Page 3 of Don't Let Me Go
There’s nothing to do but wait. If this earthquake is like the others, it will soon spend its anger, and the city will be no worse for wear save for a few cracked plates and broken vases.
But as the minutes pass, the shaking increases, and a terrible doubt takes root in the back of my mind.
Something is wrong.
There’s a strange fury to this earthquake, a violence I have never known before. As if the earth itself is in a rage against its own existence.
I close my eyes and offer a quick prayer to the gods.
To my great surprise, the world around me grows still. I’m hardly presumptuous enough to think my prayers alone have placated the great divinities, but I’m relieved nonetheless to open my eyes and find the world as it was: silent and unmoving.
Then I hear it. A sound unlike anything my ears have heard before. Like the heavens are being torn asunder.
A woman in the street collapses to her knees and points toward the northern horizon, her face twisted and white with terror. I follow her gaze, and there in the distance, rising far beyond the walls of our city, I see a thing that I have no name for but that every instinct in my body knows is death.
Vesuvius, the mountain that has watched over our city since the time of the Oscans, is exploding. Like some ungodly furnace, it vomits a burning column of smoke and fire into the air.
My mind struggles to understand what I’m seeing, but understanding is gone. All I can do is stare in horror as the mountain belches its foul contents up into a dark cloud that consumes the sky, blanketing the horizon and blacking out the sun. A false night falls over the city, but instead of stars, the sky is filled with ash and smoke.
When the stones begin to rain from the sky, I run.
Orlando, Florida
(The Present)
Chapter 2
Riley
I’m trying to run, but my entire body is paralyzed. Why can’t I move? Ihave toget out of here. Ihave tofind Marcus. He’s in danger. We’re all in terrible—
“Riley?”
I open my eyes. Someone’s leaning over me. A girl. Her curly mane of auburn hair falls around a freckled face that’s twisted in worry. She looks familiar, but it’s difficult to focus. My head feels like it’s filled with fog.
“Riley, can you hear me?”
Riley? Is she talking to me? Is that my name? It sounds familiar but also wrong.
I stare into her anxious eyes—eyes I know I should trust—and force myself to concentrate.
“Riley, it’s me. Audrey.”
Something clicks in my brain.Audrey. Of course! She’s Audrey O’Shea. And I’m Riley. Riley... uh... Anderson? No. Evanston? Iverson! My name is Riley Iverson!
How the hell did I forgetthat?
“Hey...” I say, my voice coming out weak and strained as if I’ve just learned to talk.
“Oh, thank God,” Audrey sighs in relief. “Are you okay?”
I’m not quite sure how to answer that. The last thing I remember is running frantically through the streets. Now I appear to be lyingon my back in a patch of dead grass, feeling like someone’s just sucker punched the back of my skull.
When I don’t respond to Audrey’s question, two more people lean over me. Their concerned expressions suggest they also know me, but I’m having trouble placing them. The girl is petite with clear olive skin and wide blue-green eyes, and her hair is covered by a lavender headscarf. The boy is also on the smaller side. He’s Asian and wearing makeup, and his fine black hair is styled into a majestic swoop that would make the members of any boy band jealous.
Except?.?.?.?hold on?.?.?.?that’swrong. “He”is wrong. Their pronouns are they/them. Because that’s Duy. Duy Nguyen. And the girl is Tala?.?.?.?Youssef.
Duy, Tala, and Audrey—my friends.
