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explain to you how this will work. The only reason you’re alive right now is because we helped get you out. You think you deserve special treatment because one day you’ll bring some poor pathetic creature into a world that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense? I don’t give a crap what you can do.”
    “You’re lying. I am important. Otherwise, you and your friends wouldn’t have wasted the time coming to rescue me,” I replied, embarrassed by how shaky my voice sounded. It was the only card I had to play, and I was ashamed by how quickly I’d used it.
    “Tess, I think it’s best we save this conversation for later. Everyone is very tired,” Robert said as he moved to step between McNair and myself.
    Choice was complicated. This life, the life the council created, dictated that I couldn’t have it all, and if I had to choose, I would always choose to go down fighting. I didn’t have time for later.
    “I didn’t make the decision to bring you to our camp. And don’t fool yourself into believing you’re some messiah we’ll all bow down to. We said we would allow one natural and one chosen one to escort you for your protection. You have Henry. And Robert has been connected to the resistance for a long time. Way longer than however many minutes it took that boy to get your skirt off—”
    “Watch it, old man!” Henry snapped, taking his place next to Robert. I was now completely blocked from McNair. I looked down to the ground, attempting to hide the way my cheeks burned at his insinuation.
    Before anyone could speak, Eric lifted his gun and pointed it toward Henry. “I think you best watch how you talk to him, kid.” When Henry opened his mouth to reply, Eric clicked the safety off the gun.
    McNair’s laugh mixed with the heavy quiet that now claimed the woods. “Put the gun down, Eric. You might actually get these kids thinking we’re scared of them.” Eric didn’t hesitate to follow his leader’s order.
    Any sense of a united front formed back at the training center had disappeared. McNair took a step to the side so he could see me. He sighed, rubbing his hand across the stubble that covered his face. “Can we continue walking now, or would you like to throw another useless fit?”
    Henry looked back at me, defeated, urging me to just give it up. He was a fighter, but this wasn’t a battle he thought important enough to join.

     
    Sleep.
    I had nothing but a blanket for a bed in the woods. As the sun set on the wilderness I’d never feel safe in, I knew that no matter how much time I spent clearing out rocks, the ground would force its way into my back—exclaiming in its own way that this wasn’t a place where I belonged. I’d refused to sleep close to anyone those first few nights. It was my own futile attempt at claiming my independence. The feeling that independence could one day be possible was still so new to me that I felt I had to proclaim it every second that I could, just to make sure I still believed it was possible.
    Most nights I spent in a fitful sleep. I didn’t wake up because of some nightmare—no, it was something worse than that. Every so often I awoke to an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Finality. I had left. James. Louisa. Everything I knew.
    There had to be some way to claim yourself without having to turn everyone away. It didn’t seem like a fair trade.
    That night, Henry slept ten feet from me. It was closer than the rest slept, though they also surrounded me. I had the feeling the others were giving me a wide berth after my tantrum in the woods
    “Tess? You awake?” Henry whispered through the darkness.
    “Why do people always ask that? If I were a light sleeper, your question alone would have woken me up,” I managed to joke.
    “You all right?” he asked, choosing to ignore my sarcasm.
    I sighed, pulling the thin blanket over my shoulders and turning my back toward him. “I’m tired. I just want to sleep.”
    “I—”
    “Don’t. I don’t want to