He frowns. “You’re giving up?”
His eyes are glued to my mouth, waiting for a reply.
It’s hard to resist bringing my hand to my lips when they’re under such scrutiny, but I don’t, because I don’t want him to miss a word. “No, I’m not giving up. I’m choosing. Choosing this moment and the next. I’m still fighting for what will come, but I’m not waiting.”
I tug at his jacket, drawing him close, letting his warmth envelop me. Then I kiss him. Once and then again. “I’m starting the future now.”
I lose myself in his mouth. In the way his hands hold me against him, in control but not overpowering. In the possibility stretching before us. He eases me back on the grass, his hand cupping my head.
The length of him against me is hard where I am soft. Familiar but new. Everything has changed and yet we’re here. Together.
We kiss again.
He coaxes my mouth open. His tongue meets mine, and hot sweetness floods my body. I arch closer, hating there to be any gap where we’re not touching. My heart is beating so loud I can’t hear the murmur of his voice in my ear. We’re the same now. Lost in the feeling, there’s no sound but our breathing and blood pounding in our veins.
This is everything.
He pulls back, breathing hard. Watching me. His eyes are gentle and intense. Aflame with want and love and seeing me in a way he never has before. I have to stop myself from squirming because I want this. I want him to see all of me.
“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.” The words slip out. I don’t mean to say them.
The wind has chilled as darkness hovers overhead, chasing away the last of the daylight.
Distress tightens his mouth. “You deserve to know what happened to Zed.”
“There’s more?” I search his beautiful, familiar face, so much older now than the mere months that have passed since he first left the ship. There’s hardness in the angles of his face, now framed by orange tips, to his spiky brown hair. “Tell me.”
He hesitates.
It’s bad. I know it with a sudden certainty that crushes my soul. I grip his hand so hard my nails slice into his skin.
He glances down at the red marks before looking back at me. “I would never have …” His voice catches, and he has to start again. “You have to understand that when I realized Zed followed me I wanted to send him back inside, but Maston decided he’d seen too much. He should never have followed me. The last thing I remember before they made me Blank was seeing Zed next to me on the operating table.”
“What did they do?”
His throat works. “For a while I thought I simply woke as Blank, but there was more. My memories came back in fragments. I thought they were nightmares at first. Memories of a time when I slipped between Blank and Samuai.” He rubs a hand down his face. “One of those times I woke, Zed was there. Only he wasn’t himself. He was insane. He came at me, murder in his face. I tried to get away.” He’s imploring my understanding. “I did everything I could. But he wouldn’t stop. I had to defend myself.”
“What did you do?”
He gulps. “I pushed him. Hard.”
My heart turns to ice in my chest. The cold spreads through my veins. Numbs everything in its path.
Not Zed.
The hum in my ears is coming from my throat. A moan of pure confusion. I shiver. “Did you …?” I can’t finish. Can’t force the words out. Can’t look at the face I kissed a moment ago.
This cannot be happening.
I stagger away from the one person I’ve trusted completely. This stranger calling himself Samuai but saying things my Samuai never would.
I fall to the ground and curl up. The static in my brain drowns the painful thud of my heart against my ribs. My arms wrap around knees that feel like they belong to someone else. Another girl far away. She was happy I think. But for the life of me I can’t recall why, or what happiness feels like. I lift my head and search the sky with stinging eyes for something that will mean this is all some kind of messed up dream. A hallucination from the Doctor’s torture. A reaction to the drugs Davyd gave me.
Anything.
But then I look down again and the tall oaks standing sentinel around the clearing are blocked by Samuai’s body, and he’s on his knees in front of me and I’m not sure, but I think he’s crying or maybe it’s the hot stinging of my eyes making me feel that way. That and the sadness making his face droop and blur like a drop of oil from the bike swirling into a puddle.
“He was mad,” says this boy who looks like Samuai. “An animal.”
“He was my brother.” I scream the words, uncaring of the fine drops of spit spraying this stranger’s face. “He was my brother,” I whisper. The brother who made me laugh and whose smile I can see any time I close my eyes. And then comes the question I can’t avoid a second longer. I owe it to Zed to say the words. Because this Samuai stranger might be telling me a story, but I already know how it ends. It ends with my brother dead in a pond. His life taken, mine shattered, my mother driven crazy with grief. “Did you kill him?”
Silence. It stretches, warps between us like a thousand miles of chasm too big to ever cross. His head bows. “I don’t know.”
“You must.” I shove him backwards. So hard he hits the ground. “Charley gave you back your memories. You said so. If she hadn’t, you would never have found us again.”
I don’t know if he hears every word but he gets the gist. His hands grip his skull. “Not all of them.”
“Tell. Me.”
“I don’t know,” he says again. But there’s guilt in his eyes.
“You kissed me.” I know it makes no sense but it’s all I can think of. “You killed my brother and you kissed me like it meant nothing and worse than that, you let me kiss you back.”
Even now my whole body sways on an edge. Some part of me begging him to undo everything he’s said. To tell me he was playing Davyd or something. Say anything to make this all not be true.
He doesn’t deny it.
A primal scream rips from inside me. I’m on my feet and I’m running.
Away. I have to get away. From him and the truth and the guilt. I welcome the burn in my leg. It’s the anchor that keeps my mind from spinning off into the ever darkening sky. I run and run. I hear him cry my name but I don’t look back.
I can’t.
Because I taste the rage of vengeance and if he comes near I will not be able to stop myself. He will pay. With blood. And as much as that might assuage the anger inside me, I’m not sure if ‘I don’t know’ should be a death sentence.
I run until my legs give way and all I can do is crawl in the dirt. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. The thorny bushes scratch and rip at my skin. Gravel scatters ahead down the rocky slope. And I crawl until I can’t move, and I’m wheezing and spots dance like stars before my eyes.
I’m dry. I’ve left tears behind. But I sob anyway. Great heaving things that wrack my body. I’m losing Zed all over again.
***
I don’t think I sleep but when my eyes open again it’s deep night and someone is calling my name. Samuai?
I scramble upright, drawing thorns from my cheek. “Go away. I’m warning you.”
“Wrong brother.”
I look down at my wrist and the communication device I’d forgotten about. Relief mixes with disappointment. Part of me wanted Samuai to have come. I sigh. “Davyd. I’m not in the mood.”
“You were for a while. It was so romantic at first. The soft light of the twilight sky. The heavy breathing as you got more into it. How I love those little happy sounds you made.” One side of his mouth kicks up. “Then Lost Boy had to ruin everything.”
“Enough,” I growl.
Davyd goes on, oblivious to or uncaring of the threat in my tone. “Here I was, quite enjoying the show, despite Samuai’s part in it, when he wimped out and spilled his guts. And on that subject, you have to remember
I did warn you about him.”
“You watched the whole thing?”
He shrugs. “Well, there are only so many angles and your sleeve got in the way once or twice …”
Disgust uncurls in my belly and slithers along my spine. This is one too many violations. I can’t do anything about Samuai right now, can’t stand to think of what he told me, but I can do something about this.
I pull the knife from my pack and hold it with a steady hand. The sky has cleared and I use the moonlight as my guide. The tip of the knife rests alongside the black wristband.
Davyd’s cocky grin falters. “You’re crazy.”
I ignore Davyd, and the cramp of my heart at his words. That’s what Samuai said about Zed. Part of me registers the annoyance on Davyd’s face. He’s trying to talk me out of it but I don’t have to listen. That’s the thing he doesn’t understand. He’s no longer my master.
Only pressing as deep as I need to, I cut. The knife is so sharp the pain is more the sting of a needle than the slice of a blade. Slowly I draw it along the edge. Blood blooms in fine drops, and I have to use the hem of my singlet to wipe it clean so I can keep going. Soon I’ve done one side. Hot, sharp pain registers but as though it’s happening to someone else. Pain I can control isn’t so bad at all.
The other side is more difficult. Blood drips into the dirt below. Dark spots that make my head spin and vision blur. I press on. Passing out before I finish isn’t an option. I force myself to stay in the moment. Picture Zed, my mother, my father. I can do this for them.
I can do this for me.
Like nature is on my side, drops of rain begin to fall. The heavy fall helping to wash the blood away so I can see to keep cutting.
Davyd long since disappeared from the blood-soaked screen and I wonder if I’ve cut enough to disable the thing. But only on an abstract level because stopping its function isn’t the point.
I won’t stop until it’s gone. Gone forever.
Cutting this out is my world. I can’t—I won’t—think beyond it.
By the time I sever the last piece of skin, I’m working blind. All the rain and the wiping can’t compete with the blood flowing from my wrist. I feel the moment it comes free. Hear the faint sucking as the fine internal wires suck free.
There’s no pain.
Only a rush that bows my head and stops my breath. I drag it off and throw it. It bounces away a few feet. Out of sight in the dark and the rain.
With my back against a tree I try to think. My singlet sticks to my skin. I can’t remember taking off my jacket but I must have. I’m soaked through, my jeans damp with blood and rain. My head is light. Am I floating? I blink and everything comes back into focus.
But only for a moment.
Colors and sounds run together in my brain. Twisting, spinning. Wind turns to laughter and becomes a scream I think I can taste. Maybe I’ve lost too much blood. When did I last eat? Is this shock?
There was something … Before the wristband. Something …
Zed.
The tears come. The blood loss and pain that let me forget for a moment is no longer enough. Already the flow of blood is no more than a trickle. Like my body’s soaked in liquid from the rain, fresh tears join the rain on my cheeks.
In my head, I replay every moment I’ve had with Samuai since he returned to the Pelican. He’s had so many chances to tell me. I imagine the scene as he described, see his hands come out and push my brother. I see surprise on Zed’s face. His innocent, beautiful face.
I should head back to camp. Move. Do something. But as the rain falls, I sit against the tree and cry. Not just for Zed but my mother, my father. Kaih, imprisoned by green robes.
‘You have me,’ she wrote back when I was sure I had no one. I can’t leave her to rot. Thoughts of my best friend stir me when nothing else can.
Getting the serum and finding the truth about the other ship is only the beginning. I need to free my friend and learn why the green robes wanted so desperately to keep this a secret.
I drag myself upright. I have to get back for Kaih’s sake. For my friend I’ll put one foot in front of the other. I head down the hill, away from Samuai and his lying ways. Stumbling at times, I reach the road and force myself to keep going.
Lightning flashes.
I see him then, waiting for me ahead on the road. Samuai. Thunder cracks the night a heartbeat later as darkness returns. I freeze. I can’t bear to be near him. Not now. There’s nothing to say to mend what’s broken between us. I turn away, take a step up the hill. I’ll find another way to help Kaih.
But then the very ground beneath my feet begins to sway.
There’s a rumble, deeper, louder than the thunder. A growling from the depths of the earth that I feel through my body. “Earthquake,” I shout.
Stupid, because there’s no one who can hear me. Even if Samuai was closer …
Samuai. I can’t help it. Despite everything I strain to see the spot where he was lit up a moment ago. “Samuai,” I cry. Not because I forgive him but because the alternative is that I’m all alone.
But despite straining to look, there’s nothing there, and the ground is bucking beneath my feet. Panic squeezes my lungs. I scramble to stay upright. But I can’t fight this. I’m lifted, thrown backwards as the place I was standing splits with a terrible tearing of rock and earth. I land hard against the trunk of a mighty oak, the air rushing from my lungs.
I try to breathe. I can’t.
Winded. I’m just winded. This will pass. Earthquakes only last seconds.
Not in the Upheaval.
I push the thought aside as nearby trees drop like pencils, scattered by a giant’s hand. The splintering of wood as they break is lost in the roar of agony of the earth being torn in two. More chasms form, appearing in what was solid rock like veins opening in an arm.
Another tree falls.
I force air into unforgiving lungs, clogged with dirt, and crawl away from the trunk. I’m on my knees coughing up gravel and grit when it falls a second later. I crumple, shaking and screaming until my throat is so raw I can’t make another sound. All I can do is stare, my heart hammering. I was sitting there. Sitting right there.
There’s a lull, and I try to catch my breath. I want to go back in time. To Samuai’s side. Not to forgive, but to stop him talking at all. I could have kissed him again. Then I wouldn’t be alone now. I wouldn’t have to face how small I am.
Until now the Upheaval was an abstract thing that happened before I was born. Not even seeing the scar of it on the Earth and the city made it real. It was distant. Too big to comprehend. So I didn’t bother.
The ground rumbles again. Aftershocks? Or is this only the beginning?
I’ve lost all sense of direction except for the spot I last saw Samuai. It’s fixed in my mind. Lit up like the lightning burned it right into my brain. I drag myself upright, I have to see if he’s there. I take one step. Another. I keep moving. Twice, I stumble. The second time I fall onto my knees, and I’m looking over the edge of a cliff, into a chasm too deep for me to see the bottom of.
I scramble backwards, sobbing. I want to live. Damn it all I want to live.
When I’m a good few feet away from the edge, I wipe tears and rain from my cheeks and stand again on wobbly legs, barely strong enough to hold my weight. I must keep moving. To stay still out here is a death sentence. I’ll find Samuai.
I spit dirt and salty tears from my mouth and take another step. I will not give in. Not now. Not ever.
But I can’t shake the fear so sharp that it threatens to slice me open from the inside. Earthquakes like this have happened before. They and their aftereffects nearly wiped out humanity. What if the Company is right?
What if the aliens have returned?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A sequel is a funny thing, it relies so much on the people who loved the first in the series and Lifer will always be a book of my heart. Many thanks to G
eorgia McBride for seeing something in Lifer and then in Temper. Your belief in these stories is so precious. Also to the rest of the team at Month9Books who’ve been so great to work with from edits to publicity and everyone in between.
Special thanks to Ali McDonald who has given so much support.
Having a book out there in the wild is a scary and wonderful thing. The fear is eased by the great readers who’ve contacted me about how much they loved Lifer. I wrote Temper for you guys.
I would never have written a sci-fi book without the years I spent studying and learning in the lab. I was so lucky to work with amazing and brilliant people. Thank you in particular to Susan, Heather, Jason, Ula, the other PhD and Hons students and our supervisor Warren.
My writing friends are the ones who get me through each day at the computer. It helps to know I’m not alone. Thank you to Ro who read Temper in an early draft and let me pick her medical as well as writing brains – anything wrong is all on me. To Rach – couldn’t have finished this without your mails and feedback. Thanks again to all the lovely people from SARA and RWAus who have inspired me so much.
Thanks to my family and friends for your love and support. Thanks to the school mums who always listen to me stressing about edits and deadlines with a comforting smile. Also to Fi, Kirst, Dad and Lyn, Dick and Shirley. Thanks always to Mum who always believed in me.
To my wonderful kids who count down the days til they are old enough to read my stories and who tell everyone how proud they are of me – you three are the best small people around. Your stories are awesome too. Special thanks to Rockstar who shared what it’s like to be alone somewhere and unable to hear – hope I got it right.
And to Dave – always my first reader. Love you.
BECK NICHOLAS
I always wanted to write. I’ve worked as a lab assistant, a pizza delivery driver and a high school teacher but I always pursued my first dream of creating stories. Now, I live with my family near Adelaide, halfway between the city and the sea, and am lucky to spend my days (and nights) writing young adult fiction.
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