Page 92 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I glance at the train station entrance again. Wouldn’t we all do that? If I asked Rae now if she could bring Autumn back, what would she be willing to sacrifice?
“We can’t go back,” Rae says, and blood rushes in my ears.
“What?”
“If everything you’ve said is true, then they’ll be waiting for us, Isaac. They’ll kill us.”
“I—” I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know what todo. We stay here, then what? Will they even let us? I’ll have to see Mason all the time, and I don’t know if I want that or not.
“Isaac.” Rae reaches out gently, and another sob hiccups out of me when her hands cradle my face. “You’ve been holding everything together for us. I need you to trust me. We don’t have to stay here, but wecannotgo back there.”
I inhale deeply, tears still escaping when I let that breath out again. “You’re right,” I say. She is. Of course she is. We were marked to die when we were sent up here. Even if Dane was lying about that—and I don’t think he was—do I want the Citadel to send more teams?
Do I want more people to die here?
“Come on.” Rae helps me to my feet. “We’ll talk to Nia. We’ll get our things. We can make it out here.”
“Do you want to stay?” I ask.
“I don’t know what I want to do right now. It’s all—” Rae blows out a breath. “But I don’t want to get on that train. Worse, I don’t want to die at a fucking train station, okay?”
Despite myself, I let out an amused huff. “Okay.”
We leave the train station far more dejected than we entered it. I spot Sal out of the corner of my eye as we head to the town centre, and that’s where he drops into step with us, his expression entirely sympathetic.
The climb to the church seems to take hours. My head throbs with each step, all the aches in my body making themselves known. Nothing’s broken, I don’t think, but not for Dane’s want of trying. Rae supports me, leaning her shoulder against mine.
Sal stops us just outside the gates. “No one here wants to hurt you,” he says.
“Wants to?” Rae asks.
“We won’t. Just—” He sighs. “We chose to stay, in the end. It’s a good life here, despite what you’ve seen of it.”
“You know what he did,” I say.
“I do, yeah. I’ve had more time to come to terms with it. But it’s done, Isaac. There’s no changing things.”
I press my lips together. I know that, of course. It’s not about that.
“There’s space for you here. If you want it.”
“Why would you all want us here?”
Sal shrugs. “Mason’s always been different. Distant. Even before everything, I don’t think I ever saw him smile.”
“If we stay, that doesn’t mean anything will happen between me and Mason.”
“Maybe not. I think he’ll be happy all the same.”
He slips through the gate, and I stay where I’m standing for a few moments still.
Rae squeezes my arm. “Would it really be so terrible to stay here?”
“I just—It’s all a lie. They all lied.”
Rae hums and lets out a quiet breath. “They all lied back there, too,” she says. “We just didn’t know it at the time.”
She’s not wrong. When she gently nudges me, I move, and together, we walk through the ruined graveyard and up into the church.
