Page 94 of Snag
“Isn’t Bellamy already being aided by your agents?” I say, more to rub it in than to confirm it.
“Yes,” Reck huffs, pissed about actually confirming it. “It wasn’t clear before that they …” His nostrils flare as he takes a breath, then corrects himself. “I didn’t think they’d come for Presh.”
He’s not lying. I don’t think he’s lied to me once. Yet. He knows … he knows that much about me, at least. And he knew my aunt as well. The Conduit is hard to lie to, to hide anything from. Not if the universe needs us to know the truth.
“Maybe Bellamy needs help getting away from both the Cataclysm and the Authority,” I say, as if I’m actually thinking it all through. I’m not, really. I’ll react in the moment as I always do. I’m just giving the universe a chance to weigh in for a second time.
“This exposes them,” Coda says over the phone speakers, fingers flying over multiple keyboards in the background. “Don’t worry, Sergeant …” The awry tech sneers Reck’s title. “I’m putting a tidy little info pack together for you to deliver to your Authority superiors. Not that the Conduit will be held accountable for whatever actions she’s about to take.”
Reck’s gaze flicks across my face, as if truly seeing me as the Conduit, not as the girl he knew, for the first time. But his expression once again hardens as it settles on Muta. The bushmaster has managed to untangle himself from my hair.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeats.
“You don’t believe that,” I say mildly. Guessing rather than truly knowing.
“Don’t read me,” he snaps. “If I say it, it’s the truth. Get in the fucking SUV, or Bellamy is going to use DeVille’s life force to fuel a teleportation spell and take Presh back to the Cataclysm.”
I get in the SUV.
The universe tries to force me back out, so strongly that my movements are jerky and uncoordinated.
“Stop fucking around,” Reck snarls.
I laugh joylessly, already knowing where all of this is leading. It’s probably not a great idea to die only days after my last death, which was only three weeks after the previous death. What would happen to the Conduit power if thevessel can’t be revived? Would it fall to another? Even if I’m the only currently living vessel? Could anyone not bred or destined for that power actually hold it?
I don’t think so.
So what, then? If all the essence that fuels the earth, that protects us, flows through the Conduit and that power doesn’t have its vessel — me — does it all just slowly wither and die?
Reck hits the accelerator, practically fishtailing down the drive.
My shoulder slams into the door, the sharp pain pulling me back into the present. Where I belong.
I buckle my seatbelt.
Muta settles in my lap.
My phone goes dead.
The universe tugs at me, again and again.
I’m not supposed to be with Reck. Maybe I’m not supposed to go after Presh at all, just as I wasn’t really supposed to rescue her at the diner. Or to snip Chains’s threads to save her.
I’m fucking with someone’s destiny right now. Or I’m about to.
Two days ago, I would have said that as the Conduit, I had no destiny, no fated path. But in this moment, I have a feeling I might be about to reweave a section of my own tapestry.
And it’s going to hurt.
It always does.
“Was it you, then?”I finally ask, resting my head back against the seat and watching the road speed by.
Fifteen minutes ago, we left the ocean and any sign of thriving civilization behind us, entering into another stretch of the wilds. But unlike the unclaimed or unaffiliated coastal regions of Oregon, here on the edge of the barrens, only the remnants of a once-verdant landscape remain. The ruins of farmhouses and barns. The occasional rusted coil of barbed wire on a broken section of fencing. Even the flora and fauna have been slow to reclaim this land. It’s still overcast, but we’ve even left the rain behind.
Muta in my lap is fixated on Reck. My phone is still seemingly dead in my hand. Coda must be seriously pissed at me for willingly sitting inside a literal black box. We’ve been driving in silence for almost an hour, taking the highway due east.
“Was it me what?” Reck snaps, as if he loathes talking to me, loathes being in the same space as me.
