Shadows of Glass (34 page)

“Later,” I say.

“You’ve been through a shock,” Levi continues. “What you did was remarkable. Right
now you might wish otherwise, but what you did saved my life. We talked about killing.
I just want you to remember that tonight was either kill or be killed.”

“I’ve killed too many people now to worry about it anymore,” I say.

“Wren, it’s only bad when you stop worrying about it. The rovers wouldn’t think twice
about it. Believe me, they came to kill us, and if they couldn’t they would have used
Stone in the worst way to get what they wanted from us and then killed him just for
the fun of it. I don’t know what drives them, but I do know they are ruthless and
none of us had a choice tonight.”

“Do you think there will be more attacks?”

“Lyon thinks that they will wait awhile, until they figure out what happened. I tend
to trust him on such things. He’s usually right.”

I look at my reflection in the mirror. The blood is gone, but I have three scratches
down my left cheek from my fight with the woman. My arm burns from where the bullet
creased me but I ignore it. I’ve got to find Pace. He’s what’s important now.

“There’s more,” Levi says. I don’t think my mind can handle anything else at the moment,
but I wait for him to tell me. “We’re going into the dome tomorrow.”

*   *   *

I have no idea what to say to Pace when I do find him. If I find him. There is a lot
of area out there that we’ve yet to explore. We’ve been concentrating on staying alive
so much that we haven’t had a chance to pay attention to the world around us. We’ve
only been to a few places, and the only one that I can think of that Pace could get
to without anyone noticing him is the place we spent the first night above.

I release Pip from his cage, confident that he will lead the way to Pace. I no longer
worry about the little yellow canary returning to us. He’s proven over and over again
that he will come back. He takes off in the direction that I thought he would go and
I follow, stopping by the pony pen to thank everyone for caring for the ponies.

“Glad you survived it,” Peter says. “If not for Pace…”

“Adam told me.”

“Did any of the rovers get away?” Jon asks.

“Not that I know of.”

“We’re to go out and gather the bodies when we’re done here,” Peter says. “Lyon wants
to dispose of the bodies and leave the rest of them guessing as to what happened to
them.” Peter speaks so matter of factly about all of it. He’s been in the middle of
all the fighting since everything began and he’s not but fifteen years old, a year
younger than me. I study his face. He looks better now, healthier, robust with color
in his cheeks and no more cough. Leaving the mines probably saved his life. Now if
he can just stay alive and not get himself killed fighting in battle after battle.
Will the fighting ever end?

“Do you think they’ll attack again tonight?” Jon asks.

“Lyon doesn’t think so,” I say. “He seems to have a plan and so far he’s been right,
so I see no need not to trust him now.”

“I agree,” Peter says. “And I’m so grateful that they showed up to help us. Without
them I don’t think we would have survived this long.” The past week has matured him
in a way that I never would have considered. It’s made all of us grow up in much a
different way than the mines did.

“It would have been impossible without them.” Ghost butts his head against me. I know
he feels neglected, especially with all the troubling things that have happened lately.
“I promise I will take care of you,” I whisper in his ear. When that will happen I
have no idea. Levi’s words haunt me. We are going into the dome. I know Lyon has a
plan, and I will do my part, but going back in terrifies me more than the battle we
just fought and for the life of me I don’t know why.

“Has Pace been this way?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen him since he took off looking for you,” Peter says. “I’m guessing
he didn’t find you.”

“I hope he didn’t run into some rovers we didn’t know about,” Jon says.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, not having considered that possibility. “I think we just
missed each other on the trail. I’m going to circle around and see if I can find him.”

“Be careful,” Peter says, “although I can see that you’re well-armed if you should
run into someone.”

“I will.” I leave, going in the direction of the ruins. I haven’t gone far before
I smell the comforting scent of a fire as I make my way through the tumbled stone
foundations. Several cats come out and silently observe my passing. It is nice to
see that they’ve adjusted so easily to life outside the mines. They are used to hunting
as they survived on rats and mice down below. This new world must seem like a paradise
to them.

I see the fire flickering then disappearing in the same way it did the first night
we sought shelter. I take the crossbow from my back and hold it before me, just in
case, as I go down the stairs. Jonah greets me on the steps.

“Traitor,” I say quietly, although I’m thinking more of myself than Jonah. Pace looks
up from where he sits cross-legged beside the fire with Pip on his finger. The pain
in his eyes has not diminished since I last saw him.

“Adam?” he asks.

“He’ll be fine,” I say. “They still have to get the bullet out and his collarbone
may be broken, but they expect him to recover.”

“Good.”

I take the crossbow from my shoulder and sit down opposite Pace by the fire. I really
don’t know what to say because I’m still not certain of how it happened or why. It
isn’t something that I intended to happen. It just did. It’s the first time since
I met him that silence stretches between us. Jonah, oblivious to our problems, sits
down between us and starts his bathing ritual.

“I heard that you saved his life,” I say, and I smile ruefully. “James was even singing
your praises.”

“I must have walked on water without realizing it,” Pace says and we both laugh nervously.

“Thank you,” I say.

“I’m certain Adam would have done the same.” Pace shrugs. “James not so much, but
Alcide and Peter for certain.”

“They would. We all would. Even James, although he’d never admit it.”

“I never doubted you, Wren.” Pace leaves the “until now” unspoken. “I always knew
you had my back.”

“Without you it didn’t matter,” I confess. Not because of what he knew about Alex’s
escape from the dome, but because of what he meant … he means to me.

“I felt the same.” He moves Pip to his shoulder and the tiny bird picks at a thread
on Pace’s jacket.

Felt … which means that he feels differently now? Or is he just saying it because
he’s hurt. Because I hurt him, something I never thought I’d do. My days have been
filled with things I never thought I’d do. Cause a rebellion. Be responsible for death
and destruction. Kill people.

I didn’t plan on any of this, and I certainly didn’t ask for it. But maybe I did.
Maybe I tempted the fates when I went to the rooftops every morning to watch the light
come to the dome. Just like I didn’t plan on Levi, still I tempted him and myself.
I have to make Pace see that it wasn’t intentional. None of it.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I finally say, after the interminable silence
covers me with an oppressive blanket of guilt.

Pace gives me a fleeting smile and shakes his head. “I’m sure you didn’t plan on kissing
Levi, but I know he was thinking a lot about kissing you. Why shouldn’t he think about
it? I know it’s all I think about.” He pokes at the fire and then looks at me. “I
asked you not to go, Wren.”

“I went because they needed my help.”

“I needed your help too. I needed you to help me figure out what’s going on with us.”

“How can I help you figure it out when I don’t know myself?” I say. “So much has happened
I haven’t had time to think. I don’t know what’s going on around us, and I don’t know
how we’re going to survive, and I’m not certain that us coming out was the right decision
anymore.”

“You don’t have to figure these things out on your own,” Pace says. “We can figure
them out together. Except you don’t talk to me anymore. You don’t confide in me. I
feel like a door has closed between us. I don’t like feeling that way. I don’t know
how to fix it.”

His words ring true in my head. Ever since we got out I’ve shut him out. No. Ever
since I woke up alone in the cave when I was blinded I’ve shut him out. Looking back
now I can see that it was juvenile of me, especially with everything else that was
going on. Feeble excuses on my part won’t make it go away, but that doesn’t stop me
from trying. “I’m sorry Pace. I don’t know how to explain it. It just happened.”

“Here’s how. You got caught up in the heat of the moment.” Pace stares as me, pinning
my guilt to my body as if it were a tangible thing. “Which makes me think the same
thing might have happened with us.”

He gives voice to the same thing that I’ve been thinking. Did we declare our love
for each other only because we were certain we were going to die? Did we fall together
because we had no one else we could go to or depend on? Were we together because of
circumstances or because of genuine feelings of the heart? How am I supposed to know
for certain if my feelings are real?

Once again I envy the certainty of love that was so obvious between Adam and Peggy.
Yet their love was never challenged, never tested; it was all so very easy for them.
I guess it was more perfect than I thought. Adam will always have that memory of it,
and nothing else can ever live up to that perfection he shared with Peggy. But will
that memory be enough to keep him company for the rest of his life? I think not.

Pace is waiting for me to deny it. He’s waiting for me to say something that will
take us back to the place we were before we left the dome. Unfortunately I don’t know
what it is because I am so twisted up inside that I cannot think straight.

“You can’t deny it, Wren,” Pace says finally.

“I’m not agreeing with it either,” I reply. “We’ve known each other for how long,
two weeks?” So much has happened that I can’t even count the days. “I’d like to think
that if we’d met under normal circumstances that there would still be something between
us. But I really thought we were going to die and I know you did too. Being with you
makes it seem more worthwhile.”

“Just like tonight with Levi?”

I shake my head. “It’s not the same with Levi. It might seem like it but,” I take
a moment to try to think, “it’s not the same.”

“But you do feel something for him.”

I hate saying the words, but I will not lie to him just to make him happy. I respect
Pace. “I do. I just need time to think things through. I need time to know what it
is I feel for both of you.”

Pace’s beautiful blue eyes, once so full of affection, are veiled and shadowed, as
if he’s closed his heart to me as he looks at me from across the fire. “What you’re
saying is you need time to decide between me and Levi.”

“No,” I protest, but I quickly realize that he’s right. But the way he said it makes
it sound so horrible. It is horrible of me to say it, much less think it. How did
I get myself into this terrible predicament? I didn’t ask Levi to be attracted to
me any more than I wanted James to be. But I have to admit to myself that I was flattered
by it and maybe, just maybe, I encouraged it. “I never wanted to hurt you, Pace. I
would rather die than hurt you.”

Pace rises from his place by the fire and his anger, always buried deep, flares forth.
Pip senses it and takes flight, landing on the ledge beside the staircase. “I appreciate
the sentiment, Wren. I really do. But wouldn’t that make things too easy? If you die
then you don’t have to make a choice. You could just go on to your reward leaving
both me and Levi behind with a broken heart. A tragic end to a tragic young life.
You can have all the glory and none of the responsibility that the rest of us have
to deal with of building a world out here. A world that I thought we were going to
share.”

Pace’s words are bitter and they slash through my skin like a hundred blades before
they stab painfully at my heart. It is no more than I deserve. I hurt him deeply and
it is natural that he wants to hurt me back. There is nothing I can say to take his
pain away any more than there is anything I can do to resolve the situation.

Because I still don’t know what to do.

Pace turns and goes to the staircase. He’s leaving me because he’s too angry to be
around me. “Lyon is sending us into the dome tomorrow,” I say.

Pace stops in place and he shifts his shoulders as if a great weight is on them. “What
are we supposed to accomplish by going into the dome?”

His question surprises me. I thought he would be happy about it, so he could hopefully
find out about his mother. “I don’t know beyond helping our friends find a way out.
And possibly helping your mother.”

He turns to look at me again, and I see the heavy sorrow in his beautiful blue eyes.
“I just thought of a way to solve your problem, Wren. And mine.”

His words frighten me. I don’t know what he is thinking and I am too terrified to
ask.

“Get some rest. You look done in. I’ll see you in the morning.” Pace leaves and Pip
flits after him, a dash of bright yellow against the darkness of the night. Jonah
stares after them and then looks at me with a questioning meow. I put my head on my
knees and stare into the fire. How am I supposed to rest without Pace by my side?

24

I
dream about the dome,
sometime after dawn, because I can feel the light of it against my eyes as I stare
up at the cracked glass and yearn for the small patch of blue sky I see above it.
Beyond that my dream is fuzzy, as if I wore blinders. The details of it are there,
but they lie just out of the reach of my memory. I wake with an ominous foreboding
weighing upon me, something more than the anguish of Pace’s disillusionment with me
and the heavy regret of my many sins.