Rebel of Scars and Ruin (The Evolved Book 1)

by Veronica Sommers

  "Too bad?" He smiles, the scar across his lips stretching. "Why?"

  "Because—because if your breath didn't smell so terrible, then—"

  He moves closer. My back is against our room door, and his right hand braces against the doorframe. "Then what?"

  "Then nothing," I whisper. "Go away."

  "I want to know if you feel it too. This." He gestures between us.

  "I feel it. You know I do."

  He releases a breath, bending his head toward me, his dark eyes seeking mine. "It's not fair, is it?"

  "No."

  "And it doesn't make sense. But it's real. It's the most real thing I've felt in a long time, Zilara."

  "Please stop." My voice cracks when I say it. "You're only making it worse."

  "I'm sorry." He backs up a step, night air rushing between us, and the physical absence of him is like a great hollow suddenly carved into my chest.

  The foggy, moth-swarmed lamp on the wall casts Rak's face in mottled shadow and light. His hands hang empty at his sides. He looks as hollow as I feel.

  Suddenly I don't care about anything or anyone else, not even myself. All I care about is erasing that pained, lost look from his eyes.

  My arms are around him almost before I realize I've moved. My cheek against his bare chest, his heart thundering in my ear. He laughs, the sound reverberating through his ribs. "You are so confusing." But he wraps both arms around me anyway.

  "Can I sleep with you?" I say. Then I jerk back, horrified. "Not like that. I know you can't, because—I mean, can I just sleep—near you?"

  How pathetic.

  Instead of answering, he picks me up, one arm at my back and the other under my knees. He carries me to the door of my room, and I somehow manage to reach over and enter the unlock code despite the cloud of surprise and delight in my brain.

  "This is silly," I say. "I can walk."

  "Hush."

  He shoulders the door open and carries me inside. The bed is narrow for two, but I don't care. As soon as I'm settled under the covers, with his warmth behind me and his arm around my waist, the tension in my body breaks and flows away, and I can sleep.

  We wake the next morning to Alik banging on the door. The sun is barely up, but he's dressed, carrying his bag and Rak's, his lean face flushed.

  "Rak's gone," he says to me when I open the door.

  "No," I say, moving back so he can come inside. "He's here."

  "Oh. Here, in your bed. I see." Alik shakes his head at Rak, who is running his hands through his hair and looking gleeful and embarrassed at the same time.

  "Nothing happened—you know what, it's none of your business." I close the door behind Alik.

  "Of course not." Alik drops the bags. "Never mind that I almost broke the rest of my ribs carrying all this over here—and I have the worst headache. Like a pair of Vilor machines driving circles in my brain."

  "How colorful," says Safi, sitting up in bed. She winces, but her movements seem less stiff today.

  Rak rises from the bed. "We should go. We need to get back to the Vilor machine."

  "Breakfast?" says Alik.

  "We'll get it on the way."

  We buy nuribars, dried fruit, and water from a shop on our way out of Saghir. Shadows still paint the empty streets in dark gray, but the sun is climbing and the heat is already mounting. I'm glad to leave the sad, sandy town behind us—it feels like a tomb, or a trap.

  The Vilor machine sits where we left it, but there are boot prints we don't recognize, along with bloodstained grasses and broken bushes. Deathspawn lies beside the vehicle, licking his teeth and panting, his muzzle stained red-brown. He rises as we approach, growling, but he doesn't attack. As Safi nears him, he lowers his head and pricks his ears toward her voice.

  "Did you drive away some bad thieves, you beautiful maniac?" she croons, reaching out her hand. He snaps at her, his teeth closing just shy of her fingers. I scream, and Rak darts forward, his gun whipping out of its holster.

  "Don't!" Safi holds up her other hand to stop him. "If he'd wanted to hurt me, he wouldn't have missed. He's just saying hello."

  "That's not 'hello'—that's a heart attack." Alik bends over, hand on his chest, breathing hard.

  "You like to scare sneaky little thieves, don't you, precious?" Safi coos, with a sidelong glance at Alik. She rubs the jacanal's mangy ears. "What are you all waiting for? Get in the machine!"

  We climb in, Rak taking the driver's seat, me next to him, and Alik in the back. Safi continues rubbing the jacanal's ears until we're all inside—then she leaps in and slams the door just as Deathspawn flies into it. He crashes against the metal, yowling, and backs away to run in circles after his ratty tail.

  "Go," Safi says. "He'll catch up."

  The drive to Rak's village takes most of the day. As the hours pass, the trees cluster together more thickly, creating patches of actual forest, though it's a thinner, scrawnier version of the forests I'm used to back home.

  It's growing dark when we park the Vilor machine in a thicket a short distance from the village. The fuel gauge points at empty, and the engine sputters as Rak cranks it down and shuts it off.

  "And that is the end of this disgusting ride," Safi says, sliding out of the vehicle.

  "Disgusting?" Alik says. "At least it has actual seats and doors. Your Cranky Old Bastard was much less comfortable to ride in."

  "Don't speak ill of her life's work," I tell him. "It won't earn you any points."

  At Rak's suggestion, we hide some of our supplies in a thicket near the spot where we park the vehicle. Then, with a lighter load, we head for town.

  His village lies in the foothills, right at the base of the mountain range. The mountains themselves aren't thickly wooded, but brown, bare peaks with a smattering of dark flecks that must be trees.

  We tramp through scrubby forest until we reach a main road, a narrow strip of cracked pavement snaking between rocks and trees and over hills until it reaches the first clusters of homes.

  Rak's pace slows the nearer we get.

  "Wrap your face, Zilara," he says, and the intensity in his voice startles me. Quickly I pull out the scarf and wind it over my head and around my mouth and nose.

  As we pass a small house with a garden, a boy of maybe thirteen or fourteen years gawks at us, specifically at Rak. He's holding a rake, staring as if his eyes are going to pop from his head. Then he drops the rake and dashes away.

  "Do you know him?" I ask.

  "I think so. He looks like the younger brother of one of my friends."

  "One of your friends from the Fray?"

  Rak's face tenses. "Yes."

  "It looked as if he recognized you. Do you think he ran off to tell someone you're here?"

  "Maybe. Listen, let's get off the main road. I know another way we can get to my house."

  He leads us between a pair of houses and along a narrow street, then down a back alley. We cut through someone's vegetable garden and then Rak leaps lightly over a low fence.

  "Babes' blood, Rakhi," grumbles Alik. "Some of us are wounded. We can't be jumping fences."

  "It's only one fence," Rak promises, helping Safi over. I manage to swing over the fence easily, but before I can gloat, my foot catches on a clod and I fall onto my face, smearing my new clothes with dirt. I swear harshly, and Rak turns, reaching out to help me. I jump up without touching his hand. "I'm fine. Just clumsy."

  He nods, his eyes unusually bright. "We're almost there."

  By now it's night, and the grassy plots around the houses are swathed in deep shadow. Light streams from square windows, and the occasional laugh or raised voice floats out on the evening breeze. But I don't hear any music. In fact, I haven't heard music in days. Suddenly I miss it.

  "We're here." Rak moves sideways through a gap in a hedge, and we follow him, one at a time, Alik cursing the whole way and Safi biting her lip. Rak stops us in the shadow of the hedge. "Let me do the talking at first," he says. "So I can help them underst
and what's going on."

  "Whatever you need," I say.

  Behind Rak, where the grass ends, a mosaic of white and gray pavers creates a small courtyard, glowing pale under the night sky. Beyond that rises the back wall of the house, its uniformity broken by a rear entrance and three tall windows.

  Rak beckons us forward, and we slip across the courtyard, clustering by the back door. Nearby stand a few pots containing herbs and spices. A vine heavy with round red fruits hangs ponderously over a wooden lattice. The door itself is thick, solid wood, sealed with a massive digi-lock bearing the Fray fist symbol.

  Rak reaches for my hand, and gently I squeeze his fingers. Taking a deep breath, he knocks.

  A woman opens the door, golden light flowing around her shape and washing over us. His mother. I know her from the image Rak keeps in his pocket.

  Her hair is longer than it was in the picture—black, streaked with gray, a lock of it woven with colorful beads in the Maraj tradition. Her dark eyes resemble Rak's, but they're harder, sharper. Faint lines etch her forehead and trail downward from the edges of her mouth.

  "Amha," says Rak.

  "Rakhi?" Her eyes dart to each of us, but she doesn't seem entirely surprised. That boy on the edge of the village must have told her we were coming. "Inside, quickly!" she says.

  She moves back, and we file into the house one after another—Rak, and me, and Safi, and Alik.

  Under my feet are reddish-brown floor tiles. On a richly-hued carpet in the center of the room, hand-sewn poufs and cloth stools rest in a rough circle. A couple of small work tables stand nearby, one piled with sewing supplies and another with books. The walls are white plaster, yellowed with age, dotted with digital art prints in homemade frames. An old holo-device perches on a narrow stand against one wall. Thick dark beams arch across the ceiling overhead. A faint smell of grease, herbs, and onions permeates the air.

  Rak's mother closes the door and locks it. When she opens her arms to Rak, he releases my hand and gathers her in a hug.

  "We thought you died," she says.

  "It's better that everyone thinks so," he says. "Amha, I've done something—I can't go back to the Fray."

  Her mouth tightens. "What have you done?"

  Sighing, he reaches for me, for the cloth winding around my head and face. I let him unwrap it, and when he pulls the last length away, his mother's face darkens. "You're the Magnate's daughter. The one from the vids, who was kidnapped."

  "We kidnapped her," says Rak. "My team and I. We were holding her hostage to force the Magnate's hand, to get him to agree to withdraw from Emsalis."

  His mother nods, still staring at me. In her eyes I see the same fire I saw in Rak's the first time I met him—hatred, blame, a lust for vengeance. "It was a good plan," she says. "I prayed that it would work."

  "No." Rak touches her face, turning it back to him. "It wasn't right, Amha. But I went along with it, until the Vilor raided the base where we were keeping her. I was supposed to kill her if anything like that happened, but I couldn't. So we ran."

  "You disobeyed your superiors?" His mother frowns.

  "Would you have wanted me to kill her? She's just a girl."

  "You're a soldier," she retorts. "You already have blood on your hands. You couldn't have spilled a bit more for your country's sake? In the case of the Magnate's spawn, I would think it counted as a good deed."

  "How can you say that?" Rak's frown deepens.

  "You expect me to be happy that you disobeyed your leaders? That you risked your future, our future, on a whim?" Furiously she dives into long convoluted phrases in the Maraj dialect. Rak answers in the same tongue, just as angry, talking just as fast.

  From behind me, Alik whispers in my ear. "Coming here was such a great idea, wasn't it?" I glance back at him as he and Safi seat themselves on two adjacent poufs, settling in to wait out the family argument.

  Then Rak's mother crosses the room, heading for a closed door. She switches back into Global. "I didn't believe him," she says, "when he told me what you did. I couldn't believe that my son, my own son, would ever help one of the Ceannans, especially one who is the blood of that hog-faced jacanal, the Magnate Remay. Because of him and his soldiers, the Emsali fight each other, instead of the true enemy, the Vilor. 'My son knows this,' I told him. 'My son would never betray our cause. My son has honor.' "

  Rak's voice is tense, his eyes alert. "What are you saying?"

  "You have failed us, Rakhi."

  She opens the door, and there is Commander Therin. Temper, as I named him when I was his prisoner. Rak's superior, the man who masterminded my capture, one of the Fray leaders.

  25

  Therin strides in, snapping his fingers at a cluster of figures behind him—and Fray rebels stream into the room, a dozen men and women, guns aimed at me, at Rak, at Safi and Alik. One of the rebels snatches Rak's gun from its holster.

  "You're predictable, Rakhi," Therin says, his tone gentle as he walks forward and brushes some hedge leaves from Rak's shoulder. He's half a head shorter than Rak, but his confidence and his bearing make him seem much larger. "When we lost track of you and the girl, I thought you were dead, until Lenji told me you shot him and escaped with her. I could hardly believe it. You were always so obedient. But then I realized what happened. She got in your head." He stabs a finger at Rak's temple, casting a despising glance at me. "Crafty as her father, she is. She tricked you into helping her."

  He steps toward me, stops in front of me so we're eye to eye. I stare straight at him, unflinching, though my stomach coils cold within me, forming a hard knot of fear.

  "I lost many men that day," he says. "Had to flee. Had to wait for scraps of news. We heard that the Vilor were still hunting the Magnate's daughter. Do you know how many desert border towns suffered Vilor attacks, all because of their search for you?"

  "That isn't my fault," I say. "If you hadn't taken me in the first place—"

  His hands are around my throat in an instant, squeezing so violently that I gag. Rak lunges at his leader, and one of the rebels stuns him. He crumples, his body shaking while his mother looks on unmoving.

  I thrust heat through the glove Therin wears, aiming to boil his skin, but I encounter a strange layer of resistance. "Nanotech, embedded in the glove," he says, smiling. "Handy, considering your ability." His grip relaxes, and I choke, trying to suck in air through my bruised throat. "I've met people with similar talents, tactile gifts, and they can't seem to get past the nanites."

  He turns back to Rak.

  "Where was I? Ah yes. We couldn't confront the Vilor directly, not with their numbers, not with so little time to gather more men. So we took a hoverplane and came here, Rak. And you brought her right to us. Your mother insisted she speak to you first—a test of your motives. From what I overheard, it sounds as if your loyalties are no longer with us, am I correct?"

  "I am loyal to the cause, and to Emsalis," says Rak, his voice shaky from the aftereffects of the stun blast. "But I won't kill an innocent girl."

  "But you didn't merely refuse to kill her. You actually helped her escape. I assume you helped her contact her father as well?"

  Rak doesn't answer.

  "This is a dangerous path for you. I thought you had a future with us, Rakhi!" Therin sounds fatherly, pleading. "Let's say you were weak-minded, foolish, easily persuaded by clever words. We can still put this behind us. We may not be able to trust you as a soldier again, but we can use you in some other capacity. If you're willing to do one thing for me."

  Rak's voice is so low I can barely hear it. "What would I have to do?"

  "Overcome the problem. Remove the objection. Kill the enemy." Therin jerks his head toward me.

  Rak laughs. "That's all?"

  "Yes. A simple choice."

  "I already made that choice," says Rak. "I made it when the Vilor overran our base, and I made it again and again, day after day until now. I made the choice with pain and blood. And you want me to kill her, and let it al
l be for nothing?" He laughs again, deep and long. "No."

  Therin's pleasant manner disappears. "It's clear that your allegiance is no longer to the Fray, or to Emsalis. Fortunately, your family is willing to remain loyal and continue working for our nation's future." He crooks his finger, and two of the rebels drag Rak to his feet.

  "Meet our newest recruit," says Therin. "Your sister Atha."

  From behind two other rebels, a girl of about my age steps forward. Blue eyes, dark hair. A ridge of scar tissue runs from her temple down her cheek, along her jaw all the way to her chin.

  "No." Rak's voice is thick, hoarse.

  "I can fight as well as you," says Atha. "Better, maybe. And I'll be loyal. I won't betray my family for a little Ceannan servicer like this." She moves closer to him. "How could you, Rakhi? After all we went through? How could you forget our cause? Our revenge? Justice, for me, for our mother?"

  "I haven't forgotten," he whispers. "But how does killing an innocent girl help our cause?"

  "Innocent?" Rak's mother scoffs. "She's been at her father's side for years, supporting him, promoting his cause in many countries. She's far from innocent."

  "I didn't know what was happening here." The words rasp from my bruised throat. "I didn't understand."

  "And now you do?" Therin smiles. "You want to go back home and persuade your father to withdraw his troops? Will he do that for you?"

  I meet his eyes. "He wouldn't do it under threat of my execution. You know I can't persuade him."

  "Then you're of no further use, except perhaps to send a very strong and unmistakable message to the Magnate. By your death, of course."

  "It won't matter," I say. "It will only make the Fray look like the bad guys, and make him the martyr who would give up his own daughter for the sake of world peace."

  Therin hesitates.

  Maybe I'm getting through to him. Maybe we can make it out of this.

  He leans closer, and suddenly there's a knife in his hand—I didn't even see him draw it. The edge of the broad blade traces the line of my neck, from below my ear down to the hollow between my collarbones, where it stops. Closer he comes, until his mouth hovers right over my ear.