever spontaneous like this?”
Zephyr plucks the candle from its holder and looks toward the stairs. “Sometimes… When someone gets sick, they don’t always announce their send-off.”
Their ‘send-off.’
The woodchipper.
“You should go first,” Zephyr says, turning to me. “Keep your hood low and go straight to the ceremony. There could be drones watching.”
“I thought you said—”
“Things change,” she snaps, like she’s annoyed with me for being naively hopeful. “They figured out that someone erased you from the database. Hence why this is the last time we can be together.”
The tension in her tone trips on her last words, neck arching with the emotion that slips. Two heartbroken faces in less than a day… And no time for comfort.
“I’ll be careful,” I say.
She frowns, red lips dipping low.
“See you in a bit, beautiful.” I go to the window where I came in. It’s high up on the wall, just a thin slot allowing light into the basement. I have to step on a chair to reach it.
“Sawyer, wait.”
I turn to look at her. She sets the candle back in the holder and wrings her hands in front of her dress. Her eyes shine with uncharacteristic nervousness.
“I have to tell you something.”
I hop off the chair and go to her. Take her troubled face in my hands. “Tell me after the ceremony, okay? We have to hurry.”
She forces a smile and nods before I kiss her forehead and go back to the window. She takes the stairs. Instead of walking to the front with the others, I scale around the back and pull my hoodie halfway over my face.
As soon as I touch the treeline, my legs break into a sprint.
Though, my mind stays at the compound. At the mysterious ceremony—the one I hope like hell isn’t Luna’s.