Page 4 of The Infinite Glade
Jackie didn’t waste any time moving the best pieces of wood to the new circle.
“You don’t understand . . .” Ximena looked so frustrated she could bust open. “You may not think they’ll come after you, and they probably won’t. But they’ll be looking for me.” Her frustration turned into defeat, shoulders slumping.
“Because of how they studied you?” Isaac asked, trying hard to understand the extent of her fear.
“No . . .” She slowly took off her pack and unzipped the front pocket. “Because of what I took before I left . . .”
“What . . . ?” Jackie looked up from the sticks in her hands.
There remained just enough sunlight for Isaac to see the small object Ximena pulled from her bag. A glass vial, filled with a dark liquid, something handwritten on its label. But she didn’t let them stare too long before she shoved it back in her pack.
“What’s that?” Jackie asked.
Isaac felt a pang in his gut. “You stole something?”
Frypan just shook his head at the nonsense and tapped his walking stick against his shoe.
“You think I’d be able to get into the master Villa without leverage or something to offer them?” Ximena zipped up her bag with a ferocious swipe. “It’s the Cure.”
Silence. A very, very long silence.
“I thought you said there was no Cure?” Isaac asked.
Another moment of quiet, except for the buzzing insects.
Jackie reached for some question to make it all make sense. “If that’s the Cure then why is Cowan still in a coma?”
Ximena repositioned the bag on her back. “You really don’t get it, do you?” She looked directly at Frypan, but apparentlyhedidn’t get it either. “I shouldn’t have shown you.” She walked back toward the edge of the cliff.
“Just tell us more. So . . . so we can understand.” Isaac walked on Ximena’s heels.
“Because Cowan doesn’t have the Flare. What about that don’t you all understand? She’s having some kind of genetic reaction to something they haven’t seen before. Probably from all the inbreeding on your island.”
Jackie fumed at that nonsense. “We’re not inbred!” She dropped her sticks and charged at Ximena before Isaac could get between them. Ximena slipped the bag off her shoulder and shoved it into Isaac’s chest.
“Jackie, stop!” Isaac shouted. She pushed Ximena and Ximena pushed back, even harder. Isaac looked down at the pocket that supposedly held the Cure as the women continued to tussle.
Ximena spat her next words. “How are you so stupid to not realize that a fire makes smoke—signals for any doctor, Crank, or degenerate to find where we are? Huh?” This didn’t make Jackie feel better. They went at it, another round of pushing and shoving.
“Hey, stop! Stop it!” Isaac cradled the bag with one arm while he put the other in between the two. He’d only seen Jackie fight one person before this, a half-Crank that ended up dead. He didn’t want to wait and see what she might do to Ximena.
Frypan sat and spoke calmly as he watched on. “Eh, let them get it all out, Isaac. It’s like runners fighting in the Glade . . . they just need to be heard. They need to vent. Who Ximena is truly mad at . . . isn’t Jackie, anyhow.”
“None of this makes sense!” Jackie took a step back from Ximena but her voice got louder. “There’s no Cure, but youhavethe Cure?” She threw her arms into the air. “Which is it?”
Ximena shook her head. “Just because they call it a Cure, doesn’t mean it actually is one.” She grabbed her bag from Isaac, her eyes accusatory, as if she wasn’t the one who just shoved it into his chest. The more time he spent with this girl, the less he understood her. But he wanted to, for all their sakes.
The Cure is what brought theMaze Cutterto the islanders and wreaked havoc and mayhem on their lives ever since. Maybe what the Cure meant wasn’t the same as they assumed from Kletter. That woman didn’t exactly expound on what to expect from the Cure or the Godhead. “I believe you . . .” Isaac said softly.
Ximena looked at him, eyebrows raised. “You do?”
He nodded. “If this isn’t a Cure for us, maybe it’s a Cure for the Godhead and their people, I don’t know. But what’s in this vial is obviously more important than life to them, and Professor Morgan would crawl on her hands and knees to get it back. I do know that.”
Jackie scoffed and turned away from him, for some reason reminding him of Sadina whenever he’d take Trish’s side. But he didn’t want to pick sides in all this. He just wanted to be honest and get honesty back.
“Come on . . . Jackie . . .” Isaac needed her to know that he understood her, too. He wanted peace more than anything right then.
“Isaac . . .” Jackie said, but kept her back turned to the group.
