Prologue
8 Months Ago
Journey
My skin was stillwarm from the sun blanketing me earlier in the day, only for the warmth to escape to a balmy night that smelled of wildflowers, pine, and bad decisions. The note crinkled in my hand as I stood underneath the glittering stars, waiting for him. I glanced back down at the messy scribbles again, rereading it for the fifteenth time in the last hour.
Meet me in the courtyard after curfew. 9pm. I want to talk in private before summer break.
There was alwaysthe option to stay at St. Mary’s Boarding School during breaks, even one as long as summer. A lot of the students here didn’t have much of anything, but there were some that had grand homes all over the country. Why they would stay here was beyond me. If I had somewhere to call home other than a poorly lit fortress and a crappy orphanage with what seemed to have a revolving door of adoptions for everyone but me, I would go. But I didn’t have anything to my name. Nothing but the uniforms the headmaster had graciously handed over and the blanket that Sister Mary knitted for me when I was too young to remember such a gesture.
Despite all of that, I was still leaving for a couple of weeks. The orphanage was never supposed to be a permanent home for someone like me, which was why I was sent to St. Mary’s in the first place. Sister Mary was the only family I had, and now that I was older, I knew she needed extra help to run the orphanage smoothly. The relief in her tone the first time I called her from Headmaster Ellison’s office to tell her I would like to come visit and help her during the summer was groundbreaking.
Except, this year was a little different. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to my old, creaky bed with chipping paint falling to the wooden floor every time I shifted in my sleep. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Sister Mary’s rosy, chubby cheeks curve at the sight of me. I wasn’t even looking forward to her scowling when I pretended to pray at the dinner table each night, knowing that I didn’t believe in such blasphemy. If there was a God, and he called me up to heaven after my unavoidable death, the first thing I’d ask is why. And he’d know exactly what I was talking about.
A light gust of wind wafted around me as I stood alone in the courtyard, open for anyone to see. Most of the students were already gone, as the school year had ended, but Cade always stayed. He and the Rebels never strayed too far. They liked order, and those boys had secrets that went as deep as the core of the earth. I was certain there was a reason they stayed behind, although I hadn’t asked Cade.
We were very much a beat-around-the-bush couple, hidden behind stone walls covered in dust and cobwebs, with lingering touches and scorching kisses. The note crinkled in my hand again as I grew anxious. I didn’t usually feed into the feeling of hope or excitement because when you’ve been hurt and disappointed enough times, you began to grow a thick skin with the realization that there wasn’t much point, but with Cade, things were different.
Maybe that was why I allowed him to keep me a secret.
I kept him a secret too, too afraid that the first whisper about what was happening between us would break everything we’d created.
So, what does he want to talk about?
Was he ready to stop hiding me? Was I ready for that? Was I ready to let myself feel something so big I couldn’t even fathom how it would break me if I was forced to let it go?
I shifted on the sandals that Sloane had lent me, glanced up to the high tower of St. Mary’s Boarding School, and felt a shift in the air when the clock showed it was past the time Cade was supposed to meet me. Nibbling on my lip, I looked over to my left and then to my right. Did he get caught by the duty teacher? We weren’t allowed out of our rooms after seven, but the Rebels never followed the rules.
Just as anxiety began to settle in my belly, I heard the breaking of a twig. Hope soared in my heart, and I didn’t have the strength to shut it down—just like it had always been with Cade. One tiny grin from him in my direction turned my world upside down, and that was the most terrifying thing I’d ever felt.
“You’re late,” I said, still keeping my back to him. A smile slid onto my cheeks as I flipped my long hair over my shoulder.
I stood there with my heart in my throat, waiting for his large hands to grip my waist. He’d spin me around and press his lips to mine, silencing every thought in my head, and I’d relish in the feeling he’d give me, because no one else had ever given me such a thing in my life. Ever. It was hard to ignore the feeling of being wanted when you had waited years for someone to want you.
Another twig snapped, and then another, and with each sound hitting my ears, my smile grew bigger and bigger. I was seconds from turning around because I couldn’t wait a single beat longer to see the slight glimmer of need in his warm eyes. But just as I tipped my head over my shoulder, a crack of shocking pain blinded me, and I fell to the cobblestone, still warm from the afternoon sun.
Slight glimpses of twinkling stars met me when my eyes began to flutter again. My head rolled to the side, my hair half covering my face. Stomach acid bubbled deep in my belly as I tried to figure out what had happened. The shuffling of footsteps snagged my ears, and I shut my eyes because the sky was spinning too fast.
Something heavy landed on me, but everything was blurry. There was a figure above me, but my vision strained too much to focus on anything except the glint of something shiny, and then my eyes were shutting again. When my head rolled to the side as I grasped for consciousness, I saw a set of black, shiny shoes. I was confused because I felt fear, and I wasn’t usually afraid. I was quiet and submissive to most, but I was tough on the inside. I had lost the ability to be afraid at the ripe age of eight, when Sister Mary told me that I likely wouldn’t be getting adopted because of my age. No one wanted an older child who often had screaming fits.
I had stopped allowing myself to be hopeful, and I’d stopped allowing fear to take me under. It always sent a shiver down my spine when adoptive parents would look at me out of the corner of their eye as Sister Mary told them about my history—which was nearly nonexistent. I was a ghost to most.
But I was afraid right now, and I had no idea why.
Why does that hurt?
My eyelashes fluttered again, and I cried out, pulling my arms back.
“Ow,” I said, but my voice was weaker than usual. I sounded like a mouse, barely making a noise. Slowly, I began to sit up, but my stomach rolled like I was tumbling down the green hills behind the orphanage again. I was dizzy, and there was a stinging pain. My fingers dug into the cobblestone courtyard, and they were wet. When I glanced down, righting my vision, I went to scream at the blood, but nothing came out. I laid my head back down, rolled over to my side, and tried to get up, but my arms were Jell-O. Wet streaks of blood trailed down to my hands, covering my fingers in a sticky mess of red. Tears fell and mixed with my cut flesh, and I knew right then…I’d been lying to myself from the very beginning.
I had hope.
I had hoped that, one day, I would be loved, and wanted, and have the life that I had always dreamed about on those cold nights at the orphanage where I thought I’d been fooling everyone with my ability to act bored and uninterested. I knew that, because fear like no other slammed into me the second I fell back down to the cobblestone, washing away every single ounce of hope I had.
I was going to die.
And I didn’t want to.