When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  “Neither does Merope, and she’s drinking!”

  “She’s older than you.”

  “Tell me,” I spit, glowering at Apollo as I snatch one of his drying boots and hit him with it, “what to do again, and I’ll—”

  “Fine, fine!” Apollo laughs, ducking as I strike him playfully with his boot once more. “Do what you want—but if you make any bad decisions—”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to do.” I drop his shoe back in the snow, smiling menacingly. “Why don’t you stop being a wet blanket and join in?”

  Apollo regards me suspiciously. Then he gets up, accepting a hand I’ve offered to help, and follows me to the line of bottles awaiting us on the log.

  “Bartender, I’ll have the port,” Apollo declares, taking on a stringent, hyper-sophisticated kind of tone. “The lady will also have a glass—or I suppose, a sip.”

  “Ladies first,” Jac chastises, dodging Apollo’s reach in order to give me the port instead. “What kind of gentleman are you?”

  Apollo laughs. “A poor one, evidently.”

  We take up residence beside Cyb, who requests to have a sip of the port as well—it’s the first time we’ve ever tried it, and I’m surprised by how delicious it is.

  Far better than the vodka.

  Dangerously so.

  Merope and Rion are sitting together. It looks as though he’s teaching her the rules to some kind of a game. They speak in hushed voices, laughing before taking turns drinking vodka.

  “What’re you doing?” I say, already feeling the fiery effects of drinking port on an empty stomach.

  Merope’s eyes flash. “We were trying to decide on a game to play together—a drinking game.”

  “We want in,” Cyb declares on my behalf, patting the place on the log beside her, for me to sit. I sit there, swigging another heavy sip of port, relishing the sweet sharpness of it. Already, I can feel it in my legs and fingertips.

  Jac stirs the pot of soup as he asks, “Spin the bottle?”

  “Give me that,” Apollo says, laughing nervously at the game suggested, taking the port from me and draining it. “I’m going to need to be sufficiently drunk for this.”

  Jac walks up, takes a final drink of the whiskey, and hands the rest of the jug to me. “Here—this will speed things up!”

  I take a sip. The flavor of it is powerful. Already, I enjoy it the most of the others I’ve tried, the way it warms me instantly from the inside, out.

  We pass it around the circle of us, laughing a bit. Jac brings the pot of soup—bowls unavailable—and we pass it around with the alcohol, taking turns.

  Eventually we’re full and dizzy, but pleasantly so. I feel like if the desire struck, I could take flight. I’m seeing double and my lips are tingling and numb, a fire lit up in my chest.

  Jac leans back to view the sky. “Ah,” he breathes, the pain of his shoulder finally eased. “Wait until you guys try tequila!”

  “Oh god,” Apollo chuckles, eyes drooping.

  “So—about this game,” Merope goes on, taking the empty port bottle and spinning it on an icy stretch of snow. It spins like a dial, its neck serving as a pointed arrow. “How does it work?”

  “Easy,” Jac says. “I’ll start.”

  “Lead us by example,” Cyb chortles, winking.

  “Exactly.” He takes the bottle, placing it as closely to the middle of our circle as he can, and spins it—the bottle stops, its neck pointing at Apollo, and the boys roar with laughter.

  “Get over here,” Jac cajoles, laughing—gesturing with the flirtatious curl of a finger for Apollo to approach. “Now, the rules state he’s got to kiss me or perform a dare.”

  Apollo laughs, dark hair falling messily in his eyes. “Accept a dare from you? I’d be crazy.”

  Clumsily, Apollo launches forward and kisses Jac full on the lips in front of everybody—and after a startled blip of quiet, we all burst into a round of applause.

  Rion sips, eyeing Jac and Apollo strangely.

  “My turn,” Cyb exclaims, next up. Her bottle spins, landing perfectly on me when it’s finished. “Eos, what will it be?”

  “Kiss,” I say, knowing all too well I’d be making a very grave mistake in giving Cyb the opportunity to issue a dare. I give her a quick peck on her soft cheek.

  “Not the way Lios kisses me, but it’ll do,” she jokes.

  “Okay, Rion’s up,” Merope says from beside me—the three of us girls somehow arranging ourselves together on one side of the small circle.

  Rion doesn’t look at all interested in the game. But he takes the port bottle and spins it anyway. The bottle skids over the icy surface of snow, screeching to stop a second later, pointing at me.

  My every muscle tenses as I hear the memory of Rion’s cold rejection echo in my mind: Whatever just happened between us? It can’t happen again . . .

  Standing brusquely, I sway, realizing all at once just how drunk I really am, and feel instantly queasy as the world spins.

  “You aren’t quitting the game?” Cyb asks obliviously.

  “I’ve got a headache,” I say, not really lying. Apollo leaps up to help me, but I shove away his efforts. “I’m fine—I’d rather be alone right now.”

  “Probably not a good idea,” Jac says wisely.

  “I promise you, it is.” I walk off, trying my best to stumble as little as possible as I trek toward the tents—dipping into the peaceful darkness, the shade of trees.

  The air is a wisp of cold, a refreshing reprieve. I’m not ready to go to bed. I just want to get away, to figure myself out. Is this how Cyb feels toward Lios?

  This horrible, convoluted, unimaginable feeling?

  I lean against a tree—its bark scratchy, dulled by the liquor.

  Suddenly, a figure emerges. Rion drifts out from behind a tree farther off, like he’s looking for something.

  Or someone.

  As though he’s just heard my thoughts, his eyes click up to my own, discovering me. Neither of us speak. He trudges across a mess of tangled shrubs and trees, bridging the space between us fast and easily.

  Before I can register his presence, he’s pressing his lips up against mine, kissing me. The heat of the gesture evacuates all of my previously dizzied thoughts, and I relish the freedom of not thinking. Of only doing. Acting and reacting.

  Rion kisses me deeply, the broad weight of his body flush against my own. We breathe heavily together. I grab the collar of his jacket and drag him closer.

  My eyes are barred on his, drinking in the wild edge stirring beneath his maple irises. He rips off my hat. My hair falls over my shoulders, his calloused fingertips brushing the soft apple of my cheek before gripping my hair, tugging it slightly as my lips raise to meet his once more.

  “There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he says, exhaling as his lips softly graze mine—not in a kiss, but in a touch as equally breathtaking.

  “I don’t want to know,” I say, and lace my fingers through his hand, guiding it slowly under the hem of my shirt. Rion’s eyes don’t leave mine—beautiful and dark and endless—and I wonder if the power of my heart beating will betray how thrilling and terrifying this is to me . . .

  Betray the fact that I’m new at this.

  Breathlessly, he takes it the rest of the way. His touch is at once gentle and fierce—soft and intentional—as he runs fingers up my ribcage, settling at the base of my breasts.

  Suddenly his hands drop, holding mine, tugging me toward the tents lingering a few feet away. The others are still sitting at the fire, talking.

  We’re alone.

  We clumsily unzip the tent and go inside, beds already put together—warm and cozy. The light of the fire filters in through the fabric and casts his body in a golden light as he rolls out of his clothes: jacket, hoodie, and shirt.

  The
military tags blink in the dim light, swinging across the supple plane of his chest. He approaches me slowly—playfully, almost—as he tugs my ankle, pulling me closer.

  I’ve never felt the way I’m feeling.

  Not in love. No, I don’t feel that full or complete. This feels deliciously filling and emptying at once—like I’ve been broken and am watching myself get pieced back together.

  He leans over me, running a palm along my calf, venturing up the length of my thigh.

  My fingertips sail across the stretch of his ribcage and glide up his back—the buzz of my skillset unruly, exposing Rion for what he is inside: all color, music, and fight.

  A mixed bag I find myself, despite my resistance, slipping and falling into. My lips on his. The taste of his mouth and the weight of his body cupping mine—until it isn’t.

  Until I’m no longer in a tent or at a campsite or pinned up against a boy that I can’t stop kissing. Until I’m jettisoned into a different reality altogether.

  Until I’m looking at his past.

  24

  i’m standing in someone’s living room.

  Boards nailed over windows—ribbons of morning sunlight knifing through columned spaces, sheets of bronze granting a tiny glimpse of the daylight outside.

  There’s a television in the corner, but it’s long since been rendered unusable: a spider’s web of cracks roll outward from a point of impact in the center that destroyed the whole screen.

  It’s as though somebody intentionally shattered it. But that hardly matters when the bulk of the world’s populace doesn’t have access to TV anymore—this neighborhood, included.

  I hear something. A high-pitched cry that collapses into a startlingly monotone weeping—a sound I wouldn’t ever believe belonged to a human, if it weren’t for the body huddled on the floor in front of the TV.

  I inch closer and behold a woman: face coated in a slick film of tears, hair sticking feverishly to her cheeks. Suddenly, she looks up at me: eyes of maple, a syrupy color, cleaved by slivers of honey—a stark contrast to her dark hair.

  They are eyes I recognize.

  Rion’s eyes.

  Only these are empty and cold and utterly devoid.

  The woman writhes, bare legs stretched awkwardly over the warped surface of the house’s wooden floor. She isn’t wearing anything but a large, ripped shirt—exposing parts of herself she wouldn’t in an ordinary mindset.

  Parts which reveal how truly emaciated she is.

  Again, she looks up—but she isn’t looking at me. No, she’s not looking outside, she’s looking inside. The sight of it causes my blood to freeze. I feel my eyes burn—are they my eyes?—against the threat of unspent tears.

  “Get the gun,” somebody says—a voice unfamiliar, gritty and pitched like the crunch of gravel underfoot. Floorboards whine under heavy, staggering footsteps.

  “I can’t.” My voice is Rion’s—my eyes are his too.

  “You pathetic fucking coward.” Rion’s father shuffles into view with bloodshot eyes, a shirt sullied with blooming ripples of sweat stains and dirt splotches. “Worthless. Never contributed a goddamn thi—”

  Rion’s fist slams into a wall, denting it. “I won’t kill her!”

  “You just gonna leave her?” Rion’s father huffs, then spits a glob of tobacco at his feet before thrusting a gun into his son’s hands with a cruel grunt. “She ain’t your momma anymore, boy.”

  As though on cue, the woman shrieks, her vocal cords raw and scratchy, exhibiting the signature voice of a Mute: filled up with phlegm, crackling.

  Rion’s fist uncurls to reluctantly accept the gun.

  I—he—begins feeling very ill. Because his father isn’t right about many things, but he’s undeniably right about this: she isn’t a mother, or a wife, or anything anymore—she’s a Mute.

  And she’s suffering.

  The cold sting of steel melts in Rion’s palm. He flips the gun over, examining it more closely, and I see his wrists have yet to be scarred; they are perfect and soft and ordinary, save for a strip of letters tattooed across the stretch of his wrists.

  Not letters. Numbers.

  A string of roman numerals breathing new meaning to the code Rion’s always saying in his sleep.

  Twelve. Seven. Four. Thirteen. Twenty one.

  Pilot.

  I glance at Rion’s father, and a shockwave of understanding rolls into place. He was never a pilot—or a good father, or a brave, strong, admirable man. Rion had only wished he’d been—wished all along he’d had a father worth remembering.

  Rion glowers at the gun in his hand, knowing it is the only thing standing between a world with his mother and a world without her—and it’s his choice to make.

  “You do it,” Rion barks.

  “You’re a soldier now, aren’t you?” His father sniffs, glaring though envious eyes. “You’re a big-timer, now! An important soldier—who’s afraid of shooting a gun?”

  “At my mother?” Rion growls. “You’re goddamn right.”

  “I told you, she ain’t your—”

  “Leave.”

  “This is my house, and you can’t tell me—”

  “LEAVE.” Rion raises the gun, aiming slightly to the right of the man’s broad sternum. Right at his heart. “I’ll kill you first if you don’t get the hell out.”

  “You wouldn’t,” his father scoffs, though he doesn’t sound very convinced. “I—I know I’ve got my own set of problems, like everybody else, but you—my son—wouldn’t kill me.”

  Rion breathes heavily, staring unyieldingly at his father with the gun still aimed, tears shaking free. “Leave. It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?”

  “Rion—”

  “Just like you left when Lindall—” Rion stops, choking on the fury buoying inside, and cocks the gun threateningly. “You’ve got ten seconds, Dad.”

  Noticing a half-empty jug of whiskey left precariously in the cleft of couch cushions, Rion adds, “But don’t forget that. You wouldn’t get far without it.”

  Rion’s father, for the first time, looks truly miserable—as though he wants more than anything than to prove his son wrong and leave the alcohol behind.

  But just can’t.

  The large man plows shamelessly forward, snatching the jug of cheap whiskey, all the while staring daggers at his son.

  Before taking another step, he uncaps the bottle and lifts it to his lips, drinking deeply like a suckling pig. Sweat sparkles on the plane of his tanned forehead, pooling into the tributary-like wrinkles wreathing his pained eyes. If it weren’t for his drunken condition, for the insult of time and terror, he would’ve been a handsome man . . .

  When he’s finished, he throws the jug at the wall.

  It shatters. The smell of whiskey is rife.

  Then, after inhaling deeply, he expels a shout so powerful it shakes the house’s foundation. “My baby is dead. My little girl is dead and rotting—buried cold in the yard—and it’s your fault, you self-righteous little prick!”

  The man lunges for Rion, large and drunk and capable of inflicting an astounding degree of harm, like a bull charging at a red cloak—but is arrested mid-stride when Rion puts the gun against his own temple.

  And rests it there, tempted—so tempted—to fire.

  Rion’s father gasps fearfully, sobered by the prospect of not only losing his daughter and now his wife, but also his son. His oldest child and only boy. It seems to dawn on the man’s face that this plague obviously hasn’t affected him, alone—that it’s taken its toll on everybody.

  Rion, especially, despite his being so stoic about it.

  “I had to,” Rion snarls, tether cut. “I had to kill her, because she was infected by the A-42 and she was suffering. You think that for even a second I’ve forgotten?”

  Rion’s grip on the tri
gger strengthens. “I’d love to,” he says so wholly genuinely, I find myself fearing he’ll kill himself right here and now—even though I know he doesn’t.

  He’ll try later. But he won’t succeed.

  “Mom was distraught,” he adds, spitting. “You were drunk.”

  “You’re right—”

  “You didn’t even see it happen!” Rion is sobbing now, his eyes burning and fierce. “You didn’t see her screaming—or how she dug out her—”

  “I know!” his father yells breathlessly. “I know. I know what it looks like, and I’m a coward for not facing it—for not being strong enough to face it for—”

  “It’s too late.”

  “I know it is, but—”

  “Leave.” Rion breathes, pained. “I am begging you to go.”

  “Begging me, eh?” Rion’s father sighs heavily, unable to stop himself from looking at the kitchen, where he’s likely stashed as much alcohol as possible.

  If he goes, he’ll be leaving the rest of the liquor too.

  But perhaps, after the discussion he’s just had, he’s eager to earn himself a shred of respect—because he does go, teetering on his feet as he leaves, exiting through a kitchen swarming with flies and bypassing the alcohol altogether.

  Adhering to his son’s request.

  On the floor, a disgusting sucking sound squelches as eyes are dislodged from their sockets, blood and fluid spilling all over the wooden floor. The woman slips in her own mess, lifting her face blindly to the ceiling and crying.

  Rion goes to her, dropping fast to his knees. “No, no,” he says softly, whispering. “No, Mom . . . stop.”

  He takes her bloody fingers, holding them in his own. Her touch leaves a sticky film behind—a handprint, of sorts, which he can’t imagine washing off.

  And now, as she lies eyeless in his lap, he realizes in full the necessity of killing her—now, or later, or never. But she’s gone no matter what he chooses.

  Rion presses the gun against his mother’s sweaty temple but can’t pull the trigger. She writhes, resisting his hold. He kisses her forehead, breathing in her scent, trying to remember the sound of her voice, her laugh, the things she’d say.