Page 57 of The Reveal
“I do know that. That’s why Samuel rounded up the humans and had us all—”
“Jacksonville is protected because the oracle lives there,” Ariel tells me coolly. I get the distinct impression that he does not want to talk about Samuel, though I can’t think why. “It is a bargain your grandmother struck. She is who you should thank, not anyone else. No matter who takes credit.”
I frown even harder at that, because that almost sounds as if he’s saying—
But he stops me with another crook of his eyebrow and asks the question I’ve been waiting for since I met him. “Would you like to see your brother?”
14.
I have time to think about how much I really ought to hate myself, and how much Ireally do, as I follow him back down into the building and then out the school’s front door onto the street.
I can hear creatures move in the shadows, but none dare come out. Not with Ariel there, looking completely unbothered.
He glances over at the barricade I saw from the roof. “They build that up every week or two, and we take it down. At this point, it’s almost becoming a conversation.”
“Why do people need a barricade on Main Street?” I ask.
“You know what it’s like,” he says, almost conversationally, though there’s the hint of something like steel in him then. It makes me think of the way he barks out his commands to his minions as they move like one on the school’s polished floor. “The less someone has, the more they wish to defend it.”
I find that sits on me unpleasantly as I follow him down the center of what was once a fairly busy street, crossing the bridge over the river and circling around until we’re deep into Hawthorne Park.
A place I tried to avoid even before the Reveal.
Long ago, the towns in the valley decided to put in a beautiful greenway that follows Bear Creek, an offshoot of the Rogue River, for some twenty miles, connecting Ashland, at the southernmost part of the valley, up to Central Point, near where the tributary meets up with the actual river. In some places, it’s probably still beautiful.
But here in the center of Medford, it was never anything but sketchy. There were always throngs of desperate people, in and out of their hiding places in the bushes. I rode a bike this way exactly once before vowing I never would again.
Being out here tonight feels particularly precarious.
Especially since I can still feel that mark he left on me, blazing now. Part of me is worried that it’s blistering my skin.
Yet I feel certain I would rather die than indicate I even notice.
Ariel ushers me through the dark with that same stern confidence I already know too well, and all the shadowy figures that I don’t want to look at directly move out of his way. Whether because they recognize him or sense who he is, I don’t know.
I’m just glad they move.
I hear murmuring, but I don’t know what that means either, and I refuse to ask him.
Maybe I’m afraid to ask him.
He leads me down to a path I didn’t know existed on the riverbank, separate from the old greenway that meanders along beneath the interstate. And then we walk.
I quickly lose my bearings once I can’t see the MMA school in front of us, a landmark sitting high on the other side of the water. Ariel strides ahead of me, and I hate that I have to scurry after him to keep up, so I don’t. I walk fast enough not to lose sight of him, but that’s all. This path is well worn, but then he takes us on a smaller path that winds around and goes under a bridge, where he stops and waits next to a concrete wall covered in graffiti.
I go and stand next to him, not sure why we stopped. I look up at the bridge above me and realize that we’re directly underneath the freeway, though I can’t hear any vehicles up above. Someone told me that the freeways are turning back to nature, though I haven’t investigated this myself. I like the idea of flowers pushing their way through, grass and trees reclaiming what’s theirs. It lets me imaginethat everything moves in cycles, and maybe one day I’ll recognize this world again. Maybe one day it will feel like mine once more.
The darkness presses in all around us. The river rushes down below.
I comfort myself with the knowledge that if he wanted to kill me, he wouldn’t need to take me down to a bridge near the river to do it.
It’s actually not that comforting.
When I hear a scraping sound, I jump.
I hate that I display that kind of vulnerability and that Ariel simply puts his hand on my back and that’s enough to stop me. Worse, it feels like comfort, and I don’t know where to put that. My heart pays no attention, however, and catapults against my ribs like it’s trying to claw its way out.
I look around wildly, and then I can’t help but stare—possibly with my mouth open—when a slab of painted-over concrete at the base of the bridge ...moves.
