HOW MANY ANSWERS YOU SEEK ARE JUST A PART OF YOU, WAITING TO BE FOUND?
The game has changed.
Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human in New York while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought wit...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I LAUGHED CRUELLY. "EVERETT WINTER, THAT IS THE CRUELEST THING you have ever said. Pretending one of my family got hurt is lower than lo—"
"Sadie, I'm sorry. But I'm not pretending."
"Do you even hear yourself? It's impossible. We can't die," I argued, willing this to be true. For the first time in my life, I wanted it to be true that no Survivor could die.
"You can, and she has. We've known all along that there had to be a way to destroy a Survivor. And now it's happened," he said. His words were measured and smooth, but sadness permeated his voice.
"Maybe she's just sleeping," I reasoned, and my voice cracked. I knew it was impossible, a hope my mind dangled cruelly. A lie my brain told for me.
Everett caught me in it. "She hasn't been to sleep since 1689, but you think she's chosen now to take a cat nap?" he asked incredulously. "She's dead, Sadie. Really."
I sat silently for a moment, thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
"But . . ." I whispered.
"I'm so sorry, Sadie," he said. "So sorry."
I HUNG UP THE PHONE WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD. I DROPPED IT, ACTUALLY.
When I stumbled. Before I caught myself. Before . . .
Before I felt it.
My brain went to this funny place. A place where I could actually feel pieces of it shutting down as if to protect from the viral grief that was about to hit it. A place where the shapes around me softened and the lights blurred to give everything an angelic, dreamy effect. As if to say This isn't real. How could it be real when the world looks like this?
And I stood there for who knows how long, totally still, and enjoying my last moments of composure before the inevitable shattering that was to come.
Lizzie dead? Any of us . . . dead?
No. No. I told myself. You can't go there yet, I said. There are things to do first. I made a list of them in my head: Plane ticket. Get dressed. Get to airport. Don't fall apart on the plane.
And then what? Get off the plane. See everyone I've been avoiding. Return to the place that's killing me. See Lizzie dead.
I stopped making lists and pulled up the airline's website. I booked the next flight. I slid quickly into clothes. I took my traveling bag, and then I looked around Cole's apartment.
Only seven minutes had passed since I got off the phone with Everett.
Seven minutes? Is this what time was going to feel like with no Lizzie? How much harder would immortality be if it moved at this pace?
