The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [44]
“It seems so gray now,” he says, not taking his attention off me. “Don’t you think? Duller. In need of something more. Someone who can see the beauty of it, at least what it used to be.”
I pull my elbows in tight against my body and stare at the skyline. The rise and fall of the rows of buildings. I think about the canyons between them filling with Unconsecrated. I think about the way we all live, every day a struggle to make it to the next.
How useless it feels sometimes.
“What are you doing with my brother, Elias?” I finally ask Ox. “What do you want from us?”
His mouth twitches as he rolls onto the balls of his feet. “You’re not really his sister, are you?”
I know he’s waiting for a reaction and I refuse to give him one, but still I can’t stop wincing slightly. It’s unsettling having so many strangers know the truth about Elias and me. We’ve played at being brother and sister so long.
He stretches his hands behind his back, the image of a commander. “Thing is, I know a lot about you, Annah. And I know a lot about Elias too.”
“There’s no reason to know anything about me,” I tell him as I shift away.
But he stops me, grabbing my arm. I jerk back but he won’t let me go. It’s not until I stop struggling that he loosens his grip. “I know my men chased Elias and Gabry and the Immune through the Forest. I know that Elias sacrificed himself so that your sister and the Immune could get away.”
I wrench my arm free. “His name’s Catcher,” I snap.
Ox throws his head back and laughs. I scowl. “That’s all you have to say about it?” He wipes at his eyes, damp with mirth-filled tears. “You know how I know Elias isn’t your brother? Because that would make Gabry his sister too, which would be pretty sick since he’s in love with her.”
My throat closes.
Of course I knew he cared for her. That was evident when he punched the wall when he found out the Recruiters had her. But I wasn’t willing to admit to myself it was love. I refused to even let it occur to me that it could be love.
It shouldn’t matter that he loves her. He left me three years ago. That alone should have made me realize that he didn’t love me and never would.
But I’d hoped. I close my eyes and force my shoulders to remain strong and straight. It’s one thing to know a truth in your head but another to understand it in your heart. I’ve known that Elias wasn’t mine to love and I would never be his. But my heart has always wanted to believe differently.
I think about Abigail when I saw her on the bridge. Her clean hair and smooth skin. Of course it would be her he loves: my sister. My twin. The girl who’s just like me in every way except that she’s soft where I’m hard and she’s hot where I’m cold and she’s pretty while I’m hideous.
She’s perfect. And I am not.
When I open my eyes Ox is staring at me with a knowing look, as if he can read my mind. It makes my stomach roil. I don’t like this stranger thinking he understands me.
I jut my chin out. “Where is Abi—” I swallow the name I was about to say. “Where is my sister?”
He raises an eyebrow at me as if this is a game and I’ve just stumbled right where he wants me. “She’s here,” he says, waving his hand in the air. “She’s fine. She caused a scene on the bridge from the mainland and Conall brought her back here knowing Elias would eventually figure it out and take care of the rest.”
I press my lips together and stare back over the river to the City, watching how the clouds are slowly eating away at the top stories of the tallest buildings. Soon the snow will fall, turning it all into one bright blank canvas.
How long until every inch of it’s stained with blood?
“You’re a fighter,” he says. There’s respect in his voice, and it warms my skin, but other than that I don’t respond.
He leans forward and braces his hands against the short wall ringing the roof. “You can’t have survived in this city without fighting.” He glances at me. “Especially as a woman alone.”
I ignore him, but he keeps talking as if trying to provoke a reaction from me.
“If there’s anything I know about