A Beautiful Dark

warily as if I might hurt him. “I can’t heal her unless the Gifted command me to.”
    His words reminded me just how much of a puppet he really was. I could never align myself with the Order. Never. Not if that’s what it meant. I’d choose to become a Rebel right now, whether or not my powers agreed.
    “There’s nothing you can do?” I asked slowly, pointedly. “You got her car to start, after all. Did the Gifted command you to do that?”
    “The Gifted have circuitous ways of working sometimes, Skye,” he said emphatically. “It’s not always immediately clear what their intentions are. We have to trust them. It will all come to light soon.”
    “But what if Cassie doesn’t wake up?” I asked, horrified. “What if she . . . ?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. What if she died, just like my parents had? What if Cassie left me, too?
    “Then it will all be part of the master plan,” Devin finished. I couldn’t speak.
    “I told you, Skye.” Asher was getting worked up. “I told you the Order works in frightening ways. They don’t care about anyone.”
    “We work for the greater good of the world,” Devin retaliated. “We keep life in balance.”
    “You don’t care about life!” I shouted. “You don’t care about anyone’s lives! I bet you don’t even care about mine.”
    “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
    “That’s not true. Not if you’ll do only what the Order gives you permission to do.”
    “Skye, how can you say that? I—” A curious expression replaced the mask of complacency he’d been wearing. Even Asher stopped to look. “I have to go,” he said suddenly. “I’m sorry that I can’t cure your friend. I hope you can find another way to help her.” And with that, he turned and walked out through the automatic front doors.
    Asher turned to me. “I don’t know what that’s about,” he said helplessly.
    Why had he walked out like that? The facts were suddenly arranging and rearranging themselves in my brain. Devin had to follow the direct commands of the Gifted in order to keep the course of fate running according to the Order’s master plan. That meant that someone had to have given him the command to fix Cassie’s car. But why would they do that unless . . . unless they didn’t want to fix Cassie’s car at all. Unless they wanted to cut the brakes. Unless they wanted to hurt Cassie.
    “Asher, do you think it’s possible Devin cut the brakes on Cassie’s car?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t check them. I only checked the engine.”
    “But why would the Order want him to hurt Cassie?”
    “I don’t know,” he said again. “I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point. I’m going to go try to get some truth out of him, and check in with my camp. Stay here, Skye, okay? You’ll be safe here. The Order is changing the rules, and we have to act accordingly.”
    “You’re leaving me?” I gasped. “Asher?”
    He looked down at me, tracing his thumb across the freckles on the bridge of my nose.
    “I’ll be back really soon. Don’t worry.”
    And then he was gone.
    I tried to think back over the last few days to what could have possibly made the Order want to hurt Cassie. I worked backward. We went to the mall while Devin worked on her car. We saw him at the Shell station. Cassie and I went to Big Mouth’s for brunch. We woke up the morning after the party, with the window open. The party . . . talking to Cassie about the campfire story . . .
    Suddenly I stopped cold. Devin had been there when I’d almost told Cassie everything. His creepy stare had been the reason I’d stopped. He’d heard everything. He’d heard me almost spill all of my darkest secrets—and his. He knew Cassie was the only one I’d ever dream of telling. And if he needed me alive but the secrets to remain secrets, the surest way to keep me from telling her would be to kill her.
    Could the Devin I’d come to know really be capable of something like that?
    Or was Asher trying to turn me away from Devin by making me suspicious? He did have a choice. He could do whatever he wanted. And they’d certainly always been competitive. Especially when it came to me.
    I was back to not knowing if I could trust either of them.

Chapter 35

    I returned to Cassie’s room. Her mother had gone to get some coffee, according to Dan, who was there holding Cassie’s hand and whispering to her.
    He looked up at me as I moved to the other side of the bed and