J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Back in the dark passages, Mira had told them everything Lenore had said about Ben. That he had tricked her and taken her Points, that he was in the Strange Lands now, trying to reach “the core.” Zoey didn’t know what that was, but it sounded scary. When Mira recounted Lenore’s story, Zoey had felt only a little bit of doubt from her. Now, it was much stronger. A large part of her was starting to think Lenore had told the truth, and the more she came to think that way, the more it hurt.

“Maybe she staged the Points to incriminate him, in case you ever came back,” Holt suggested.

Mira shook her head. “That’s Point Fabrication. It’s the worst crime you can commit here, it’s what Lenore accused me of, and it means death, even for the faction leader of the Prime Movers. She wouldn’t risk it.” Mira looked back up at the Scorewall in the distance with a dark stare. “No, those Points are real. Ben is alive and he’s free.”

Holt looked away from Mira, staring at the Scorewall along with her. “Do you love him?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

It took awhile for the words to register, but when they did, Zoey felt new emotions from Mira. Doubt, guilt, confusion… and something warmer, something Zoey had felt growing in Mira for a while.

Mira stared at Holt, hesitant and conflicted. “Ben and I were… close,” she said. “There was no one better than him in the Strange Lands. He had an almost sixth sense when it came to it. He could tell you just from how the air felt on his skin whether a Pulsar Chain was nearby or an Ion Storm was coming, and the farther we went in, the harder it was to get him to come out. We made it all the way to the end of the fourth ring once, even though I never wanted to go that far. That was how Ben was. He always had a way of convincing me to do things I shouldn’t. Sometimes I didn’t feel safe with him at all.”

Holt listened, but it wasn’t until she finished that he finally looked at her. “That wasn’t what I asked,” he said. “It’s not a hard question, Mira,” he said. “Either you do or you don’t.”

They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence…

…and then Zoey felt the Tone flare powerfully inside Mira’s mind.

Mira instantly curled into a ball, moaning in pain. Zoey could almost hear the voices erupting within the static and hissing inside Mira’s head.

Holt wrapped his hands around her, pulled her to him, and Zoey felt the desperation overtake him. He looked up at her, and she didn’t need her powers to read what was written in his eyes. “Zoey, I need you to do your thing here,” he said. “For Mira.”

Zoey looked up at Holt in fear. Zoey had no idea how to re-create what had happened in the tent. The feelings had risen inside her and she’d had nothing to do with that. She searched for them regardless, trying to find them in the recesses of her mind… but there was nothing. And Mira continued to groan and shake on the floor.

“I need you to stop the Tone,” Holt clarified. “Like you did back at the river. I need you to do it for Mira.”

“That wasn’t me,” Zoey said simply.

Holt stared at her, and she could feel his frustration. “What?” he asked.

“I mean… it was me, but it wasn’t me either. It was—”

“Zoey, I don’t have time for riddles right now,” Holt said, grabbing her and pulling her close. “I need to you to save Mira. You’ve done it before, I need you do it again. Right now.”

“I don’t know how,” Zoey pleaded. She could feel her eyes starting to tear.

“But you did it before ,” Holt said, his voice cracking. Mira continued to shake in his arms. “Please, Zoey, just try? Just try once…” He tried to pull her down farther, to put her tiny hands on Mira, but Zoey yanked free.

“Zoey!” His voice was full of panic and rage, and Zoey stared at him with wide, startled eyes. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but she flinched nonetheless at the pain that swelled inside him. She felt it too, just as intense.

“I don’t know how!” she screamed, tears starting to flow. “Something did it on its own, and it wasn’t me! I don’t know how! ”

“Holt.” Mira’s weak voice stopped everything. Holt looked down at her. Her eyes were open, she was staring up at him. “It’s not… her fault.”

At the words, Holt looked from Mira to Zoey, trembling in his hands. Tears ran down her face, and she felt an outpouring of guilt and shame from him, with an intensity she’d never felt from anyone.

Instantly, he let her go, and Zoey pushed back away from him.

“I’m… sorry, Zoey,” Holt said. “I didn’t mean—”

Mira spasmed again underneath him and Holt wrapped his arms around her, held her as tight as he could, whispering into her ear, trying to keep her attention on the real world. It took her almost ten minutes to fight it off and shove it back down into her subconscious, where it whispered just out of reach, but she finally did, and Zoey felt the tension in her body mercifully release.

“Zoey…” Mira said weakly from beneath them. Her contortions had stopped, her eyes were open. It had passed, the Tone was beaten back, and she was fine… for now. “It’s okay, Zoey.”

When Zoey looked into Mira’s eyes, the Tone seemed even more prominent, lacing and crawling through her irises. Mira reached up and pulled the little girl down to her, holding her gently. “It’s all okay,” Mira said. “It’s not your fault.”

But to Zoey it felt like it was her fault nonetheless. Above her, she saw Holt look away, his face torn with anger and pain.

Zoey felt the tension drain out of Mira, could sense her exhaustion. It didn’t take long for her to drift off to sleep.

Behind her, Holt moved moved to the edge of the cavern, to where it overlooked the city, and sat there, staring down quietly at all the activity near the Scorewall. Max whined a little, padded over and sat with his head in Holt’s lap. He scratched the dog’s ears absently.

The intensity of Holt’s emotions had calmed, but they hadn’t changed. Zoey could still feel the worry and the fear projecting from him, but there was something else, too. Resolution. Commitment. Holt had chosen to stay with them instead of heading east, and it had been a difficult decision, she knew. He was risking a great deal for the possibility of saving Mira.

Zoey suddenly realized where all his plans hinged. On her . Holt had stayed in a desperate attempt to help Zoey remember the one power that was lost to her. The one she had just shown she couldn’t use. And the realization filled her with dread. What if she couldn’t remember? What if she failed both of them? What if she lost them both?

Quietly, Zoey pulled free from Mira’s arms and sat next to Holt. Below them, the Scorekeepers had arrived, darting over the huge wall on their ropes, moving up and down, left and right, changing the bevy of numbers that were listed there. Zoey and Holt watched it all dispassionately.

“I still don’t know what I need to do here,” Zoey said. “I don’t know how I can know and feel so many other things… and not that.”

Holt just kept staring down at the people filing into the huge cavern below. “Do you have any clues? Anything at all to help?”

Zoey shook her head. “No. I just know there’s something here for me.”

Holt stayed quiet, thinking. She could feel him bury his doubts and fear, push them back down, the same way he always did. It was what he had to do to keep moving forward, and he’d had lots of practice at it.

“Well… it’s something,” he finally said. “Everything starts from something. Right?”

“Right, Holt.”

They both kept staring down at the Scorewall and the kids hovering over it. Zoey slowly reached over and took Holt’s hand. Holt squeezed it back.