anchored to the ground as bits and pieces of people?s houses
tumbled down the streets around him. His bare face was getting
lashed by the swirling debris in the air, and the sideways rain was
clawing at his eyes. All night he wandered around outside every
hotel, inn, and bed-and-breakfast he could think of, looking in the
windows with eyes that could see in even the dimmest of light,
hoping for a glimpse of Helen.
He knew he wouldn?t get it. Cassandra had told him that Helen
would be standing in a hotel window the next morning, but he still
couldn?t make himself stop. He wouldn?t stop, because if by some
miracle he did find her, take her out of that hotel, and bring her
back to her family, he could prove Cassandra wrong. All he needed
was to beat Fate once and he would know that he was the master of
himself?not just a prewritten story that gets reread every now and
again to amuse the cosmos?but a truly blank slate that he would
be allowed to fill with whatever future he decided to write for himself.
If he could just find Helen that night and bring her home, then
he knew that someday they would beat Fate, and that they could be
together.
He walked all night.
Helen?s head was pounding and there was a sour, chalky taste in
the back of her mouth, like she had chewed an aspirin and didn?t
rinse afterward. Her eyes felt swollen and puffy, and the skin on
her face felt clammy and hot, but she didn?t feel as dehydrated as
she usually did when she visited the dry lands. This was different.
She?d been drugged, she suddenly remembered, by a woman. A
woman that looked just like her, but older.
?Take a sip,? said a voice as Helen felt a straw being pressed to
her lips. Her eyes flipped open and she saw the woman again, leaning
over her and holding a glass of water.