(Updated every Sunday by 6pm EST)
It's chaos when the others get back from shopping and find the dead bodies in the cabin. Grocery bags are discarded by the door as questions and accusations begin to fly. The Blank, Timothy Bertrand, had never actually been a confirmed flipper. He tagged along with one of the dead kids who'd flipped a couple of months ago, claiming he'd done so a week before then. With everything that was going on, no one questioned it.
"How do we know he flipped either?" Janie accuses, glaring at Jones. "He doesn't have an ability. For all we know, he's inactive, too."
Marcus crouches over by the Blank, studying him quietly. He turns the kid's face to the side. I note the familiar blood trickling out of his ears. Confirmation of what he became. Jones hasn't moved from the floor in the last couple of hours. His close brush with death seems to have drained him. That, or the frustration he took out on the corpse of his attacker.
"Go to hell," Jones barks. "I don't owe you any explanations."
Janie walks over to Marcus. "You know I'm right. Jones came to us, claiming he flipped way back after we got out. You're telling me his ability hasn't manifested after seven months? I call bullshit."
"I gotta agree with the lady," Pablo says, arms crossed as he leans against the doorframe. "We tried to play nice and let everyone in, no questions asked. Look what it cost us."
"I'm not a goddamn Blank!" Jones shouts as he leaps to his feet. He stalks toward Pablo, red in the face. "You think you're such a hotshot, huh? Well, if your shitty ability was worth a damn, you'd be able to see the truth for yourself."
"My ability is telling me you'll get knocked on your ass if you don't back the hell up, kid," Pablo retorts.
"I say we throw him out," Janie says.
Pablo snorts. "And let him blank and kill people?"
"You mean like how she killed people?" Jones jabs a finger my way. "Come on, guys. It's a matter of time before it happens again. We've been living with a ticking time bomb and you're coming after me? She's the one you should be getting rid of, not me!"
Janie frowns at that, and I'm almost certain Marcus's shoulders stiffen. I know there's little chance Jones's words will make a difference, but I still feel a spark of fear. Uncertainty. Damn. I was really hoping this wouldn't turn into a discussion about whether or not I deserve to be here.
I know Pablo and Janie have nothing against Jones, and Jones has nothing personal against me. Everyone's running on fear and adrenaline right now. They're jumpy, likely to do something we might all live to regret. Best thing to do is to keep my mouth shut and not spook anyone into pulling the trigger—figuratively or otherwise.
I lean back in my chair and massage my brow. So much for safety in numbers. A couple of days ago, there were two dozen of us. Now we're down to just six. We can't seem to catch any breaks.
"You all need to calm down," Willow says, ever the voice of reason. Her nose is red and raw and her eyes are puffy from all of the crying she did earlier. "We've lost enough people as it is without attacking each other."
"What's wrong with you?" Janie asks her.
Willow looks away. "Nothing."
"Marcus, what do you make of all of this?" Pablo asks impatiently.
"I'm not interested in this conversation." Marcus stops inspecting the dead kids and walks over to us. "Help me get them out of here."
Jones blanches. "We're not actually staying here, are we?"
"That depends. Anything from Hermes yet?" Marcus asks me.
His obsidian eyes are dull and flat. I shake my head, trying to figure out what's going through his head.
"You think Hermes knew what was going to happen?" Janie asks. "It's not a coincidence that he sticks us out in the middle of nowhere and a couple of weeks later, someone Blanks."
"He probably did," Pablo says with a nod.
"I'm not sure I like seeing you playing nice, Pablo," Janie says, eyes narrowed.
He leers back. "That's not what you said last night."
"Guys, focus!" Jones hollers, practically hopping from one foot to the next.
"I think we should wait," I finally chime in. "Hermes wanted us here for a reason. Maybe he wanted to make sure we'd all flipped first."
"Except you," Pablo reminds me snidely.
I look at him dead in the eye. "I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what I am. Don't forget that I'm your only connection to him. And clearly we need him or someone else to tell us what the hell is going on. But maybe before he was willing to do that, he needed to make sure there was no chance the rest of his kind could infiltrate our group."
"You think he knew someone was going to blank?" Marcus asks.
"If he's the Source of our abilities, it stands to reason that he's got the ability to see the future like Pablo, only better," Janie answers.
"I don't think he could see the future," Willow says. "The Shroud can't be that powerful or we'd all be in serious trouble. What if Hermes brought us here because something about this place makes people blank sooner than later? Like, this place exposes us to the Shroud's influence more than anywhere else."
Janie blinks. "You've lost me."
"Think of it this way," Willow explains. "The closer you are to a Wi-Fi signal, the better the connection. I'm assuming their ability to mind control people gets stronger with proximity."
"Okay, hold the damn phone," Jones says, shaking his head vigorously. "You sound like you're saying we're close to the Shroud right now."
"It would explain why he insisted we stay here and wait."
Chills break out over me. That actually makes sense. My nightmares about being buried alive, the ones where I wake up shaking and sweating and having to remind myself to breathe, have been more intense than ever. There are new details: encompassing white light, bone-chilling cold that seems to reach deeper into me than winter ever did, a steady thrum that sounds like electricity in my ears. And the emotions. The helplessness, the feeling of suffocating to death a thousand times over.
If these dreams have anything to do with the Shroud, and they've been getting stronger, it must mean one thing.
They're here. Somewhere.
We decide to stay at the cabin. We all chip in and take the bodies out into the woods at the back of the house. It's one thing to hear about dead strangers on the news, and quite another to touch and feel them. Hold a foot, slide your hand under hips, feel the silky texture of hair on the back of arm. It takes everything in me not to drop my load and bolt.
The others head back into the cabin except for Marcus. He sits on the porch, an open can of beer on the floor beside him as he stares at the twilight sky. That distant look in his eyes has eclipsed his expression. I want to know where he's gone, but I hover awkwardly by the front door until he blinks and looks at me.
"Want some?" he says, nudging the beer can with his foot.
"I'm underage."
"Old rules don't apply. Isn't that our motto?"
I lean against the railing and cross my arms. "We should come up with something better, like Never stop trying. Or Be the best version of yourself you can be. Something that doesn't feel like we're giving up who we are."
"Hmm." He picks up his can and cradles it in his lap, staring at a spot just over my shoulder. "I believed that, once. That thing about being the best version of yourself. I've learned you can't just wake up one day and decide to turn over a new page. You've got three hundred other pages worth of crap to carry around with you."
"But you're trying," I say, thinking of everything he's done to lead this ragtag group of lost kids.
"I was."
I tilt my head, my voice softer. "I know this team means a lot to you. These people with us—they're more than just soldiers. They're your friends and family. I'm sorry about what happened today. I wish I had been here. I should've—"
"You couldn't have stopped the Blank," he cuts me off. "It would've been over in the blink of an eye. He would've shot you before you knew it." Marcus's eyes flick to my face, deep and bottomless in the darkening night. "No, I'm glad you weren't here."
My breath catches. This is the closest he's ever come to saying he cares about me. Before I can figure out how to use this moment to bridge the divide between us, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to read the message from Hermes.
Tomorrow is another day.
"Bastard," Marcus mutters when I show him the text. "It wouldn't kill him to say what he means, would it?"
I put my phone away, not bothering to text back. I already know he won't end this thrilling mystery by responding. "At least now we know why we're here. He wanted to expose the Blank among us."
Not that I'm going to be sending him a thank-you any time soon. He could've warned us of what he was doing. Then again, if Hermes didn't know which of us could potentially blank and how many, warning us would've defeated the purpose.
"Do you think he's planning to take us to them?" Marcus asks.
I shake my head. "I don't think he's working with his kind. He said something about being disloyal to both humans and the Shroud. That suggests he's working for neither. The question is, who is he working for? Or what?"
"Maybe we'll find out tomorrow."
"Maybe. Marcus?" I say suddenly.
"What?"
Maybe he senses the subject I'm about to broach; his tone is less warm than it was a minute ago. "For what it's worth, I still love you. Part of me feels crazy for saying that when I can't even remember falling in love with you, but I feel it." I press a hand to my chest. "In here. I can't begin to imagine why I said those awful things to you, but I've felt this way for a long time and nothing has ever changed about that."
Silence. A wolf howls somewhere in the far distance, and I feel disconnected from everything except this moment with Marcus.
"Okay."
"Okay? What does that mean?" I ask.
He takes a deep swig of his beer and lowers the can, not looking at me. "I don't know what you expect me to say."
"I wanted you to know this has never been about hating you. I could never hate you."
"Okay."
I try not to feel stricken, even though his apathetic tone eats away at me like acid. "I'm going to bed. Good night."
"Night."
I shut the door and lean against it. I invoked the L word as a last ditch effort, a trump card that'd get me out of this hole I've dug for myself, but I seem to have picked a terrible day to tell a guy I love him for the first time in my life.
With four people dead, I have more room for my sleeping bag that night. I find a spot by the window in one of the bedrooms, across from Willow. The second bedroom is being occupied by Marcus and Jones, and the third by Janie and Pablo. The latter two mix about as well as water and oil, but I've caught them looking cozy on a few occasions since Adam and the others were taken. I'm glad Adam isn't around to see them bunking together.
Willow is snoring softly by the time I doze off after a few restless hours. On cue, the nightmares begin to play like a high-definition horror movie. I start off running, running away from something or someone, barefoot and wild-haired and terrified out of my mind. But whatever is chasing me always finds me. Drags me back to wherever I came from, drags me deep into that bright light and I can't breathe, I'm gasping but there's no air anywhere in this place, get me out of here, please, I need to breathe—
There's a hand on my forehead and a soothing female voice in my ear. "You're not there anymore. You're somewhere better. Go to your happy place."
I crack one eye open and see a halo of curly blonde hair before the sleep pulls me back under.
Next thing I know, I'm lying on a bed next to Marcus, staring up at the crack in the ceiling and listening to him make a joke about being killed by a ceiling cave-in after everything we've been through. My breathing is shallow, and there's a storm brewing in my belly. It's the first time we've shared a bedroom alone even though we've been together for three months, and I wonder what this means. I wonder what he thinks it means.
"The new girl seems like she could be useful," Marcus is saying. "Saige. I'm thinking she'll make our trips around the country easier if we teach her how to hide from sight. Imagine getting pulled over for a traffic stop and the cop seeing two people in the front seat instead of all of us. And she can even change someone's appearance."
"Janie told me there was something between you two back at the facility."
He glances at me, frowning. "Would you believe me if I said I barely remember her?"
"I'm not sure that speaks highly of you," I say, keeping my tone light and teasing to let him know I'm not upset. How could I be? Marcus told me he loved me three weeks after we got out of the facility, when we were still friends and rebuilding our trust. He's done everything he can ever since to show me that he meant it.
He smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He's keeping to his side of the bed and he's been generously patient with me so far, but I know he wants more. I see it in his eyes sometimes, the way they heat up when they land on my legs while we're getting dressed in cramped spaces, the way he kisses me, like he's starving and I'm the only thing that could satiate him. I'd be lying if I said his need didn't fuel mine.
When he tilts his head down to give me a sweet goodnight kiss, I roll over until I'm straddling him, his arms trapped against his sides by my legs.
"What are you doing?" Marcus murmurs, and I hear the bridled excitement in his voice.
I've grown more confident in our relationship over time, bolder in our limited intimacy, and it's been as thrilling for him as it is for me. For such a tough and macho guy, he seems to get a kick out of seeing me take charge. And I'm starting to discover that I do, too. Control is something I've only ever tried to exercise over myself. I never realized how powerful, how fulfilling, it is to control someone else.
My heart is pounding at the way he's looking at me: eyes alight with want, cheeks flushed, the muscle in his jaw pulsing. I'm trembling with the intensity of my feelings for him. Feelings I want to show him, lose myself in completely. We're both careening at an impossible speed toward something, and I'm terrified and exhilarated.
I tug my long shirt up and over my head, and hear Marcus's quick inhale. I'm not wearing anything underneath. We've never come this far before.
"Rose . . ." My name is a breath on his lips. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes."
"I don't want you to do this for me." He holds my gaze. "You're the only good thing that's ever happened to me, you know that? I'd be happy just being by your side."
"I know," I whisper. "And I feel the same way. But I also want this."
"What brought this on?"
My confidence is withering. I resist the urge to cover myself. "Marcus, I don't think I can have this conversation while I'm not dressed."
His eyes are hooded as they finally drop lower, taking me in. He swallows visibly. Knowing that I affect him this deeply emboldens me again, reassures me that this moment means as much to him as it does to me. I lean down and kiss him, and that's all the imperative he needs.
The seductive smile curving across his lips is an incredibly heady contrast to the love in his eyes. He frees his hands lightning fast, letting me know he was only playing along, and rolls us over so I'm the one at his mercy. And moments later, as his lips and hands carve territory across my body, as the feel of him drives me to new heights, I think about how much he means to me, and how I would do whatever it takes to keep him safe.
Even from me.
I don't know if it's the dream that wakes me up or not, but it's pitch dark in the room. My body is still warm with the memory that's burning like an ember inside me, but I'm quickly engulfed by the coldness within the cabin as I turn on my flashlight and shine it around the room.
My heart leaps straight into my throat when the beam of light falls on the silhouette of a person standing over my sleeping bag. I scramble back, trying to keep the beam steady, blinking rapidly in the hopes that the shadow will disappear, but it's not a figment of my imagination.
The shadow people, the ones I thought were caused by Saige's ability, are real.
The shadow man turns his face toward the door and then walks through it. I wait a few seconds to calm my racing heart, and then the strangest thing happens: I feel this consuming urge to follow after him. I fight it, but it burns in my blood, this ruthless, unstoppable compulsion to obey that thought.
Mute, I get up from my sleeping bag and follow the shadow.