I thought you were gone, Pepper. It was bad enough to lose you the first time, but to lose you like that? I couldn’t have dealt with that.
He stares at me so darkly, so hungily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. “I do”, I admit.
Ironic, huh? To keep that part of me alive, I have to be close to that which kills it.
He feels it, too. His eyes widen. A lovely hazel. Green with flecks of brown and gold. The colors I love. The colors of the earth.
I wont let him have you.
You have my word. If you return with me, you won’t be harmed. I’d die first.
I have Will. Here, he’s my way back to the sky.
He steps onto the sidewalk and rocks on the balls of his feet. He looks beautiful standing there, and a familiar ache starts in my chest as I wonder how I can love and fear the sight of someone with the same intensity.
In my mind, I see Will. Think how he has become the mist, the sky, everything, to me. I do more than survive here. I love.
Sudden conviction races through me, almost terrifying in its total certainty. I can’t give him up. He’s the other part of me. He gets what it feels like to be separate from everything and everyone, to reject the path others lay out for you. We’re the same. Two sides to the same coin.
He couldn’t live without being a draki, and I couldn’t live without him.
The water is still and smooth. Polished glass. Not a ripple of wind disturbs the dark surface. Low-rising mist drifts off liquid mountains floating against a purple-bruised sky. An eager breath shudders past my lips. Soon the sun will break.
You can’t even see it. I’m the safest thing you’ll ever find.
The one voice I would hear even in death. A rotting corpse in the ground, I would sit up and take notice.
I wouldn’t have waited this long for you. I would have already showed up at your dorm the minute I decided I wanted you. I wouldn’t leave until I convinced you that you were mine.
Leaning down, he whispers for my ears alone. “Prove them wrong.
Run from me, Grier Hadley, and I’ll follow. I’ll track you down and find you.
What happened to you, baby?
Never forget that we are more than the genetic code. We can be more than labels applied to us. We can be more than what others whisper behind our backs. Free will exists. We need to choose to be the best we can be and we need to help others do the same. Believe in yourself.
Exactly what he wanted me to do. Exactly what they all thought I would do. Everyone in here. Everyone out there in the world. A world so afraid of carriers, it makes killers out of the innocent.