was a dream. Hoped it was a memory. It came before you guys told me I’d been a rebel.”
“Well, it wasn’t just a dream.”
I grip the railing and lean back. “I’ve been having a lot of not-just-dreams lately. You were in the last one, you know.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Were we…?”
“Sort of. Not really.”
“Wow, that makes things a whole lot clearer. Thanks for the enlightenment.”
A corner of her mouth quirks up. “It wasn’t romance—not really. We were never physical, and there were never any feelings of love between us, either. We tried. I think we both wanted there to be something. But we were just two broken people trying to find comfort in being with someone else who was broken.”
“Is there really something so wrong with that?” I can’t remember ever being in a relationship. I don’t actually know how it works. But that doesn’t sound so terrible to me.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with it,” Joan says. “But it wasn’t real for us. When I met Paul, and you and I broke things off, neither of us were worse off for it.”
“You left me for another man?” I ask with pretend insult. “That hurts, Joan.”
She smirks. “Maybe you should’ve learned how to treat your partner better, Erik.”
“Ouch, Joan. Ouch.”
There’s something different between us now. I’ve never tried to joke with her before tonight. She’s definitely only ever used a brisk, businesslike tone with me until now.
“Hey, Joan,” I say. “Will you tell me about how the rebels started? How did we all end up here?”
She hesitates. Cal’s told me tons of stories, hopeful they’d spark something in my black hole of missing memories, and always patient when they didn’t. But I never wanted to ask him how it all started. I was too afraid. But now that my memories seem to be coming back, I want to know. I need to know.
“Well,” she says, and her hands clasp each other over the railing as she leans farther over it, “it was just you and Sara at first. The two of you picked me and Cal up off the streets, and for a while, it was just the four of us. We didn’t know where to go from there. You and Sara were serious about wiping out the ungifted. Me and Cal, I think we both just wanted a place to go. I know I couldn’t have cared less about making war against the sectors at the time. The four of us eventually left the sector to explore Outside, try to find a place we could live in peace. We found the underground tunnels by chance. When we went back to recruit more gifted, you and Sara helped Devin out of a fight, and he came along worshipping the both of you.”
A laugh stumbles out of me. “Devin used to worship me? You can’t be serious.”
She shakes her head, eyes never leaving the city below us. “It’s true. He used to idolize you, just like he does Sara now. When you and I sort of became a thing, he was disgusted. He said you’d become weak and started to resent you. After your disappearance and then reappearance on the sector’s side, things only got worse.”
It’s too hard to imagine. All of it.
I don’t know if Joan can pick up on my anxiety, but she keeps going. “Eventually, Gabriel, Sara’s old friend, came to find us. And as word of us spread, more Nytes came to join us, trying to find a place to live without fear. Some of them wanted to fight. Some didn’t. But we got to the point that we could finally organize actual resistance. We started with the raids and—well, you probably know the rest from there.” Her eyes soften. “But the four of us—you, me, Sara, Cal—no matter how many people we gained, it was always us. We used to joke and spar together and talk about how one day, we’d make a world where the gifted could live freely.”
Her eyes rise to meet the solid ground above us, hiding us, protecting us, crushing us. “But you know, Erik, I never wanted to kill all the Etioles.” Her eyes fall again, and her voice with them. “If we weren’t so dead-set on total elimination of the ungifted being the only way to gain peace for Nytes, would Paul have had to die? He was so kind. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He always told me he wished the rebels would try a more peaceful approach, but I