The Dark and Hollow Places Read Free Page B

flat against the steel wall, I see her through the metal dividing fence, walking toward the island.
    Or rather, I see me.
    The crowd grumbles as I hesitate in the entrance, trying to catch another glimpse of the girl. Eventually someone shoves me hard in the back, but I refuse to budge, bracing my hands against the door. My eyes skim every face, wondering if I was mistaken, but then I see her again just on the other side of the fence, entering the space I’m leaving. Her hair’s long and blond, almost burned white by the sun.
    She walks with her chin tilted up as if she’s never had to worry about anything. As if she has no sense of the danger her clean, healthy looks invite. No one shoves or trips her, she just glides along as if expecting the world to make room.
    Her eyes slide over the crowd, skipping right over me as if I don’t exist.
    Of course, that’s why I keep my face hidden in my hair. It’s why I hunch my shoulders and wear drab colors. I’m supposed to be invisible. It’s who I am.
    But not to her. Never to her. She should be able to find me in the deepest darkness. She should feel me there in the crowd the same way I feel her.
    She’s my sister. Her face as familiar to me as my own because it is my own. My chest tightens and I have a hard timegulping enough air. I’m dizzy, gripping the doorframe to steady myself, and the person behind me uses the opportunity to force me through.
    I turn against the crowd, trying to wrestle my way back, but they’re insistent and overwhelming. They push forward, flowing through the door in an unending stream as I struggle.
    Nothing feels right about this moment. I fight for another look at the girl, knowing I must be mistaken. Even so, a prickle of hope starts to swell inside.
    I want to scream—to draw attention to myself—but the warning bell rings and the crowd surges forward and then the doors groan shut and the girl I saw is gone.
    I stand frozen, trying to understand what just happened. Trying to breathe. Trying to put the pieces together in my head. Even from such a quick glimpse I could tell that she had my face. My nose. My green eyes. She even had my wrists and chin and ears and neck and hair, if I spent time outside in the sun.
    She had everything but my scars.
    None of this makes sense—can’t make sense—but I don’t care because I desperately want it. For years I’ve replayed the moment Elias and I left Abigail, my twin sister, behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth. I see her trip, see the blood trickling down her leg, catching in the downy hairs of her five-year-old shin. I remember the hesitation I felt, the intense desire to keep exploring mingled with rage that my sister was crying and fear that she wouldn’t go on any more.
    I remember walking away from her. We thought we’d just go a little farther, just around the corner.
    We never saw her again. We got lost, couldn’t find our way back and ended up here.
    Over the years I’ve dreamed of her a dozen different ways but I’ve only known one truth: that I left my sister crying and terrified in the middle of a path in the Forest because I was being selfish.
    I left my sister once and I can’t do it again. I can’t give up this chance that she’s real and safe and within my grasp.
    I fight my way back to the door, start banging against it, but a Recruiter grabs my hands and twists my wrists painfully, his fingers digging into my skin. “Wrong way,” he says, pushing me back to the crowd waiting at the other end of the holding area, waiting for the bell to sound and the door to open so they can move forward on their journey across the bridge to the mainland.
    “I have to go back,” I tell him, trying to rip my arms free.
    “Not the rules.” He narrows his eyes, causing wrinkles to spread around his cheeks. His shirt’s dirty and reeks of smoke and overly ripe perfume. “Unless you have something to trade for it.” He tugs me a little closer until I have to look up at him, my