Chapter 19

Classes dragged by the next day. I watched clocks and counted down hours until I could leave for the Terminal. I checked for my ID card in my pocket time and time again, even when I already knew it was there. After the final bell, I met Kalle briefly in the hallway, telling her I had to go home because I was behind on homework. She nodded and said she felt the same.

I walked the streets of the academic district and moved on into the plaza. From there I veered away from our residential division and headed for the transportation district.

Incipio citizens without a job in the transportation district were not allowed to enter there past the Terminal. Most of the area was packed with food- and supply-transport vehicles, like the ones Thane had derailed. They'd built the Terminal at the very front of the transportation district to make it more easily accessible.

I approached the guards at the door, and the one on my right held out a hand. "ID, please," he said.

I handed him my card, and he scanned it with a reader on his glove, which looked like a slim white bar on the outside of the thumb. It gave off a teal light and an electronic beep. "Go ahead," he said, handing it back to me.

"Thank you," I said and stepped through the sliding doors, which opened before me automatically.

I emerged into a long, sleek silver building that stretched out on either side of me, the walls and ceilings decorated with glass panels. It was completely empty, but as soon as I saw it, I let my imagination fill in the gaps. I envisioned people standing on both sides, waiting their turn for the next port, waiting for friends and family members to return from the last. A sign overhead in front of me pointing to the left side, stating Arrival, and the right, Departure. I crossed to the right side, scanning for Thane.

He stood at the end of the line of glass panels, in front of an open port. His face was uncovered, and he wore no black. He instead wore a dark blue uniform that looked almost identical to mine.

"How long have you been standing here?" I asked when I got closer.

"Not long. I figured you'd show up," he said with a smirk.

That's almost worse, I wanted to say. Instead, I took a deep breath and asked, "Well, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Well, first things first, Miranda," he began.

My mind reeled with the impact of my name in his mouth. A thousand echoes burst forth, echoes of times when he had said my name before. I knew he recognized what he'd done, because he paused and studied my expression. I swallowed and willed whatever it was to disappear from my face.

"That port is ours." He pointed to the glass panels to his right. He waited, watched me again. It took me several seconds to realize what he was implying.

"You want us to go to Terminus," I said slowly.

He nodded. "Are you ready?"

"I've never been to Terminus."

"Today will be a good time to go, then," Thane said, unable to keep the smirk from his face.

"But I - " I was supposed to go with Cas. As soon as the thought entered my head, I realized I was wrong. Cas didn't want to go. I would have had to go alone anyway.

"Miranda. Come on." At this he slipped his hand around my wrist and pulled me toward the port. Sliding the panel of glass open, he stepped over the threshold and drew me in after him.

"Thane." I tried to push him away. "Thane, you can't have two people in the same port."

"According to the System, I don't exist," he said. "I can do whatever I want."

He reached into my pocket, pulled out my ID, and slid it through the scanner on the wall next to the port's door. The light next to the scanner blinked teal, the doors slid shut, and the port began its descent. The glass on all sides revealed the changing scenery around us: the silver metal plates; the soil underneath Incipio, vines and roots creeping out into the air; the cloud cover, which surrounded us in gray and obscured our view of the sky.

And finally, there was Terminus.

Terminus stretched out like a threadbare gray blanket underneath Incipio. Rocks and raised terrain that were probably once landmarks marked small changes in the landscape, and exhausted lakes, brown or silver with contaminated water, were spread across small areas of the surface. Otherwise, all of Terminus looked forsaken and the same. I felt a sort of paralysis grip me, a combination of fears of falling, of being trapped in this elevator with two people instead of one, of the landscape that grew closer and larger beneath us.

I realized I was clinging to Thane. One of my hands had wrapped around his shoulder blade, fingers digging into the fabric of his dark blue shirt. The other one had latched onto his side. Thane didn't seem to mind. He had wrapped his arm around my waist, something I only noticed when he shifted slightly.

And once I had noticed that, I noticed everything. Thane's closeness, the warmth that radiated from his body. The soft texture of his dark hair and the pressure of his hand on my waist.

I felt the urge to back away and apologize, but I couldn't very well move closer to the window, so I endured the moment. Still, I was fairly sure that my face had gone a very deep shade of red.

The land of Terminus became the ground, and our port touched down there. I sprang back from Thane as the door opened. He stepped across the threshold again, stopping only to offer my ID back.

"This is your chance to go back, if you want," he said, smirking again.

"I'm not going back," I said, snatching my card out of his outstretched hand. "You dragged me down here. I might as well stay for a few minutes."

Thane nodded. "So," he said, stepping away from the terminal, "this is Terminus. What do you think?"

"Am I going to die from breathing this air?" I asked, glancing up at the charcoal-gray cloud cover.

"No," Thane said. "People have breathed this air for much, much longer than you and I and lived. Besides, there's published research showing that the air is in no way toxic, even though this part of the planet's endured a lot of abuse and several storms."

"Several storms," I said. "You make it sound like Terminus didn't go through hell like they say it did."

"They don't say Terminus went through hell, Miranda. They say that Terminus is hell." Thane looked me straight in the eye, frowning. "They say it was heaven until our ancestors destroyed it and made it hell."

"And you say several storms."

"That's what it was." Thane looked out at the barren landscape. "Our ancestors lived in heaven. They abused it, and then the Triad sent storms down upon them and finished the job." He turned to look at me again. "Or, if you believe in the stuff they call outdated and heresy, then you can say it was God's wrath."

"But isn't that what you just said?" I asked. "The wrath of the gods? The Triad?"

He shook his head. "No, Miranda. This isn't three gods. This is one God. Capital G."

"That is heresy."

"When you've been in Hex for the things I was in Hex for, you learn that anything's feasible. Anything's believable." Thane turned his back on me again and began to walk out into the nothingness. "Come on."

"We can't go too far," I said, walking quickly to catch up.

"We can go as far as we want," he said over his shoulder. "That's why I have something to show you, Miranda."