She’s shaking her head so frantically, making her matted ginger hair fly all over the place. She licks her parched lips. I can’t help thinking that she’s using the last ounce of strength left in her to make this confession. It’s as though she’s trying to atone before she dies, to rid herself of sin just in case she’s about to meet her maker.

My grief is all consuming. It hurts so much my stomach aches. It’s more painful than the blisters, than the gnawing starvation. It’s more painful than the car crashes and the arena fights, than the snake bite and the slavers’ whips.

I fall back against the hard, cracked desert ground, feeling completely defeated, and let my eyes close.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Brooke. Brooke, wake up.”

My eyelids flutter open. I’m flat on my back on the parched earth. I can’t feel any pain at all; my whole body is comfortably numb.

There’s a blanket of stars above me. I squint, trying to work out who it is standing before me. But it’s impossible. The person is nothing more than a silhouette.

“Who are you?” I manage to say.

My voice is no longer parched. My tongue isn’t swollen, nor are my lips dry and cracked. But it’s still hard to get my words out. It’s like I can’t move, like I’m more than just numb, but paralyzed.

“It’s me,” the voice replies.

But I can’t place it. It sounds like a hundred different voices in one. I can’t even tell whether it’s a man or a woman.

I don’t know whether I’m dead or alive, awake or dreaming. All I know is that the pain has gone. I’m filled with peace and tranquility. My eyelids are so heavy, I could easily just fall back to sleep.

The person reaches out and touches my cheek with their fingers.

“Don’t fall asleep, Brooke. Not now. Not yet.”

As I finally place the voice, my heart clenches. Because it belongs to Rose. I can’t make out her features in the darkness, I can only conjure a memory of what she looks like.

“How did you get here?” I stammer, confused by her presence.

“You brought me with you,” she replies, touching my heart gently. “I’m in here.”

As her hand presses into my chest, I realize that it’s not Rose sitting beside me anymore. It’s Flo.

“Thank you for looking after him,” she says. “For taking care of Charlie all this time.”

“Flo?” I stammer.

“I don’t blame you, Brooke,” she says. “You did everything you could for me.”

She reaches down and presses a kiss to my forehead. But as she straightens up, it’s no longer Flo. It’s my mom looking down at me.