Forged by Erin Bowman Page B

things I say and I just—” I pull him to my chest. “I don’t know why this happened,” I choke out. “We put each other first. Always. And that’s what I did. I put you first and now . . . and now . . .”
    My throat’s grown too tight and thin, my breathing completely erratic. I rock with Blaine in my arms and cry into his hair and keep mumbling his name over and over like he might hear me and wake up. Like he’s just dreaming. Like I saw it all wrong.
    Harvey steps into the room and says it’s time to go. I tell him I’ll go when I’m ready. He insists, and that’s when I lose it. I bolt up, shove him. When he advances again, I grab a wooden stool by the lip of the seat, holding the legs out to fend him off. As Harvey backs away, I notice the blood. Blaine’s blood. Coating my hands. Staining the front of my shirt. Splatteredagainst the stool’s wood grain from when . . .
    I throw the stool at the glass window. It bounces off like a toy. I pick it up and try again. And again. And again. But the window won’t break.
    Still, I keep trying.
    Even when it’s pointless.
    Even though I’m powerless.
    Even though Blaine won’t come back no matter how much I scream.
    I give up eventually. Throat ragged, lungs heaving, I glance toward the doorway. Harvey is still standing with the guards, surveying me like I’m a rabid animal that needs to be put down.
    They take me back to my cell.
    Harvey slips something into my hand: a scrap of paper, folded so it’s no larger than the pad of my thumb.
    â€œFor tomorrow,” he whispers.
    I slump to the floor, my head against the wall and my arms around my middle like I’m holding in my organs. Maybe I am. Maybe if I move I’ll fall apart and never come back together.
    I feel small and helpless and scared and alone.
    Like a child.
    Like a little boy.
    Blaine saved me when I was nine.
    It was late fall and we were at the lake so he could practice setting snares for rabbits. Xavier Piltess had spent most of the summer teaching him how to hunt, and because I still believed I was a year younger than Blaine, I could only daydream about joining the lessons the following year. The bellflowers that usually carpeted the tall grass beyond the lake had transformed into brittle spokes with the changing temperatures. No purple petals remained. No green flushed their stalks. They were dirt brown and crunchy, like the leaves littering the forest floor.
    â€œThis is boring, Blaine. I wanna shoot your bow.” It was lying behind him, the quiver stocked.
    â€œYou can catch things without wasting an arrow, you know,” he said. “And it’s important to practice both.”
    â€œXavier said you can reuse arrows if your shot’s good enough.”
    â€œWhen did you hear that?”
    â€œWhen you guys came back yesterday. Xavier said not to worry about that shot you took that broke the shaft. Said when you get better you won’t waste an arrow or an ounce of meat, that’s how good you’ll be.”
    Blaine kept his eyes on his work, trying to cover his embarrassment with a stern look.
    â€œYou’re a nosy rat,” he said.
    â€œYou’re a boring slug.”
    â€œAt least I know how to set a snare.”
    â€œI’ll know next year, when Xavier teaches me.” I toed Blaine’s quiver, watching the arrows rock with the motion. “I hate waiting. It’s not fair that you get to do everything first. I’m just as big as you.” It was true. In size, we were shoulder to shoulder.
    â€œNot in years. And stay away from my arrows.”
    I nudged them harder and the quiver spiraled away from me, spilling its contents as it rolled down the hillside.
    â€œHey!” Blaine jumped to his feet. “Pick those up.”
    â€œI’m not old enough to touch them, remember?”
    Blaine folded his arms over his chest like he was our ma. “Gray,