Insurgence [h.s]

sixteen

"We're ready to go."

Alouette jolts and turns around, slipping the message into her pocket. Gray is waiting in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. She looks into the dark building once more, trying to glimpse something between the shadows, but whoever left that message is either long gone or hiding. For a moment she considers asking Gray to help her check the warehouse once more, but then changes her mind. To convince him she'd have to tell him about the message, but her instinct tells her she shouldn't.

Without a word, she follows him back outside. She can't have been in there for too long—ten minutes at most—but the sun has risen and painted the few clouds scattered across the sky golden-pink. It's a deceptively good morning, and it puts Alouette on edge.

When they reach the car, Jayden and Brooks have managed to settle Elijah in the backseat and are sitting next to him. Jayden is looking out of the window, Brooks has set his head back against his seat and closed his eyes.

Alouette halts in the middle of the street. "We're going back to the Palace?"

Gray sends her a puzzled glance. "Where else?"

"I can't go back to the Palace." She shakes her head quickly. "I can't go back there, I still have things to do, still—"

He rolls his eyes. "You have no car, no objective, and you're being chased."

"I have to find my sister!"

"And there—" he points at the car, "—is your best lead. He disappeared together with your sister, he must know something. And we're taking him back to the Palace, because he needs a doctor."

"This isn't right."

"Listen," Gray starts, and from the tone of his voice Alouette can already tell he'll say something she won't like, "we conducted an investigation without the Palace's permission and found someone we'd honestly just assumed had been killed weeks ago. We're bringing him to the Palace, and if you want to find your sister, you'll come with us."

She opens her mouth to bite back, but he interrupts her.

"You're more than welcome to leave again afterwards, but I have to go back and I'm not leaving you out there to get killed."

A door of the car opens and Brooks's head pops out. "Can we get moving? I'm exhausted."

Alouette sighs and slides into the passenger's seat. She hates doing this, but she knows Gray is right—Elijah truly is their best lead, and he needs a doctor. He has to go back to the Palace, and if she wants to know anything, she has to go back with him. She sends a guilty glance at the backseat as Gray starts the car. She's been so worried about her sister that she's hardly thought of him, and thinking about it now makes her feel sick. He's done everything for her. He's fought and got hurt and he's betrayed Ezra, for her. She knew they were friends—they'd been for so long—but, deep down, she'd always thought his allegiance lay in the Revolution, not her. But when he was forced to make a choice twenty days ago, he chose her. He chose her, and she forgot about it—about him, almost.

She's truly let her hate and desperation devour all her light. This should've never happened—would've never happened, before. She can hardly recognise the person she is now. When the Revolution fell, she was destroyed in more ways than one. She wishes she could feel alive again—she's so tired of this deathless death.

Everyone is a bird.

She leans back against her seat and watches the buildings speed past her window. Gray's going so fast that they're nothing but a grey blur at her side. She forces herself to stop thinking, to shut it all down—it's easier this way. She'll deal with whatever all this means later, because she can't make sense of it as it is, and just having to try makes her even more anxious.