The boxes crunched, crackled, and cracked as my weight shoved them into the wall, into the floor. I wriggled my way into the impossible space, twisting around the heavier squares and crushing the others. I felt his fingers scrape across my foot as he made a grab for my ankle, and I kicked one of the more solid boxes between us. He grunted, and despair wrapped choking hands around my throat. I hadn’t meant to hurt him again; I hadn’t meant to strike. I was only trying to escape.

I didn’t hear my own sobbing, loud as it was, until I could go no farther into the crowded hole and the sound of my thrashing stopped. When I did hear myself, heard the ragged, tearing gasps of agony, I was mortified.

So mortified, so humiliated. I was horrified at myself, at the violence I’d allowed to flow through my body, whether consciously or not, but that was not why I was sobbing. I was sobbing because it had been a test, and, stupid, stupid, stupid, emotional creature that I was, I wanted it to be real.

Melanie was writhing in agony inside me, and it was hard to make sense of the double pain. I felt as though I was dying because it was not real; she felt as though she was dying because, to her, it had felt real enough. In all that she’d lost since the end of her world, so long ago, she’d never before felt betrayed. When her father had brought the Seekers after his children, she’d known it was not him. There was no betrayal, only grief. Her father was dead. But Jared was alive and himself.

No one’s betrayed you, stupid, I railed at her. I wanted her pain to stop. It was too much, the extra burden of her agony. Mine was enough.

How could he? How? she ranted, ignoring me.

We sobbed, beyond control.

One word snapped us back from the edge of hysteria.

From the mouth of the hole, Jared’s low, rough voice—broken and strangely childlike—asked, “Mel?”

CHAPTER 30: Abbreviated

CHAPTER 30

Abbreviated

M el?” he asked again, the hope he didn’t want to feel coloring his tone.

My breath caught in another sob, an aftershock.

“You know that was for you, Mel. You know that. Not for h—it. You know I wasn’t kissing it.”

My next sob was louder, a moan. Why couldn’t I shut up? I tried holding my breath.

“If you’re in there, Mel…” He paused.

Melanie hated the “if.” A sob burst up through my lungs, and I gasped for air.

“I love you,” Jared said. “Even if you’re not there, if you can’t hear me. I love you.”

I held my breath again, biting my lip until it bled. The physical pain didn’t distract me as much as I wished it would.