When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  Silas’s eyes take on a hysterical sheen. “Don’t touch me.”

  Merope looks gob smacked. “I—I was jut going to thank you for everything—”

  “Use your words next time,” he snarls, stomping off toward a darkened, unlit path. “Never touch me again.”

  I feel myself go red in the face. I’m so absolutely furious, the urge to claw out Silas’s eyes pipes into my mind. Instead, I turn to their ringleader, Rion.

  “Your friend is rather rude,” I growl.

  Rion nods, lips tightening. He glares down the path. Silas is waiting there, unable to leave without his hostages.

  Rion nods at me, indicating I should follow. When I don’t go as ordered, I feel his hand grip mine, tugging me along. From the corner of his mouth, he says, “Rude is an understatement.”

  When I look back, Merope and Apollo are following Silas into the night’s syrupy darkness. Just before I look away, Apollo’s eyes catch mine.

  I mouth, Take care of her.

  Then, mouthing back, he says, Take care of yourself.

  I discover shortly afterward that Rion’s dropped my hand and has started walking off without me, perhaps expecting for me to follow orders like all his other little minions without being asked twice.

  I just put a gun in his face.

  He’s got gall, turning his back on me.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I ask as he’s almost entirely out of sight in the dark. “Or are you expecting me to plod along at your ankles, like some kind of a lapdog?”

  Rion turns slowly, shoulders swaying under the rifle he’s thrown over them. I prepare for the worst, but don’t get it.

  He throws his head back and laughs.

  I squint. “Is something funny?”

  “Stay outside, if that’s what you’d prefer,” he shouts through the post-midnight black. “I don’t have to supervise you. You’re no threat to anybody.”

  My blood boils, eye twitching. “No threat, you say?”

  “None,” I hear from a distance as he turns around and goes deeper into the night’s moonless dark—and with every step he takes, he’ll be harder and harder to find again.

  I hiss through my teeth. “I’d rather sleep outside in the snow than rely on you,” I snarl, pointing to my foot, which is still cold and bootless. “But because of this, I’ve got no choice.”

  “You’ve always got a choice, Elizabeth,” Rion says as I catch up to him in the dark. He turns to walk backward in front of me for a few steps, cheekily adding, “Or should I call you Abe?”

  The nerve . . .

  Who does he think he is?

  At every turn, every fork in the path, we take whichever one has the least amount of light and heat. We walk so far, I start getting nervous. What if he’s taking me all the way out here, where nobody can hear me scream, to kill me?

  Just as I’m about to voice this concern, we dip down a final twist in the irregular serpentine path we’ve been following, and face a stretch of empty space—and at the very end, a single hut.

  Unlike the previous enfilade of huts, Rion’s stands in total solitude and loneliness. Firelight sets its small, crooked square window aglow, and my bones ache in anticipation of warmth.

  Now that we’re upon it, I realize it’s stationed flush against the quarantine’s toothy perimeter—quite literately situated the farthest away from anybody else as possible.

  Rion’s face is lit up in gold. He unlocks the door, peeling it open, and a rush of heat flows outside. There’s a fire built inside, small but hot. In my haste to get closer to warmth, I practically mow Rion over as I stampede inside.

  “Woah, there,” he says, closing the door. “I’ve never before had such an eager houseguest.”

  “I thought I was a hostage,” I say, “not a houseguest.”

  “Note to self: the girl’s good at spotting lies.”

  “Note to self: the boy lies a lot,” I add, refusing to leave the halo of heat cast off by the fire. I pin him with a glare. “You’ve lied to me twice since we’ve walked in here.”

  Rion stares me down. “Twice? No I haven’t.”

  I smile, eyes pointing to his bed—where a lacy, pink bra lies tangled up innocently in the blankets. Rion’s jaw drops a little, the ghost of a smile itching at his lips.

  “No eager houseguests, indeed,” I say, smirking.

  “Eager, just not as eager as you,” he counters.

  “Oh, I see.” Silence washes in, filling the gap of our porous conversation, and I take the opportunity to look at things other than the fire and Rion’s bright, mischievous eyes.

  The hut sags slightly, like it’s wilting under the weight of a heavy burden. The walls have been all but wallpapered in a spate of wrinkled, half-tattered maps of the world. Everything smells like cedar and tree sap, fresh soap.

  And distinctly . . . boy.

  I run my fingertip over the crease of a map.

  Rion mutters, “It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  I turn my focus back to him just in time to see him seizing the pink bra and readying to stuff it in his drawer. Noticing me looking, he freezes. “What?”

  “You—” I pause, squinting. “Is that your girlfriend’s bra?”

  Rion laughs, shaking his head in a way that says, You’ve got some nerve. “That’s a very personal question you’re asking—and to somebody you don’t even know.”

  “Well, is it?”

  “Nah.”

  “How eloquently put,” I remark.

  “Are we really having this discussion?” He shakes his head with a slightly crooked smile and slingshots the bra into a pile of clothes beside his doorway.

  I drop down to the floor, rolling off my soaked-all-the-way-through sock. Rion’s eyes take this in, studying me. He shrugs out of his jacket and steps closer.

  “Checking for frostbite?” he deduces.

  “More like confirming the frostbite I know I have.” I pinch the tips of my toes, which are totally numb. “After five miles in the snow and ice—bootless—I’m pretty sure I’m doomed.”

  “Stop crying about it. You’ll be fine.”

  “So inconsiderate,” I rebuke. “This is a sensitive subject.”

  “Take off the sock already,” he whines, crouching down at my side to get a closer look. A wry smile later, and he’s already making bets. “Five squirrels says you don’t have frostbite.”

  I regard him, overtly scandalized. “Only five?”

  “Get on with it,” he says, and before I can stop him, he has stripped off my sock on my behalf.

  I’m about to reprimand him when I realize I’ve still got all my toes intact—flesh-colored and completely healthy.

  “Told you,” he says, giving me a lazy smile.

  “Well, this is something I’m happy to be wrong about.”

  He sits back, shaking a lock of his hair out of his eyes—lit up by flame so brightly it’s as though he’s gilded. There’s a scar that falls in an arc through his full lower lip, and I wonder how it got there and who—or what—gave it to him.

  I realize I’m kind of staring and force my gaze away.

  Rion asks, “How did you lose your boot?”

  I feel my every muscle stiffen.

  He doesn’t realize what he’s done. He doesn’t realize what question he’s asked . . . what it means, what memories flood forth in the wake of it. I feel my skin tighten, armoring itself.

  His whole demeanor shifts when I don’t reply.

  He’s realized.

  Note to self: boy is observant.

  “I ran out of bullets,” I say before he can stop me—because for some absurd, inexplicable reason, I want to tell him. “Needed a weapon. Went for it but . . . somehow I lost my boot and the knife with it . . . and I was out of time, so I just . . .”

/>   I drop my eyes, picking absently at a fingernail, its crescent filled with dried blood. Rion’s hand—bronzed, soft—enters my vision from the side, pointing at my clothes, at the spattering of blood all over them.

  “Was this before or after?” he inquires softly.

  “Before,” I say.

  “So you did find something, a weapon?”

  “A rock. But I was too late.”

  “For Lucas?” he asks quietly, and I give him a nod, unable and unwilling to discuss it further. “You’re wrong.”

  “What?” I say, barely breathing.

  “You’re wrong. It’s not too late.” He gets up, wanders to a series of shelves, takes a pair of drawstring pants and a dingy, but clean, white shirt. “Knife or rock, you’re the reason he’s alive.”

  He tosses me the clothes, and I look up.

  “And you’re going to keep him that way, right?” I hold the clothes tight against my chest. I hate the way my tone has shifted to that of a beg.

  Rion rolls out of his sweatshirt. It tugs at his shirt, lifting it ever so slightly, exposing tanned skin as smooth and sun-kissed as a summer day. Then he grabs a pistol, slides down the length of the wall at his back, and sits.

  “Of course I will,” he whispers. For a moment we stare at one another speechlessly, making a cryptic exchange.

  My eyes fall on his gun. “I thought I wasn’t a threat?”

  Rion’s lips hitch a crooked smile as he drags the slide back on his pistol and says, “I thought you were good at spotting a lie.”

  12

  A few hours pass, and already dawn is rising. A dreary, blue-gray light seeps in through the hut’s web of cracks.

  My eyelids snap open. I peer at the wilted ceiling, my breath a white vapor, and for a long while don’t remember anything: not where I am, or how I’ve gotten here, or why there’s a sour flavor in my mouth and an ache clawing at my core.

  Then, without warning, it all floods in.

  Lios.

  My heart throws itself into such a frenzy, I gasp and lay a palm against it, thinking feverishly about how it’s beating so hard it’s probably tearing itself to pieces.

  I’m coiled in a chrysalis of blankets, entangled so tightly, it feels as though I’m in a straightjacket. I kick and flail until they’re off my body, and I’m free, breathing heavily.

  Across from me, Rion’s sitting—half asleep, the pistol still in his hand—up against the wall. He blinks, pushing the heel of his palm into his eyes, rubbing coherency into them.

  “It’s a good thing I don’t like a lot of sleep,” he grunts.

  I’m already up, pulling on a jacket. “You’re going to take me to Mabel’s cabin. Now.”

  He stares distantly at the fire dying slowly, just a heap of semi-golden coals hissing smoke.

  “Rion,” I prompt wildly, but he doesn’t reply. His eyes flash away from the fire, meeting mine—soft and edged all at once, beholding a look I interpret as something akin to a warning.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “I . . .” I say, speaking nearly inaudibly. “I’ve got to know.”

  “All right, then. We’ll go.”

  “Thank you.” I watch him stuff his pistol back inside the waistband of his jeans, rolling into the same blood-spattered hoodie he wore the day before.

  Just as he’s almost ready, there’s a knock at the door.

  Rion’s eyes leap to the door so fast, it’s as though he doesn’t trust a single soul in the whole compound. “Who is it?”

  “Dude, it’s Jac.” A pause, muffled only by a scoff emitted from the other side of the door. “Who else would it be?”

  Rion’s fists clench, his eyes locked elsewhere—as though he’s lost in a memory. I step a little closer, and he snaps out of it in an instant—but that’s still not fast enough.

  “Yeah,” I whisper, staring at him knowingly. “Who else?”

  Rion stares coldly in reply. Then he’s off to open the door of his hut. It cracks, spraying shards of ice as it breaks open and emits the lethally cold breath of winter.

  Jac’s been cleaned up: fresh, bloodless clothes; new boots; a just-washed face. The stubble along his chin is still there, though, and dark semi-circles cup his tired eyes.

  “How is he?” I ask worriedly.

  Jac’s nose and cheeks are a shiny, wind-burnt red. His tired eyes glance sidelong. I realize it’s lightly snowing outside, just a flurry falling, but flakes have caught in his lashes and he doesn’t blink them away.

  “He’s alive,” he says bluntly. I heave a near-euphoric sigh of relief and sit back down on Rion’s bed. “For now.”

  I look to Rion. “I’ve got to go.”

  Rion gives me a quiet nod, eyes unfocused as they drop to look at his hands. Again, I get the feeling he isn’t really with us, but before I can say anything a pair of boots float into my vision.

  Jac thrusts them forward. “You look like you’re about the same size as Mia,” he says as I accept them. “Try them on, see if they fit. She thinks they’ll work—”

  “How did she find out Elizabeth was here?” Rion interjects.

  “I—I told her,” Jac replies. I’m not sure why he stutters, or why there’s a crease cleaving the center of Rion’s brows, but there is something that I clearly don’t—

  The bra.

  I’d laugh if I were in a laughing mood.

  Rion wipes his palms on his pants nervously. “Is she . . . ?”

  “She’s fine, man.” Jac smirks. “Said she’s never slept better.”

  “Do me a favor . . .” Rion angrily grabs the pink bra from the pile of clothes and throws it right into Jac’s face. “Give this back to her, will you? I don’t need it here.”

  Jac slaps the bra out of the air, staring strangely at it lying awkwardly on the floor. “Somebody tell me how we’re living in mud huts, but Mia’s got lingerie.”

  Meanwhile I’m dragging on Mia’s boots without socks and actively not giving a damn. When you’ve grown up with an older brother, lingerie-talk very quickly loses its novelty. I stuff my foot into the left boot and it hits something hard and cold.

  A knife. She must’ve forgot it was in here.

  While the boys heatedly debate the unsolved mystery of the post-apocalyptic lingerie, my chest caves in on itself, collapsing under anxiety that’s like an icy encasing.

  I gasp, patting my chest with a fist, trying to break through that sheet of fear so I may breathe again. I start rapping my fist a bit harder, my breath quickening, the threat of a panic attack beginning to feel very real.

  When I look up, the boys are both staring. I feel my face fall into a grimace, breathing steadying.

  “Can we go, already?” I sniff, taking my hat and dragging it over my head. “I’ve got a friend who’s ‘alive, for now,’ and I would appreciate a little haste.”

  “You’re right.” Jac glances at Rion. “She’s right.”

  “Of course she’s right. Let’s get going.” Rion rips his half-frozen door open, casting a backward glance to the bra. “Don’t forget that,” he tells Jac.

  “Right, precious cargo.” Jac snatches it up, and the three of us head out into the flurries of snow so wispy they make me think of fluffs of cotton.

  The snow is knee-deep. We trudge in silence, listening to the strange moan of fresh-fallen snow underfoot. The sight of it jettisons me back in time, when Pavo made snow for specimens deploying last winter. It was the first time I’d seen such a thing.

  As I trudge, I realize I’m in pain; it’s as though every ache has been whispering for my attention, but only now that it’s quiet do I hear its plea for water, food, and a few days of rest.

  While I walk behind Rion, stepping in his tracks, Jac forges his own path parallel to me.

  “So,” he begins, clapping his hands. “What
’s your story?”

  I spout off a premeditated lie. “I’ve been migrating through abandoned neighborhoods. Eventually I met up with Mary, and later we met Cindy and Lucas. For years, it was just us.”

  “When did Davy show up?” Jac prods, eyes glinting.

  “A week ago.” This, at least, isn’t really a lie.

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He’s . . . okay,” I surmise.

  “He doesn’t strike me as trustworthy,” Jac says, giving me an opinion I didn’t ask for. His soft, light-brown eyes find mine in an unreadable stare, and I wonder, What if these people really are the enemy? What if they somehow really did take the last four leagues?

  Are those leagues still alive? Are they as well off as we are?

  If they are, then surely the native-borns here are already well aware of our skillsets. Are they buying our lies?

  Willingly . . . willingly going . . .

  The word is like a jab to the throat. Isn’t that exactly what my league is doing? Going willingly with these people? And yet our microchips are intact. We’re still alive. That’s not flush with the last four leagues’ experience—though, to be fair, we don’t exactly know how it all went for them.

  Maybe these people—Rion, Silas, and Jac—were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe they don’t know anything about Mabel, or what’s really going on here?

  I’ve got to get to my league. I’ve got to talk to Merope, Cyb, and even Apollo. We’ve got to strategize—something we haven’t had the chance to do at all since getting attacked by the Muted.

  The snow begins falling harder, flakes as big as quarters.

  We weave our way through the quarantine, passing by the roaring bonfire, circled by a ring of people with outstretched hands and red faces.

  The smell of breakfast—a clumpy, pasty-white substance that jiggles on plates like overcooked porridge—floats on the icy, winter air. Faces young and old turn, staring as we pass: cheeks smudged and sooty, jaws angular and sallow, skin leathery and weathered. They wear their hardships in their faces, cynical and cold, innately untrusting. The A-42’s damage is clear. It’s taken everything. Maybe even their humanity.