"Maya?" Taylor's croaky voice pulled me back to reality with a jolt.
I pulled away from Coal and spun around. Coal's hands remained on my shoulders and I could feel him standing close behind me.
"You've been asleep for a while, just take it easy," I said, fluttering my hands uselessly towards him, suddenly unsure of how to act around my closest friend.
"What happened?" he croaked and I saw his gaze narrow slightly at Coal behind me.
I laughed nervously and stepped to his bedside again, causing Coal to release his grip on me.
"I don't know where to start." I smiled and felt a blush heat my cheeks.
"Go with the beginning," he said, so I did.
It took hours to tell him everything, the others reappeared as I was only just beginning. I got them to help me with the parts of the story that they knew better than me and by the end we were all smiling, laughing and eating and drinking the snacks.
Taylor didn't take long to slip straight back into his normal, easy going way, though he didn't seem to be warming to Coal as much as he was to Alicia. I hoped that that had more to do with her looks than it did with him having a problem with Coal. I was beginning to realise it wasn't possible for anyone to dislike Hunter.
"And then we came rushing back here to see you when you woke up," I finished, strangely exhausted by the telling of our tale.
I was perched on Taylor's bed next to him. Alicia and Laurie were sitting on the end of it too, Coal had taken residence of the single chair again while Hunter lounged against the wall by the window.
"Trust you to fall on your ass out of a tree in the middle of a fight," Taylor said, ruffling my hair. I let him do it just that once.
"It wasn't intentional," I protested as everyone laughed at me again. It felt so natural to be there with all of them.
"Well, I don't want to be left behind next time," Taylor announced.
"There's plenty more action to come," Coal said, frowning slightly but covering it so quickly that I may have been the only one to notice.
"I still can't believe your mom and dad are alive somewhere," Taylor said, nudging me.
"It's like everything the Guardians ever told us was lies," I said, feeling the happiness slipping away from me and the cold chill that the city now held in my heart taking over.
"We'll get them out. All of them," Alicia said and I knew she meant it.
"The fact that you three know the city layout and how everything works and runs in there will really help us. It'll probably be the advantage we need to actually be able to get to them," Coal said, nodding in agreement.
"If you can contact the people inside then I just know that my mom and dad will help us too," Taylor added.
"It would be dangerous for them," I said, biting my lip.
"It's worth it, we have to take the Guardians down," Laurie said so viciously that we all looked at her with surprise. "They lied to me, they made me think I'd spent years training to protect the people of the city but they were just using me to help control them instead."
"I swear I'm going to make them pay," Taylor said suddenly.
"Me too," Laurie agreed.
"We're always in for a fight," Alicia said with a fierce smile. Coal nodded and Hunter smiled broadly.
"No matter what? Even if the rest of the rebellion stops? They might decide it's not worth the risk to try and release the prisoners," I said, finally admitting the thing that had been bothering me for days.
"No matter what, all of us won't stop until we get your parents out," Coal said, looking at everyone else as they all nodded in firm agreement.
"Okay. So when do we begin?" I asked, feeling a smile not unlike Alicia's spread across my face.
Chapter Forty Two
Coal led me by the hand back into the forest. The cool morning mist still hung in the small spaces between tree roots. The trees themselves were alive with the sounds of birds singing to the new dawn. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy above us, highlighting patches of flowers in every thinkable colour which were opening their petals and drinking in the light.