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I did my best to pretend I was getting over him, pretend I was ready to begin again.
But it was too painful.
I couldn’t bear it.
“What if I were to tell you he was still alive?” Stari said.
What was this? Cruelty? Maybe she was a Changeling after all.
“Listen to me,” she said. “What if I was to tell you he didn’t die in that explosion?”
“What do you mean?” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes.
Stari checked over her shoulders and took me to one side. She lowered her voice.
“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” she said. “Grandpa… He thought you would be better off not knowing. They all did. And so did I.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“He’s alive,” Stari said.
Her big yellow eyes pinned me in place.
“We thought you might not help us if you knew the truth about him,” she said.
My heart rate slowed. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. But I would believe it. I was too hopeful not to.
“I would have helped you even if he was still alive,” I said. “It doesn’t matter about that.”
“That’s not the truth I’m talking about,” she said.
Her eyes moved between mine and she looked like she regretted telling me the truth. But it was too late for her to back out now.
“What?” I said. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Just so long as we can be together again.”
“Maybe not, after you hear what I have to tell you.”
A weight sat heavy in my chest. It only got heavier as she told me the truth.
7
CHAX
I paced my cell. The pain tore up my legs and across my back in a fractured lightning bolt. It was excruciating but it was nothing compared to the pain of never seeing Maddy again.
I replayed the shuttlecraft scene over and over in my mind. We’d come so close to freedom. Was there something we could have done better? Was there something we could have done to improve our chances of escape?
I ran through hundreds of ideas, slotting them into place and pulling them apart again, to figure out a better way through the assault course we’d traversed to reach that ship.
Not that it mattered.
We failed and there was no way to change the past.
I wouldn’t be heading back to the surface. It was more than a small relief. No matter what the Yayora chose to do with me, it could never be worse than what the Changelings had done.
The Changeling “siblings” were in the cell next to mine. The Yayora grabbed them the moment Maddy and I left the dilapidated barn. It was a chance to glean some much-needed inside information, I supposed. Not that the siblings would ever talk. I would have bet my life on that.
Klang lay on a cot with his arms behind his head. His legs bounced in time to a tune only he could hear. He had a distant smile on his face that made me feel sick to my stomach.
