After a while of eating in silence, I ask him, “We aren’t actually going to leave Zavy and Toby are we?”
Alexander looks at me confused, “Well, how do you plan to change Mio and Cinder’s minds? They seem set on not going to save them. I mean, if we had your mother’s journal then maybe we could convince them, but we don’t have anything to show them that Zavy and Toby are supposed to be going with us.”
I sit for a moment, getting my thoughts organized before I speak again. “Then we’ll just have to save Zavy and Toby without them,” I finally say and continue eating.
Alexander has stopped eating altogether and a worried look sets across his face, “No, Adaline. No, we can’t do that.”
I look at him and wonder what the old Alexander would have done. I wish I was able to still remember the feelings between us, but I can’t remember anything except for factual information about the last few days of our journey.
“You may not actually know who she is Alexander, but she is my best friend, and she still believes you’re hers. We can’t just leave her here to die. You can’t possibly be okay with that,” I say shortly and when he doesn’t respond I add, “I have a plan.”
“No, Adaline,” he says again, almost begging.
“Look, Alexander,” I say more harshly than intended because I’m not letting Zavy go again. “We’ll leave in the middle of the night and we’ll be back with Zavy and Toby by morning.” We sit there in silence, holding each other’s gaze. “Or I will just go alone,” I threaten, and even though the past bond between us is broken I see a flicker of possible fear flash across his eyes at the thought of me going to fight Paylon on my own.
He drops his eyes from mine and says, “Fine. What’s your plan?”
Chapter 13
Convincing Alexander to risk his life to save Zavy takes less work than I thought it would. I shove a handful of various types of berries into my mouth before explaining. “We leave after everyone has fallen asleep. I was studying the map earlier and it looks like if we just follow the river they mentioned we will come along a bridge that should take us right to where Chadian said Paylon was keeping Zavy and Toby. Then all we would have to do is get this key to Zavy,” I say as I twist the necklace around my neck.
“What if Codian and Chadian are there? We can’t take all three of them,” Alexander questions.
“Well, I’m hoping they won’t be,” I say simply.
“You’re hoping?” Alexander asks shocked.
“We left them locked in those cages. I doubt they’ve dug their way out that fast.” Alexander gives me a look that says he thinks I’m being naive. “I’m really just hoping they can think for themselves for once and leave while they can. Although I doubt that will happen so I’m just really hoping we get there first.” I finish off the meat and berries and wait for Alexander to say something.
“All right, we’ll do it,” he finally says and we both nod to each other in agreement. I get the feeling he agrees more so he can protect me rather than save Zavy. I wonder if it’s because he wants me safe or because he wants this search group to help us to Libertas. If I go and die that could ruin his chances of getting there. I believe Cooper when he said our father died in the ship crash, but I can tell Alexander is not one to ever lose hope, about his mother or his father. But they left him the same as mine left me and Cooper. Life’s better when you accept the dead are gone.
A large crash in the middle of the clearing pulls my attention from Alexander, and I watch as Cooper and some of the workers from the kitchen, Albert and Andy I think, stack a large pile of wood in the fire pit. I watch the other two guys from the kitchen, James and Bren, work on getting the wood to catch fire.
It doesn’t take long for the wood to catch, and I watch as the smoke rises past the trees until it touches the rose pink and orange sky, fading away. I study the colorful sky for a moment longer and see the stars slightly peeking through the colored sunset.
I take a deep breath of the cool night air to slow my heart rate. There’s no telling what will happen to Alexander and me tonight. Life long best friends or not we have already been through a lot together. I trust him with my life and yet I don’t know the first thing about him. I don’t know what his favorite color is or what his dreams were, but I do know I need him and he needs me and we both need to get to Libertas.
Tonight we’re going away from the plan that has seen our safety in the future for an unknown outcome. I felt like I had done things on a whim before, but now that I know what the actual plan is it’s harder to make those half-second decisions to do something crazy. I watch as the four guys from the kitchen set a wall of logs around the fire to try and conceal most of the bright orange flames
“Come on,” I say and stand to face Alexander. I extend my hand out to him and help him up.
