Page 49 of The Godhead Complex
Isaac waited.
He didn’t know what he was looking for, but nothing happened.
Until a flash of metal moved within the visible space. Something like Isaac had never seen before. Brighter than any metal he’d ever hammered on the forge. Sharp. Jagged.
“What is that thing?”
“That is something I never wanted to see again.” The fear in Frypan’s face highlighted every wrinkle and every age spot. “That, my friend, is a Griever.”
Isaac turned back to the pod but the Griever’s leg or arm, whatever it was, had moved on. He could only reach into his imagination for the stories Frypan and the elders told of the Glade and the Grievers coming after them, stinging the Gladers with a variation of the Flare. Nightmares come to life.Could that really be a live Griever in there?Seemed almost impossible, like a fairy tale. He turned to Frypan. “What’s the longest you think two potatoes can simmer in a stew before they get mashed?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Maybe a day at most.”
“Whether they’re true immunes or not, this Kletter lady sounds a lot like the Grief Bearers. I don’t trust any of it.” Orange was sitting on the captain’s bench and flipping through the captain’s log. Minho had spent two nights looking at the book in detail but couldn’t string enough words together to form an opinion, other than the same conclusion that Orange had just come to.
“You never trusted the Grief Bearers? Even before that crazy stunt on the Berg?” Minho focused on the waters ahead. It wasn’t long ago that the Grief Bearers of Remnant Nation had sent him away so that he could become one of them, one of their peers, but he’d known before they shoved him off a cliff that he didn’t want that. Not only did they torture children for the sake of rising up one day to kill the Godhead, but Minho didn'twantto kill the Godhead—he wanted to join them and help the world evolve. But of course, he couldn’t tell Orange that. Evolution—even the mention of the word—was blasphemy within the Orphan Army.
“Something about them never felt right.” Orange handed over the captain’s log and picked up her binoculars.
Minho relaxed behind the captain’s wheel.
Unlike everyone else on the boat, Orange could watch for whales and other ships ahead without trying to fill the space between them with words. It was just like they were back on the wall guarding the Remnant Nation—except no one would die. Hopefully. Meanwhile, Minho could decompress in silence. He didn’t have to work so hard to understand the dynamics of the group or to fight his soldier instincts. When it was just him and Orange, he could be himself—the Orphan named Minho.
He watched the horizon as he steered North-East. The sounds of the ocean grew on him, like the wet scraping the bottom of the ship made as it cut through the water. The whoosh of the wind over the deck. Even the way Dominic’s cheerful voice carried up to the deck like an echo from the cabin below.
Minho would miss all of this when they got to Alaska.
Orange lowered her binoculars and turned to him with a confession. “Skinny and I never said anything out loud because we didn’t want to get reinforced, but . . . once you left, we knew you wouldn’t come back.”
“Really?” The notion brought him peace, like an affirmation that he’d made the right decision. He wondered if the Grief Bearers had known, too. If that’s why they’d fastened his cordage so tight. Why they’d pushed him so hard off the cliff. Why they came after him.
Orange nodded. “Yeah. We were jealous.”
He’d never dreamed that anyone would even notice his absence, let alone be jealous of it.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to do it?” she asked. “Kill the Godhead?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie. He looked at her for a reaction, but she didn’t have one. Maybe it was the number of days they’d spent on the open ocean, but Minho decided to test Orange. “What do you think Evolution is really about?” Her eyes got big with surprise. “Sorry, it’s just something I think about sometimes . . .” He returned his attention to the ocean ahead of them.
“I don’t know . . .” Orange wasn’t accustomed to having permission to think on her own about the subject. But if she had time to think about Crank Armies, surely she would have thought about the Evolution and what it was or wasn’t. “I guess it could be what we were told, or it could be something completely different. I only know one thing for sure. I’m never stepping foot back in that place.”
“Me, neither.” The walls of the Remnant Nation were ones he’d never see again. Ever. But as soon as he said it, he felt a pang in his gut.Kit.
“What’s wrong?” Orange asked. “Your face just did a thing.”
“Nothing. Just remembered something I left back there.”
“Minho, no weapon, artifact, or internal organ is worth going back for.”
“How about a person? A little boy named Kit.” He couldn’t believe he was telling this story to Orange but if anyone could understand how he felt, it would be her. “One night I was walking through the tunnels of Hell and heard something that sounded like a dying dog. I saved him, I think.” Minho wasn’t sure how long the boy would have lived after such a beating; maybe he should’ve just put the kid out of his misery. What the Remnant Nation called “reinforcement” was just another version of death, beating their will and subordination far below the surface. Saving Kit was the first time Minho went against the things he’d been taught.
Leaving the Remnant Nation and never going back was the second.
Orange seemed genuinely impressed. “Wow. Can’t believe they didn’t kill you on the spot for that.”
“I don’t think it was a Grief Bearer that hurt him. Whoever it was ran away.”
Orange set her binoculars on the bench. “You should feel proud of that memory, not sad.”
