Taken (Erin Bowman)

morning off or is working evening shifts instead. I let my feet take me by memory toward her quarters. I wait for what feels like hours before an Order member exits her hallway, and as he does, I slip through. Emma’s door is closed, but light trickles from beneath it.
    Why am I not excited? Why am I not bursting with joy? This is what I wanted, my ulterior motive since the beginning. This is Emma. Emma who I’ve loved and still love and thought I might never see again. Is that why it’s hard? Because part of me never believed we’d be reunited? I raise my hand to knock, but pause. What will I even say?
    Before I can lose my nerve, I let my knuckles rap on the wood. I hear the footsteps coming, bare feet shuffling across the carpet. Hands work the latch, and then the door opens, but the face before me does not belong to Emma.
    “Blaine! You’re alive.” Craw beams. I can see Emma behind him. Her hair is a mess, sleepy waves coaxed out by the pillows. She holds bedsheets over her chest.
    I punch Craw in the face before storming down the hallway.

THIRTY-THREE
    CRAW CURSES.
    “Blaine, wait!” Emma is shouting, running after me, the bedsheets still clutched about her. I don’t stop.
    “Blaine!” she shouts again. She catches up to me and grabs my arm. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
    I turn to face her. I’m angry, so very angry, but I need to stay in character. I clench my teeth.
    “Why did you do that?” she asks. “I’ve never seen you hit someone. Ever. Did . . .” But then she trails off. Her eyes are locked on mine, searching for something. They work their way over my face, beginning with my eyebrows and moving down toward my jaw. She reaches out one hand and places it against my cheek. Her eyes grow wide as she lets a finger slide over my nose, trace the contours of my chin.
    “Oh my gosh,” she gasps, pulling her hand back. “Gray.”
    I have no idea how she knows, but she does. I’m about to lose it, explode right in the hallway, and so I turn and start walking.
    Emma grabs my arm. “Gray, please. It’s not like that.”
    “Like what, Emma?” I shout, spinning to face her. She backs away from me, almost fearfully.
    “We . . . we thought you were dead. Everyone did,” she says. “They said you were there when the Rebels attacked, that you and Blaine were killed.”
    “Well, we weren’t!”
    “You think it was easy for me?” Water builds in her eyes and a small tear rolls its way over the beauty mark on her cheek. Even when I’m furious it hurts to see her cry.
    “Do you think it was for me ? You have no clue what I’ve been through to get back here, Emma. And how do you repay me? You go sleep with Craw.”
    “That’s not fair,” she says.
    “Fair? I’m the one being unfair? I never stopped thinking about you and you moved on in a matter of days.”
    She stands there helpless, clutching the pale sheets to the front of her chest and covering skin that Craw, but not I, has seen. She was supposed to be mine. I hers. We were supposed to be like the birds. She reaches up and brushes the tears from her face with the back of her hand.
    “I never moved on, Gray,” she says. “Physically maybe, because I was lost and heartbroken, but never truly. Please don’t run from me. Don’t leave again.” She reaches for me, but I pull away.
    “Did Craw give you my message at least?”
    She looks down at the carpet. “Yes.”
    I’m thinking about how this makes it even worse, when there is a crackle in my ear.
    “Soon,” Bree whispers. “Get ready.”
    “I have to go,” I say.
    “Don’t,” Emma begs. “I’m so sorry that you had to see me like this, that I even did this, but please don’t go.”
    “I need some time.”
    “For what?”
    “To decide if you deserve a second chance.”
    All those times that I felt things for Bree, anytime there was even the slightest feeling of affection growing, I’d brushed it aside for Emma, told myself it wasn’t real. I’d done nothing but think of her, attempt to get back to her, and she’d forgotten me almost instantly.
    “Everyone deserves a second chance, Gray,” she says, the tears still streaming down her face.
    “Maybe,” I say, and then I turn away from her. The diversion is coming and I need to be ready.
    I head back to the room where Harvey is being held and watch the guards pace outside it. I stand around a corner, waiting. I feel oddly vulnerable, weak from my encounter with Emma and defenseless since