Rebel of Scars and Ruin (The Evolved Book 1)

by Veronica Sommers

  "You're really done?" Rak asks.

  I nod, eyes closed. "Dying here," I whisper.

  "No, you're not, fool."

  "You're the fool." The words slip through my crusted lips.

  "Fine." Rak sounds defeated and determined at the same time.

  I ignore him, wrapped in my cocoon of heat and sweat and thirst and misery.

  A drop splashes onto my cheek.

  A drop.

  6

  My eyes pop open and I touch my face. Liquid. Water.

  I sit up.

  Rak's hands are held apart, and between them, curling and arching in midair, is a stream of pure water. "Open your mouth, Zilara," he says.

  I do, and he guides the water between my lips, a little at a time so I can swallow it. When I've drunk it all, I stare at him. "You're Evolved!"

  "My people don't call it that. They would say I'm cursed, or darkened. A skill like mine is forbidden by our religion." He sits on the ground beside me. "I've hidden it since I was small; only my parents ever knew."

  "Why?"

  "Because I would be thrown out of my tribe, or killed for practicing dark arts."

  "That's insane," I say. "Your ability is a natural, evolved survival skill. Nothing more, nothing less. And so is mine."

  He raises his eyebrows. "Burning people is a survival skill?"

  "Think about it. I can keep myself warm, even in cold weather. Until Mav, I thought that was as far as it went—but apparently I could light a fire if I needed to, or yes, hurt someone who wants to harm me." I meet his eyes, an unspoken threat.

  To my surprise, his mouth twists in a smile. "No use for your ability out here. Now if you could cool things off, that might be helpful."

  I smile back at him. "I wish I could. What about you? Where do you get the water?"

  "I can feel the molecules in the air and the ground, the pieces I need to make it," he says. "If I concentrate and invest enough energy, I can pull it all together."

  "That's why you weren't concerned about crossing the desert without water."

  "Yes. Although I am worried about our lack of food."

  "Make some water for yourself," I say. "I want to see you do it."

  He gives me an incredulous look, like he can't believe someone actually wants to see and appreciate his power. A grin spreads across his face, wider and more genuine than I've ever seen from him.

  He flutters his fingers, pulling invisible particles from the earth and air, pushing them together, energizing them, creating a stream of water from nothing. Clear and sparkling, the liquid writhes in the air between his hands, until he siphons it into his own mouth.

  "You can do more than make it," I say. "You can manipulate it, too."

  "I can."

  "So the hydrogen molecules that you use to make the water—with a different kind of pressure and more energy, that could be a deadly combination. Explosive."

  "Maybe." He bends his head, his face hidden behind that greasy hair. "Rested enough?"

  "Do any of your Fray buddies know what you can do?"

  "No. I told you, I've kept it hidden."

  "But you showed me." Either because he trusts me, or because he thinks I'm going to end up dead and won't get the chance to tell anyone.

  "Yes. And now you won't shut up about it."

  He's walking away, so I follow, ignoring the pain in my feet and in my head.

  "If the Fray knew about your ability, they would try to weaponize you. You realize that, don't you? That's another reason you won't tell anyone."

  "I should have let you die of thirst. Then all my problems would be solved."

  "Mm, you sure know how to make a girl feel special."

  After several minutes of silent trekking, I say, "You know I would never tell anyone about your ability."

  "You'd tell your father," he says.

  "No. I don't even like him."

  "But he's your blood. Does the blood bond have no meaning for your people?"

  "It does, but sometimes we value our friends more. Like the friends I told you about—Vissa and Reya. I'd do anything for them, even if it meant defying my father."

  "But I'm not your friend," says Rak. "So you have no reason to keep my secret."

  "True. Although if you agree to let me go when we get to Ankerja, I might consider having you at the very edge of my friends' circle. Like right at the outer rim."

  "How generous of you." His voice is deep, hoarse from the hours of heat and sand. "And what privileges would I receive, being on the fringes of your circle?"

  "The keeping of important secrets, for one," I say. "The occasional holo-wave. Maybe an update vid about my life every year or so."

  "That's not enough to tempt me."

  "Then what would tempt you?" I'm only half-aware of what we're saying, and I have no idea where this conversation is headed. His voice and the banter between us is the only thing keeping me upright and mobile. My thirst is temporarily assuaged, but I'm so tired. So painfully tired.

  "What would tempt me," he says thoughtfully. "You want the truth? The only things that tempt me are freedom and safety."

  "Freedom and safety? Aren't those mutually exclusive?"

  He stares at me from under that veil of wavy dark hair, as if I said something profound. "I have to believe I can have both someday," he says. "For me and the people I love."

  Such heart-wrenching sadness in those brown eyes.

  "Tell me more about the people you love," I say.

  His brows contract. "Why? So you and your father can get revenge on them, on me, for all this?"

  "No!" That thought wasn't even in my head. "Just to have something to talk about. But if you don't want to tell me, I'll share."

  As the sun sinks again, lower and lower, I describe my friends to him. "They're Evolved too. Vissa can see farther and more clearly than most humans, and Reya—there's something about her voice. When she's singing, no one can think about anything else. Of course who knows if either of them are suppressed—their abilities might be stronger than they ever realized."

  He doesn't reply, so I tell him about the fake friends, the kids who fawned on me in upper school and then begged me for university recommendation letters from my father. They all dropped me when I had to say no.

  I tell him about my brother, Emret—ten years older than me, heavily involved in politics. He's basically my father's right hand in Ceanna, but he has little to do with foreign affairs. With the age difference between us and our vastly different lives, Emret and I are practically strangers to each other.

  I'm in the middle of describing the state events I have to attend and the bodyguards who follow me around every day—and then Vern's perfect face and smooth blond hair appear in my mind, and my throat constricts, forcing tears into my eyes.

  "You stopped talking. What a mercy of the Light," says Rak.

  When I don't answer, he glances at me. "You're exhausted," he says, in a tone so low it's almost gentle. "We should stop and make camp."

  "Camp?" I laugh. "We have nothing to make a camp with."

  "You underestimate me."

  He chooses a flat spot between two ridges of sand, a sort of shallow valley. Unslinging the pack, he squats beside it and inspects its contents—a thin blanket, three nuribars, some old-school slider cuffs, and from the very bottom of the pack, a couple of bandages—not nano-patches, but the basic kind, with gauze and adhesive.

  Looking up, he actually smiles, as if that little pile is gold. "We can make this work. Look, we even have some of your favorites." He wiggles a nuribar at me.

  "I can't believe you're joking about this."

  "It could be worse. At least we have a blanket."

  "One blanket? It gets so cold out here, and I can't use my ability while I'm sleeping."

  "So we'll share the blanket."

  I wrinkle my nose. "I don't want to share a blanket with you. You smell, and you're dirty."

  "You smell, too."

  I give him my most hate
ful glare. "It's your people's fault. Making me pee myself with that paralytic gas, and then never giving me the chance to shower."

  "The water in that part of the building wasn't working."

  "Still. I blame you."

  "Of course you do." He tosses me the nuribar. "Eat half of that, and I'll eat the other, and then we'll get some sleep."

  I rip open the package and shove the entire bar into my mouth. I can barely chew it all, and I almost gag.

  He watches me, disbelief on his face. "And you think I'm disgusting?"

  I turn away until I manage to finish chewing the bar. My revenge for his comment didn't work out quite like I thought, and when I hear his stomach rumble a minute later, I feel a pang of guilt.

  "Eat one of the other bars," I tell him.

  "No, we have to ration them." Rak smoothes a bandage over one of his cuts and hands me the other bandage. I use it to replace one of my bloodied wrappings, realizing that he could have used both bandages himself, to spite me; but he seems to have an inexorable sense of fairness that extends even to me, the perceived enemy of his people.

  I'm weakening toward him, and that's not allowed. This man deserves to go hungry tonight, after what he and his faction did to me. I should have no qualms about eating the whole bar, or taking one of the bandages.

  No qualms at all.

  Sitting on the ground, I watch the breeze scour up little eddies of sand. The sun sets in a reckless clash of color, streaking red and orange and purple across a sky of pale green and deepening blue. I've never seen anything so painfully exquisite. If anything could make me believe in a creative deity, this display of fierce, pointless beauty would do it.

  Then night comes, dark and sudden, and with it an equally sudden chill—and I remember where I am, and why.

  When Rak lies down on the sand with the blanket and pats the space beside him, I balk, turning my back.

  "Don't be stupid, Zilara," he says. "It's going to get cold out here. Freezing cold."

  Chilly air wafts over me as he says it, and the goose-bumps lift on my arms. I exert my power, warming my skin—but I won't be able to keep it up while I sleep. I'll need the shared body heat, and the protection of the blanket.

  Sighing, I stalk over to him and lie down, pulling the blanket over me so completely that it slides off him.

  "Did no one ever teach you to share?" he says.

  "Did no one ever teach you not to kidnap people and hold them hostage?"

  He moves closer and arranges the blanket over both of us. He's on his side, facing me, and to stay under the blanket I have be very near him. But I won't lie there nose to nose with him, breathing his breath—so I scoot down and duck my head so it's below his chin, angled toward his chest. Slowly I relax, and I use my power to heat my skin, the blanket, and the earth under us. As the delicious warmth spreads, he sighs.

  The sky soars above us, enormous, dark, and studded with a billion stars. All around us, the land stretches out, smooth sifted sand and the occasional ridge or dune. The night air flows past, cold breath in the still landscape. The two of us, huddled under our shared blanket in our pocket of warmth, are so small, so insignificant. So vulnerable.

  I move closer to Rak. He smells sour and sweaty, and greasy, but he's human. And he did spare my life, and take me away from the Fray and the Vilor.

  "The first time I used my ability, my father beat me." The rumble of his voice startles me. Now he feels like sharing? I'm tempted to tell him to shut up and sleep, but I'm almost as curious as I am exhausted.

  "That's harsh," I say.

  "My mother told him to do it. She thought maybe they could punish the Darkness out of me, and they tried. Took me a few months to get the idea and quit showing off my power."

  "How old were you?"

  "Five."

  My brain conjures five-year-old Rak, unruly dark hair tumbling around his face, running to show his parents what he could do with the water—and instead of being proud and amazed, they hurt him. "I'm so sorry, Rak."

  "They were frightened. Of me, and of what others in our tribe would do if they found out about me. We're a superstitious people. Anything unknown or unexplained is a threat."

  "I always thought the Evolved were well-treated in Ceanna, compared to elsewhere in the world," I say. "But maybe I've been wrong about that. Maybe we're considered a threat there, too. But at least I wasn't beaten for it."

  "It wasn't just for my power. I was punished for many things. Moving too slowly, acting too impulsively. Speaking out of turn, not speaking at all." He chuckles, but there's sadness in the sound.

  We're so different in so many ways, but this, I understand. "My parents punished my brother and I for the same kind of thing. Even now, we have to be so careful what we say and do. Any stray word or look or action can be snatched up by the newsfeeds and turned into a firestorm. I remember once, when I was little, I told my teacher about a fight my parents had—and within hours everyone in Ceanna knew about it. My parents shut me in my room for the whole day, no skull-port devices, no food, nothing. I cried until I threw up. I don't think they ever really forgave me for what I said."

  "My mother has never forgiven me for being—what do you call it—Evolved," says Rak. "She looked at me differently after she found out what I could do. In her eyes, it's a failure I'll never overcome."

  He falls silent after that. I'm conscious of the nearness of his body, the angle of his hips, the brush of his knees against mine, his chin touching the top of my head. He's breathing slow and deep, already falling asleep. After watching his chest move for a minute, I turn my face to the sky for a last look at the stars.

  Something black dips and flashes against the darkness. Small, round, with pincer-like arms sticking out.

  "Rak!"

  He's alert instantly. "What?"

  I point at the object, and he springs to his feet. "A seeker!"

  "What do we do?"

  "We can't run, it will only follow us." He chews the scarred section of his lip.

  "Can you shoot it?"

  "It'll be shielded against standard guns like mine. Boltfire won't have much effect."

  "I want to try something," I tell him. "Can you make a trail of hydrogen from me to the seeker?" I draw quickly in the sand. "And then a pool of hydrogen around it. Like a bomb, with an invisible fuse I can light."

  "Zilara, this isn't a good idea."

  "It's the only one we have."

  In the darkness, I see his head move. A nod. "I'll try."

  The seeker hovers above our heads, motionless, monitoring, as his hands move rapidly, pushing and pulling at nothing. His breath comes faster, like the task is sapping his energy.

  Finally he runs his hand along an invisible trail down to my fingers. "Here," he says. "Hurry, it won't stay in place for long."

  I concentrate on the air above my palm, pushing heat out and up, out and up, faster, faster, more intense, higher heat than I've ever used before.

  It happens more quickly than I expect.

  A bright yellow flash, a sparking, popping chain of fire traveling up to the hovering seeker—and then a ferocious explosion. Flaming fragments of the drone rain down around us—and I scream, because my hand is on fire.

  7

  I shove my burning hand into the sand, and Rak quickly forms a sphere of water.

  "Put your hand in here!" he says, and I obey, tears streaming down my face. I had control of the heat, but not of the reaction.

  After a minute I draw my hand out, shaking from the pain. My palm is seared vivid pink, and bubbling up in a couple of places, but at least it isn't charred.

  Rak stuffs the blanket into the pack and swings it over his shoulder. "We have to move. The seeker may have already sent our location back to whoever dispatched it. You have to come with me, now."

  Mutely I follow him, cradling my hand.

  "It was a good plan," he said. "But you should have been more careful."

  "Screw you," I whisper.

  He
half-turns his head, so I know he heard me.

  After a couple hours of walking, we come to an area ridged with larger dunes, and Rak stops in the deep shadow of one of them. "We'll sleep here."

  Without speaking to him I lie down, my injured hand tucked close to my chest. He lies down facing me, so close his knees touch mine, and arranges the blanket over both of us.

  "Don't use your ability," he says. "It's too much heat, too easy for a seeker to spot from far away."

  Instead of answering, I tuck my head down, curling into myself. Tears trickle from my closed eyes, running hot over my nose and cheeks and dripping onto the sand. There's sand in my shirt, in my bra, sand in my eyelashes and hair, sand gritting between my teeth. Cold air, prying at the edges of the blanket, and wind like ice-cold worms burrowing through the gaps between our bodies. Immense dark space overhead, ready to swallow me up like one of the frozen stars in its black maw. The sour smell of the shaggy-haired rebel who almost shot me the other night. I hate this place, and I hate him.

  A whisper out of the dark. "I'm sorry you were hurt," he says. "That's not something I wanted."

  He doesn't get to do that. Doesn't get to pretend that he feels bad for me, after what he and his people have done.

  "I hate you," I whisper back.

  "You should."

  I don't even realize that I've slept until he's waking me up.

  "It's still dark," I protest.

  "We'll go a little further and sleep again," he says. "Best not to stay in one spot too long."

  For an hour I stumble through the dark, following the black shape of him, until he picks another spot to rest. It's colder now, and I'm shivering uncontrollably. This time, he lies down behind me and pulls me right into his chest. I don't have time to be embarrassed by it before I'm unconscious again.

  Sunlight blazes against my eyelids, shining through them no matter how tightly I squeeze them shut.

  Rak shakes my shoulder. "Zilara." The way his voice slides over the syllables stirs something inside me—something that flutters and trembles at the sound.

  "Stop saying 'Zilara' like that," I say. "Call me Zil."

  "But Zilara is prettier." There's a tightness at the corners of his eyes, a sparkle in them. He's almost smiling.