The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Witch Hunt

"Don't lie to me, Sadie."

"I don't know how not to lie," I said before I could even think of what else to say. Maybe it was true. "I was unhappy with a lot of what was happening between Everett and me when I came to you, yes," I said.

"And now?"

"Somehow it's different," I said. "I think. I don't know." That was a lie. It was different now. It had been the perfect night, juxtaposed so severely against the worst day.

Cole laughed sadly. "I should have seen this coming. Back for one day, during which you endure unimaginable tragedy, I come here to save you, end up crying while you hold me, and within hours you're arm-in-arm with him. Man, what kind of spell does he have on you?"

"He wonders the same thing about you."

"I'm sure he does," he said. He no longer looked me in the eye.

"You don't have to stay. It was only because you wanted to stay that we brought you here, and because Everett wanted to make peace with you that he suggested finding a way to let you do it. But no one is forcing you to come here, be a part of our messed up life for us. For me."

"I know that," he said, kicking some dirt on the ground. "I just worry so much about you."

"And for that, I'm terribly sorry."

I would have said more, but as Cole and I rounded a corner of the city wall, we found Andrew sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall. "Give me a minute," I said and left Cole where he was.

Andrew didn't look up at me. "Andrew?" I said again. When he still didn't respond, I dropped to his side.

His eyes were bloodshot and had deeply drawn circles under them. He didn't just look as if any hope, any joy, and any love he'd ever felt had been stolen from him; he looked like the capacity to feel it had been erased from his memory.

"You came back," he said finally. When I saw Lizzie's body, I marveled at how old she looked for someone who had stopped aging in her twenties. But when I saw Andrew, haggard and broken, I only marveled at how young he looked. He was, after all, only 17.

"I did," I said.

He nodded sadly. "That's good. I'm glad you're back."

"How are you handling it?" I asked.

"There is nothing I can do," he said. "I heard that you went to see her."

"I did."

"That's good. She needs that. I have been too cowardly to see in her in such a way," he said, clearly disappointed with himself. "Death is not something our family is prepared to deal with."

There was nothing I could say that would be of comfort.

He sighed heavily. "It's going to be like this when the war comes, isn't it? Except 138 times worse." His voice cracked as warm tears began to cut through the dirt on his face. How long had he been sitting here?

"I think this will be the worst of it, actually," I reasoned. "It's the hardest because it was so unexpected."

"Sadie, child, it will not be any easier waiting to face this fate. In fact, knowing it's coming is much worse," he said, reaching his hand out to mine. Raven had said exactly this the night I met him. That waiting for death was worse than death itself. That it was the worst punishment he could give us.

"Still," I countered, "surely the war won't end in a total massacre. We can't afford to think that way."

"Can't we? We will lose everything. I've already lost everything," he said, and I understood this to mean Lizzie was his everything. But then he said, "You know we had a child, Lizzie and I."