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Metias lowers his head, and his shoulders fall. “I never really had a reason to bring it up. ”
“Do you love him?”
I remember that I’m dreaming, and whatever Metias might say is simply my own thoughts projected into his image. Still, I ache when he looks down and answers with a slight nod of his head.
“I thought I did,” he replies. I can barely hear him.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. He meets my gaze with eyes full of tears.
I try to reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. But then the scene shifts, the light fades, and suddenly I’m lying in a dim whitewashed room on a bed that isn’t my own. Metias disappears into wisps. Caring for me in his place is Day, his face framed by hair the color of light, his hands readjusting the towel on my forehead, his eyes studying mine intensely.
“Hey, Sarah,” he says. He’s using the fake name he made up for me. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. ”
I blink at the sudden change in scene. “Safe?”
“Colonies police picked us up. They took us to a small hospital after they found out who I am. I guess they’ve all heard about me over here, and it’s working out to our benefit. ” Day gives me a sheepish grin.
But this time I’m so disappointed to see Day, so bitterly sad that I’ve lost Metias to the shallows of my dreams again, that I have to bite my lip to keep myself from crying. My arms feel so weak. I probably couldn’t have wrapped them around my brother’s neck anyway, and because I didn’t, I couldn’t keep Metias from floating away.
Day’s grin fades—he senses my grief. He reaches over and touches my cheek with one hand. His face is so close, radiant in the soft evening glow. I lift myself up with what little strength I have and let him pull me close. “Oh, Day,” I whisper into his hair, my voice breaking with all the sobs I’ve been holding back. “I really miss him. I miss him so much. And I’m so sorry, I am so sorry for everything. ” I repeat it over and over again, the words I said to Metias in my dream and the words I will say to Day for the rest of my life.
Day tightens his embrace. His hand brushes through my hair, and he rocks me gently like I’m a child. I cling to him for dear life, unable to catch my breath, drowning in my fever and sorrow and emptiness.
Metias is gone again. He is always gone.
IT TAKES JUNE A HALF HOUR TO FINALLY FALL BACK asleep, loaded up on whatever drugs a Colonies nurse injected into her arm. She’d been sobbing over her brother again, and it was like she’d fallen down a hole and crumpled in on herself, her bleeding heart torn open for all to see. Those strong dark eyes of hers—now, their expression was just . . . broken. I wince. Of course, I know exactly what it feels like to lose an older brother. I watch as her eyes dance around behind closed lids, probably deep in another nightmare that I can’t help her out of. So I just do what she always does for me—I smooth down her hair and kiss her damp forehead and cheeks and lips. It doesn’t seem to help, but I do it anyway.
The hospital is relatively quiet, but a few sounds form a blanket of white noise in my head: There’s a faint whir coming from the ceiling lights, and some sort of dim commotion on the streets outside. Like in the Republic, a screen mounted to the wall broadcasts a stream of warfront news. Unlike the Republic, the news is peppered with commercials the way th