The Ends of the World Read online

  “If you say it in that way—just power—you still don’t get it,” she finally called back. I could tell by her voice that she was still a couple of flights above us.

  I gestured to Omar, pointing him to the end of the hall, where we’d seen another stairwell.

  “Why, then? Why do you think you deserve to be the ones to rule the Circle?”

  “God, Avery. You’ve never even tried to understand,” she spat. “We’re the only ones who aren’t afraid to do what we have to to keep our family, our country, the Circle safe. We’re going to make the Circle great again, like we used to be, with our family at its head. It’s not about power at all. It’s about family. Our family. Your family, too, if you’d actually ever cared about your family.”

  We were getting closer to her. I held up the phone, wanting to capture everything she said. “It turns out I don’t believe in sacrificing other people’s families for my own family’s gain,” I yelled.

  “That’s where you and I will always be different,” she said.

  Stellan growled like a feral animal. I knew that was the last straw, and we had what we needed. I let go of him, and he took off up the stairs.

  When I caught up, he was on a circular landing. This floor was different. Here, too, one side of the building was gone, but the other led to what looked like a bathhouse, with sinks along one side and small rooms to the other.

  Stellan ran to the first door on the left hallway. When he turned the knob and found it locked, he yelled something in Russian and slammed his gun into the window that took up most of the door, shattering the frosted glass. Nothing. He ran to the next, and the next, smashing it. “Stop,” I called, running after him. “She’s not here.”

  “There is no stop,” he roared, and smashed not his gun but a bare fist through the last door. He turned, blood dripping from his hand. “Lydia!”

  Where was she? We were at the top of the building. Through the collapsed wall, I could see out over the ghost town below.

  Stellan ran down the only place still left to go—the hallway—and I had no choice but to follow. I held my gun ready, praying Omar had made it here to back us up.

  The hall dropped us in a small wooden room. A sauna. It smelled like rot and something sickly sweet. Stellan coughed. “Lydia—” he said, and coughed again. And then I coughed.

  “Get out of here,” I said. “Mold. Or something—”

  Suddenly, I felt the floor dip beneath me.

  I stumbled.

  She’s knocking down the building, I thought. That was her final play. She’d trap us—but the walls were moving, too. Not falling, just bowing inward, rolling.

  I swayed. Stellan’s footsteps running across the floor, his face in mine. My legs collapsed, and he caught me.

  “Avery,” he called, from far away. His blind rage had blinked off, just like that. He was terrified. For me. My head spun.

  “Kuklachka.” His voice dragged my mind back. I tried to stand. I couldn’t stand.

  Another jolt. Stellan shaking his head, blinking. The floor coming up to meet us as he collapsed, too.

  She’s drugged us, said a small, confused voice in the back of my mind. The virus? No. Some other drug. That’s why she brought so few people with her, because she knew she had this. One step ahead— And then, She’ll only capture me. She’ll kill Stellan. Everything in me shattered into panic. In my head, he had a bullet through his heart. In my head, blood was streaming down his face, just like my mom’s. Get up, I shouted to him, but only inside my head. Run. Leave me here. If you’re not okay, I don’t know if I can—

  And then Stellan and I were lying on the floor staring into each other’s eyes, but I didn’t know why. There was something I should do say think his eyes were so blue, blue with gold and that meant something, I knew it, but now I only wanted to touch his face. My hands wouldn’t move.

  He blinked, trying to talk, but it was a wisp I couldn’t catch. Just his eyes, his eyes watching me fall, like his heart was being ripped out. Mine too. He’d always understood me so well, I felt like he had one hand inside my chest.

  I looked down. He did.

  We were standing in a bright room, bursts of candy pink and lime green and electric blue and orange. Vines growing on the walls, dust and sunlight, moss and the thick, rich scent of mint and honey.

  Stellan had his fingers curled around my heart, still throbbing, dark blood dripping from his fingers to the floor, a gaping hole in my chest. He looked at it like it was something beautiful, precious. And I—

  I had his. Cradled in my two palms, warm, raw, just pulled out of his chest. “No,” I whispered, to him, to me, to both. “Put it back.” I couldn’t be responsible for this. It was too much. And I couldn’t trust someone else to hold my heart in their hands either, not after everything. It had been broken and patched together too many times; it was too fragile now. But I’d let him, hadn’t I? I remembered now. I’d let him hold it. Given it to him, even. And he’d given me his. It pulsed in my hands, beat beat beat, all color and warmth and life.

  “No,” I said again. He looked up at me, all blue eyes and dappled sunlight. I can’t lose you. You have part of me in your hands, and you will take it with you. The best thing is to put it back.

  Please. Put it back.

  I thought it was warm in here, but I was getting cold. “Put it back,” I whimpered again.

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and a jolt. I was blinking up not at the warm filtered light of the room with the vines, but at the night sky, and Stellan’s face. “Put it back,” I murmured again, shivering.

  “Kuklachka,” he said. I felt him set me down and lean over me. He was running his hands over my face, my hair. I reached up to cup his jaw, felt the scratch of stubble under my fingers. That warm room. Where were we? A name broke through the fog. “Anya,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “Omar,” he answered, and I knew that was good.

  And then I was awake, and I was sure of it because my head hurt, and my throat hurt. She’d drugged us. It had been a dream. Or a hallucination. My heart in his hands. I wanted to put it back in, sew us both up, pretend it hadn’t happened. It was written all over his face here in the real world that he thought I wasn’t okay and that his heart had been carved out just now. Mine had been, too, thinking Lydia could have caught him. He gathered me against him and pressed his forehead to mine, and we held each other, warm and alive, my lashes blinking against his cheekbones, while the stars spun overhead.

  I can’t feel this way about you, said the voice inside my head, admitting it even to myself for the first time.

  “I can’t not feel this way about you,” he answered. “I’ve tried so hard.”

  Had I said that out loud?

  A shout, and Stellan looked up. “I knew she’d follow us,” he said. “I sent Omar with Anya in the other direction.”

  I sat, unsteadily, then tried to get to my feet. The edges of my vision fuzzed again, and then there was nothing.

  • • •

  The next time I opened my eyes, I knew where we were. The plane. I was on a couch and Stellan was on the one across from me, watching me openly. A little blond girl slept curled in his arms. The roar of the engines and a slight shake told me we were already in the air. Safe. Away.

  Stellan was still staring, like he wasn’t quite sure if I was really awake. When I blinked a few times and lifted my head, he closed his eyes and murmured something under his breath.

  I sat up, and he leaned forward. “Be careful. You might still be—”

  Anya whimpered, and he cut off.

  I stood, gingerly, and grabbed the edge of the couch when a wave of dizziness hit. My bag was still across my chest, and I dug out contact drops.

  “Are you—” he said, but his sister made another noise and he got quiet, looking down at her like he was cradling a poisonous snake in
stead of a skinny blond child with bandaged knees sticking out from under a dirty blue dress.

  He didn’t know what to do with her, I realized. Even the way he held her wasn’t familiar, but stiff and awkward. I was surprised at first, but then I realized. He’d spent his whole life protecting Anya, but none of that time actually being her brother. He probably didn’t know much more about kids than any of us did.

  He glanced up at me, back to Anya again, like one or the other of us might disappear. I felt suddenly self-conscious. I looked down at my hands, expecting them to be coated in blood. It was a dream, I reminded myself. A hallucination, and an especially melodramatic one at that. Was the rest of it a dream? Had I really woken up outside, staring at the sky?

  Then everything that had happened before we’d been drugged finally broke through the fog. “Lydia?”

  “She got aw—” Stellan whispered. Anya stirred again, and he got quiet. “She got away,” he mouthed.

  So Lydia was still alive. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “Omar?” I mouthed back.

  He nodded to the back of the plane. We were bringing Omar with us, because it wasn’t like he could go back to Lydia. So it had worked. We’d planned to lure her to us, and Omar would take Anya as far away as he could before she figured it out. Us being knocked out was a wrench in the plan, but Stellan must have woken up faster than she’d anticipated.

  I stole a glance at him, and the too-open way he was watching me made my pulse stumble. Had we really said those things, or was that in the dream, too? If we had, did it count?

  I hugged my arms around myself, and when I touched my shoulder, it hurt more than usual. I looked down. There was a new bandage on it.

  I looked up at Stellan quizzically. He cut his eyes to the bar counter, where a first aid kit lay open. I still didn’t get it until I peeked under the bandage and saw a fresh slash across the healing bullet wound. And then I noticed a small puncture in the crook of my elbow, like there had been a needle there. She’d taken our blood while we were passed out—both in the medical way that made more sense and by slicing us open, just to be mean. She’d probably taken a lot. That’s why I was so dizzy.

  Stellan turned a tiny bit to show me his back. His shirt was soaked through with blood. I crossed the cabin, and he winced when I pulled on his collar to find a slash across his back, too.

  Even with his scared little sister to take care of, even with his own wounds, Stellan had bandaged me up.

  I stared down at his back, covered in blood. If she tries to take you, I’ll kill her, his voice said in my head. And, You make me feel too many things.

  I let out a long breath, then crossed to the bar and felt Stellan’s eyes on me as I gathered up the bandages and wet a bar towel with warm water. I brought them to the couch. He hesitated, then shifted enough that I could reach his back.

  I tried to reach down his collar, but the wound was too hard to get to, so I tugged on the hem of his bloody shirt.

  He cautiously extracted one arm from under his sister. Anya’s hair was stick-straight and pale blond, with one tiny braid woven through it. Through the blond wisps across her face, I could see scars just like Stellan’s, stark even against her pale cheek.

  I pulled at his T-shirt, working it off over his free arm with his help, and then over his head. He shook his hair out, and I let the shirt drape over his opposite shoulder.

  When I could finally see his whole back, my breath caught. Lydia had cut him right across his scars.

  He glanced back at me quizzically. I picked up the towel and cleaned the area as gently as I could, careful not to get his blood near my own cuts, just in case. I might not even need to do this. He healed so quickly. But I wanted to. Everyone should have somebody to put them back together when they need it.

  Maybe that was why I couldn’t stop feeling like I did about him. Maybe two broken people who put each other back together over and over made one whole. Because that’s what it felt like sometimes. Like all we did was patch each other up.

  I patted some antibacterial spray on the wound and spread a line of bandages over it, then picked the towel back up to clean off more of the blood. Instead, I found myself staring at his back. The scars, the two tattoos—the Dauphin sun at the base of his neck, and a sword running all the way down his spine. I touched the hilt of the sword, between his shoulder blades, with the very tips of my fingers.

  I knew the muscles under my fingers weren’t from hours spent in the gym. They were from the same places his scars were. From fights, from running, from wins and losses.

  I walked my fingers down the tattoo, gently. Stellan tensed.

  How much must it have hurt to have gotten this done over the scars? And what did it mean? He wasn’t Jack. He didn’t like being a Keeper. Why he had gone to this much trouble and pain to have a weapon tattooed onto him?

  I remembered something he’d said when we’d just met, right after he’d stabbed the man who had tried to kill me on the Prada floor. It takes more effort to kill with a dagger. You have to do it on purpose. Guns make it too easy.

  Maybe that’s what this was. It was something that was his, not theirs. A personal rebellion against the Circle, and against his own pain.

  I tried to stop myself. I tried. But despite my best intentions, I touched my fingers to my lips and pressed them to his back.

  I could see the side of his face. His eyes had fallen closed, and now they fluttered open.

  “We are both,” he breathed. “Destruction. Salvation. Both.”

  I’m in love with you, answered a voice inside my head.

  I stumbled back a step.

  He looked over his shoulder, brows creased. I could only stare at him, dumbly. The thought had short-circuited my brain. Oh God. I was in love with him.

  I’d barely let myself consider whether this could be a little more than just kissing, but just a little more was never going to happen. I’d probably skipped over that long ago. Now it seemed so obvious. This was why shutting Stellan out after my mom died had felt so terrible, and why having him back in my life now felt right. He had become my best friend, my confidant. He calmed me down and made me better, and I also wanted to make out with him all the time. What did I think that meant?

  I was in love with Stellan.

  “Kuklachka,” he whispered, because I was still staring at him, the dark circles under his eyes in that too-pretty face from too little sleep and too much worry, the small, concerned crease in his forehead. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded hard, because what else was there to do? No, I was not okay. I can’t feel this way about you suddenly meant so much more. After we do what we have to do, you could leave suddenly meant so much more.

  Confusion danced across his face. For once, he couldn’t tell what I was thinking. He reached for my hand. “Come here,” he mouthed.

  I looked down at the towel in my hand, not finished yet. “Please,” he breathed.

  He scooted carefully down the couch and I climbed up, tucking my feet under me and letting him gather me against him with his free arm. I tucked my head against his chest. I could hear the steady beat of his heart, smell sharp, coppery blood on his skin.

  Anya startled, but settled back down with a whimper, curling into a ball so her little blond head rested against my shoulder. I heard the tiniest catch of Stellan’s breath, enough to tell me he’d noticed, small enough to tell me he was pretending not to care. He pressed his face into my hair. Our breaths mingled with Anya’s slow, even, sleeping ones, and a few minutes later, when Stellan’s cheek touched my forehead, it was wet.

  CHAPTER 21

  From the plane, we’d sent the recording I’d made of Lydia to Elodie and Jack. Within an hour, the whole Circle had heard it. Some families said that we’d fabricated it. Some were calling for the Saxons’ heads. It felt like we were back to where we were just before the initiation, but that was a
vast improvement. Even if the Saxons did now have the virus and what they thought was the cure, if enough of the Circle believed us and started paying attention to where the threat was really coming from, we might be able to stop them.

  Anya was sitting at the far window of the car, her face buried in a stuffed gray-and-pink mouse we’d bought at the airport and her hand in her brother’s. I was trying not to stare at her—she had been an abstract idea for so long, and now here she was in the flesh, looking like a regular, overwhelmed seven-year-old girl. She didn’t speak any English, but I’d been giving her encouraging smiles since she woke up. All she’d done was stare at me, her huge blue eyes with a gold ring around them exactly like Stellan’s.

  For his part, I kept catching him watching me, curious and thoughtful, like I was something to unlock and he didn’t have quite the right key. He was sitting in the middle, his long legs splayed to fit in the small backseat. I was far too aware of the spot where his thigh rested against mine, of the roughness of his hand when he touched my arm to show me that the entire area around the Eiffel Tower had been cordoned off, police surrounding it.

  I loved him. I love you, I said experimentally in my head. Oh God.

  I hadn’t thought it would be possible. I was too scared of caring, way too scared of losing, especially now, when losing him was such a real possibility. And no matter what, there was no way I could feel this strongly about Stellan. Because I used to date his ex–best friend. Because he wasn’t the kind of guy I should go for. Because while I was thinking about his tongue in my mouth, my mom died. Because we were supposed to be married. Because we were the end of the world.