All That Remains

13. Jaelynn

With the revelations from the day before weighing heavy on their hearts, Jae and Elias set out early the next morning.

The sun had yet to rise when they exited their safe haven, climbing out the same window that Elias had entered through the night before. The sky was a mixture of pale pinks and blues. Dew drops clung to dry blades of grass, sparkling like crystals. Dim morning light illuminated their way as they trudged forward, relishing the cool morning air.

Despite the quiet surroundings and beautifully coloured sky, Jae was extremely irritable after a near sleepless night spent tossing and turning. She and Elias had agreed that it would be safer to sleep in the same room, so they had settled for the couches in the lounge that had not been particularly comfortable.

But, it wasn't her makeshift bed that had kept her up. It was her lingering thoughts on The Risen and the possible reason for the increase in sightings. Elias' words played on a loop in her mind; that they were gathering together, preparing for something big.

Were corpses capable of thinking that way? Were they smart enough to form an army of the undead?

She hoped not. Lorenzo was bad enough, and she was still unsure how they were going to deal with him. Moving his entire group had been both a smart and desperate move. It struck Jae as strange that Lorenzo was essentially running from a teenage boy who appeared as though he couldn't hurt a fly.

"I never wanted a sister." Elias broke the silence that had settled between them. "When my mother first told me she was pregnant, I told her to throw it away. I was twelve at the time and had no idea how much a sister could actually mean to you. The moment she was born, I was a goner. You have no idea how much I regret saying that now."

Jae turned to look at him. His head was bowed as he walked, as though he was weighed down by his confession. "You were just a child, Eli. You were too young to understand what it really meant."

"But, aren't we still too young, Jae?" He stopped walking, grabbing onto her arm and looking earnestly into her eyes. She could see the worry there, the fear and terror that swam through those dark depths. "We're only nineteen. We're too young to be involved in all this stuff with Lorenzo. I don't want this life for Eden. I don't want this life for myself."

"We stopped being 'too young' the day the corpses started crawling their way out of the ground," Jae countered softly, feeling unbearably sad for the broken boy in front of her. "Now we do what we can to survive. If that means taking out an evil man who's killing people, then so be it."

"And what we will become when it's over?" he asked.

Monsters.

The thought leaped into Jae's head before she could stop it, but she didn't want to say it out loud. Especially to Elias who looked as though he was one word away from falling apart completely. And was it really wrong of them to stop a man who was killing innocent people? Was it so terrible for her to want to live, one way or another?

Not monsters. Survivors.

She eyed him for a long moment, not wanting to give him an answer. "Eden knows that you love her, Elias." She finally settled for a completely different kind of truth, hoping it would satisfy and reassure him.

He let go of her arm, his shoulders sagging in relief as though that was what he had been waiting to hear all along. For a moment, it looked as though he might smile and leave the weight of their heavy conversation behind. Then he tensed up again, his lips turning downwards and a wrinkle appearing between his eyes. "Maybe she does. But what if she doesn't and I never get the chance to tell her?"