This Pact Is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi

Author:Zachary Sergi [Sergi, Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiny Ghost Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Once I’m dressed, Ariana and I make our way back to Bellfour. This early, campus is still quiet—which is maybe why I’m able to hear Mom and Garrett speaking just above a whisper behind the door to Hazel’s Hemlock room. The sound halts me in my tracks, stopping Ariana beside me. If we hold perfectly still, I can make out the words.

“I’m sure she just slept in Bellfour with Griffin,” Mom says. “I checked, Luca slept in his bed. He looked so…”

Mom can’t seem to finish that sentence. Suddenly, all I want to do is fling open the door and give her a hug. Or maybe scream at her. Both, probably.

But what price would I have to pay for talking to her, now? The parents all warned us it was against the rules to speak to anyone outside C4 about the pact. What fresh hell would rain down on us if I tried to have an honest conversation with my mother?

Part of me wants to challenge it, to separate any fact from potential fiction. To see it, period. I feel like the image of the Impact cooked up by my fantasy brain could be far worse than what it actually is. But then I remember with a crash that I probably already did see the Impact, right here on this balcony, the night it slid that silverfish in my ear. I only got a blurry glimpse, but what I thought I saw was…

Grotesque.

“There’s so much I need to tell Hazel.”

Garrett’s hushed voice swings me back to the present.

“You know we can’t,” Mom says.

“Not about the pact.”

“Nothing is worth the risk, we’ve been down that road. You can say whatever you need to say when…if…”

Mom can’t bring herself to finish that sentence, either. When this is all over, if our children survive.

Fear creases my shoulder blades, tensing everything.

“Say it to me, for now,” Mom goes on. “What you need to say to Hazel, say to me.”

My eyes lock with Ariana’s—should we be listening to this? Could the Impact sense this eavesdropping, somehow? There’s so much we still don’t know about how the pact works…

“Hazel, you were always wanted,” Garrett says, directly. “If you die, I’ll die too.”

Garrett’s words take my breath away. Especially as Mom begins to cry quietly.

“I hope the kids feel that much, after the lives we tried to give them?” Mom sobs. “Were they right, Garrett? All these years, I thought we were being strong, being selfless. But have we really just been weak? And selfish?”

“They don’t know the things we do,” Garrett answers. “I hope they understand, someday.”

“I hope they never have to,” Mom says. “Do you really think they’ll listen to that monster Cecil about poor Ariana? Tommy didn’t listen about you, but Wendy—”

Mom stops talking then. It sounds like Garrett moves towards her.

“Stop. This helps nothing.”

“What else are we going to do? It’s too much. Feeling so powerless.”

A thinly drawn silence ensues. I look at Ariana, wondering if we should go…

Until I hear it.

Garrett kissing Mom.

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