Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

“I just try not to think about it,” she said. “My mom . . . she said that everything bad goes away eventually. You just have to want to stop thinking about it, Tom.”

Tom seemed to consider the idea. “Maybe that’s my problem then. If I stop looking at it, that means I’ll stop looking at her. I guess I haven’t been able to look away for a very long time now. Maybe I never will.”

“It’s only been a couple days,” Luke said.

“No, Luke,” Tom said. “It’s been months and months and months.”

“What are you talking about?” Cindi asked, mystified.

He was quiet so long she didn’t think he would answer, but then he said, “Afghanistan. There was this school. For girls, actually, but people were too afraid to send their kids because the Taliban, the warlords, the local leaders . . . they’re against that kind of thing. They don’t want their girls educated at all. They’ll burn schools, gas them, kill the teachers. They’ll do whatever it takes. So we marched in there and guaranteed the village that we would guard their kids and keep that school open, no matter what. Only that’s not how it worked out.”

“Oh.” Cindi flicked a quick look at Luke, who only shook his head, and then turned back to Tom. “What happened?” “They bombed it.”

“You mean, like, from a plane? Or an RPG?”

When Tom shook his head, Luke asked, “So was it a suicide bomber or something?”

“Yes.” Pause. “And no.”

“I don’t—” Luke’s voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat. “I don’t understand. How could it be both?”

“Because,” Tom said, and then he craned his head around to look at them. “They wired the bombs to the children. Two of them: a little boy and a little girl.”

“Oh.” This time the word came out as a horrified moan, and Cindi felt her heart drop into her stomach. “Oh no. How old were they?” And, God, did that matter?

“I don’t know. No older than six or seven. Whoever rigged these bombs was very good. There wasn’t enough time to disarm them both, only I didn’t figure that out until almost too late. I had, maybe, thirty seconds left? So I had to choose. I had to decide which child was g-going to live and wh-which one I would l-let . . .” A silence, and then Tom’s voice came again, angrier this time: “They were forcing me to choose which child was worth saving, don’t you see?”

“Oh Jesus,” Luke said, and Cindi wanted to grab his arm and shout, Don’t ask him which one he chose! Don’t do it!

“I see that every day,” Tom whispered. “I dream it. I hear it, I smell it . . . the heat coming off the rocks, and the dust, and my friend shouting for me to cut the wire, cut the wire, cut the damn wire . . .” Cindi heard him pull in a long and shaky breath. “At the last second, when I’d made my choice and it was too late, I still looked back because I thought it would be wrong to look away, that someone should remember . . . and I s-saw . . . I s-saw her f-face . . .”

The girl, then. She was the one who . . . Cindi could barely breathe. What did you say to something like that? She tried to imagine what that was like, to watch a little girl just blow apart. Her mother had never let her watch movies or play computer games like that. What made people think that killing, even when it was pretend, was something you should do for fun?

“The memory is like blood. You can wash and wash and wash, but the shadow of where it was is always there.” There was a long pause. “You should go,” Tom said. His voice was dead and toneless now. “Really. I’ll be all right.”

“Well, I’m not,” Luke blurted. His face was very white, and his eyes were pooling. “I don’t think I will be again for a long time. It’s my fault. I made you leave. If it hadn’t been for me, you would’ve stayed. Maybe you would’ve gotten to her.”

“Probably not,” Tom said, and Cindi thought that if a voice could be a thing, then Tom’s was a stone. “She was too far down. We’d both be dead.”

You want to be. She knew that now, beyond the shadow of a doubt. You wish you’d died instead.

“It’s no shame to choose life, Luke,” Tom said.

“Then you should follow your own advice,” Luke said, and now tears splashed his cheeks. “Because I want you to stay alive and I’m scared you won’t. I’m scared you’ll kill yourself, and I know that it’ll be because of me.”

“No,” Tom said. “It would be on me. But you don’t have to worry, Luke. I would never do that to you.”

Maybe not now and not here, Cindi thought. Maybe when Tom finally looked away, he’d wander off to die alone. Just go lie down somewhere and let go.

As if hearing her thoughts, Luke said, “But if you don’t come back, I’ll never know. I’ll always wonder. I told you I couldn’t leave without you then, and I won’t go without you now or when we march.”

“March?” Tom asked.

“Mellie says we need to take on Rule soon,” Cindi said, and thought, These are kids. Tom is good—I know he is—and he’ll want to help them. “She says we have to rescue those other kids.”

“There’s nothing in Rule for me,” Tom said.

“Not even that guy, Chris Prentiss?” Luke said, and Cindi grimaced. This might be the wrong thing to say, but Weller and Mellie had told them all about Chris, and he sounded pretty bad. “Weller said Chris must’ve sent out Alex so the Chuckies could have her. Don’t you want to make him pay for that?” Luke said. “I would.”

“Oh yes,” Tom said. “I do. But that’s what scares me. For the first time in my life, I really want to kill. I want to see Chris Prentiss die, up close. I want to be the last thing he sees on this earth. I think I would enjoy killing him.”

“Well, why not?” Luke said. “He deserves it.”

“We don’t know that. I don’t know him. But I’m . . . I can feel myself . . . changing.” He balled a fist over his heart. “Right here. I don’t want this, and yet I do. I’m afraid that if I go to Rule, it’ll change all the way.”

“It?” Cindi asked. There was nothing good in Tom’s voice now.

“This monster in me,” Tom whispered. “I feel it. I think that if I go with you, I won’t be able to stop it. Maybe I won’t want to even try.”