Page 43

AUTUMN

I t’s been three days.

Three days since the tunnel.

Three days since Summer.

Lucy is still nowhere in sight after having led me here.

The sun hangs low, casting long shadows across the ruins of our makeshift camp that’s nothing more than a fire because we left all our supplies behind.

Jace, Mars, and Caspian have scoured every inch of this place while I remained frozen in time, willing the small campfire to swallow me whole.

Every alley, every road, every broken building searched and searched again.

They take turns. One stays with me while the other two sweep outward, expanding the circle. They haven’t found anything.

No Lucy.

No leads.

Nothing but emptiness, and I’m sick of it.

I sit near the fire. The same hollow pit where we’ve been camped since the night we got here.

My hands pick at the frayed edge of the jacket sleeve Jace draped over me when he reappeared the second time.

I pull the threads apart without thinking, watching them unravel like everything else in my life.

The wind stirs ash from the fire pit, sending a thin plume into the air that makes my eyes water. Or maybe that’s just me.

The guys watch me like I’m about to shatter again. They hover. One of them is always nearby with something in hand. Water I won’t drink. Food I won’t eat. Blankets I don’t want. Nothing that will actually help.

I don’t want their sympathy. Their waiting gazes that track my every movement. Their fucking patience and protectiveness that makes me want to scream.

I want Lucy. I want the people who did this, and I want answers. The sniper said the brothers did this. Lucy said she has brothers. I need to find these damn brothers.

My teeth grind together so hard my jaw aches. I dig my nails into the threads of my jacket and yank until they snap. The small tear leaves the fabric unraveling. Like me.

I shove the jacket off my shoulders and toss it to the ground next to the flannel Mars left for me. My heart races. My throat tightens. The fire blurs in my vision.

“Autumn?”

My head snaps up.

Caspian watches from a few feet away, keeping his distance to give me the space they think I need. As though space will fix this. As though space will bring her back.

His pale blue eyes hold that soft concern that makes my chest ache. “You okay?”

That’s what does it. That one question. Such a stupid question. It’s like watching someone cut their finger clean off and then asking them if they want a band-aid.

“Do I look okay?” I say with words sharp enough to cut.

He straightens, but doesn’t fight back. He only takes the verbal lashing.

I grab my frayed jacket off the ground and hurl it against the fire pit. Sparks fly. I stand too fast and the world tilts. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, but I don’t care. “ I’m done sitting here. I can’t continue waiting anymore. Time is up, and I need to find her.”

“Autumn.” Mars steps in from the side. His palms face forward like he’s approaching a wild animal, which maybe he is.

I hold up a shaking hand. “Don’t.”

My chest heaves. I know they’re trying. I know they care, but their quiet concern is a weight pressing on my chest. I can’t breathe under it.

I’ve been drowning in it for far too long. I stalk toward the edge of camp. I need distance, air, anything but this neverending suffocation.

An engine growls down the road. Jace’s battered car, the one he introduced to a crowbar during his own struggles, limps into view.

The hood rattles with each bump on the ground.

The cracked windshield catches the dying light of the day, and one headlight flickers, threatening to give out any second, but the car runs against all odds.

“I’ll be damned. No wonder he’s been gone for so long,” Mars says, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

When Jace pulls up, he swings out of the driver’s seat with dust swirling around his boots.

He’s wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt now, and tosses a white shirt to Mars, who grumbles about how white isn’t his color before tossing it to Caspian instead.

Jace’s eyes find mine and something flickers there.

Hope, maybe. This is the first time I’ve stood up in three days.

He opens his mouth, probably to report another dead end, another empty building, another failed search. Or maybe to offer comfort I can’t accept, but I don’t let him. I can’t.

I turn away. Whatever Jace tries to say fades into background noise. If I let them hold me now, to comfort me, I might never stop falling apart, and I can’t have that. I need the anger. Need it burning in my chest and driving it forward.

Because if I’m not angry, all I have left is grief.

And grief won’t help me find the bastards who killed my sister.

Jace catches up to me later when I’m alone, leaning against the outer wall of the laundromat and staring off into space. Luna is the only one who hasn’t left my side. Jace doesn’t say much when he leans against the brick wall beside me, waiting for me to acknowledge him.

I don’t look at him, but I feel him. I feel his closeness; the heat radiating from his body, and the tension of everything he wants to say but won’t.

“You should eat,” he says after a long silence.

“I’m not hungry.”

His gaze burns into the side of my head, but I keep my eyes fixed on the horizon. “Autumn, you haven’t eaten in days.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

He pushes off the wall and steps closer.

I tense, and Luna steps in between us. Jace’s hand rises as though to reach for me, but I step away and his hand drops.

The way his jaw clenches and that flicker of hurt in his eyes almost cracks my resolve, but I can’t get lost in him, in them, the way I wish I would.

To let them be my most beautiful distractions. Not yet.

I turn my back on him and walk away, because I need to find Lucy. I need to find the ones responsible, and I can’t let anyone hold me together until I burn the world down first.

Unable to take the waiting any longer, I storm away from Jace. My boots crunch over broken stone and dead leaves. The same stone and leaves Summer probably dragged her rotting feet over. My fists clench so tight my nails bite into my palms, and I welcome the sting.

I can’t sit around here anymore. I need to move, to find Lucy and demand answers. Maybe track down her brothers and make them pay, assuming they know more than she had let on.

To my unfortunate luck, there’s nowhere to go. No new lead, no hot trail. Only the same broken roads and the same silence pressing in from all sides.

She should have been here.

I shove both hands through my hair and pull at the strands in an attempt to ground myself. It doesn’t work. Even when a few purple strands tug free, I hardly feel a thing. I keep walking. My steps grow sharper, faster, angrier. Nothing will stop me from finding Lucy, assuming she’s still alive.

The ground rushes up when my boot catches on a rock. It’s such a small thing, but it’s enough. I stumble forward and catch myself with a sharp gasp. Rage boils up so fast I can’t stop it. I snatch the offending rock and hurl it with all my strength. My arm trembles from the force.

“Dammit.” The scream tears from my throat.

The rock clatters against a dead tree. I grab another and launch it. Then another, and another. Each one flies farther and crashes harder, but nothing helps. Nothing will ever help.

I scream again. My throat burns raw, and every inch of me vibrates with helplessness. “I should have found her sooner. I should have saved her.” My voice cracks as I throw the last stone. My vision swims. “I failed her.”

The words come out hollow. My knees buckle. The ground rises to greet me, but this time I don’t fight it. Before I hit, strong arms catch me. Jace pulls me against him, wrapping me tight against his chest while I shatter yet again.

“No, don’t,” I rasp, but my fists curl into his shirt, gripping the fabric like it’s the only thing keeping me from drowning.

He doesn’t speak or try to stop the sobs from ripping out of me. He doesn’t push me away like he’s done so many times before.

I scream again. This time, his chest muffles the sound. My voice breaks on everything crashing down at once.

“I should have been there. I should have…she didn’t deserve this.” The words come out between gasps.

Luna whines nearby. Jace’s arms tighten around me. I bury my face in his chest, soaking his clean shirt with tears and snot and grief. My whole body shakes so hard I can barely breathe.

He keeps holding me through it all. His grip never loosens, even when exhaustion pulls me under, and unconsciousness flickers and fades. Even when I have nothing left to give.

He just holds on.