Page 32 of A Million Suns (Across the Universe 2)

As Doc leaves, Elder gathers the Shippers together. “Shelby, see if there’s any kind of vid feed of this area from when the girl was attacked. Buck, I’d like you to track down any Feeders in the area and question them; maybe there were witnesses to what happened here. ”

I open my mouth. I want to say: I’m breaking, and I need someone to hold me together.

But no sound comes out. I feel the hands around my throat, crushing my windpipe. I swallow dryly. He’s not here. Not anymore. He killed her and left.

I try to speak again. I should speak, I have to speak.

But I can’t.

Instead, I run.

My body thrills at this—I haven’t run in ages. I’ve been too scared to go on my daily runs, but now I’m not running as I would for exercise. I’m running as if the force of the wind whipping around my body will be enough to keep all the pieces of me from crumbling.

Past the fence, down the path, past the soy fields. When I get to the main road that connects the Recorder Hall and the Hospital, I go straight to the Hall. I don’t know why. I should hate this place. The last time I saw Luthor, it was here, in the Recorder Hall. But I’m certain, more certain than anything else, that the clue Orion left for me is here, and maybe if I can find that clue, I can also find something to make things right again.

I’m still running as I enter the Hall, pass the groups of people pouring over the wall floppies, and head straight to the fiction room. I throw open the door so hard that it bounces off the wall, and I don’t pause until I reach the shelf that holds the book I’m looking for.

I slide the heavy book off the shelf, panting in an effort to catch my breath. An image is pressed into the front cover. A girl, a tree, and a smiling cat. The binding is cracked with age, the illustration faded. My heart races as I carry the book to the table in the middle of the room. I collapse into a chair and let the book thunk heavily on the metal tabletop. I can imagine Elder’s look of disdain at the way I let it slam against the surface. He treats books like treasured, rare things, and I guess they are, but my father used to dog-ear books and read them until they fell apart, and I like his method better.

I flip the book open and read the title page.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

by

Lewis Carroll

Collector’s Edition

Annotations & Literary Criticism © 2022

I’ve seen this book before. Not this exact one, but copies of it. It was required reading for the AP Literature class at my high school in Colorado. I planned on taking that class my senior year.

We left Earth before I had a chance to finish eleventh grade.

Those textbooks were brand new at school. Now this one is falling apart from age, despite the climate-controlled room it’s stored in.

I snap the book shut, and a tiny cloud of dust rises up. As I breathe in the musty scent of old pages and dry ink, the thing inside me that I’ve been trying to keep together breaks.

I let my head fall down to the book, pressing my face against the illustration of the Cheshire Cat’s wicked grin, and I sob, great, gulping sobs that choke me. And I think about the last time I choked, on tubes as I emerged from the slushy ice when I melted, and then, later, as Luthor’s arm pressed into my neck. And then all I can think about is how the girl at the rabbit farm choked too. And suddenly, I can’t get enough air into my lungs, just like she couldn’t get enough air into hers.

She died, alone and scared. I’m not dead, but I’m still alone and scared.

19

ELDER

“FOUND YOU,” I SAY, PUSHING OPEN THE DOOR.

Amy sits in the middle of the gallery on the second floor of the Recorder Hall. Her knees are pulled up to her chin and her arms wrap around her legs. A thick, old book rests beside her, open-faced but ignored. The art room is cluttered, sculptures and paintings from last g

en’s artists stacked on one side and rows of canvases propped up on the other—mostly from Harley, but a few from some other artists. Art isn’t exactly respected here on Godspeed, and although Orion had made something of an attempt to turn the collection into a proper gallery, he’d been much more focused on books than paintings.

“How did you find me?” Amy asks as I plop down beside her.

I tug at the wi-com around her wrist. “They have locaters, you know. ”

She nods silently. Her head falls against my shoulder, her long red hair spilling down my arm.