Arclight by Josin L. McQuein

Author:Josin L. McQuein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780062130167
Publisher: Greenwillow
Published: 2013-04-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

HOW long does it take to open a door?

Outside Tobin’s apartment, I pace and pace and get nowhere. I raise my hand to knock a second time, and the door opens so quickly it nearly knocks me off my feet. Someone must have fixed the hinges for him, because the door swings easily, without a sound.

“They’re watching.” I can’t wait for Tobin to ask me what I want; if I stop, they’ll find me. I duck under his arm and go inside.

“Who?”

“The Fade—I can feel them. They’re watching.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?”

“I can’t keep him out of my head.” I tell myself to stop crying. Tears are not helpful.

“You were fine ten minutes ago.”

None of this makes sense to him. There’s no way it could.

“He keeps coming back. He’s in there with my own thoughts, going through them. And it’s not just the one in the White Room. The one he called Cherish, she’s there, too.”

The door clicks shut behind me as Tobin engages the secondary lock.

“You’re going to pass out if you don’t calm down. Stop bouncing.” He leads me to a chair, then sits on the footstool so he’s facing me. He reaches out and takes my hands between his in a gesture of . . . I’m not sure. Maybe comfort, maybe restraint. “Marina, tell me what happened. We’ll figure out a way to deal with it.”

Every instinct that’s survived the endless blank of my past tells me that if I want to live, I need to move. Staying still is to invite death.

“Marina?”

Why does he keep saying my name?

“I heard him again,” I say. “It started as soon as I left the hospital, but I didn’t know that’s what it was. I tried to ignore him. . . . I don’t know how you did it, but I can’t. The Fade made my legs go where he wanted them to.”

“It’s trying to make you go outside? Like the people before?”

“No . . . maybe. He kept asking me about the other one. I heard her, Tobin. His mate’s here.” I want to tear the Fade, and the humming buzz that comes with it, from my mind, but there’s nothing to latch on to, no way to hurt them.

“Use the emergency call in my dad’s room.” Tobin hurries off the stool, toward the hall that leads through his apartment. “You have to tell Honoria—”

“I can’t!” I chase after him. “I’ll have to tell her I can hear them, and if Honoria decides I’m too dangerous to keep around . . . I can’t tell her the Fade took control. She’ll lock me up. I don’t want to go in a cage. Please . . .”

He turns and disappears into the kitchen, and at first I think he’s decided to ignore my pleas. I brace myself for the wail of an activated alarm, but Tobin returns almost instantly with the lantern I’d used to burn him before. He lights it, and closes my hands around the base.

“Keep your eyes on it,” he says, holding his hands over mine.

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