by Trisha Leigh
I lift my palm to my nose and sniff. It doesn’t smell like anything really, just earthy and slightly sweet. I nibble off a tiny corner and crush it between my teeth. A bitter, sour taste coats my tongue and I spit on the ground a couple of times. I almost toss the acorn, but instead stow it away in my pocket. After several seconds, the flavor fades from my mouth and I’m not dead or even queasy.
Still, the squirrels can keep the acorns for themselves.
The Others are obviously not what they seem. The damage they could inflict is endless. Their lies—their destruction—could even spread out here, where things are pure and true.
Dread fills my veins, followed at once by white-hot rage at the thought.
If I don’t leave now I’ll be late for Cell, but I give myself another minute. As I lay in this bright, natural, alive place, I’m not even sure the Others exist at all—their world is so flat, like a drawing in a textbook.
As I scurry back over the fence with slightly more grace, I know I was wrong.
The Others aren’t controlling everything.
They’re not in control of me.
CHAPTER 16.
The peaceful feeling of belonging bleeds out of me with each step toward Cell. The hole in my middle doesn’t totally empty, and I squeeze tight around the seed of knowledge that I’ve been to a place where I’m not abnormal. I can prove the Others are lying to us. For the first time, my separateness from my peers makes me feel right instead of wrong.
By the time the building comes into sight, that tiny ray of light is barely visible through my thick, black dread as I remember who else will be at Cell—Deshi. In a few minutes I’ll have to face him and pretend I don’t know he spends his spare time torturing Others and threatening people. The words he whispered last night lingered, infiltrating my dreams and chasing the comforting shadows away. Deshi is watching me. I don’t know why, or what he hopes to find out, but I can guess.
The Others are looking for something, hoping to find it by interviewing the Terminal classes in at least four cities. I’m pretty sure Deshi suspects it might be me.
I’m worried he’s right.
Nothing feels different about Cell until the students start to stare at me. My whole life, even in the instances when my self-control slips, they never stare. Maybe they can tell I left the boundary. I feel so different that maybe there’s a visible mark revealing my intrusion on nature.
Leah plants herself in my path. Despite her nasty attitude of late, kinship blooms with the knowledge we’ve both survived a refreshing with the Others. Even though, according to Elij, they left her damaged in some way, which makes her unpredictable. Which makes her dangerous.
Her hands rest on her slim hips. “Hey, you. Morgan. What’s your first name?”
The question is purposefully rude, since she’s heard my name called during attendance for weeks, I’m too surprised by the fact that she’s speaking directly to me to be annoyed. “Uh, Althea.”
“That’s a funny name.” Brittany walks over, her corn-silk blond hair swinging down her back in a long braid.
“Sorry.” I shrug. “I didn’t pick it.”
My lungs constrict as Deshi moves toward us, stopping in front of me and slinging a heavy arm around Leah’s shoulders. Well, that’s interesting.
“Rumor is a Healer went to your house last night. And a couple of Wardens.” Brittany toys with the frayed end of her braid, smiling up at me from under thick lashes.
There were no Wardens at our house. How many memories had the Others changed? Deshi’s gaze burns holes through the side of my face, and pressure to answer the right way stifles my fading confidence.
I slide a hand into my pocket and grasp the acorn remains. “Um, yeah. That’s true.”
“So, what happened?” Leah’s eyes shine with bright curiosity, her angelic face opposed by a cruel expression. She’s delighting in this event, in the gossip.
“My mom…she Broke. They took her away.”
Their eyes widen in concert. The stares colliding with mine are baffled, wondering. Not a sympathetic one among them. The acorn slips through my sweaty fingers. Panic rises inside me like a tide; the way they’re gathered around unnerves me, traps me inside their unfeeling circle. The memory of Deshi’s cheek pressed against mine, of his low, menacing voice, curls roots of dread into my abdomen. A drop of sweat puddles in the corner of my eye, burning. The ray of light from this morning’s rebellion disappears and deposits me alone and cold in my reality.
Then a hand slips into mine, freezing cold and strong. Pine burns my nostrils. I cling to his sturdy presence to smother the breakdown. He looks down at me and the compassion in his eyes nearly undoes my tenuous control. I know then that whether or not I’ve given him permission to be my friend, Lucas is my friend.
The rest of the kids disperse, leaving Lucas and I alone, still holding hands. The respite allows me to dig my fingernails into my self-control. I’m not letting go. I won’t give Deshi any reason to take me, Break me. Lucas’s familiar scent offers comfort; nothing he could say would be more powerful right now.
I tug my hand loose and offer a small smile. Our eyes meet and that tingling, sweet sensation skims through my bloodstream. “Thanks.”
His voice is soft, like a warm hand against my cheek. “Anytime.”
The entire rest of the day is a blur. The girls go back to ignoring me at lunch and both Lucas and Deshi stay at a boys’ table where they belong. The short twenty minutes I spent in the woods leaves me wishing for a way to re-create the feeling it gave me. Questions from last night, wondering at what it all means, distract me from hearing my lessons. Empowerment, borne of the surety that it’s not me that’s all wrong, but this Other-controlled world that isn’t right, resurfaces and pumps the desire to find out why I’m different through my blood like fire.
My mind takes apart the puzzle of what the Others are searching for among the Terminal classes. I need to first find out where they’re holding the interviews in order to design a way to “accidentally” overhear one. It’s not even totally about my survival anymore—though that’s part of it; my interview is in three weeks, now—but the need to understand why these creatures with such obvious power can’t simply take whatever it is they need.
I walk into chemistry and sit, vaguely noticing I beat Lucas to the back row. The lights dim once, twice, a third time.
Lucas doesn’t come.
A sensation like ice water dumped on my head immobilizes me. This is more than cause for simple concern. He might as well torch the Cell, or jump off the building. Missing block accomplishes the same notoriety.
Except the emergency alarms don’t sound. The Others test them once a month to make sure they work, but no whining peals assault my ears. The Monitor passes Lucas’s name without comment, not even notating his attendance sheet. The kids don’t turn around to look at his empty seat or gape at this unprecedented event.
Almost as though he had never been here in the first place.
A memory from my second year floats in from nowhere, of the first time I snapped at Cell. A girl whose name I don’t even remember now jumped on some swings I’d been waiting for. Without thinking, I grabbed her foot—she had on these ridiculous shiny black dress shoes—and yanked her down. Her arm snapped with a loud crack when she hit the ground. It scared me for two reasons, the first being that I’d hurt her. The second was even as a kid I knew what trust no one meant. It meant I had a secret.
The rest of the kids on the playground stopped and stared at me. Their faces were confused but not angry, not scared. After about ten seconds of silence, someone went to the girl and helped her up. They took her inside, and I followed. We used the emergency device to contact a Healer and the girl’s mother. The little girl said she fell off the swing.
She came back to Cell the next day and no one ever said a word to me.
This feels the same. As though whatever protects me from detection guards Lucas, too. Which can only mean one thing.
Wonder drowns out the Monitor. The more the events of the past few weeks run through my mind, the more certain I am that Lucas is like me. I’ve been waiting for definitive proof, afraid to admit it might be true, but unless he’s Broken or somehow damaged like Leah, Lucas has to be a Dissident. He’s not always happy, the appearance of the Wardens frightens him. Deshi’s intense interest in not only me, but both of us.
A new worry quickens my breath; if he is like me, he could have traveled. We have no control over when we come and go, and as far as I know we’ve never been in the same city at the same time. Maybe I’ll never find him again.
He could be anywhere. I have no idea where to look, but I have to try. He’s come to my rescue so many times. I mean, just this morning he saved me from losing control in front of Deshi. If he’s in trouble, he’s earned a return favor.
Instead of listening to the Monitor, my mind races over the possibilities. Lucas had been at lunch, looking uncomfortable next to Deshi. I hadn’t seen him in the halls this afternoon, but sometimes don’t. Plus, it would be pretty hard to get out of the building during Cell hours with the cameras at the entrances and exits, not to mention the Warden’s patrolling.
I hold my breath when one sticks his head in the door and checks the room. His eyes linger on Lucas’s empty seat before he leaves.
If Lucas is still in Danbury, there’s a good chance he’s inside the Cell. I stare at the portrait of Water on the wall, searching his unblinking black and blue gaze for answers. I doubt he’d give them to me even if he could.
A lightbulb blinks on in my brain, causing me to sit up straight and knock my notebook onto the floor. My cheeks heat up as everyone, including the Monitor, stops while I retrieve it.
Now that I have an idea where Lucas might be, the remaining minutes drip past like honey from a spoon. When she finally dismisses us I’m out of my chair before anyone else picks up their things. Deshi intercepts me as I approach the stairs at the end of the hall.
He flashes his usual arrogant smile. “Hey, have you seen Lucas?”
“What? Nope, sure haven’t.”
He blocks my path. I need to get away from him before Lucas slips outside with everyone else.
“Let me walk you home, then, since your boyfriend seems to have vanished.”
Warning bells clang as my mind races to find a reason to tell him no. Frustration builds, worry for Lucas boiling over, but I have no choice but to fall into step beside Deshi. The way he says the word vanished snakes the dread tighter around my insides. We pass through an icy blast of wind at the front door and it blows an idea into my panic-addled brain. “You know what, go ahead. I forgot my favorite pen in chemistry.”
My voice doesn’t waver, doesn’t give away either the lie or my emotional state. I don’t wait for his answer, just retrace my steps through the empty halls. My ears strain to pick up any sound that indicates students are still in the building or that Wardens lurk nearby. Nothing strikes me as out of the ordinary except the quiet. My sneakers make little noise on my way back to the stairwell. I head down the same flight of stairs I took the night of the Gathering.
The night I met Lucas.
My shoe squeaks a little on the hard stairs and I walk faster. My heart races, climbing into my throat. I worry the correct door won’t be easy to find but it is. It looks as old, dusty, and unused as before.
I turn the knob and push it open, stepping inside with my hands in front of my face to ward off the cobwebs. There aren’t any today. I swore I’d never come within ten feet of Fils again, but after this morning in the Wilds I’m more confused than anything. And worried.
The room is dim, the only light coming through the small, ground-level window sitting at the top of the wall opposite the entrance.
“Lucas?” I call his name softly.
Relief steadies my nerves when he responds from the back of the room. Where he keeps his fish. “Go away, Althea. I don’t want to see you.”
The tremor in his response moves my feet toward his voice anyway. The sight of his face stops me dead in my tracks. Lucas sits on a chair, shoulders sagging and appearance disheveled. His eyes are red and swollen. The realization that water attacks him, too, punches breath out through my belly.
It isn’t until I consciously look around that the rest of the scene registers. Fils lies on the radiator. His bowl remains on the table above it, thick chunks of ice bobbing in the water.
He’s dead. Not only can a fish not live without water, but his little body rests in an unfortunate spot. That the Others pump hot air into this abandoned room doesn’t make sense. The heat, though, has left the tiny golden body dry and crispy.
“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say, and my heart aches as though it’s trying to stretch from me to Lucas, to work for both of us.
“What are you doing down here? Aren’t you supposed to be wandering around alone?”
His bitter, angry tone hurts my feelings and defensiveness appears without warning. “I was looking for you. What are you thinking, missing block? The Wardens noticed.”
“I really don’t care right now, Althea.”
I approach him and rest a compassionate hand on his shoulder. He shakes it off. I don’t understand how or why but he cared about that fish, and I know what it’s like to lose things you care about. Longing washes through me at the memory of how it felt to have the Hammonds, then to lose them. How hard it was to leave the forest just this morning.
I want to love something and get to keep it.
“What happened to him? Did he jump out?”
“No, he didn’t jump out. Why would he do that? Even if he did he couldn’t get onto the radiator. Someone did this to him.” His voice is dead, cold.
I know he’s not angry with me, seeing as how I had nothing to do with the demise of his fish. He’s mad and I’m the one here, so I forgive him for talking to me like I’m a moron. This time. “Who would kill your fish?”
Lucas shakes his head without looking at me. It had to be a Warden. Any human who found the fish would never have touched it. The sudden feeling of being watched prickles between my shoulder blades. If a Warden knows about the fish, then they’ve been in this room. It’s not the sanctuary Lucas thinks.
“Who do you think—” The words die on my lips when Lucas stands up and kicks the chair, sending it clattering into a pile of junk stacked against the wall.
He steps toward me, stopping inches from my face. “I don’t know who it was, but if I find out, they’ll be sorry. They’ll be so sorry, Althea, do you hear me?”
Lucas’s eyes fill with water again, but he doesn’t notice. I stare over his shoulder, trying to give him some privacy and swallow my own emotions. The water in the fishbowl is frozen solid because Lucas lost control of his temper. Like with me and fire.
I hadn’t thought much of the ice chunks floating in the fishbowl when I first noticed them. The dead, drying fish and Lucas’s swollen face had commanded my attention, but the ice is that elusive piece of proof after all. Water wells up in my own eyes and dribbles down my cheeks. I smile a real smile and don’t try to hide it.
The sight of the water, along with the look of wonder on my face, sends Lucas spinning around to follow my gaze. Guilt deepens the stress lines on his face when he registers what I’ve seen. He stumbles backward, away from me.
“I…I guess maybe they killed him by freezing his water or something…”
He stops. It sounds ridiculous and we both know it. I reach for his hands but he shrinks away, his eyes wild and pleading. My mind lands on a possible way to show him, to convince him he doesn’t have to be afraid of me. I think of the melted cup at the Gathering.
My scorched bedspread.
My handprint in the paint on the wall in the Morgans’ hallway.
This whole room is chilly, now that I think about it. My own heightened feelings keep me warm, but the single windowpane is frosted over. Those recent examples aren’t the only times I’ve melted objects with my hands.
For the first time I wonder if I can do it on purpose. I’ve spent so many years wishing the strange accidents would stop, I’ve never even thought to try.
Walking to the bowl of frozen water, I wrap my fingers around it, ignoring the slippery chill it transfers to my skin. I concentrate, doubtful of succeeding. Emotions stir deep inside me—fear, loneliness, despair, guilt—and combine with the overwhelming joy soaring through me now and pulse into heat. I close my eyes, feel it surge through my palms.
My eyelids snap open in response to a gasp from Lucas. The water sloshes around in the bowl shuddering between my hands.
I can’t believe I did it.
Lucas’s eyes are wide, amazed. A huge grin shows off his dimple before he takes two giant steps and grabs me in a bone-crushing hug. His cold breath on my neck sends delightful shivers down my spine, and my smile bursts out so wide my cheeks nearly crack. Nothing but ecstasy filters through my body, pumping like blood. Whatever I am, I’m not alone.
“I wanted it to be true. I wondered if you might be like me, but I couldn’t figure out how to know without asking. I even thought about letting the name Ko slip to gauge your reaction.”
As the last words leave his lips a loud popping sound sobers us both.
The sound is deep enough to shake me to my bones. “What the…”
Lucas’s gaze is on me, but not on my face. Instead he stares at my neck with eyes so wide they look like they might roll out of their sockets. “Althea. Your necklace.”
My hand goes to the lump under my sweater, preparing to wrap around the golden metal. I pull it out, but drop it when the necklace vibrates against my bare skin. The pop sounds again. It’s coming from the locket hanging below my throat. A beam of light pulses forth and we squint in the suddenly bright room as it gathers into a shape. A person stands before us. Not fully formed, shimmering instead of solid, but a person nonetheless.
