Page 47 of Raze
“What is it?” I ask while tucking my arms under the straps. It’s light, but I can still feel the weight of something inside it.
“It’s for Vera,” is all he gives me, then jerks his head to tell me to get on.
I frown at him, but I can’t imagine that he’d give her anything that would put the others in jeopardy, so I let it go. For now. I hop on after him and tug the helmet over my head before leaning into him.
I feel awkward and guilty as my arms slide around his waist to clasp in front of him. I’m sure he hates this part, having me touch him like this, but it’s a testament to how much his sister means to him that he’s putting up with it. I try not to cling too close or letmy hands move at all from the one spot. I doubt he even notices my efforts, but I try anyway.
The drive to his chosen meeting place is longer than last time now that we’re further away from the city. I’m still worn out and tired from Kellan’s brutal workout that I find my eyes closing to the lull of the motor. Just a bit of rest before facing off against Vera again, who I’m sure will try harder to kill me this time. No biggie.
Dane’s hand slaps over mine and yanks it back in front of him. I jump and blink when I realize I must have dozed off for a second. “What are you doing?” he yells at me from behind his mask.
I lace my fingers back together and give him a quick squeeze in apology. He wouldn’t hear anything I try to say behind this helmet while we’re driving, so it’s the only thing I can think of to communicate that I’m good again. Thank fuck he noticed—and said something—before I fell off the bike.
We make it to the same building and up the fire escape to the roof. “Should I hide somewhere this time or…?” I ask, while handing over his backpack.
“No. Stay where I can see you.”
I scoff and shake my head. Does he really think I’m going to sabotage his meeting with Vera after everything I’ve said?Apparently, he does.
We both do our perimeter and roof check, looking for signs of people, traps, weapons, whatever, and then sit before the letter O like last time.
“So, what’s in the bag?” I ask again.
Dane looks at me with his lips turned down. “It’s nothing.”
I sigh and lean back on my hands so I can stare up at the sky. The city lights are too bright, so I can’t see any stars. Just endless black with the reflected glow of lights trying to keep pure darkness at bay. “I’m going to find out if you’re giving anything to her. May as well show me now, since we have time to kill.”
He doesn’t answer me for a long time. I assume he’s choosing to ignore me until Vera comes when he unzips the pack and pulls out a notebook. “Here.” Dane hands it to me with a look of tired resignation.
“I don’t have to—” I start.
“It’s fine,” he interrupts sharply. “I’d rather not give you any ammunition for doubt in our group about what I could be giving her in case this comes out.”
I nod slowly. It’s a simple, black-and-white composition notebook like we used to use at school on the island. I open it. There are taped-in pieces of paper with letters in no order to make actual words or sentences. I flip through them, unsure of what they mean, and then there are pictures and random drawings and doodles.
I don’t linger on anything for too long. This looks like a book of memories between Dane and Vera. It’s personal to them, and it feels wrong for me to be looking at it. I turn more pages and pause when I see a letter from Dane to Vera sometime after she died. I pass by it to find another. And another. Like he’s been writing her letters every day or week or whenever he needed to talk to her after she was gone.
I close the notebook with shaking hands.
The pain of losing Vera that I thought I’d moved past circles and tugs at my heart. I hand back the notebook and rest my foreheadagainst my arms. It’s a harsh reminder that I’ll never really move on from that moment in my life. I’ll always keep it with me. There will always be a chance that it may rise to drown me again if I’m not careful. Knowing the pain it would cause Dane was one of the biggest reasons I wallowed in my grief after. Now, seeing how he's still dealing with it even years later, it all comes rushing back.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About everything. Vera being alive. What you said happened when she died. What happened on the island after, and even when you saw me again and still didn’t tell me what happened.”
I peek up over my arms at Dane. He’s staring hard at the concrete between his feet, his fingers shoved halfway through his blond hair, so it sticks up. He looks lost in thought, even as he’s speaking. I hold my breath as I listen, as if my breathing might somehow interrupt his train of thought, and I’d never know what he was trying to say to me.
“I can’t believe your story. Even if I wanted to, I can’t. That would mean that Vera isn’t the sister that I remember growing up with. It would mean throwing away everything about her I thought I knew. And I can’t—Iwon’t—accept that.”
I bite my lip and duck further into my arms. There’s nothing I can say about that. Am I happy about it? Of course not. But I also don’t blame him for it. Why wouldn’t he choose to believe in his sister, his blood, over me? A girl he met on an island who, according to Aiden, is a secret GE plant.
“But…” he starts up again, and my chest squeezes. “If I were to believe you, that would mean you’d sacrificed everything to protectthat very image of her that I’m holding on to. That you refused to tell the truth of what happened—of who she was—so that I could keep remembering her as a good person.”
He looks over at me, and my breath catches at the pain reflected in his gold-green eyes. My heart breaks at the sight of it. At him trying not to fall apart at the revelation of everything that had happened on and since that day.
“Even if it meant that I would hate you, that the others would hate you, that you would lose us forever, and you’d be alone, you guarded that secret.”
I tear my gaze away from his when I can no longer handle it and bury my face back into the safety of my arms. I force myself to take calming breaths. Once I think I’ve gotten myself mostly under control, I reaffirm what he said. “If you believed me.”
Dane nods and gazes back to the city. “If I believed you.”
