When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  “Maybe this will help,” he says, swigging vodka. I walk up to Cyb’s side, peering at the paper from over her shoulder, and recognize it immediately.

  Landing coordinates—written in Mentor’s Language.

  The only reason I know it’s coordinates in the first place is because somebody—Mabel, I guess—translated it into English.

  At the bottom, a signature is scribbled:

  The gem. The moon. The stone.

  “We don’t know the others,” Jac says, fists in his pockets as the chill of the night increases in ferocity. “But we’re wondering if maybe ‘the stone’ is Onyx.”

  Cyb raises her eyes, cold and empty. “Has to be.”

  “You believe us now?” Jac asks.

  “I have to.” She lowers the note sadly on her lap, tracing her fingers over the signature line. The Stone.

  My hand finds her shoulder, resting there until her hand snakes blindly up to mine.

  That’s as close as she’ll get to an apology.

  We talk for hours, late into the night, until it’s so cold we can’t breathe without it burning. By the time we decide it might be wise to sleep, we are all truly convinced.

  The Project is a lie . . . Everything is.

  Nova was telling the truth.

  Merope and Cyb snuggle together. Apollo and Jac take up posts at opposite ends of camp, leaving me to watch over Rion, who isn’t allowed to sleep.

  We sit together, leaning against the same tree. Hours pass as the night slowly crawls. All the while, we do what we can to avoid freezing: switch positions, trade jackets, burrow our faces into hats and scarves.

  Whenever Rion nods off, I shake him awake. The night is a darkness that keeps unfolding, and just as I wonder when it will finally end, I see dawn gnaw at the edges of the horizon.

  I think about everything I’ve learned, trying to absorb it in spite of having it all thrown at me at once. Nova was telling me the truth all along . . . Is it possible that our mentors, due to being members of an alien race, don’t have souls like humans do?

  Is that why they don’t have auras?

  The clouds shift, exposing the moon; looming beside it is my spaceship. From afar, it looks like a wheel, or a ring, with a green track down the inner part of its center.

  What’s going on up there today?

  My fingers run along the insides of my wrist, feeling for my thin microchip scar. I’m still a blinking red light on the CORE’s ever observant radar, trailing alongside my league.

  Onyx—Mom. The words feel mutually exclusive. It’s the one piece of the puzzle patching itself together before my eyes that’s too impossible to accept, even more than being half-alien.

  I feel Rion’s body wilt sideways, sagging with sleep.

  “Hey,” I say, nudging him. “Wake up.”

  “Wha—who?” In the dawning light, the bruises and cuts all over Rion’s face are exposed in full: a split lip, a slice bleeding at his temple, his eyes still glossy.

  “Just me,” I whisper, patting his arm. “Waking you up.”

  “Again,” he grunts irritably.

  “Again,” I concede. “Everybody else is still asleep. Maybe we should start packing up our supplies?”

  “Might as well.” He rolls to a standing position, turning to offer me a hand, which I accept. “There’s a highway frequented by our quarantine just over the crest of that slope,” he adds with a glance across a sprawling clearing. At the other side, a slope reaches skyward, leveling off in a plateau.

  The snow blanketing this crazy, beautiful world is pressed smooth as a fitted sheet over the clearing before us. Trees at the other side thicken dramatically.

  “You think there’s a chance they will drive by?”

  “I do,” he says, packing up. “Especially since we didn’t come back last night the way we were supposed to.”

  “Will they look for us?”

  “To the best of their ability. For all they know, we could’ve been taken down by the Skims during the supply drop.”

  “Rion,” I say, speaking so seriously he stops what he’s doing to regard me with curiosity. “What about the other leagues? Will we go with them?”

  His eyes wince. “Probably.”

  I drop on the log beside him, keeping my eyes—sharp and unyielding—on his. “They went willingly?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they are staying willingly?”

  “Yes,” he says again, but after hesitating. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I find myself rolling up the sleeve of his shirt to look at the scars lying beneath.

  He lets me.

  I trace a fingertip along the ridged surface, feeling the buzz of my skillset blazing back to life. But I’m stopped. Rion moves, rearranging himself so our hands rest together—still splayed, not wholly clasped, but touching.

  We lock eyes. I look away, feeling uncomfortable, only for my gaze to settle on that crooked smile of his—with one dimple of the left side of lips, full and soft.

  He laces his fingers through mine. I don’t resist, temporarily awed by my own daring.

  I rest a hand on his chest and feel his heart beating.

  My skillset begs to be used, but I push it aside. For once, it isn’t information I’m after.

  It’s him.

  We breathe together—faster, wilder—as my hesitation fades to a wisp and so does his. He rests a hand on my leg, inching up higher and higher, and—

  “GET DOWN!”

  The whisper-shout is issued from behind us—from Jac, who is squatting beside Apollo, their rifles raised and pointed at some place over my right shoulder.

  Rion grabs my wrist and drops, dragging me with him.

  “Jesus,” he gasps, flinching as snow washes up the lifted hem of his shirt. He extracts a pistol, resting it on the log we were just sitting on.

  Jac laughs breathily. “We didn’t mean to interr—”

  “Shut up,” Rion growls, still aiming.

  Far too humiliated to look back at the pair, I keep my face where it is: inches from snow, which turns my breath into a veil of rising vapor. Above the log, through the haze of my breath, I see a small group of the Muted staggering into the clearing.

  A frantic glance westward confirms Cyb and Merope are awake and aware of what’s going on, huddled together behind a large toppled-over tree.

  Cyb’s finger hovers by her temple—ready.

  I think to do the same, to Persuade the Muted to stay still long enough for us to gun them down, but even before the tip of my finger touches my temple, I know it isn’t going to work.

  The power is gone.

  But how did I get it in the first place?

  And how do I get it back—kill another Haunt?

  A cry issues loudly over the landscape, echoing.

  As they get closer, I realize they’re wearing clothing—that they still have hair clinging to their scalps, and rivers of blood at the base of their eyes that have been freshly gouged out.

  “They just flipped.” I look to Rion. “Are they familiar?”

  “No,” he says, before raising his pistol and pegging each of the Muted down in less than three seconds—each disappearing into a puff of snow after they fall.

  He exhales hard, then stands back up. This time, he doesn’t offer me his hand or even a glance; he simply grabs the bag of supplies he had earlier and walks into the clearing.

  I find myself following—chasing—after him, jogging into the clearing in his wake. I hear the others gathering the bags we just packed, following fast behind us.

  Despite the reach of dawn, the moon looms, big and white and fading in the sky. And beside it the Ora waits.

  “Did I miss something?”

  “No—I did,” he says brusquely, not turning even after I’m at his side, matching his stride.
“Whatever that was, it can’t happen again between us. I’m sorry, Eos.”

  “You’re not sorry,” I admonish. I’d love to leave without a word, without a care—but as much as it pains me to admit it, I felt something moments ago.

  Rion faces me. “I am,” he whispers. “Really.”

  I hear the others approaching behind us, filtering out of the woods with our supply bags. They won’t see this. I refuse to let them see me get rejected . . .

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I say, stomping by. “Huge mistake.”

  “I never said it was a mistake.”

  “Didn’t you?” My voice is the lethal stillness of a snake as it takes aim to strike—just the way I like it. Stupid, Eos. Stupid for ever letting your guard down.

  Never again.

  Rion’s footsteps approach—fast-paced, a jog. “You don’t get what I’m trying to say.”

  “Then speak plainly, you ass.”

  “Yeah,” I hear Jac shout from behind us. “Rion, you ass.”

  Rion scoffs, laughing with a ghost of a smile. But before the others arrive, he glances fervently at me while reaching into the folds of his shirt. Ripping off a necklace.

  No, not a necklace—the military tags.

  He tosses them to me. I can’t imagine why. Even though every part of me begs to catch them, I let them fall and sink into the depths of the snow.

  Jac laughs unknowingly in our wake. Cyb and the others strain under the bulk of heavy bags, walking alongside Jac as they coast through the throes of a conversation I can’t hear—to me, their words only sound like distant buzzing.

  When I look up again, Rion isn’t there.

  I feel suddenly very raw.

  Merope drops a bag in the snow beside me and brushes off her knees, covered in twigs and dirt. “So?”

  “So what?” I sigh.

  “Do I really need to specify?” I don’t answer. “Eos, you look like you’re going to cr—” Being my sister, my best friend, she knows all too well to revise that statement. “You look like you’ve got something in your eye.”

  “I do—a fleck of dirt or something.”

  “Can I help?” she asks, casting a precautionary glance at the others who’ve far surpassed us now. Then, she bends over and extracts the military tags out of the deep snow. “Can I help by holding onto these for you?”

  I swallow back the unspent tears, but they still burn.

  Breathing deep, I say, “Thank you.”

  “We’ve had a trying twenty-four hours,” she says, pocketing the tags for safe keeping. “I don’t think any of us are ourselves right now, Eos.”

  “I’m okay, it’s just a lot to process.”

  “That’s your problem—you don’t process, you bury.”

  “You know me well,” I concede as she drapes an arm over my shoulder and pilots me toward our group. “What the hell are we going to do now, M?”

  Her arm hangs over my shoulder, still encircled by a puce ring of bruises. I realize, abruptly, that she’s forgiving me—that the time I’ve spent burying Lios’s condition instead of processing it hasn’t been lost on her. That she understands. That she’s okay.

  “What we’ve been doing all along, E,” she whispers, resting a head on mine. “Find Mabel Faye.”

  22

  “So how’s that head of yours?”

  Merope playfully ruffles Rion’s hair from behind, trying to cheer the both of us up. We’ve been walking in silence for nearly thirty minutes, the strum of tension as present as the white sky.

  “It’s fine,” Rion says, voice stilted.

  “Well that isn’t satisfactory!” Jac stops to stoop down on one knee just as we breach the cusp of the forest on the other side of the clearing.

  The world is a painting of evergreen, white snow, and scaly, almost-black bark. My nose and cheeks are red with cold and the whiplashed chapping of the wind—my hair a frizzy mess, stuffed back under the hat I didn’t realize I’d left at camp after running mindlessly off after Rion.

  The hat Lios helped me pick out.

  My crazy, ear-flap hat—an equal to his, which I can’t seem to mentally locate. Does he have it? Did Mia or Silas mistake it as unimportant and toss it?

  Jac shakes his shoulder length, blond hair out of his face and unzips his backpack—digging, as per usual, for his can of tobacco and leafy rolling paper. With it, he takes out a miniature bottle of plumb-colored liquid, contained in a lovely, frosted glass bottle, which he lifts for his friend to accept.

  “This will help your headache, if you’ve got one.”

  “Port?”

  “Found it in the truck.” Jac winks, returning his attention to the rolling of yet another cigarette. “Tucked away, hidden in the slot by the footwell where I usually keep my shotgun.”

  Rion quietly pops the cork out of the bottle’s slender neck and takes a sip. Cyb flops down, sitting beside Jac on a log as he works to roll a host of cigarettes instead of just one, as I’d thought. Her face is a map of scratches, bruises, cuts.

  I bet mine is too.

  Apollo shades his eyes from the bright sky, peering up at the slope ascending like a cresting wave out of the forest a couple hundred yards off. “Stay cautious. Remember, the Muted came from here . . .”

  “If not looking for us, who else would be out here, and for what reason?” Jac inquires with a cocked brow, licking the hem of the paper before sealing it.

  “They weren’t from our camp,” Rion confirms, collapsing against the base of a tree with the port in his hands. “We could track them—find their leftover supplies, see if there’s anything worth taking.”

  “That’s my man,” Jac praises, packing his stuff away.

  “I agree that’s a good idea, so long as everybody else is okay with the brief detour?” Apollo refers to Cyb, who rolls her eyes in fatigued disinterest at Merope.

  “Sounds like a great idea,” Merope says, smiling at Rion.

  “I’m glad you agree.” He gives her a flash of a smile, sipping the port. Merope’s face flushes, her black eyelashes long and her face pretty—cut up the least of all of ours.

  “Does it look like we’re short on supplies?” I snarl, nodding at the bags already weighing us down—straining at their seams so tightly, they’re at risk of breaking.

  I reach out and snap a twig off a tree angrily. “We should be focusing on getting back. This idea is idiotic and unnecessarily reckless, in my opinion.”

  I look specifically at Merope. “What do you think?”

  That’s right, M. You have to pick a side.

  “I believe I already stated how I feel. I think it’s a brilliant idea that is worthy of our time.” Again, her eyes drift to Rion and she smiles. “What if they left behind a working vehicle?”

  “Ah, that’s a good point,” Jac adds.

  “Sorry, Eos.” Cyb brushes by, finding a narrow path that cuts through the forest and following it. “But a working vehicle could save our lives.”

  I flirt with the idea of declaring I’ll go off on my own, but being the youngest I know that wouldn’t fly. It’d only make me look dramatic and foolish.

  Foolish, because Merope and Rion . . . smiled at each other?

  You’re paranoid, Eos. I tell myself she doesn’t even know him as a person, doesn’t know that he had a little sister named Lindall who was lost to the A-42, or that he talks when he sleeps, spouting off numbers . . .

  Merope’s in front of me. I speed up, bumping into her side as she scales the path. Trees form walls hugging my periphery, the sky cut into a mosaic by spindly black branches.

  “Give me the tags,” I bark.

  “Okay, fine.”

  “What’s your problem, anyway?”

  “What’s yours?” she hisses, forking over the tags. They fall in my palm with a clink, silver glistening
in the reflection of the obstructed sky overhead. “Eos, I don’t understand—”

  But I’m not listening.

  I look at the numbers etched there.

  XII VII IV XIII XXI

  PILOT

  “That’s it,” I say abruptly, recognizing the numbers as the exact ones Rion is always muttering in his sleep. “Twelve, seven, four, thirteen, twenty-one . . .”

  The footsteps ahead of us stop as Rion, at the head of the stream of us, slows to a halt and looks back—as though trained to hear, and recognize, those numbers.

  Even if spoken softly.

  “What’s going on back there?” Apollo asks, exasperated by yet another delay. Merope moves, accidentally releasing a thin, whip of a tree branch tucked behind her—right into my face.

  I hiss, seething against the bite of it.

  “Eos—I’m sorry!” she says as I run a finger along the welt of the cut, shaped kind of like a smile across the course of my whole left cheek.

  My eyes find Rion, who’s seen it all. Jaw flexed, he turns to leave just as I see something in my periphery blaze like a scream expelled in total silence.

  Color.

  A vivid, cobalt-blue cutting through the black-and-white expanse of winter. Off the path, far to the right. I hear the flap of plastic or fabric or perhaps a tent.

  No, a tarp.

  It’s a cobalt-blue tarp.

  “Well, it looks like our hunt is over.” I dive off the path in a fit of impatience, ignoring the shouted voices I hear in my wake as they try calling me back.

  A futile effort.

  The snapping of twigs announces an approach—Rion, of course, as he catches up to my side. “Hey—stop.”

  He tugs my sleeve, snagging the chain of his military tags in my hand, pulling them free. They fall to the ground.

  Only then, I stop.

  We look at each other. His eyes dawn, realizing I didn’t just leave them behind miles away in the snow—that part of me, even if it’s a part I resent, would never hurt him like that.