The Event

28.

"Rowan, I don't like this." Jeremy shook his head, pulling on my wrist to take me out of Kayne's grip. Kayne relented this time for my brother but this was the first time he hadn't made damn sure he had a hand on me at all times in almost two days.

Even without touching me though, I could feel his gaze on me.

He's worried, and that worries me just the same.

"I don't love the idea either, Jer, but have you got anything better?" I turned my back towards the cold, hating the way the wind sliced through my hair to chill the back of my neck. "I wouldn't be leaving you if we had any other choice."

Jeremy shook his head harder, reminding me of how Mom used to shake her head so hard when she was frustrated with me that I always imagined she was going to shake it clear off of her shoulders. "There are other choices here. Ones that don't include you running off with him alone." Jer's eyes cut away from me and I don't have to wonder who he is slicing with his glare.

Jeremy and the others were hardly thrilled when they learned the truth. It was pretty evenly split between those who reacted like I had, filled with dread and disbelief, and those like Tommy who had gotten angry and refused to listen at first.

It was a whole night of being yelled at, playing referee, and trying to help the others see why Kayne had not told us the truth out right to begin with before they finally started to level back out. Some, like Matty and Dani had reasoned that they saw why They had done what they had done, but that it didn't mean we had to make those choices. Others though, like Fred and Tonny had been quick to anger spewing for hours about how wrong and corrupted They were.

Kayne and the other Mundi had been completely forthcoming in telling the others all about the dark years, the originals, the emotion blockers, and the dying planet. I hated watching them all when they talked about their lives at the end. The place they came from. It was ugly and wrong and no one should have to live that way. I hated feeling sympathetic towards them as a whole because of what they'd done, but at the same time I wasn't entirely sure that if the roles weren't reversed and it weren't all of us stuck on our dying planet with no other choice but to kill or to die that we wouldn't have made the same decision as the originals.

But we are armed with something the originals didn't have, and that's knowledge. We know where the dark roads of the original's choices leads and we know what the fallout from them are. We also now know that time travel is possible if not perfect. I have to remind myself frequently that we aren't forced to make the same choices over and over again as Kayne's people chose to do. We can change things. We can be the change. We can use the information we have to build towards are futures and maybe even come up with a way to live that doesn't mean sacrificing our humanity.

The bigger issue at hand though is how in the heck they, The Exiters, and she, Alexandrea, know about me. Most of the other Mundi think she must be bluffing, but how could she be? That's a pretty strong bluff to guess that Kayne is traveling with a girl. A human girl like me. A little too inconvenient for me.

It doesn't help in the slightest how freaked out Kayne has been since she threatened me. He tells me over and over how he wouldn't ever let anything happen to me, but the fact that he's so concerned that something might doesn't really help me sleep well at night.

I want to feel secure, but security went out of style around here a long time ago.

I tried to force a smile for Jeremy's benefit, but he sees through it all the same.

"I'm serious, Row." His grip on my wrist got tighter. "I don't like it at all. Us splitting up and you going off with...him. There has to be another way. You can stay with us and he can go off by himself. Or he and KaRayna could leave together. Anything but this."