Pulse

They would have her in their little army whether she liked it or not.
    Faith screamed louder than she’d ever screamed before. The sky devoured every bit of sound before it reached the ground. She could have pitied herself for at least another hour had she been given the chance, but screaming had turned her mind into a sheet of white noise. She started falling; and not having a lot of experience with the weight of her own body falling through open space, she panicked. Arms and legs were dangling in every direction, turning her sideways and upside down, tumbling through space. The top of the building she would soon hit was dark enough that she couldn’t say for sure how close she was to impact. And for one last, dreadful moment, she thought about letting it happen. It would be less painful. One moment, a split second, and it would be over. No more regrets about how she’d failed, no more guilt about broken relationships she’d willingly chosen not to fix. No more anger about how unfair it all was.
    Three thoughts kept her from dying that night.
    Faith .
    The meaning of her name haunted her like a ghost from another world, flying in the air all around her. There was something, not nothing, on the other side of death. An eternity in which everyone felt sorry about her tragic ending was not the kind of afterlife she looked forward to.
    Hope .
    As she plunged toward her death, she saw Dylan’s face the way he sometimes looked at her, and she couldn’t imagine leaving him behind. Something below the surface of her mind told her Dylan could heal all the terrible scars she carried. And she saw Hawk’s face, too. He could never replace Liz, but he had the intangible quality of being comfortable. She could sit in a room for ten hours and simply be with Hawk. He was easy that way, and she needed that. It could sustain her through the minefield of feelings she navigated on a daily basis.
    And in the end, there was the fire that threatened to overwhelm her.
    Revenge .
    For better or worse, the fuel that would keep her from death was vengeance. She would destroy the Quinns or die trying. It was the thing that cleared her mind and slowed her descent. Revenge got her to stop flailing around, center her mind, and come to an abrupt halt three inches short of plowing her face into the roof of a clothing store.
    She went straight to the table and picked up The Sneetches , then sat on the ledge of the building, letting her legs dangle as she gazed at the orange light of the State. Turning her attention to the book, she read each page slowly, savoring every word like each one might be her last. With the turning of pages she tore them out one by one, tossing them into the open air and watching as they fluttered back and forth like broken wings plunging into the abyss. When all the pages were gone and only the spine remained, she felt the empty weight of what she’d done and kissed her childhood good-bye.
    Faith, hope, and revenge.
    These words would be her mantra. These would carry her into a war she hadn’t chosen and didn’t understand. Her sadness would be replaced with an all-consuming mission. She didn’t have the strength to read the letter tucked safely into her back pocket. It would have to wait for its turn at firing shotgun rounds at her heart. She’d had enough for one night.
    As Faith’s emotions realigned, she felt a buzzing in her back pocket. Someone was trying to find her, and while she wasn’t ready to be found, she didn’t think it was a good idea to vanish. If Dylan or Meredith or Hawk was trying to locate her, it would be less trouble to simply answer. It might buy her a little more time alone.
    She took out her Tablet, not bothering to snap it into a larger size, and read the message.
I’ve come back for you. Let’s finish what we started. Old Park Hill.
    The message wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. Faith knew exactly who it was. Clara Quinn was back. How she’d gotten out of the State after going in she didn’t know, but what did it matter? Clara was at the school, and the two of them had unfinished business. Faith’s mind was so full of rage and confusion that she didn’t even think about the danger of what she was about to do.
    She left her Tablet there on the ledge with the spine of the book and dived off the roof of the building.
     
    “What do you mean she’s not there?” Dylan couldn’t believe his ears as he stood inside the mall among a group of Drifters packing up their