Creators(16)

Sharon nodded and pressed her lips together, pulling in air through her nose. I don’t know where in her mind she went during that brief moment of silence, but it certainly wasn’t with those in the room. When she returned, her eyes met mine. “One crisis at a time.”

“Lazarus said you needed us?” Eric called out from behind me.

“Louisa! What happened? Is she all right?” Lockwood called, clearly panicked.

“Lock, take this girl into the other room. There’s an extra cot out by the dining tables. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Sharon turned to me. “I promise.”

I blinked away tears and nodded as Lockwood bent down and scooped Louisa into his arms. My resolve, my control over the hurt and fear, was slipping.

…

Later that night when everyone was fast asleep, I scrounged up some paper and a pen and crept away from the group, calling back the skills I’d learned while sneaking around to see James. Back then, life had seemed so difficult. I was falling in love with a boy who was created to hate me. It was complicated.

Now, I longed for the problems of those days. Because back then, those problems only affected me. Now there didn’t seem to be anyone left untouched by the darkness. Not even Al escaped from it; he had embraced it, claimed it as his own, and it had taken his leg.

Sharon had yet to check in on Louisa. Hours after leaving her, she was still deep in the blood of Al and the other men shot during what felt like a part of some nightmare that never ended.

Blood.

Always so much blood.

It continuously hunted me, and I didn’t know how to outrun it anymore. I needed the hope my father offered. His words continued to move about in my mind. There was a possibility that I could speak to James through letters. Words. It was words that had brought us together in the first place. Sitting on his bed reading the outlawed passages of Jane Eyre, our fingers aching to reach for each other in between the space of the words we read aloud. What would I write to him? What could I say? How does one put their very soul onto the page?

I could only hope that the cool, brisk night air and the stars above would help me write my letter.

When my father and his men set up camp in the dining hall, and I was sure Louisa was safe, watched over by a trio of personal guards—Henry, Robert, and Lockwood—I pretended to fall asleep. It wasn’t long before the others around me went to sleep, too. We had traveled far, further than any distance measured by miles. It felt like we were constantly traveling from one world to another. None of us sure which we were meant to live in.

I welcomed the cool air that greeted me as I stepped outside of the dining hall. The makeshift command center had grown hot and stuffy. While living in the compound, I had gotten used to sharing cramped sleeping quarters with others, but there was something about sharing a space with a bunch of soldiers sprawled out on tables, their hands protectively around their guns even while they slumbered, that left me feeling antsy.

I grimaced as I took a seat on the wooden steps of the building that had served as everything from mess hall to courtroom to infirmary. My side was still sore from the stabbing. I leaned my head against a post. It was only then, alone with nothing but the crickets and other mysterious noises that made up the night’s symphony, that it all truly hit me.

Louisa. James. My father. McNair. Al.

My eyes pricked with unshed tears. I tucked the paper under my leg, so I wouldn’t lose it, then squeezed the bridge of my nose with my fingers, hoping I could force the tears back down. It was hard to swallow. Even harder to breathe. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head against them, my heart pounding painfully against my chest. Like a beacon calling for some ship distressed at sea to return home, wondering if it ever would. I clutched onto the fabric of my shirt, hoping, willing myself to reclaim control.

Even if my father could get my letters to James, they wouldn’t change our situation. We would still be apart. It would be easy to lose it, crumble. But I couldn’t believe that my destiny had already been written. Our last moments in the woods didn’t feel like an ending. The memory of him was almost enough to save me, but I wanted more than some idea of him.

I wanted him back.

I closed my eyes and searched my mind for something, anything that would quiet the fear that was screaming inside me. And then I saw him, the boy I now knew I would never stop loving. Even if I never saw him again, I would love James till my dying breath. If there was anything after death, I was pretty sure I would love him then, too.

I remembered our time together in the woods. I let the memory sweep over me like the waves that McNair had once told me he dreamed of seeing, waves that moved and crashed, echoing the feelings that made life, no matter how difficult it got, worth living—passion and freedom.