The Reaping (2 page)

Jessa smiles at me, warm and radiant, and motions the refugees to the ladder. I guide them forward and, just as I instructed them, they climb the ladder one by one, as efficient as any military unit, until they all disappear into the sub. The talker looks at me. He can’t be more than twelve.

“Thank you, Terra,” he says. Then he’s gone. I smile. The thank you at the end makes everything worth it. I hadn’t even told him my name. Somehow the nomads have been passing it along and looking for me.

I hold my hand out to Jessa in the familiar sign to show her I love her. She smiles again.

“Love you, too.”

I turn to go, to melt back into the trees and lie low until I find more nomads who want a different life. I’m going to risk the cities soon. I suspect all the cities are like Seattle was—violent and cruel—and those people need a chance at happiness too. But before I can take two steps, Jessa’s voice stops me.

“You can’t go yet.”

The pack, of course. Jessa always brings me a pack filled with supplies. I depend on her because I can’t stockpile the cabin the way I’d like to. Her containers of emergency rations and silver pouches of water have saved my life more times than I can count. But Jessa’s voice is filled with a smile I can’t place. She’s never been so happy about a pack before. As I turn to face the sub again, I freeze. Someone stands behind Jessa, his familiar brown hair wind-whipped.

Jack.

I can’t move. My heart gives a lurch—it’s been frozen for months and isn’t used to this. My arms and legs are stuck in place. Jack has a pack in each hand—two packs, what can it mean?—and he gazes at me with such intensity that my breath catches. All I do is stand and stare, unsure what do. The last time I saw him, his eyes were so ragged with hurt that I couldn’t communicate a single word. What stands between us now? Seconds stretch out to minutes between us, and I still don’t know what it means until Jack swings his legs out of the hatch and climbs down the ladder. He splashes into the surf, and he crosses the distance between us in loping strides. He drops the packs when he reaches me, and after five months, my heart starts thumping to life.

Suddenly we’re tangled up in each other’s arms, we’re both trying not to fall into the sand and water, and I’m crying. My tears burn my chapped cheeks, but the pain focuses me on this moment. I squeeze him so tightly I think I might smother him. I let go of my anchor all those months ago and set myself adrift, and now I never want to let him go, and he’s holding on to me just as tightly. My heart about bursts with the words I’ll never be able to say to him.

I pull back. He has to know. No more waiting—I waited too long, and that’s a mistake I won’t make again. I look into his hazel eyes that are more gray than brown in the dimness, look at the faint freckles over his cheeks and nose, look at his hair that he must have been growing out since escaping the labor camp. It hangs in waves down to his ears. He
has
to know how I feel; I will make him know. There’s no way this chance will escape me again.

His eyes crinkle around the corners as his lips turn up.

“I know, Terra.”

Does he know the right things, though? I clutch his hands. Mine are cold from waiting—waiting on the beach for the sub, but also waiting for his warmth for far too long.

He laughs—that low sound I first heard in the settlement. I was so distracted by Dave, but I remember liking his laugh even then. He tips his head toward mine, and our foreheads and noses touch. He chafes my hands with his and brings them close to his mouth, breathing warmth on them.

“I know how you feel. I love you, too.”

I sigh. Now that he knows how I feel, I still don’t know what his coming back means. The packs make me hopeful, but I don’t dare hope for too much. I tentatively turn his hand palm up. I haven’t written anything on his hands for so long I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until now. The skin is smoother—the calluses earned on the Burn have faded. He must be doing medical work full time in the colony. His fingers tense as I touch his hand, but then he relaxes and they spread out as he lets me spell the words.

Are you staying?

He cups my hand in his own and traces a single word in my palm.

Yes.

He picks up the packs. I turn back and wave to Jessa one last time, and her smile flashes. She knew this was coming the whole time, no wonder she was smiling like such a goof earlier. She blows me a kiss and then closes the hatch, and Jack and I watch the sub bubble below the surface and the lights fade into the steel-gray water. We turn to the trees, and I take a pack from him and heft it onto my shoulders. He squeezes my hand once before we escape back to our woods. I wandered with him for months, and I never realized what I had right beside me. I won’t forget it now.

“Where are we going?” Jack asks as he runs beside me. His breath comes shorter than mine. He would have had an hour of physical fitness every day in the colony, but that routine isn’t the greatest preparation for this hike. The colony doesn’t account for things like trees to dodge and hills to climb. He’s out of practice, so I slow my pace. He shakes his head. “I thought I’d slip right back into this. It must be the elevation.”

I laugh.
Of course.

His fingers run down my arm and catch my hand as we jog. He raises our arms to shoulder height as we step around a tangle of brambles, just so he doesn’t have to let go.

“You never told me you had an assigned vocation in the colonies. Or vocations, in your case.”

We slow even more so I can write on his hand.
You never asked.

He flinches for a moment and squints ahead. “You never offered to tell.”

The words hurt, tearing into all those old pains that I’ve buried all this time. But he’s right.

I’m sorry.

He shakes his head. “I am too. I didn’t want to bring it up. I wanted all of that to be left behind.”

I grab his arm and stop him.
You’re right. I kept too much in. Didn’t trust you enough. What do you want to know?

He pulls me to him and his lips brush against my hair. He tugs on my hand and prods me into the lead. We break into a lope, single file this time as the woods close in around us. We follow a deer trail no more than a foot wide and the wet foliage bends in on us, streaking us with dew. Jack hasn’t forgotten how to tread quietly, and all the old mannerisms return in a matter of minutes—the light footfall, the alert posture.

“I’ll ask yes or no questions. Just nod or shake your head. We’ll have plenty of time for writing things out later. Where are we going, anyway?”

I pause long enough to write,
Cabin
.

Jack’s eyes light up. “The one where we found the sleeping bags?”

I nod.

“I liked it there. I’m glad you found it again.”

A bird cackles in the distance, and I whip around to face the noise. Jessa probably would have laughed at my paranoia, but Jack’s face is deadly serious.

“Is it worse than before?” He peers in the opposite direction, just like we used to scan our entire surroundings together.

I nod.
You have no idea.

“You’d be surprised. With the number of nomads you sent to the colonies, you’re probably the most hunted nomad in New America. Do you keep track of them?”

Who?

“The nomads. Do you know how many you rescued?”

I shake my head. It’s the last thing on my mind.

“Four hundred thirty-two.”

My jaw drops. All my time has been spent hiking to the ocean and back again and again as I found more people longing to escape. I could tell you how many days to which drop site, how many steps between scanners, but I had no idea how many people I’d sent to the ocean. Over four hundred. I must look pretty stunned because Jack grins.

“One of the nomads called you a Moses. Mr. Klein said you’d have no idea what that meant and I’d better explain it to you.”

Apparently even Mr. Klein knew Jack was coming back to me. My shoulders relax and I step closer to him. His arms wrap around me. I marvel how this all comes so naturally to us. After parting the way we did and not seeing each other for months, I thought a reunion would have been awkward at best. I look up at him, and his full lips part as he catches his breath. He sees me watching and turns from my face. Well, maybe we’re still a little awkward.

He runs a hand through my hair. “I like it. You look good with short hair.”

Thanks.

“How far to the cabin?”

Two days.

“Your days or mine? You probably noticed I’m not used to this.”

My days.

“We’d better get going then.” Jack squints to the sky, looking through a break in the trees. The sky is heavy with dark clouds. “It looks like rain.”

We stop for the night in a copse of young trees. There must have been a fire here a few years ago because all the giants give way for these slender pines. I don’t want to light a fire, but Jack’s teeth are chattering. He shakes his head when I offer to collect firewood.

“We can’t light a fire. Not here.”

We are.
I won’t relent on this. I remember how cold I was the first night I came from the colony. I wasn’t used to anything colder than seventy-two degrees. Jack looks miserable as he wraps a blanket around himself and shivers.

“Well at least let me get the wood since I’m the one who can’t take the cold.”

The wood is wet and the fire smokes and hisses at us. Jack wraps an arm around me, and I burrow against his side, trying to give him some of my warmth. We’re both snuggled down into our sleeping bags, and I pull mine up to my chin. The nights are chilly, but with summer only a month or two away, we won’t need the fire much longer. Jack hums into my hair. The melody is soft and sweet. I can’t place the song, but I don’t want to ask him what it is and have him stop humming. The crickets croon in the background, and with the soft pat of rain falling, I’m surrounded by an orchestra that sings straight to my soul. Jack absently runs his fingers through my hair as he hums, and his head bobs once or twice against mine. I turn to him.

Sleep.

His lips turn up just at the corners, and he shakes his head. “I don’t want to. I’ve missed you.”

I know exactly how he feels, but we both need the rest if we’re to reach the cabin tomorrow. We could stay this way for just a few more minutes though. I take his hand and watch the firelight flicker across his skin. His shirt sleeves are pulled up to his elbows, the edges still wet from washing in a stream. I run my fingers along his arm, and he closes his eyes and lets his head drop to his chest. He’s exhausted. I’m tired, but I couldn’t possibly fall asleep right away, not with Jack so close to me. Before we were imprisoned in the labor camp, I had grown so accustomed to his sounds at night—his breathing, his light snoring, the unconscious murmurs—that I couldn’t sleep without them. Now I have to learn to live with him all over again. I’m not complaining. Far from it. Jack is fascinating when he sleeps. His eyes dart behind his lids. Dreaming already? I smile. He did a good job keeping up with me today and not complaining.

I look at his arm. A small line just barely lighter than the rest of his skin mars the inside of his forearm. The scar from his first tracker, the one his father cut out for him. Next to it, so slight I can barely make it out, is the scar from his second tracker—the one given to him in the labor camp. A doctor in the colony must have removed it. I slide my arm next to his. I removed my tracker just as he would have done it for me, but I only had the scalpel from Gaea and my own grit to take away the pain. My scar is jagged at one end where I didn’t dip the blade in far enough on the first go, and the line is puckered in the middle where the suturing left something to be desired. It casts a faint shadow on my arm. I don’t mind, though, because it means I’m free from the government. They had me once—tracked my every move, tracked my every meal, tracked my every breath it seemed like. Now I’m out in the woods again with Jack beside me.

I suck in a breath until my lungs feel like they could burst. The smell of rain, pine, and smoke fill me. This is how it should be; this is right. I turn my head to rest against Jack’s chest and close my eyes. Thunder rumbles in the distance, percussion to the music still playing around us.

Chapter Two

Another rumble of thunder stirs me, and my eyes flutter open. The night is still dark with no hints of the gray light of morning. The rain has stopped, and the occasional drip on the forest floor tells me that it was raining only a few hours ago. The smell is still fresh. I gaze between the trees and see stars piercing the blanket of dark sky. The stars are dazzling when they shine so clearly. The clouds blew off quickly, I groggily think to myself. I still haven’t quite woken up yet. Thunder drums again. My brain is processing the sound. It hasn’t stopped since I heard it the first time just moments ago. Why is there thunder if there are no clouds?

I sit bolt upright, my breath coming in gasps, my hands already gathering my sleeping bag as I worm out of it, my body instinctively reacting to what my brain was too groggy to realize. Jack is slower to respond. He’s lived in the comfort of the colony, and isn’t used to the paranoia anymore. His eyes drag open.