Chapter 1
“I don’t feel comfortable with that, Gale.”
“We don’t have much choice, do we?”
“She can’t stay here forever. It’s been a full week and she still hasn’t come out of it.”
Sam floated through a cloudy gray landscape with no real substance to herself or anything around her. The voices had been coming through for days now, but as much as she tried to get her vocal cords to work, she could not respond. The most she could manage was a squeak of an exhalation every once in a while.
The voices got excited every time she did that, and she wanted to tell them that she was here. She could hear them. Now, if only she could see them.
This morning, she thought she could see the shadow of someone very large leaning over her. Hair brushed her neck, tickling it, and she wanted desperately to scratch, but in this cloudy realm that she was floating through, itches remained no matter how desperately she tried to scratch them.
“Her wound is healing nicely and there are no signs of infection.”
Dad. It’s Sam. I’m here, Dad. Can you hear me?
“Eununcavoumeperdoar.”I will never forgive myself.
I know that voice. Joao. But he sounds so broken. Desperate. No, Joao. Be strong. I’m here. I love you. Don’t give up on me.
“Nãoésuaculpa,”Dad responded. You are not responsible.
He’s right, Joao. I do not blame you. Not at all. I just want you to stay with me.
“I stabbed her,Usuario.”
You’re breaking my heart, Joao. You didn’t mean to. I was the idiot who dived in front of your blade.
“I know your blade was not meant for her, Joao. I do not blame you, and I know she doesn’t either.”
Listen to him, Joao. I don’t blame you. I could never.
Sam wondered what happened to Jeremy. The voices hadn’t discussed his fate around her, and she was desperate to know.
“Samantha will remain here until she has recovered.”
Oamo?Sam frowned.Where am I? I can’t be in the Pe Grande village. There’s no way they would have brought me all the way here from Brockland. I was stabbed right outside of New Crest. I know I was.But even as Sam thought it, she wondered if it was true. Joao could have carried her all the way here to his home. But Gale was here. And Dad.Mom?Was her mom here, too?
“She is too far away from New Crest, Oamo,” Dad reasoned. “My village needs me, but I cannot bear the thought of being away from her for long.”
“I will care for her,” Joao said fiercely.
“I know, Joao,” Dad said in a far more gentle tone than Joao had used with him. “You have done well this past week. Now, let us take over. She’s my daughter.”
“And she’s my Igualar.” Joao’s tone was final, fierce, and scary.
Oh, Joao. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m trying to come back to you. I promise, I’m trying.
She wanted to tell the men not to fight over her. She needed them to know that she wanted to stay here. She wanted to be near Joao. Dad needed to know that he could go back home. New Crest needed its leader. Joao would care for her. That was what she wanted, but Sam feared she would lose this battle. Dad had come all the way here to bring her back, and he didn’t seem to be willing to leave without Sam’s body.
Come on, Sam. Wake up. You can do this. Just wake up.She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, but the gray clouds remained. She tried punching herself in the leg and stomach but she felt nothing. There was no pain, just the incessant itching of her nose and neck.
Someone itch my nose, please. Someone. Anyone.
The men moved out of her earshot and try as she might, she could no longer hear their conversation.
I want to stay,she tried to shout, but it was useless. Sam thrashed about, trying to get her body to cooperate, but nothing seemed to happen.
She felt a small, weathered hand brush her hair from her forehead. “Sam, if you can hear me, it’s Gale. You were hurt, but you’re okay. We repaired the damage to your body, but it’s up to you to repair the damage to your mind. Joao thinks you may have hit your head when you fell after he stabbed you, but we did not find a head wound. I believe you are protecting yourself from the pain, but I want you to know that we found a flower that dulls the pain. You can come back to us, Sam. It won’t hurt as bad as you fear.”
I can take the pain, Gale. I’ve been through worse than this,Sam tried to tell her.I don’t know why I’m stuck here in the clouds. I want to come back.
Someone was laughing. Sam could hear it somewhere off in the distance. It didn’t sound jovial, but rather sinister. She wanted to find its source.Whatever it is, it can’t hurt me here,she reasoned.This is my head, so I guess I make the rules.And she began to swim through the clouds. The laughter grew louder with every stroke, so she must be moving. Cool.
The clouds began to thin as the laughter cut off, but that was okay because a desert landscape was opening up before her.
Oh, no. Not here. I don’t want to be here.But she didn’t seem to have as much control as she thought. She was dropping down out of the clouds and into the very amphitheater that had started it all.
Her feet touched the ground near the top of the theater, the steps down to the stage were covered in sand, and a fierce wind whipped her hair around her face, stinging her arms. Was this before or after Joao had cut through half her town?
She could see no evidence of there ever having been anyone else here. She was ashamed to admit she was relieved that there were no bloodstains in the sand, no bodies to remind her of the The Monster’s treatment of her friends and neighbors.
Before she’d been forced to move from her Hillcrest home by Jeremy the Usurper; before she’d been kidnapped by the Colosso and taken to Clifftop; before she’d learned of The Raiders, she had wanted to come back here with Joao to find and bury the Befores who never got the opportunity to experience the world as it was now.
The shame Sam felt at having forgotten about that promise she had made to them knocked the wind from her and she sat heavily on the cement step.
I’m sorry everyone. I will come back for you. I will find you. I will put you to rest.But first, she would have to wake up, and she had no clue how to do that.
“Perfido and Maggie will be here by sunset.”
Sam perked up at that admission by her dad. She missed her dear, dear friends. But then she felt bad that they felt the need to travel from their new home. They were going to be parents soon. They were building a house for their expanding family.
Go back home, Perf. Take care of each other. Put your feet up, Maggie. You should be concentrating on growing that new life inside you.
Sam frowned and looked own at her own flat stomach. If the blood could drain from her face in this dream world, it would have. She and Joao had been… enjoying each other’s company for months now. She had never given it a second thought that they had not had the conversation about the repercussions of their escapades. Joao had never worried about it, and neither had Sam. Aunt Flo had visited right on time every month since she’d arrived here.
Sam shifted uncomfortably on the sand covered step. Were giants and humans even capable of procreating? Did Joao already know that this entire time? If he did, how would he know? Jealousy ripped through her and she rose to her feet. Humans and Giants didn’t mix. They hated each other, in fact. But maybe they were biologically, fundamentally, too different to create a new life that was half Sam and half Joao.
Even though Sam was nowhere near ready to be a mother, the thought that she might never be saddened her more than she thought it would.
That was another thing she vowed to ask Joao as soon as she woke up. Sam mentally shoved that in a box for now and refocused on her surroundings. She was brought here to this desert for a reason. She wanted to know what that was.
“Dr. Thorpe!” she called out into the wind. “Where are you, you bastard?”
Sam was not at all surprised to see Dr. Thorpe’s form solidify into view at the bottom of the theater steps. He peered up at her with those bottomless eyes that threatened to suck Sam into a blackness that she may never wake from.
“What are you doing here, Samantha?” Thorpe asked, climbing the steps to join her at the top.
“I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. I want to wake up. I want to go home.”
“You are weak, Sam,” Thorpe said, sitting down next to her. His white lab coat billowed out behind him in the wind.
“I am Cacadora,” she said fiercely. “I amnotweak.”
“You’re in a coma, girl,” he pointed out. “That’s as weak as it gets without being dead.”
The wind died down as Sam deflated under his admission.
“Only the strong survive,” she whispered.
“Yep,” Thorpe said with a pop, punctuating the shameful truth.
Sam was no longer worthy of Joao. There was no way she was his Igualar. She had been foolishly caught up in their infatuation to see the truth. It wasn’t fate, it was fantasy. It was an excuse to justify their mutual lust for each other in a world where they should hate one another.
“Now you’re getting it,” Thorpe said.
This washerdream. How dare he agree with her.
“So, I should just give up and die?”
Thorpe shrugged, unaffected. “Do what you want. Maybe you and Nate can make some babies someday.”
Sam shuddered with revulsion. Nate was a giant hating weasel who had readily followed Jeremy’s coup and rolled over when the Raiders took control. No. Sam could never be with someone like Nate.
“He’s weak, you’re weak. Perfect match.”
“Shut up. You’re the devil. Did you know that? Parents tell stories about you to their kids to keep them in line. You’re theirBoogyman.”
Thorpe put his hands to his heart, touched by Sam’s words. “At least I was never accused of being weak.”
“Oh, shut up and go away. You’re monumentally unhelpful.” Sam waved her hands in the air and to her surprise and delight, Thorpe evaporated into smoke and blew away as the wind picked up again.
Sam rose from the step and made her way to the bottom of the theater. She scanned the horizon, wondering how far away the forest was from here. It was a seven hour drive, but the huge bus that carried them from the amphitheater had moved slowly over the dry lake bed. This was Sam’s dream. She could walk it and not get tired, surely. So she set out to do just that.
“Menina, can you hear me?”
Joao? I can hear you. I’m here. I’m right here.
Sam started running across the sea of sand, willing the forest to appear before her.
This is my dream. I want the forest to be closer. Come on, Sam. Just make it appear.
She kept running in spite of the lack of change to the landscape, knowing that eventually the forest would come into view if she could just run far enough, fast enough.
“You are going to travel to Perfido’s home now.”
No! Joao, I don’t want to leave you.
But Thorpe’s words echoed around her. “You’re weak. You’re no longer worthy.”
Joao was letting her go. He must know it too. He must know that she could not possibly be his Igualar as they had hoped. No one as weak as Sam could possibly stand alongside the mighty Joao, future Oamo of the Pe Grande.
“I will find a way to see you, Sam.” Joao’s voice sounded desperate, pleading, broken.
Sam stopped running to look up at the cloudless sky, wishing she could see Joao’s face.
Donotweaken yourself because of me, Joao,Sam tried to scream out at him.Just let me go. I’m no longer worthy of you.
“You’re a mess, Sam.”
Sam sucked in a breath and turned. “Ashley?”
