The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

83. Across The Border

RILEY

I JOGGED UP TO LAUREN as she strode along the foothill, under the rays of light beaming through the canopy. I wasn't sure how I ran faster than the rest of them, yet their walking strides remained longer than mine.

"Luc did something back there," I brought up, reaching her side. "He... We were surrounded by hunters and Wanderers just behind us, and he asked me to stop. He touched me and that's when the whole place took fire."

She slid her hands in her pockets, gazing ahead. "So that's how he managed it."

"Managed what? Is that something you guys do normally?"

"We just call it reverse healing. No, it's not something we typically do because there's typically no need for it," she said in a quiet, matter-of-factly tone, the same one she used in our classroom exchanges. "It's just drawing energy from someone else when we're low, either to heal or replenish ourselves in an emergency."

I stared down at my hands, flushed from the cold. "Like hunters who absorb mutant abilities?"

Lauren's eyes whipped to me and narrowed. "Luc and I can only do that when we're empty, and we never draw from someone until they're dead. I'm not sure it's possible to drain someone to their death like Wanderers do... not like we need to find out."

I was fine letting that question stay unanswered. After all, it was the same healing ability I was familiar with, just the flip side of it. A thought floated in my head, causing me to notice that Luc had never used the reverse process before for as long as I'd known him, even when he'd been beaten up.

"Does it have an effect on those who give it?"

"Nothing long-term as far as we know. It just depletes you."

I nodded, palms opening and closing as if to check that they were my own. Then, I stopped in my tracks, and it took a moment for Lauren to realize I was standing there. She glanced over her shoulder and halted, mirroring my posture with my arms crossed.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"Why are you still here with us? Just yesterday, you were ripping your brother apart. What's changed?"

She scanned me up and down, looking like she was weighing the words in her mind. Yesterday, her complexion appeared sickly and deadened, but it had improved despite the morning's utter chaos. Dark circles were still present, and her lips were bloodless, but her movements became lighter, more purposeful. I assumed she'd return to full capacity or almost by tomorrow.

I'd rather ask her this now than later, just in case.

"I was going to leave before we realized NIO found the cabin, and Luc would have let me go. But now, I have to stay." She gave a slow blink. "Things are too uncertain for me to leave you all alone."

None of this made proper sense. "What do you even mean? Do you understand how much your brother loves you? Do you have any idea what it did to him to see you come back and resent your family?"

Lauren's jaw tightened and she tipped her head in a silent warning, but I heeded nothing of it. If we wasted real energy on a fight, we would never make it through the border in time. She was as stuck as I was. And she was too smart to jeopardize what was at stake over me.

"I left everyone because it was him or me. NIO wasn't going to stop, so I made my decision. When I made my way back, I needed to show that I had no more ties to Luc. It was the safest option for you and for me, so that they couldn't use one to lure the other. And it was working until that idiot opened the damn flash drive."