The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [49]
He places his hands on either side of Abigail’s cheeks. His eyes eat every inch of her and he pulls her to him again, brushing his lips along her forehead and down her hairline. Over her ear and along the underside of her jaw until her mouth hovers over his.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t feel anything in my body because everything’s numb—except for the broken pieces of my heart. I feel as if I’ve been turned to dust, ready to be blown apart and scattered far away.
I tell my legs to move but they won’t. I beg my eyes to close but they refuse. I plead for this all to be a mistake. For Elias to be somehow confused—that it’s really me he thinks he’s holding—but then his lips form the name: “Gabry.”
At first I don’t understand the sound’s coming from me—an impossibly loud wheezing sort of keening—but Catcher hears it, across the courtyard, Elias and my sister between us. He looks up at me through the window.
I realize that, like me, he’s been watching the lovers—a desperate look of repressed desire marring his features. He starts toward me and that’s when Abigail’s head snaps up and her gaze collides with mine.
Of all the times I dreamed that my sister could still be alive, all the nights I stayed awake wishing on stars and praying to any god that would listen that I would someday see her again—that she was safe and warm and loved—I never imagined it would be like this.
I spin around and run. My feet slide over the concrete floor as I careen down hallways, randomly turning left and right, not caring about the footsteps chasing me.
Finally, I find my way outside, the bitter cold hitting me like a wall. Images and memories hurtle through my head: flashes of Elias and my sister overlaying memories of Elias touching me the night before he joined the Recruiters, his hand on my cheek, his fingers finding every part of me.
His lips touching hers. My sister’s mouth so close to his.
And my sister. Myself. Alive and here and soft-looking and pretty. My sister, whose eyes glistened with so much joy at being by Elias’s side.
I don’t even know what I want anymore. I used to want Elias home. I used to want the promise of safety and security but the Sanctuary feels more like a prison. I used to want to know my sister was alive, but I never expected that she would be that part of me that no longer exists.
Snow’s begun to fall from the heavy clouds and it stings my eyes, swallowing the sound of my steps. The entrance to a low squat building rears up before me and I slam against it, almost falling inside into pure darkness. Blissfully, I let it consume me.
I fumble forward, not caring that I can’t see, not caring that my feet stumble over uneven ground. I just need to move. I can’t stop my teeth chattering. The cold air seeps around me but even so, sweat breaks out along the back of my neck.
Behind me the door creaks open, a shaft of light cutting into my solitude. A figure just like me in so many ways hesitates before slipping inside. I want to tell her to go away. I want to tell her to leave me alone. But this is my sister. This is myself—missing for so long.
She’s so perfect. She’s what I desperately wanted to see in my own reflection but never did.
She’s also the reason I’m here in this city. The reason Elias and I were lost in the woods. The reason I’ve been alone for so long. If she hadn’t let Elias convince us to go through the forbidden gates and explore the paths in the Forest. If she hadn’t skinned her knee and refused to go farther. If Elias hadn’t been so afraid of getting in trouble because she’d gotten hurt.
She’s always been the reason my life fell apart so long ago. Why I can’t even remember the sound of my father’s voice.
She steps in after me and I retreat deeper into the darkness, weaving from side to side as I push away from the walls. I just want to be home. I want to be surrounded by my things and the long-faded smell of Elias and the way everything was.
I need time to think