Half Lives by Sara Grant Page B

getting out here,’ I said. I dug the money out from my bra. ‘Here.’ I gave nine hundred
dollars to Lobo and the other sweaty wad of nine hundred to Marissa. ‘Take her wherever she wants to go.’ I opened the taxi door. I slung my messenger bag over my body and shouldered my
backpack.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Lobo asked, stuffing my money in his pants pockets. ‘I don’t care but this is the middle of nowhere. You’re not safe alone out
here.’
    Marissa grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt. ‘Icie, don’t leave me!’
    ‘Marissa, I can’t help you,’ I said and prised her fingers from my shirt. How could I help her when I couldn’t help myself? God, it hurt to leave her. But I had to. I
zigzagged up the roadside, trying to regain the use of my legs and simultaneously balance the weight in my pack. A car zoomed by, sending a turbo blast through my dreadlocks and a grit-filled
shower over my body. I could see mountains up ahead. One of them was
my
mountain.
    ‘Icie, wait.’ Marissa raced to me saddled with her goodie bag on one shoulder and her handbag on the other. ‘Please get back in the car. You will die out here.’
    We heard the sound of a slamming door followed swiftly by a gunning motor and tyres screaming against asphalt. The bastard was leaving.
    ‘My luggage!’ Marissa shrieked and bolted after the taxi as it veered off the highway onto the exit road. The girl could run, but there was no way she was catching Lobo.
    Marissa let out a God-awful scream that rattled my nerves like windowpanes in a thunderstorm. That kind of scream was felt as well as heard. We’d been stripped of our home and our security
and now she’d lost most of her worldly possessions. How much could one Cheer Captain take?
    She stood, her chest heaving, but she didn’t cry. I was impressed. She jogged back to me. ‘You know what they say?’ she said, and slapped on a Cheer 101 sort of smile.
‘Destiny is a choice, not an option.’
    What?
That made absolutely no sense. But I sort of understood what she was trying to say. Maybe in a weird way she was right. Maybe Marissa and I were destined to be together.

 
     
     
     
Chapter Nine
     
     

     
    ‘Believing is seeing.’
    – Just Saying 46
     
     
    FINCH
    S ince seeing the Terrorists’ lights, Finch has increased his Mountain patrols. He’s been up since sunrise winding his way up and down the
Mountain. His mind is foggy with lack of sleep and his body twitchy with his hyper-vigilance. He’s waited all his life to confront his enemy. He must be ready. Today he must make sure the
Mountain is safe for Atti’s Walk of Enlightenment at sundown. The incline of the Mountain matches Finch’s uneven legs. Beckett says the Great I AM created Finch perfectly for his
life’s work. Others patrol but he can feel the Mountain in his bones. He knows every pebble and pine needle. He knows someone or something has been on his Mountain. It’s just a feeling.
A glimpse out of the corner of his eye. A shadow. A sound.
    Finch’s job is to protect the Mountain, and he is failing. With every step, Finch hears the Great I AM chastising him,
Failure. Failure. Failure!
He walks faster and
faster to blur the taunts his feet unearth from the ground below.
    Here. Here. Here
, the Mountain birds squawk as he circles to the Other Side of the Mountain. He looks where they call but the intruder has vanished before he can hobble
there.
    ‘How?’ Finch asks himself as the Man-Made Mountains come into view. ‘How can you hide on my Mountain? My Mountain.’ He mumbles until the words bleed into each
other. ‘Mymountain.’
    The sun bleaches his vision. Finch stumbles and falls. He’s rolling down the Mountainside, bumping over rocks and flattening shrubs. He tumbles nearly to the base of the
Mountain. His body wedges under a rocky ledge. He opens his eyes and finds the sun to determine which way is up. He presses his ear to the Mountain and listens carefully for the beat of