I close the door behind me as I exit the maze. By the time I turn around, Aiden is already halfway across to the tree line. I run to catch up, and I reach him right as he is just entering the woods.

It is still dark out, but the sky is slowly starting to brighten. The sun must be coming up in an hour or so.

“Aiden, slow down,” I tell him. “We need to talk!”

“Talk about what?” He says, sounding frustrated. “Talk about who my father is or talk about how I just killed someone?”

I don’t even know what to say. Both of those things aren’t sitting right with me, and I know they aren’t with Aiden either. At least, I don’t think they are sitting right with him. Who knows? Maybe Aiden is faking the whole thing. After all, if what the guard said was true, then Aiden is Governor Wood’s son—the same governor who played a part in killing innocent people tonight.

I don’t know anything about any of the three governor’s children, certainly not Governor Wood’s, and as far as I am aware, no one does. If Aiden is the son of one of the governors who planned these deadly carnivals, then how could I trust him?

“Are you really his son?” I ask, although I am afraid to know the answer. I like Aiden. I have just spent who knows how long running around this dam carnival trying not to get killed with him, and he helped me. I want the answer to be no, but I don’t think it is.

Aiden stops walking and looks at me with a quick, sad smile. “That would be me. Atlas Wood, son of Governor Alfred Wood.”

He looks me in the eyes and waits for my response. I am once again at a loss for words, and I stand there opening and closing my mouth, struggling to say anything.

After another minute, I finally regain my composure. “Do the Jumpers know?” It sounds like a stupid question, but I am curious.

“Only a select few,” Aiden says.

“How…” I don’t even know what I am asking, but somehow Aiden does.

“I lived in the town of Officials for fourteen years, and I hated every second of it.” The look of disgust drapes over Aiden’s face. “My parents were not the best, but I thought everyone else was relatively alright since they didn’t bother me too much. The town of officials is terrible. No one there cares about anyone. I was at my breaking point when I overheard my parents talking about sending me into the military once I turned fifteen since that is the minimum age requirement. They wanted me to go over the wall and fight to steal what others had.”

“You mean in no man’s land? There are people there?” I ask in surprise.

Aiden leans back against a tree. “No. I mean over the wall. The wall is beyond no man’s land. It is the thing separating us from the people on the other side. No man’s land isn’t really that bad. Most of the bad things people hear about it are fake and made up so that people wouldn’t want to go beyond the town walls. The government did it to get better control of the people living in the New World.”

“I didn’t want to fight the people beyond the wall. They already have so little, and it wouldn’t be fair.” Aiden continues, “The New World destroyed most of the Fritts in the war. Only about a hundred survived and were let go once they promised never to return. I have no idea where they went, but I know they were not all killed like the history books tell people. The people beyond the wall aren’t the Fritts. They have no country. They are all simply just trying to survive with what little is left of the world.”

I let all of that sink in.

The Fritts were never all killed? Some of them survived? The government lied to us? Of course they did. They have been lying to us about the carnival. Why wouldn’t they lie about everything else? They have been lying from the start.

If what Aiden is saying is true, then there are other people out there beyond the wall. It is not just the New World anymore. They told us there were no other people or countries, but that might all be one big lie—or Aiden is lying.

“How do I know I can trust you? You could be lying to me.”

“I know I don't deserve your trust because I kept it all a secret,” Aiden says. “I guess all I can tell you is that I lived in Tundris for six years, and in that time, I became my own person and not the person my parents wanted me to be. I am not them.”

“How did you get to Tundris?” I ask him. How on earth did he leave the town of Officials without anyone knowing? He is the son of one of the three governors. Eyes must have been all over him.

“I had the same bodyguard for three years. We got pretty close within that time. I told him what I heard about my parents wanting to put me in the military, and he told me he would help me escape if I wanted to.” Aiden continues, “I said yes. Two months later, I finally got out, and he took me to Tundris under a fake name. He gave me a cover story and told everyone that my parents had died, and I was moved to a new town so I wouldn’t have to be reminded of their deaths.”

“Who took care of you then?”

“A man named Balan took me in. He was a police officer in Tundris, and he is back at the Jumpers camp right now. He is one of the ones who knows who I really am,” Aiden says.

“So your real name is Atlas?” I ask just to clarify.

“Yes,” Aiden says with a look of longing.

“Do you like that name better?”

“I like the name better, but I do not like who it ties me to,” Aiden hangs his head low, and I can tell he blames himself for the things his father has done.

“If you left six years ago, then you had no idea about the New World’s problems or what the governors were planning to do. Their actions are not your own,” I tell Aiden, but he does not look like he believes me.

“If I had never left, then maybe I would have been there to hear their plans and suggested something better. Or maybe I could have waited and left after they came up with their plan, and I could have gotten out to warn people sooner.” Aiden’s eyes start to water, and I know that he feels guilty, although he did nothing wrong.

“You can’t think about the what ifs. You have to think about the things you did do. You got us out of the carnival. You got me back in so I could look for my father. You got me back out.” I slowly walk towards Aiden, but he just looks away from me. “And now, because of you, that group of people waiting in the woods back there are going to live.”

“Because of me, that guard is dead,” he says. A tear falls from his face, and as I get closer to him, I see that his whole body is shaking.

I close the gap between us and try to hug him. He pushes my arms away and tries to fight me off, but he eventually gives up and lets me wrap my arms around him. I just hold him, not saying anything and just letting him get it all out.

I don’t know what kind of state I would be in if it had been me who killed the guard. As much as I would like to believe that I would not cry since the guard was willing to kill us, the reality is I would be like Aiden since I don’t think I could ever take someone’s life away from them.

When Aiden’s body stops shaking, and I no longer hear his cries, I loosen up my hold on him.

“I have never killed anyone before…” Aiden says, his voice sounding broken. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“I know,” I tell him, tightening my hold on him again.

“Why don’t you hate me?” He asks.

The question throws me off guard.

Why don’t I hate him? He is the son of one of the governors who did this to us. I should be mad, but I am not. “This wasn’t your fault. None of it was. I hate your father and the other governors. I don’t hate you.”

After another minute, Aiden says, “They are going to be leaving soon. We should return to the others before they take off without us.”

I release Aiden from my arms and start walking through the woods, trying to find where the group is.

“Didn’t you grow up here?” Aiden asks.

“Of course I did. What about it?”

“I am just surprised, is all. I thought someone who grew up in these woods would know that they were going the wrong way.”

I glare at Aiden and throw my hands up in frustration. “How do you know this place better than me?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just have better directional skills than you,” Aiden says. I can still hear a hint of sadness in his voice, but regardless of this, he is trying to lighten the mood. It just so happened that it involves picking on me.

“Don’t tell my brother. I always make fun of him for not knowing where he is going.”

We walk in silence for a little longer before I bring the mood back down. “Are you okay… physically?” I ask him.

“I am fine. It is just some cuts and bruises. I feel fine now, but it will probably hurt more in the morning. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am fine. I have some small cuts from the mirrors, but other than that, I am alright.” My arm is still throbbing a little from when I fell, and I know it has been cut pretty badly by the glass as well, but I don't say anything because I know it's minor compared to Aiden. My throat hurts a little from when the guard tried choking me as well, but I don’t mention that either. “And by the way, I think it is technically morning.”

Aiden looks up at the sky which is getting brighter by the minute. It is not quite time for the sun to come up, but it is getting close. He smirks at my comment, and the two of us continue walking through the woods to the group.

“So does being the governor’s son mean you won’t kiss me anymore, or are you still open to that?” Aiden says in a playful tone as we get closer to where we are going.

My eyes widen, and I lightly smack the side of his arm, “Aiden!” I have to turn my head so he doesn’t see me smile. “Why did you even let me kiss you in the first place?” I ask with a little laugh.

“Do you really think I would turn down a kiss from someone who looks like you? Besides, you practically attacked me,” Aiden is now smiling, and I can’t help but smile back.

I see the group in the distance, “I did not attack you. It was simply an in-the-moment thing.”

After I say that, I rush towards the group and quickly find Devin.

Devin immediately brings me in for a big hug the second he sees me. I hug him back as hard as I can. How do I tell my brother that our father is dead? I went back into the carnival to find our Dad, but I came back empty handed.

“I didn’t find him,” I tell Devin. “I think they killed him,” I say this last part so quietly I am surprised Devin even hears me.

“I know,” Devin says. “But you came back. I still have my sister, and that is all that matters.”

Devin lets go of me, and once he gets a better look at me, I can see his expression change from happy to worried. “Are you alright? What happened in there?” he asks.

“I can ask the same thing,” Theon says.

Theon comes to stand next to my brother and Aiden. He is looking at Aiden and me with a lot of curiosity. He looks at the blood on Aiden’s face, and then he looks over to me, where I have about twenty small cuts on my arms from the broken mirrors.

“It’s a long story,” I tell them. “I am alright, just minor things,” I tell Devin.

“What? Did you go shopping while you were in there?” Theon says while eyeing up the guard jacket that I stole. I glare at him and want to say something in response, but Aiden speaks before I can.

“We need to get going. We cannot wait any longer,” Aiden says. I will explain everything that happened on the way, but we need to go right now. It won’t take long for the guards to figure out we left through the door in the Mirror Maze. Once they find that out, they will be heading this way. We need to be long gone by the time they do that.”

“Okay, then, let’s go,” Theon says.

Aiden and Theon gather everyone up and start walking further into the woods, where there is a fence. The fence is part of what keeps us in Treegrass. We are not supposed to break it or try to get over it. At least, that is what we have been told.

Aiden and Theon both pick up the bottom of the chain-link fence and hold it open for people to crawl under it. People start crawling under the fence one by one, and I try to see if I recognize anyone.

There are a few faces of people I have seen around Treegrass, but no one that I actually know. I see the young girl I got out of the carnival with the first time, and I am happy to see that she looks comfortable with the people she is with.

I notice that I have not seen Vesper, the guy that Aiden was talking to when I interrupted him to talk him into bringing me back into the carnival. I wait until it is my turn to go under the fence before asking about him.

“He took some of the injured people back to our camp on the ATVs. Some of them were hurt really badly and needed medical help. We will have to walk there on foot, but I honestly think we would have had to do that anyway, given the amount of people,” Theon says.

I crawl under the fence and feel like I am leaving home for the final time. I don’t want to go, but I know I can’t stay.

I have to move on.

Chapter 34

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