The Forsaken

a finger at David. “I know you’re a spy. I don’t trust you, and I never will. Maybe I can thrash out of you what Veidman’s truth serum couldn’t.” He moves forward.
    “Markus, no more violence,” I say. “Better David turned up than a feeler. I don’t know if he’s a spy or not anymore, but he’s here now, and we can’t send him back. We might as well take him along.”
    “Guys, I’m freezing,” Rika interrupts in a small voice. “Can we stop arguing?”
    “Good idea,” the Monk rasps.
    “David, if you come with us, you’re walking in front,” Markus says. “In case there are any booby traps.”
    “Yeah, consider yourself our prisoner,” Gadya adds.
    “Call me whatever you want,” David mutters.
    We rummage through our packs and put on jackets, gloves, scarves, and hats. We’re trying to stay warm in the painfully cold weather. There must be a forty-degree difference on either side of the barrier. We’ve gone from eighty-odd degrees to just above freezing.
    Of course, I don’t see any sign of the rocks that David mentioned earlier. He said they’d be inside the barrier where the drones always cross over. Seemingly right where we are now. But there’s nothing here.
    I try to quell my rising panic. I know I haven’t really looked yet. I obviously don’t want to mention the rocks out loud. Not only will it reveal that I talked to David more than the others can imagine, but it also seems worth keeping secret. Right now I don’t want to draw any extra attention to myself.
    I gaze around at the trees, searching for any large rocks. The trees look odd—slightly crystalline, like they’re frozen, or fossilized. I touch a branch above me, and it feels cold and brittle. Everything here seems dead, even when it’s still alive.
    Back on the other side of the barrier, I can see the sun and the emerald colors of the vivid landscape we left behind. I never thought I’d feel nostalgic for the horrors of the orange sector. But at least I knew what to expect there. I have no clue what awaits us in the gray zone.
    I hear Gadya, Markus, and Sinxen still arguing with David.
    “I need to pee,” I say suddenly, startling everyone. The truth is, I need a chance to be alone to search for the rocks, but I can’t let them know that. “I’ll be right back.”
    “Alenna?” David calls out, probably suspecting what I’m up to. “I’ll come with you!” I’m not sure whether he actually wants to help or if he’s just afraid to be left alone with the others. I ignore him and keep walking, pretending I didn’t hear. I know the others won’t hurt him, at least for now.
    I plunge off to my right, into the forest, before anyone can stop me. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. I’m afraid the rocks with “Shawcross” on them are going to turn out to be gravestones, although at least then I’d have some closure. But I’m hoping for more. I’m hoping to find a secret message.
    I know I don’t have long until my companions get worried, or suspicious, and come after me. I tromp through the underbrush, staring around. Maybe this is the wrong place entirely.
    Then I see an object, partially hidden by dead branches, rising up from the forest floor. It looks like a large rock, and my hopes soar. I rush toward it, excited and elated to have found so quickly what I was seeking.
    But when I reach it, my heart sinks. It’s not a rock at all. It’s just the splintered stump of a large fallen tree, half buried in the underbrush, speckled with gray lichens.
    I look around. I see more mysterious shapes in the brush, but most of them look like decaying tree trunks or random debris. I start to realize that finding one of these rocks might be much harder than I thought. I expected them to be bigger. More obvious. And David said there were a lot of them.
    I start moving again, going deeper, searching desperately for a sign.
    I find nothing.
    Finally, I just stop walking. I rub my arms. Even with my jacket and gloves, I’m freezing. I don’t want to get lost out here in the cold. I realize I’ll have to return to the others and try to keep searching for the rocks later on. But I know that the farther we move away from the place where we crossed the barrier, the less likely it is that I’ll find them—unless I can get more information out of David.
    I turn and head back toward my companions, retracing my route.
    It’s only then that I spot something I missed, standing shrouded in the shadows