Page 56 of Deviant

“It’s nothing, Roe. Don’t give yourself a coronary,” she admonishes, letting go of my hands to start walking back to the church.

“It’s not nothing,” I reprimand behind her. “It’s about The Scourge, isn’t it?”

“And what if it is?” She shrugs off as if it were nothing.

I stop in my tracks and say the one sentence I know will stop her in hers, “I’ll tell Elias what you’re up to.”

Nora freezes on the spot, just as I predicted, turning around to face me with an expression made of stone, and replies, “You will do no such thing.”

“I will. I promise you I will.”

“No. You won’t,” she says assertively, eating the small space between us. I open my mouth to warn her again, but she gently places her palm over my mouth to shut me up and asks out of left field, “Do you love me, Roe?” causing my eyebrows to bunch in confusion. “Answer me. Do you love me?” she repeats, lowering her hand from my lips.

“Of course I do. What kind of question is that?”

“How do you love me? Like a best friend? A sister? Your soulmate? How do you love me?”

“Is there a difference between the three?”

Her eyes soften at that.

“There is…to me, at least,” she retorts with a sad hue in her eyes. “But I can understand why you don’t see a difference. And that’s okay. It’s always been okay with me. Because I love you just as fiercely. There is nothing in this world that I would deprive you of. Nothing. And if you love me, even an inkling of how much I love you, you won’t stand in my way. Especially not now.”

I hear the warning in her voice—one that fills me with trepidation and all-consuming fear.

“And if I do stand in your way?”

“That will be the death of us. I’d never forgive you.” I swallow the shards of glass that she just force-fed me down my throat. “If you’re truly my friend, you won’t tell Elias a thing. You won’t stop me from doing what I need to save my mother’s life. You will be the good girl everyone takes you for and do nothing at all.” Her words feel like a slap to the face, and yet I remain silent. “Tomorrow night, I’ll tell everyone that I’ll be sleeping over at your house. Your dad is on the graveyard shift, right?” I nod. “Good. That will be my cover, then. I’ll pop by before dinner so he sees me there, but once he’s gone, so am I.”

“Where will you go?” I ask, hating how meek and submissive my voice sounds.

“I’ll be off to get chosen,” she reveals proudly.

“You found a loophole.” It’s not a question, merely a fact to which Nora nods, confirming it to me just the same. “Can I come with you?”

“No. I wish you could, but you can’t. I don’t want anyone seeing you with me and thinking that you’re fair game, too. They must only see me.”

I swallow dryly at the thought.

“Why tomorrow night?”

“It will be the first full moon before the autumn equinox, and my only shot at getting selected.” She grins as if unveiling some big secret when, in fact, all she did was confuse me more with her cryptic explanation.

But she doesn’t look confused.

She looks determined.

I didn’t give her enough credit.

Nora is clever. Clever enough to have found a way to get chosen to the Harvest Dozen.

Maybe she could win The Scourge.

What am I thinking?

Of course she can’t. She’s going on a suicide mission.

Unless I can stop her.

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