Sanctuary: Chapters 23–30

These rocks had so many stories to share with us, I told Ernie. They’d been here through rain, fog, sleet, and hail. Through eons, epochs, lifetimes.

These rocks had so many stories to share with us, I told Ernie. They’d been here through rain, fog, sleet, and hail. Through eons, epochs, lifetimes.

“Vali, please,” Ernie moaned, breaking my reverie. “I need to stop for a sec.”

The sky was getting dimmer and dimmer. Passing through whatever dusty colors were left for a sunset, sinking into a thick, dismal night.

I even imagined his hot saliva pouring into the ground like magical molten lava. Splitting open the earth and forging a tunnel for us to climb through to someplace hidden and safe.

I tried to just focus on Ernie’s realness, his tiny, smooth nose and sprigs of eyelash.

His pupils were dilated; his lips, ashen.

As if the rocks or tree roots could give us some sort of sustenance.

The fear of being abandoned again walloped me so hard.

Maybe it was a hallucination. The most glorious, miraculous, life-sustaining vision of all time.

By my calculations, Ernie and I had been running, walking, foraging, fleeing for more than a month now.

"I thought the chip would always protect me.” He sort of scoffed at his own idea. “So stupid.”

We both agreed it would be better to wait in these bushes until dark to venture any closer.

Looking out of our shelter and up at that star- dappled sky, I felt an electricity and finality to this night.

“July what?” the girl said with a furrowed brow.

There were searchlights and camera poles looming, hydraulic lifts rising and stacking asphalt blocks.

I tried to decipher if there was some pattern to their movements as they swelled in a buzzing, billowing hive.

My skin prickled in goose bumps even though I was sweating from the oppressive heat.

I wanted so badly to steer us full throttle to the river’s edge, but according to those red dots on our screen, we were heading straight toward a barrage of land mines.

Whether or not I had the skills to stay afloat, I felt like there was a greater current moving me forward. Maybe connected to the sun and moon or the magical weightlessness of everything floating, gliding, compelling us forward.

We swam back under again, wriggling through a maze of seaweed and brackish sludge.

I knew they had some sort of pecking order on the food chain, but at least it was based on primal urges and hungers. Not hatred and indoctrination.

I knew they had some sort of pecking order on the food chain, but at least it was based on primal urges and hungers. Not hatred and indoctrination.

Malakas is telling everyone how brave my little brother is and how far he swam, how valiantly he fought.

The words fly out of my mouth in no coherent order.

Tía Luna looks and sounds so much like Mami, with her fast Spanish patter.

I stay under the spigot until my eyes start to close.

The majestic palm trees stretching their fronds out like ballerinas and the speckled woodpeckers who tap out their own Morse code.

And now we’re supposed to be on the other side of it all, with no obligations to each other or the world.

We stare out at the rolling waves, and I feel his hand find mine. A jolt of hope runs through me. We are on this precipice together.