It was always amazing to Callie, the beauty found in darkness, like the stars that hung as picture frames over her bed in the grass. She hadn't moved for hours. Every time that she attempted to lift her limbs, to push herself upright, her muscles screamed in protest. Her left eye was throbbing, sure to rise in purple and blue with the morning light.
She remembered what she had promised, what deal she had made. It was hard to believe that she had loved Marco once, had thought that he could commander all of her and Jude's dreams, bring them to the moon on a rocket ship. She had wished on a star for liberation from the system, and now here she was, alone with what she had desired— imprisoned by her own foolish hopes.
Everything had shifted when Jude stopped speaking. He had swallowed his voice the evening he lost his innocence, the night he trailed the crew down the block, around the corner and into the alleyway. Her legs had worked then. She had watched them kick furiously, over and over again, seemingly unrelated to her torso, moving of their own accord. She saw them connect with the flesh of the crumpled boy's neck, fall on his ribs and the arms held over his face. She spotted Damien's encouraging smile across the swarming circle, watched Joe spark his cigarette and laugh. She sought Marco's teardrop eyes, his red lips stretched in a sneer, matching the stain on the asphalt, spreading below the body beneath their feet.
When she caught Jude's silhouette under the streetlight, disbelief dancing across his features, mouth choking on a silent scream, she knew that she had gone too far, had crossed the metaphorical line in the sand of their salvation.
She spent hours, days, weeks, months, justifying her actions, making promises that she couldn't keep, kissing his cheeks with a comfort that she could no longer provide, but her brother had never come back to her. Her soul had dissolved with his will to engage, but she protected the shell of his spirit with abandon. In their waking moments, she denied the psychological departure; maintaining animated conversation as though he might answer her at any moment, giggle at her jokes, lean against her with love.
Darkness didn't allow for such self-depreciating lies.
She had bought him one week. Seven days of comparative security, and then even she could no longer protect him.
He'd be the perfect cook Marco pledged; his nimble fingers and vacant countenance sealed the resume. Never mind that Joe had exploded the kitchen of their last home, causing them all to flee like rats sensing a hurricane, single-file onto the deserted streets. Only Tia hadn't made it out in time, her life curling above them in a plume of angry smoke, clogging their throats and burning their eyes. She made them weep involuntarily, and they made her disappear with a lack of acknowledgement.
"Let's go," Marco directed, and they had all followed, leaving Callie to ponder the import of her own survival. But he had shielded her then, wrapping his strong arms around her waist and hooking his finger through the loop of her jeans until she felt rooted to his side, like an indispensible part of him.
They sprawled out on the beach that night, Jude curled close enough to touch, a continent away. The stars had lulled her to sleep then too. The image of Marco beaming down at her was printed on the back of her eyes, and it looked as though he were crying over her slumbering frame, over the things that were to come.
She had one week to make it right.