Page 97 of White Lights
She tries. It’s jagged, painful, but at least the walls stop feeling like they’re going to crush her.
She grips Rafe’s hands and holds his gaze.“How?”
“I’ll explain everything. But first”—he sits next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders—“maybe just go ahead and cry.”
Dez can barely move, but leaning into him is easy. She buries her face in his shirt and sobs.
She cries for her brother, for her mother, for herself. She cries for being stuck at this fucked-up school, for her life blowing past the limits of what she can understand. She cries for lost time and lost love and for the powerlessness she feels.
Rafe holds her, saying nothing. When she finally lifts her head again, it’s like there’s nothing left inside.
His fingers brush her hair back from her face. He tips her chin up, stares into her eyes, and leans so close their faces almost touch.
“Did I kill him?” she whispers.
“No.” He shakes his head. “You tried to save him.”
“I had to tell myself he was getting better. So I could make it through the day. I’m such an idiot.” She sniffs. “I believed it.”
“You believed it because it was true. You sensed it. Moseswasrecovering. Until yesterday. He took a turn.”
“How do you know?”
“For you, Dez, life and death are still great mysteries,” Rafe says quietly. “But one thing you need to know: it mattered to Moses that you were there with him at the end.”
Fresh tears come. If what Rafe means is that her film was there, flashing before Mo’s eyes, it’s not the same as being there in person. She should have been by Mo’s side. She should have heard his every breath this past month. And even though she’s devoted herself to her brother’s film since she got to Acheron, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t count. She abandoned him when he needed her.
“He felt your love.”
Dez’s face twists. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says with so much authority, Dez stares at him. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“Your brother died at 5:16 this afternoon, moments after you completedLazarus. The doctors were hoping to release him this week, but last night he developed sepsis, which spread quickly through his system. When I lit the match in your Lens, to send your work to our Distribution Department, he was taking his last breaths.” Rafe closes his eyes. “I was the one assigned to deliver the film to your brother. I know I promised you I’d get it to him, but it was also part of my job.”
“How? How did it get inside his mind?”
“One day soon I’ll show you. But for now, understand the scenes were already deep within Mo’s mind. They’re memories, from across his life. Unedited, they’d overwhelm the human brain. Your film made sense of them. Made sense of his life.”
“You said those clips came from security cams,” Dez says, wiping a tear away, “soccer moms, cloud storage—”
“Some did, but not all. You had access to everything in the Vault,for research and cross-referencing. But the scenes you chose ultimately to include in Mo’s film all came directly from his memory. Every other first-year has to be taught how to discern memories from iPhone footage, but you came in knowing it, all on your own. It’s why your film is so powerful, because you see things others don’t.”
When she tries to imagine Mo watching her film at the end of his life, her heart splits open with grief. She bends at the waist, arms wrapped around herself as if they’re all that’s holding her intact. She wants her brother back. She’d do anything to rewind his life and fix it. She feels so lost, so broken.
“I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, Dez. He’s gone.”
She’s weeping again, pounding her fists against Rafe’s chest, pushing him away. “Why didn’t you take me with you?”
“You know I couldn’t do that,” he says, tortured. “For your own protection. But I was with him, at the hospital, when you couldn’t be,” he says with a quiet intensity that silences Dez. “I know peace when I see it. You gave it to your brother with your film.”
“If I hadn’t defied Zarlengo, begged you to let me make his film—”
“Mo would still be dead,” Rafe says. “And so would Lexa O’Rourke. Itfeelslike you chose to make Mo’s film, but youwereassigned this, directly or indirectly.”
