Follow Me Through Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

when I do, it’s familiar. Tangy and spicy. Stringy and gristly.
    I’ve had rat before.
    That should be comforting, but it’s not. It makes me want out of this place that much more. It makes me long for Thorne, for home, for times like before. All things I’m not allowed to wish.

4 YEARS BEFORE ESCAPE
    WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO make wishes in the Compound. There’s no need to desire anything more, but that’s one of many rules Sara loves to break .
    “Did you get candles?” Dad asks her. His jacket hangs on the chair behind me, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up, tie undone. He looks very at rest, unlike the times when he’s working in his office with his “director” face on .
    Sara places a chocolate cake on the table in front of us. She always does this for birthdays. It’s a tradition from the Old World, one where all the people feed cake to each other. It’s silly, but Sara loves it .
    She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to cause a commotion trying to find them.”
    Kai bumps shoulders with me while our parents search through cabinets. His face is round and smiling. “Birthday girl,” he says .
    “Don’t forget birthday boy!” Thorne adds as he sits beside me on a stool. The two of us smile at each other. “We don’t need candles.”
    Kai stands next to Thorne, and I study them together with their dark hair and dark eyes and skin like they never leave the sun, just like Sara. I am all auburn hair and light skin, equal parts my mother and my father, and I wonder how, for those first two years of life, anyone thought I was related to the Bishop family .
    Dad moves next to me, and Sara stands across from the four of us. Though we aren’t all blood, we’re some kind of makeshift family. Two halves that were shoved together, imperfect and lopsided but somehow whole. Dad and I are better with the Bishops .
    “Thirteen,” Sara says. Her eyes glaze a little, like she’s reliving a memory .
    “Make a wish, even without the candles,” Kai says .
    Thorne and I hold hands as we close our eyes. I wish that this would never change. When I open them, Father hugs me and presses me against his shoulder, while Sara hands Thorne the first piece, me the second, and Kai the third. Kai stuffs a bite in his mouth and then rams some of it into Thorne’s face. They always do this, too. The Old World had weird traditions. Thorne yells and tackles Kai to the floor .
    I stay out of it and enjoy my cake. Sara wanders around the room, trying to make Kai and Thorne stop getting icing all over the living room furniture .
    Father sits next to me, and even though I’m thirteen now, I like having him here. He takes a bite of his big piece of chocolate cake and smiles at me. “You look more and more like your mother every day,” he says .
    “You told me that in your note this morning,” I say. Father smiles. He leaves me a note every morning. He has for as long as I can remember, and earlier this year, since I was old enough to take care of myself, he’s been leaving for work before I wake up. Even after he’s gone, he leaves me breakfast on the stove and a note on the counter .
    “It’s true, though,” he says. Father doesn’t talk about Mother much. Most of what I know of her comes from Sara. But when he does, his eyes light up and his face changes from sadness to happiness to a deeper sadness. “You’re a lot like her. Too much sometimes.”
    “How?” I ask softly .
    He tilts his head to look at me. “You have her eyes and her nose and those freckles right there.” He points to my cheek. “She was smart, beautiful, always made everyone laugh, and she was fiercely devoted.”
    I smile widely .
    “And she had that smile,” Father adds. I hug him, and he pats my head. In his arms, I feel safe .
    “Hey, Neely!” Kai says. I turn around in my chair, just in time for him to smash me in the face with cake. I lick my lips and then jump into the boys. No one makes us stop, even though the floor, the walls, and