Taken (Erin Bowman)

actions, but I still feel sick. I am alive because of her. All of Crevice Valley has the vaccine because of her. The number of people who have died for the Rebels is steadily growing and it’s not right. Why them? Why not me? Or Bree? Or Bo? How did we manage to get so lucky?
    Suddenly, I need to be alone.
    “Gray?” Bree asks as I get up from the table. “You okay?”
    I leave without answering.
    In the Basin, people have erected a memorial for Harvey and those lost during the battle in Taem. It’s nothing more than a circle drawn in the dirt, but people step into its center to lay down notes and flowers and candles. My pockets are empty and I have nothing to add to the tribute, but I step into the ring anyway. I close my eyes and I thank Harvey and Christie and all the other nameless Rebels who fell for a greater good. I tell them that I still stand by the promise I made the other night by the fire. The fight is not over, and while some may need a few days of revelry to celebrate this small victory, the Rebels have a steep climb ahead. I will climb alongside them. I’ll even lead if I have to.
    When I turn to exit the ring, Emma waits behind me, a small candle cupped in her palm. The flame throws shadows across her face; and even though I know I should say something, I walk by her without a single word.
    My room is as I left it, plain and uninviting. Sitting on the edge of my cot, I try to remember what life was like before all this. I don’t feel like the same person anymore. Maybe I’m not. There was a time when all I wanted was Emma and now even that confuses me.
    I stare at the painting on my wall and wish it were a window. I need to see blue sky and clouds and birds flying in twos. I need to know that somewhere in this world, things are fair.

THIRTY-EIGHT
    LIFE CONTINUES IN CREVICE VALLEY. Even amid all the darkness and death, babies are born, people are married. When you don’t have to worry about Heists and losing your society’s ability to reproduce, people really do settle down like the birds.
    Emma transitions into a nursing job and I avoid her. I am alone with her only once, when I visit the hospital to have my burned arm treated. She dresses the burn with salve and bandages. I’d forgotten how gentle her hands are, how their touch makes my chest ache. I’m thinking of kissing her, of grabbing her chin and saying, “Let’s start over,” when she turns her back on me to retrieve more salve. The impulse vanishes with her. The burns on my arm heal, turning to rippled and uneven skin over time, but the tension between us does not.
    Bree washes the dye from her hair, visits the hospital several times to tend to her bullet wound, and in a matter of days it’s as if she never set foot in Taem at all. We fall back into our regular banter. When we train, we egg each other on. In conversations she interjects ridicule and I tease her endlessly. We avoid repeating our display around the fire on the eve of Harvey’s death, at least publicly. But on quiet nights, when she knocks on my door and stands before me with her blond hair framing that perfect face, I never turn her away.
    There is little sleep on those evenings. We become a flurry of hands and lips and skin, but she always stops me when things get too heated. She doesn’t want a baby, and neither do I, but deep down it’s like I know sleeping with her will make it impossible to repair things with Emma. I find myself oddly relieved each time Bree presses her palms against my chest, whispering, “Not now. Not tonight.” If it weren’t for her words, I know I wouldn’t stop.
    One day, as we sit bundled outside in the graveyard, I ask Bree how she deals with all the death, how she was able to spin and so quickly shoot the guard in the Union Central’s surveillance corridor.
    “Gray, have you ever killed a man?” she asks, staring me down with those blue eyes of hers. I think it over, and amazingly, even with all I’ve been through, I haven’t. I couldn’t even kill an Order member, begging to be shot.
    “I’ve only been hunting,” I say.
    “Well it’s different from hunting. It’s so very different. When I had my first kill, on a mission here with the Rebels, I cried. Imagine that—me, crying. And then, after time, as the numbers added up, it grew easier. I’m not saying I like it, or ever want to do it, but you come to a point where, if your life is on the line and you see your path of escape closing before your eyes, you