The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,169

the Thunderhead had set for itself. Certainly Cirrus had, or would have, its own rules of conduct, but for the time being Cirrus was an all-purpose work-around. It spoke to Greyson through a speaker, without caring that Jeri could hear.

“There’s something the Thunderhead and I need to ask of Anastasia, but it’s best if it comes from you,” Cirrus said. “You’ll find her in the residential area of the main island.”

“I have a feeling I know the request,” Jeri said.

Perhaps it was because Jeri now knew the Thunderhead’s mind, or maybe it was just intuition, but Jeri was right—and it was, indeed, the kind of request you needed to hear from a friend, not from an unfamiliar AI.

* * *

They found Anastasia and Faraday on an empty street. She began to tell Greyson about a bunker, but he cut her short. There was no time for small talk now.

“Cirrus wants you to lead one of the ships,” he told her. “It feels that you, more than almost anyone else here, would be qualified and respected enough to do it.”

Anastasia didn’t even hesitate with her response.

“Not happening,” she told him. “I have no intention of leaving everything behind and spending years in a tin can hurtling through space.”

“I know,” said Greyson. “So does the Thunderhead; so does Cirrus. But they also know you, Citra. They know exactly what it would take to make you change your mind.”

Then he pointed behind her.

* * *

When Citra turned and saw him, she didn’t trust her own eyes. She was convinced it was either a cruel trick or her own sleep-deprived mind hurling hallucinations at her.

She took a few steps toward him but stopped—as if getting too close would burst some bubble, breaking the spell, and this tenuous night vision of Rowan would dissolve into nothing. But he ran toward her, and she found she was running, too, as if she had no control over her own legs. Perhaps she and Rowan had both grown so much larger than life that the gravity between them was too intense to resist. When they embraced, they nearly knocked each other off their feet.

“Where did you—”

“I never thought I’d see you—”

“Those broadcasts you made—”

“When you were captured, I thought—”

And they began laughing. There wasn’t a sentence they could finish, but it didn’t matter. Nothing that came before this moment mattered.

“How did you get here?” she finally was able to ask.

“I hitched a ride with a bunch of dead people,” he told her. Which, in any other situation, might have begged an explanation, but not tonight.

Anastasia turned to look at Greyson, Jeri, and Faraday, who kept their distance, allowing them their reunion. And she realized that, as always, the Thunderhead was absolutely right. There was really only one reason to stay, and that was to find Rowan. She had already suspected she’d never see her family again. They had come to terms with her death years ago; how could she reintroduce herself into their lives now? And her case against Goddard was already made. What the world did with it was up to the world. She didn’t want to be the great Scythe Anastasia any more than Rowan wanted to be the dread Scythe Lucifer. There was nothing here for either of them but an eternity of unwanted notoriety. Citra Terranova was not someone who ran away from things, but she also knew when it was time to move on.

“Give me a minute,” she said to Rowan, then went over to the man who had started her on this strange path.

“Honorable Scythe Faraday. Michael. Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” she said. Then she pulled the ring from her finger and put it in his hand. “But Scythe Anastasia is gone. I’m done with death and dying and killing. From now on, I want my life to be about living.”

He nodded, accepting the ring, and Citra went back to Rowan.

“I still don’t understand where we are and what’s going on,” Rowan said. “And are those rockets out there?”

“It doesn’t matter where we are, because we’re getting out of here,” Citra told him. “Are you ready to hitch another ride?”

* * *

Jeri went back to the ship after the last of the containers had been off-loaded onto the dock. Greyson had accepted Cirrus’s invitation to spend the night in one of the main island’s abandoned dwellings—and although Cirrus had offered Jeri one as well, Jeri had declined.

“I would feel more at home aboard the cargo ship,” Jeri told