by Anna Vera
Apollo isn’t a specimen like us. He’s a native-born!
From the shallower levels of my consciousness, I think his hand twitches, trying to skitter away. I hold it tighter.
Today, I solve the mystery that is Apollo Lux.
Pavo replies to his sister, dragging me back into the dark memory for the three of them in a dirty, fetid house. “This boy is either our greatest advantage, or our most powerful enemy,” he says in a dire whisper. “If he stays—he dies.”
“You just said the Muted won’t hurt him.”
“Sister, Sister,” Pavo says, tisking. “If he stays behind, he’s at risk of falling into enemy hands, and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Onyx’s face blanches. “You’re not saying . . .”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Pavo raises a palm, splaying his fingers only to clench them back into a fist. I think I see a dull glow beneath his skin.
“If we do not take the boy today,” he adds malevolently, eyes fixed on his disapproving sister, “then he’s going to die—not by the Muted, but at my own hand.”
13
The memory fades, replaced by a painful choking sensation.
I writhe, my awareness reemerging. Apollo has me pinned up against the wall. My feet dangle off the ground, and my throat burns, crushed under his strong, two-handed clasp.
I can’t breathe!
I raise my legs, kicking his stomach. He drops me but is fast to recover, slamming me with a heavy backhand to the face. I’m thrown into the cabin’s wooden wall, my cheek banging viciously into its splintered logs; my lip burns, split open.
I lunge after him—but am stopped by somebody else.
I’m pulled into strong arms, a broad chest. I realize who it is based off smell alone. Cigarette smoke.
Jac.
Rion approaches fast, holding his pistol so it’s cocked and poised at Apollo’s chest.
I feel my blood rush back in place, and my vision sharpens.
Apollo knows that I know. Whatever he’s just shown me was an accident, a secret he didn’t want divulged—and now that it has been, he’s willing to kill me to keep it quiet.
Apollo isn’t a specimen. He’s a native-born . . .
Apollo’s dark eyes regard Rion, lip curling wolfishly. “This just made your day, didn’t it?” He speaks cockily, but is holding perfectly still. “Are you going to shoot me now?”
Rion walks forward, close enough to thrust the gun’s snout under Apollo’s jawline—right at his throat. “Are you going to give me a reason to?”
“Maybe another day,” Apollo concedes as he turns his back toward Rion, holding his wrists together like he’s being arrested and handcuffed. “Take me away, or whatever it is you do.”
Rion’s lips lift slightly. “Turn around, Davy.”
Apollo looks over his shoulder, skeptically at first, then he drops his wrists, swiveling back around. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re willing to act with civili—”
Rion throws the pistol across Apollo’s jaw, a blow so utterly ferocious I’m afraid he’s just killed him.
It knocks Apollo completely off balance. He leans forward with blood dripping off his lips, gasping heavily as he teeters and nearly face-plants in the snow but recovers just in time.
Apollo lifts his face, exposing a horrific sight. Two of his teeth are shattered completely. He gives Rion an eerie, bloody smile as he slurs, “Should’ve expected that from—”
In a flash, Rion rains a fist hard against Apollo’s temple.
This time, Apollo’s knocked out. He teeters precariously before crumpling over himself, falling with a sickening thud in the snow, and begins snoring loudly as he unconsciously breathes.
I look away, noticing for the first time that Merope, Cyb, and Mia are all present. I hear a shout from afar and realize that farther down the road is a familiar, sickly looking guy.
“What’s going on over there?” Silas shouts repeatedly, not getting an answer. Jac looks at Rion for permission to answer but doesn’t get a reply besides a tired shake of his head.
“Take him to the barn,” Rion says, pointing at Apollo with his pistol, breathing heavily.
Jac hesitates. “The barn?”
Rion gives him a look that clearly says, Do it—now.
Jac nods. He calls out for Silas, who comes running through the snow to provide assistance. Just as they arrive, Apollo slowly starts waking back up, face paler than usual, gasping for breath.
My focus falls back on Rion. He’s raking a hand through his dark hair, a hand that’s trembling slightly. He meets my gaze and his whole expression softens. White flakes of snow cling to his eyelashes. He starts walking over, his lips poised to—
“Why don’t we go inside?” Mia’s slim, cold fingers glide up my arm comfortingly. “It’s freezing out here, and we have some dried mint and lemongrass left in our reserves. I’ll brew us a pot of tea or something. That sound good?”
I keep my eyes on Rion, inexplicably eager to know what he was about to say. He stops, seeing Mia beside me, and after a subtle nod, he walks away.
Where he’s going, I don’t know.
But I have the strangest desire to follow.
We file back inside, Merope and Cyb following.
Mia leads us to another small, perfectly rectangular room that’s both a kitchenette and dining area. The pantry is ready to explode with packaged, freeze-dried, and canned foods. She takes a bag full of dried leaves and starts getting to work.
A fire is pre-built in a soot-coated hearth, a host of kindling and dry pine needles assembled in a teepee shape, ready to be lit.
“Can we help at all?” Merope asks Mia, who’s rummaging through cupboards in the kitchenette.
She glances up, smiling. “There’s a book of matches by the fireplace over there. Start that fire up for me?”
Merope nods, doing as she’s told, and for a while everybody works silently. A warped, slightly tilted table is surrounded by rickety chairs, which Cyb and I occupy, keeping our eyes trained absently on the ground.
Eventually, I hear her whisper, “I tried.”
I look up. “You tried . . . to do what?”
“Stop him,” she mutters, so quietly nobody can overhear her speaking. “I’ve never tried it on him before. But when I saw him choking you . . . I tried to Persuade him to get off.”
I stare, brows cinched. “And?”
“It didn’t work.” Cyb’s eyes lift sharply to mine. “My skillset is strong enough to work against Pavo, but it won’t work against a specimen in my own league, at my own level?”
“I know why,” I reply icily. Merope stops messing with the ignited fire—which crackles wildly, sap popping like firecrackers as the flames roar to life—turning to look over her shoulder.
Cyb’s lips tighten as she says, “Tell us.”
“Apollo isn’t like us.” I gulp back a choked breath, throat still raw from the bruises he’s pressed in my neck. “He’s a native.”
Total silence ensues. Cyb and Merope’s eyes interlock in a question mutually shared: What? How? That’s impossible.
“He showed me with his skillset—just now,” I add.
“He showed you?” Merope echoes.
“That’s why he reacted so strongly. He didn’t want me to know the truth about him, about why Onyx has kept him away from us all these years.”
Merope delicately adds, “But natives don’t have skillsets.”
“He does,” I say with certainty, thinking of the thrilling feel of his touch—the heavy, wild song it sings. “He’s different.”
I tell them everything: the way he felt to touch, the way that feeling intensified as I dipped into his memories and saw him when he was just a boy.
Just a native, orphaned and alone, and rescued by a pair of st
rangers from space. Rescued because he had some kind of a special ability, making it so the Muted couldn’t see—
I stop.
But a Mute did go after him, though. If it hadn’t have gone after him, Lios wouldn’t have had to save his life. I saw it all right before my eyes: Apollo was reloading, casually, like he . . .
Like he knew he wasn’t in danger.
My blood runs cold.
The Mute wasn’t charging for Apollo. It was charging after a different target, one behind Apollo. It was coming after—
“Eos?” Cyb prompts. “You were saying?”
I feel like I’ve just had a horse kick me in the chest. “There’s something special about Apollo.”
“Yeah, you said that. But what is it?” Cyb asks.
“He’s immune to the Muted in ways we aren’t. We can’t catch the A-42, but they still see us. I don’t know how this works, but they don’t see Apollo. It’s like he’s invisible to them.”
I lean forward, face in my hands. “The Project could benefit hugely from that research. If they could genetically program new specimens with whatever Apollo’s got naturally, we’d be—”
“Invincible,” Cyb mutters, almost greedily.
“That kind of knowledge could save the world. It could end the plague, altogether, couldn’t it?” Merope adds, the fire at her back picking up. Somewhere in the kitchen, I smell the essence of bittersweet lemongrass brewing.
“When we landed,” I go on, face still hidden in my sweaty palms, “Apollo was reloading—calmly, because he knew he wasn’t in any danger. But Lios and I saw a Mute coming for him and we thought he was going to get attacked.”
I look up, destroyed inside. “But the Mute wasn’t charging after Apollo. It didn’t even see him standing there. It was going for a target standing behind him.”
Merope whispers, “Eos . . .”
“The Mute was coming for me,” I choke. “It’s not Apollo’s fault that Lios is . . . It’s my fault.”
Cyb waves a hand. “Stop pity-partying. It isn’t your fault that Lios is where he is now, Eos. It’s Apollo’s. He didn’t tell us about his ability.”
“Speaking of,” Merope adds in a whisper, “this still doesn’t explain Apollo’s supposed skillset. What is it anyway?”
“I think it’s like Onyx’s,” I reply.
Cyb pinches the bridge of her nose, frustrated. “Skillsets are programmed into our DNA when we’re still in embryo, and that is why a native couldn’t possibly have one.”
“I don’t get it either,” I sigh.
“That explains a lot, though, Eos.” Merope turns back to face the small fire. “Why our skillsets don’t work on him—the way they can’t work against native-borns in general. I’d always kind of wondered why I didn’t pick up on him.”
I nod and everybody goes quiet again. Now is the perfect time to tell them about Nova, yet I find myself hesitating. I don’t know if anything she said was trustworthy. Onyx did say she was ordered to be terminated, that she wasn’t mentally sound . . .
Whether I believe Nova’s claims or not, to tell the others what she said is speaking treasonously . . .
No, I won’t endanger them. Not now—not yet, at least.
We spend the whole day in Mabel’s cabin.
Mia brews tea. It tastes a little stale, but the water is hot and soothing against my sore throat. Snow keeps falling. We watch it drift in flurries and spindrifts as the sky darkens to a gray dusk and the trees collapse in on themselves, leeched of color, a series of empty silhouettes.
With Mia’s supervision, we can’t properly snoop around the cabin the way we’d like. Gathering evidence will have to wait until later, after we’ve gained their—and Mabel’s—trust. Then we can do all the snooping we’d like.
If all goes according to plan, that is.
After our mugs are dry and empty, and our stomachs begin to grumble in earnest, Mia stands up. “I guess it’s time for a little dinner, don’t you think?”
“Finally,” Cyb says with a hint of a smile. “Your wooden furniture was starting to look good.”
“Dinner won’t taste much better—it’s Pudge night.”
“Pudge night? Dare I ask?” I say.
“Once a month,” Mia says, beginning her spiel, “all the leftover, perishable foods are collected and heaped together in what’s not-so-fondly referred to as Pudge.”
“Sounds lovely,” I say with a grimace.
“Don’t get me wrong, not a spoonful will be left uneaten.”
“I’d eat cardboard if I had to,” Merope confesses. “When is dinner served tonight, Mia?”
Mia glances at the clock, which reads 5:34 PM.
She sighs. “Now, actually.” But she doesn’t move to follow us as we gather at the cabin’s front door. Instead she waves us away, heading down the hallway. “It’s time for Lios’s pain meds.”
“We’ll meet you there, then?” Merope offers.
“Probably not. I’ve got a few things here I’ve got access to that nobody else does.” Mia winks. “Enjoy your Pudge. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
I glance askance at Merope, who shrugs. “Well, guess we’re on our way—unchaperoned and all.”
We traipse through the snow carpeting the whole of the large compound, heading for the bonfire. It seems to be where all of the main events are held, and it’s where the flow of traffic is leading us, so we follow awkwardly along.
People eye us suspiciously, not caring to hide their sneers.
“Friendly place,” Cyb mutters derisively.
“What,” Merope interjects, “is that god-awful smell?”
The already-angry people around us go still, affronted by her remark, but I’m too distracted by the stench rolling forth to care about their open hostility.
It reeks.
Like eggs and fish, and maybe . . . dirty socks?
“That has to be the Pudge,” I say, cringing as we turn along an elbow-tight twist in the path and see before us an impressively long line set in front of a large caldron-like cooking pot.
The bonfire roars vivaciously, singeing the influx of falling snow tumbling from the sky.
We join the line, and as soon as we do the angry looks we got earlier transform into furious grumbling.
Then, suddenly, a dirty woman grips Cyb’s arm—a serious mistake to make. With steel-cold eyes, Cyb throws the woman off her with such ease it looks choreographed.
“Cindy!” Merope hisses. I join Merope, holding Cyb back.
The dirty woman looks surprisingly unfazed, her lips thin and cracked, forming a wicked snarl. “Leave! There isn’t enough for us to share with you.”
“Looks like there’s plenty for all of us,” Cyb spits, nodding at the large cauldron of Pudge. “And if you ever touch me again like that, lady, I’ll—”
“Cindy, calm yourself,” Merope says, tightening her grip.
“None of you have been initiated yet,” a man chimes in, his eyebrows thick as collarbones. “If you’re not an initiated member, then you can’t eat our rations!”
“Do you know what I’ve had to do?” the dirty woman rages on irrepressibly. “The sins that I committed to get here? I’ll be damned to hell for it all, to be sure—but for now, while I’m alive, the benefits are mine to reap, not yours!”
The man encroaches. “I’ve killed people,” he says with a spray of spittle. “I’ve killed people for less than standing in the way of my dinner—and that’s what you’re doing now!”
The whole crowd watches us now, their mouths full of sharp, rotten teeth, their glares honed and chiseled by corruption and malice and a fierce, undying hatred.
I’ve faced a lot in my life, but never anything like this.
Even Cyb is sobered by the severity of the fact that we are currently surrounded by killers—and just
as I sense their ranks tightening around us, I hear a voice somewhere at my back.
“Okay, okay!” Jac shouts, clapping his hands as he pushes his way into the angry crowd. “Lucia, Tex—that’s enough, okay?”
“Enough?” Lucia decries wildly. “Surely you’re not going to stick up for these freeloaders, Jac?”
“They will be initiated soon enough.” I feel Jac’s cold palm rest at the nape of my neck as he, like a mother hen, ushers the three of us away.
As we walk off, the crowd erupts.
Tex growls, “Better fight hard, little girls,” as he hocks spit in our direction with such venom I feel sickened by the sight. To add insult to injury, he lifts two fingers, forming a V, and sticks his tongue between them crudely.
“Got my eye on the brunette,” he laughs, leering at Merope in a truly nauseating appraisal of her whole body. “Where’s she sleeping tonight, Jac? With you? Let me get her when you’re—”
I roll out of Jac’s grip effortlessly, feeling rage beat through my blood in waves of fire.
“Pig,” I seethe, hungry and tired and sick of feeling upset all the time over everything. I rip my boot off to gain access to the knife I’ve stashed there, raising it at Tex. “How about I kill you so there’s enough food for me, eh?”
“I’d love to see you try,” Tex says, though he looks shaken.
“You will, I’ll—”
But for the second time today, I’m held back by strong arms pulling me against a broad chest—but this time the grip doesn’t smell like stale cigarettes.
It smells like sap and freshly cut cedar . . . a campfire.
It smells like winter.
Rion lifts me off my feet effortlessly, tossing me over his shoulder while simultaneously dipping down to grab my boot as we leave the bonfire area. Cyb, Merope, and Jac walk hurriedly ahead of us, Jac’s arms rested flirtatiously over their shoulders.
I struggle against Rion. “I want no part of this quarantine if those are the sorts of people that reside here!” I declare, pivoting to glare at Tex—but he’s gone.
“Are you going to run off if I put you down?”
