I pick myself up from the tangle of Fortis and wall and floor, the debris of what used to be the prison car, and take off running through the opening.
“Thank you, Fortis,” Fortis calls after me. “You’re welcome, little Grassgirl. Anytime.”
I run faster, along the smoking cars. I can tell from the footsteps that there are Sympas behind me. Probably half a dozen more around the cars. I didn’t feel them coming. I have to pay better attention.
But thanks to the Merk, I have a head start. I have to get to the water. That’s all that goes through my head. I know I’ll be safe there because I know what I’ll find—and who. I turn, more sharply now, disappearing into the tall weeds on the west. My feet catch on the rocks beneath me, but I stumble forward. I know the Sympas are close behind me, and I don’t look back.
I keep running, moving in the exact direction where I can feel the bonfire ahead of me—racing toward the shore, just like me. My one sure trajectory, my best chance for survival.
Ro.
His hand grabs my ankle and I drop. I feel his arm slide around my waist, snapping me down to the tide. I fall toward him, and I find myself lying in the sand and shallow water, hidden from the Tracks just beneath a grassy rise of shoreline. Some kind of coastal cave.
I feel us both still panting; Ro’s only gotten here seconds ago, himself. Then I hear a shout and a splash, and a Sympa soldier falls over the rise after me. I roll out of the way, knee-deep into the water.
I know what will happen now. Someone will die, and it’s not Ro. In a small arena, it doesn’t matter that the Sympa is armed and Ro is not. Ro will crucify him.
Before I can even think the words, Ro has the fallen Sympa’s gun in his hands, slamming the butt of the weapon into the soldier’s face. Blood sprays the rocks and runs into the water. Ro raises his hand to strike again, but I move my hands over his, forcing him to look at me.
“Ro.”
He shakes his head, but I won’t let go, and we cling to the gun together. I can’t let Ro do this to himself.
“Don’t,” I say.
I look at the unconscious Sympa’s face, just above the water’s edge, covered with blood. His nose is probably broken. He seems young and almost handsome, with hair the color of sunshine—though it’s hard to tell what he normally looks like, since he’s already starting to bruise. But I look away, because he’s too distracting—I have to close off the welling of sadness inside of me. I have people of my own to mourn. A pig and a Padre and a family I never got to know. I toss the weapon into the water and hold out my arms.
Ro falls into me, folds into me, as if I am his home.
I am.
He doesn’t let go. His face is red, and neither one of us can slow our breathing. Instead we pant like two tired Mission dogs chased by coyotes. The cold, fluttering animal in my chest and the warm, rabid creature in his push up against each other, and for the moment we are not alone.
I bury my face in his neck, wrapping my arms around the twisted muscles that move beneath the skin of his chest and arms. He smells like dirt, even now. I can practically taste the mud. When Ro smiles—which is only when I’m around, and even then only when all the stars in the night sky align—I half expect to see dirt between his teeth.
He’s Grass, through and through. He’d break his share of hearts in another world. I don’t doubt that. I lace my fingers through his hair and ground myself in him. I listen to his breathing and know he’s trying to do the same. It isn’t so easy for Ro, to slow himself back down.
I hear another blast, followed by the sound of people running toward the train.
Fortis.
A second explosion. The Merk is as good as his word.
Ro carefully looks toward the train to make sure no other Sympas followed us here. He nods, indicating we are safe for the moment. We don’t speak until the shouting has grown distant and the Sympas are quiet.
“It’s safer to hide for now. We’ll have to wait them out. Dol …” The way Ro says my name, I know he knows about the Padre and Ramona Jamona. I know he was afraid it would be me. I hear it in his voice. “Doloria,” he whispers.
He’s no different than I am with my incantations, reciting the settlers of La Purísima.
He needs me. I give him my hand. My right hand.
He fumbles at my wrist, yanking the cloth that binds it. He unwinds the muslin strip that wraps my bony arm so tightly I forget it is not made of skin.
Now my wrist is naked, and he pulls up his own worn sleeve.
We lace our fingers together, and he slides his bare wrist down to meet mine. I let the shiver roll down my body, down from my arm to where my feet dig into the sand.
One gray dot on my wrist, the color of the ocean in the rain.
Two red dots on his wrist, the color of fire.
The shared mark of our shared destinies, though we don’t know what they are. If my name is Sorrow, his name is Rage. And whatever I am, whatever Ro is, is a secret. One that could kill us both without our ever knowing why.
One that probably killed the Padre.
I wish I’d read the Padre’s book before I traded it for my freedom. Ro would have.
My gray presses against his red.
We live in a world of only two people now. Bound by the markings on our hands and our hearts.
He winds the cloth around our clasped hands, pushing his body against mine, and I feel the sharp knuckles of our ribs as they fit together. We are the mirror image of each other.
Sorrow for rage. Pain for anger. Tears for fury.
I become Ro and Ro becomes me. He takes my great sadness, the frightened thing that lives inside me. He’ll do anything to keep it away from me. And I take the red rage. I am a deluge; the red spark that is Ro is twenty feet under my surface.
I can’t keep it down for long.
The Padre said Ro is too much for one person, that if I keep doing this—if I keep letting him do this—I may not be able to come back. Yet I let his pain take me to the edge of madness.
The Padre.
I open my eyes and find, in the arms of my best friend, it is safe enough to cry.
The tears push out from my eyes and run down my face. I have no power to stop them.
Ro grabs my hand, willing me to let them fall.
When it is over, and we have pushed aside the feelings for another day, Ro helps me bind my wrist. His skin is no longer burning, and he pulls down his sleeve carelessly. Ro is not so afraid of his marking as I am. He’s not even afraid of the whole Sympa patrol I know are only a stretch of field away—no matter how long we wait.
“You should be more careful. Someone could see,” I say.
“Yeah? So what?”
“They’ll take you away like they tried to take me. Lock you up in the Hole, somewhere. Use you. Hurt you.” I try not to remind him what that would mean for me, how afraid I am.
“So instead we hide, our whole lives? Like this? Until we die?” His voice is bitter.
“Maybe not forever. What if the Padre’s right and we are special, more powerful than we know? What if that’s why the Sympas came for me?” These aren’t words I’ve ever