The Gate

Chapter 14

Faye was tense as she followed Errika and the boys through the woods, her feet making the underbrush crinkle beneath her feet. 

Everything around her seemed so loud.  Like if they did more than tiptoe their way toward the Government building, they would be found and shot.  The animals skittering around the forest did nothing but set her on edge.  She found herself constantly spinning around, praying that no official had found them.

And, luckily, no official had.  For the past half hour of walking, everyone remained safe.  Alex and Errika took the lead, standing the front of the group.  It looked so natural for them to stand together, Faye couldn't help but notice.  Like there was something that pulled the two together, intertwining and binding them.  Faye didn't know what the bind was, but there certainly was one.

"How much longer until we get there?" Seth asked softly from in front of her, his eyes shooting over to Kole.  Kole stood next to Faye, his arm nearly brushing hers.  "Are we close?"

"We're getting closer," Kole said, shrugging.  "I don't know how much longer, though."

Faye could feel it—that they were getting closer.  The small hairs on her arms were sticking up, shivers running down her spine.  The sense of something wrong was beginning to swim through her again, and in a moment Faye knew that the ice would be freezing her veins.  But she would have to push past it—the ice.  It was the only way that she would be able to make it through the Government building.

Faye didn't have many rooms to cover—at least, not as many as the others.  Whether it was because they didn't think she was capable of going through as many rooms, or whether it was because they knew what effect the Government building had on her, Faye wasn't sure.  But she didn't care.  It made it less likely for her to screw up with fewer rooms. 

"Are you going to be okay?" Kole whispered in her ear.  "I know what the Government building did to you last time."

Faye gulped down her unease and nodded.  "I don't have a choice," she replied.  "They killed Terra."

And that was the only thing that kept her feet moving.  The only thing that made her shake off her fears of being caught, of being murdered by the Government.  The fact that they took her sister away from her.  The fact that they would be something so demented, so vile, so cruel.  Everyone had a right to know what their Government was doing to them.  She would finish what Terra started.

No matter what.  She would finish what her sister died for.

"Guys."

Faye looked up along with everyone else as Alex pointed forward, and her insides froze up immediately—so much that she couldn't breathe.  She took deep breaths, struggling to get the air in as she stared down the Government building, willing the ice in her veins to melt.  It had to melt.  She had to go inside.  She had to succeed.  She had to.  She had to.

"We're here," Alex breathed.

They were there.

The | Gate

She sifted through the video clips left by the cameras, her hand resting on her chin.  So many images were captured on the cameras, so much surveillance to go through.  But she didn't really care about any of that.  All she cared about were the boy and the girl that met at the Gate.

The two met constantly, she'd come to know.  And then the girl had gone onto the other side.  When the girl and boy hugged, she almost squealed with excitement.  The thought that the two genders were actually together—together—She just couldn't believe it.