HOW MANY ANSWERS YOU SEEK ARE JUST A PART OF YOU, WAITING TO BE FOUND?
The game has changed.
Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human in New York while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought wit...
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BEN RAN OUT OF THE HOUSE WITH SADIE ON HIS TAIL, CRYING, "Noah! Noah!" As the rest of us followed, I couldn't help but be more worried than excited. What if it was someone who just sounded like Noah, like I now sounded like Lizzie? Or, worse, what if it was Noah and he wasn't what they remembered but a monster?
They bolted south, led by the instincts rooted deeply inside of them as trackers. Ben led by fifty yards, most drawn to the person they were tracking.
Ginny had to be right: They were in love, weren't they?
Eventually Ben came to a dead stop. In a strained and tearful voice, he screamed, "Noah!" My heart dropped, fearing the worst.
But in seconds we were on them, and Noah was there, on his feet, silver-red tears that I guessed were his new venom running down his face as Ben hugged him and didn't let go. "I knew it. I knew it," Ben was saying, muffled by tears and Noah's ragged clothes. "I knew you'd find me."
"I know. I promised," Noah said.
Sadie watched this in disbelief. When Ben and Noah finally broke apart, Sadie threw her arms around Noah's neck. I could see now that he looked like hell. His clothes were torn and dirty, and blood — some human, some not — was caked all over him. His tears cut through the dirt on his face, leaving a trail of icy-white skin beneath it that I could see in the pale moonlight. His sandy blonde hair was lighter and brighter than it had been when I first met him, and his eyes glowed a red brighter than my own. He looked much more inhuman than I did. Than any of us did.
But that didn't affect Sadie or Ben. They were just glad to see him here, alive and in one piece. "How did you get away?" she asked.
"Your strategy worked," he smiled, kissing her cheek. He turned to us, our questions on our faces. "Sadie's been working on opening her mind to me the way mine was to hers. Isn't that right?" Noah said.
Sadie nodded. "It was just a hunch. After I connected to Noah's mind during the blackouts, and Ben told me that Noah had been able to sort of read my mind, I experimented. I hoped that Noah would sense me, see what I was seeing. I couldn't tell if it was working, but I capitalized on moments when I felt stressed or most out of control because I always blacked out when he felt most stressed. My theory was maybe he could see into my brain a little if my guard were down. So when I got stressed out, I left breadcrumbs. I tried to look at things or make my mind show where we were, what was happening, how he could find us. I figured it was worth a shot."
"And that worked?" I asked in total disbelief. Sometimes I got the distinct impression that Sadie was more powerful than all of us combined. The things she could put together, figure out, and do . . .
Noah said, "It's the first time since we turned into . . . this . . . that I was able to feel who I used to be. Sadie's mind gave me the strength to get out. And when I saw Lizzie . . ." he said softly, sadly.
