{"id":4745,"date":"2022-09-01T15:29:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T19:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4745"},"modified":"2022-09-01T15:29:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T19:29:50","slug":"twenty-six-06-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4745","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-six – 06"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Alone.<\/em>\u00a0 The word echoed in her ears, ricocheted through her thoughts like a buckshot deflecting off one of the old grain silos south of the village.\u00a0 Would they all go, everyone near her age, maybe even younger?\u00a0 Would they really leave with these strangers on their seemingly insane quest for something she wasn\u2019t even sure existed?<\/p>\n

Lin believes them\u2014but I\u2019m not sure that I should use him as my stick to measure any of this, either.\u00a0 Sometimes I\u2019m not sure how much of what he believes <\/em>I should believe.<\/em><\/p>\n

But so what if she stayed and she was the only one her age that did?\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be the first time she\u2019d self-selected herself out of something.\u00a0 I\u2019ve only regretted doing that once or twice, anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n

She frowned at the door that Peril had disappeared through, jaw tightening.<\/p>\n

Rushing off into unknown danger.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 That\u2019s the best idea any of us have ever had, right?\u00a0 Let\u2019s absolutely do that.\u00a0 Great idea.<\/em>\u00a0 She made a disgusted sound, pushing\u00a0 herself to her feet and starting to pace.\u00a0 Rain drummed on the roof above her and thunder growled somewhere nearby.\u00a0 Another summer storm that was nothing to sneeze at and here she was, safe inside, as she so often had been her whole life.<\/p>\n

And so what if this is the rest of my life?<\/em><\/p>\n

Her hands balled into fists, her tea abruptly forgotten.\u00a0 It would serve them right.<\/em><\/p>\n

It would serve them <\/em>all right if they assumed and were wrong about me.\u00a0 It would serve them right if I decided to stay.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hell.\u00a0 Do they really even need me, or do they think they do?<\/em>\u00a0 She\u2019d been Lin\u2019s shadow all of her life, the one that was always there to try to keep him and Tory and all the rest out of trouble\u2014that had been her whole life, always left to be the responsible one, always looking before they all leapt.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing right now, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 And I\u2019m afraid of not knowing what\u2019s beyond my sight, what my imagination is painting into the gap.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thunder boomed close, startling her, sending a shiver through the roof and the walls.\u00a0 Kailey swallowed hard.\u00a0 Was it really fear?<\/p>\n

Of course it is.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t make it wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t make it wrong at all.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.] Alone.\u00a0 The word echoed in her ears, ricocheted through her thoughts like a buckshot deflecting off one of the old grain silos south of the village.\u00a0 Would they all go, everyone … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,337,376,14],"tags":[340,150,171,170,345,149,148,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-4745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-26-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-kailey-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-1ex","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4746,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745\/revisions\/4746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}