Across the Universe

79 AMY

I FEEL MY HEART THUD — ONCE, HARD — AND THEN IT’S LIKE A rushing of blood and emotion from my body and I am empty inside, frozen like before, and I see nothing, and I feel nothing, but that’s not true. Because as soon as I think that, I feel again, I feel everything, and I can’t see, I can’t breathe, but I do feel.

And what I feel is rage.

I think for a moment—I was wrong: it would be better to not feel than to feel this—and then I

quit

thinking.

I scream something, but even I can’t distinguish what words spit from my mouth. I’m standing now — I don’t remember standing, but I’m standing. And I lunge for him. I want to hurt him — I don’t care how — as long as I can cause some sort of pain, maybe that will be enough. I get in one good, solid hit, and I know that I’ve surprised him more than hurt him, despite the fact that there’s already a red mark on his cheekbone under his eye. My fingers are curled claws, but he grabs my wrists before I can attack again, and he holds me back. I kick, but my short legs can’t outdistance his long arms, and I do the only thing left for me to do. All the rage tears from my throat.

���I’m sorry,” Elder pleads.

Sorry? Sorry? Sorry isn’t enough. Every. Single. Thing. I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was.

“I could have died!” I shout. “I almost did die!”

“I didn’t know”—he trips over his words—“that — I mean — frex! I didn’t know you’d be — and—”

I want to ask why. Except — there is no why. I can see it in his face. He didn’t mean to hurt me. To take away my only chance to be with my parents. To trap me in a metal cage.

To kill me as effectively as I am dead on Earth.

He just did it.

There is no why, just like there is no going back.

“But I had to tell you the truth.”

That stops me.

Something inside me snaps into place, painfully. The truth grinds against my bones.

Daddy lied to me when he said coming or not was my choice. He made the choice. The empty trunk in the cryo chamber is proof enough of that.

Jason let me believe what I wanted to believe.

This whole ship has been held together with metal and lies, everyone either deceived or a deceiver.

Except for Elder.