When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  Trying to memorize the feel of her alive, tucked in his arms, with his chin on her crown, resting. The feel of her breathing and moving and thinking—or is she?

  Does she know what’s going on right now?

  Or is she oblivious? Soulless? Lost?

  Is he . . . alone?

  When she grips his arm with a strength a body as fragile as hers couldn’t possibly possess naturally, he realizes it’s time to do his mother a favor.

  A favor, he tells himself, yet again. The same favor he gave his little sister, Lindall. The same favor he’d want to be given if the roles were ever reversed.

  The favor, I hear him say, distantly. The favor of dignity.

  He pulls the trigger.

  The woman’s head snaps sideways. She falls, collapsing into a brittle, lifeless heap in his lap. Her brains and blood and bodily fluids leak out of the hole he’s put in her skull, seeping into the fabric of his clothes as he sits—motionless and empty.

  And he doesn’t leave. He’d always thought, somehow, that when somebody died, maybe you could feel the weight of their soul leave its body.

  But he doesn’t feel anything.

  And he didn’t feel anything with Lindall, either.

  It doesn’t matter, though—not now, not to him, and most certainly not when there’s a way for him to stop waiting to feel something that isn’t there.

  When he can stop feeling altogether and end it now.

  For the second time, he lifts the gun to his forehead—but now he pulls the trigger without fear or hesitation, relishing the sensation of finally—finally—finding the nerve.

  Except it clicks. Empty.

  His father only loaded a single bullet.

  Shifting his mother’s lifeless body, he extracts a dagger he’s kept in his pocket—one he got from the military—and eyes the soft flesh of his wrists and forearms. The veins, blue and bulging under his skin, full of a life he wishes wasn’t there.

  He rests his mother’s head in his lap, blinking away tears as he brushes her dark hair out of her mutilated face—trying in vain to keep her looking nice, lovely, like she used to when she was alive and laughing, happy.

  He knows, with a startling degree of calm, that he won’t be leaving the place he is now, beside her. Perhaps his father will return eventually, and he’ll realize fast what became of his family in his absence—what he’s done, what he’s responsible for.

  But this isn’t about vengeance.

  It’s about sleeping—after a long and nightmarish day.

  And so, before taking the blade to himself, Rion holds the body of his mother against his chest. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he whispers. “I’m right behind you.”

  25

  When my eyes reopen, it’s to Rion.

  A tent cast in the orange haze of firelight—a forest and a campsite and a disaster. I’ve just Scried him. I’ve just invaded his private thoughts; I’ve violated his trust, looked into the darkest void of his memories and shone a light on it.

  “I’m so—I didn’t mean—I’m so sorry,” I gasp.

  “Stop. It’s okay,” he breathes, but there’s a ribbon of sweat at his temples and a dazed look in his eyes, and I know despite what he says, it isn’t okay.

  I’ve just revived his worst nightmare.

  No, even worse: I’ve forced him to relieve it.

  Rion shakes his head, scoffing as he subconsciously grabs at the military tags dangling on his chest.

  “Thank you,” he says, to my disbelief. “I was just starting to forget how much of an asshole—”

  “Rion,” I whisper, feeling my face blanch ghostly pale.

  “No—really, it’s okay.” This time, he says it while looking at the scars running over the path of his wrists, his whole demeanor shifting and straining—like thunderclouds pulling apart only to collide together again in a purple sky.

  “You’re the pilot,” I say, jaw suddenly tight. Rion nods, his chest rising and falling with breath. There’s something stirring in those maple eyes—something I don’t like.

  A look similar to . . . sinking.

  “Don’t you dare.” I suddenly have the urge to slap the look right off his beautiful face. I’ve got his chin pinched in my palm, forcing his gaze onto my own, holding it steady.

  “Don’t I dare what?” he asks, a challenge.

  “They would thank you . . . if they were alive, if they were in front of you right now, they would thank you.” I feel my grip on his chin tighten, our eyes locked, a fierce and wordless exchange taking place between us.

  “They aren’t in front of me, though, are they?” he says with a sudden pull, freeing himself. “And they never will be—never again, because of me.”

  “Stop being so obtuse.” I scoff, abhorred by the absurdity of the guilt weighing on his shoulders. “They were sick. They had the plague. You knew they weren’t getting better—that’s why you did what you did—so why are you still punishing yourself?”

  “I only did what I did because I thought I’d follow them to wherever it is they went.” He rakes a hand through the thicket of his dark hair. “My dad died that day, too. He came back, found me half-dead from blood loss. Tried driving me to the hospital and wrecked the truck.”

  I feel an icy, rippling sensation fold over my shoulders.

  My first vision—memory—of Rion’s was of a car folded like an accordion, wrecked against the stretch of a rock-wall along the highway taking them from Kipling, Colorado.

  Rion’s father was drunk.

  And now, he’s left carrying the guilt of having something to do with every death in his family—though ludicrous, though far from his culpability, logic hardly matters.

  “How long ago was that?” I ask through a tight throat.

  “Two years.” He pulls his hoodie back on, redressing so quickly I wonder if I’ve imagined everything before. “Mabel was a part of a quarantine near Kipling. There was a breakout that flipped almost everybody there, so we came here together, and—”

  Shouting. Loud and angry.

  Rion sits straight, listening carefully, his hand held out in a way that says Don’t move, let me investigate.

  Except he must be a fool if he thinks I’ll actually adhere to such a primordial suggestion. So naturally, right behind him as he exits the tent, I follow.

  We find a very drunk Jac thrusting the knife Rion gave him into the glow of red coals, his shoulder exposed. Ready.

  Cyb jogs up. “He’s going to try cauterizing it on his own!”

  Rion doesn’t cast her another glance, answering by way of trudging off in Jac’s direction. Cyb looks at me suspiciously, with her pink lips coiled in a perfect smirk. “Where’ve you been all this time, anyway?”

  I feel so upset—so angry with myself—it’s hard not to rage.

  “I accidentally Scried him,” I confess, eyes glued to his back as he argues with Jac. “It was bad—I wish I didn’t—it’s all my fault, ruining the whole—”

  “Apollo told me,” Cyb says, quickly interjecting before I get too carried away with myself, “there’s a way to block somebody trying to Scry you—it’s dangerous, but it’s possible.”

  Cyb grabs my shoulder, squeezing. “Rion shared that part of his past with you for a reason. If he really didn’t want to, then he wouldn’t have, Eos.”

  I swallow dryly, struggling to believe her—but even if she’s only telling me this to make me feel better, at least she’s doing that instead of staying angry at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I confess. “For not being there when Lios—”

  “Forget about it.” I feel her grip tighten on my shoulder in an affectionate way, our attention turning in tandem to the scene taking place before us.

  By the coals, the boys argue. Apollo is trying to put distance between Rion and Jac, who are getting so fired up I’
m afraid they might actually get into a fight.

  “I don’t need you,” Jac slurs blearily, his shirt ripped down the center to expose his pale, injured shoulder—smudged with streaks of blood, nearly black in the night. He takes the bottle of whiskey in hand and douses it liberally over his wound, cringing as it’s cleansed of bacteria.

  Jac swirls out of Rion’s reach—but only because Apollo’s holding Rion back—and clumsily grabs the dagger he’s stowed in the coals, now glowing red.

  Leaning back against a boulder, Jac readies himself to press the blade against his shoulder—and hesitates. Nostrils flared and face white, he glares angrily at the dagger, as though he’s waiting for it to act on its own accord.

  Rion shoves Apollo—hard—and passes him, ripping the knife effortlessly out of Jac’s hand. He clamps a fist around his friend’s throat, pinning him against the boulder, and thrusts the glowing strip of metal against the bullet wound.

  Jac screams viscerally, his body writhing and bucking.

  Rion doesn’t relent for a second, turning Jac around so he’s facing the boulder. The exit wound is somehow messier—the hole a row of jagged, pulpy flesh. Rion presses the knife against it in a swift motion, as though he’s rehearsed this.

  Lift, press. Lift, press. Lift, press.

  Rion stops only when the hole is sealed completely, leaving abruptly to gather dressing supplies. Jac sways, sobbing openly, ropes of snot and saliva flying in webs caught in the breeze of his labored breathing.

  Merope gets up, brushing past me. “I can’t watch this.”

  Cyb looks after her, alarmed. “I’m going with her—you stay with the boys,” she says before taking off after Merope, dipping into the forest’s veil of darkness.

  Rion tosses Apollo the clean dressing—leaving that task for somebody else, apparently—and collapses by the fire. He still has the dagger, folding it over in his hands.

  Hands that are shaking.

  “You did well,” Apollo whispers to Jac upon finishing his job of bandaging the wound, but Jac shrugs him off, still crying and feverish, walking to the edge of camp.

  He turns to face us. “I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t go far,” I croak, though I don’t know why he’d ever care enough to listen to me—let alone obey my orders.

  “I’ll go after him,” Apollo says before Rion can move to get up and follow. “Merope and Cyb left in the same direction. Best to round them all up at once, I guess?”

  Rion shrugs, unwilling to speak, eyes trained exclusively on the dying flames of the fire. Apollo trudges off, his every step emphasized by the crunch of ice and snow, eventually leaving us in forced company.

  The silence between us rings. I find myself at a loss.

  What is there to say? To a person like Rion, who’s been through so much? Who is both too empty and too full? Who’s steeled armor has grown so tight over his skin, I’m not even sure what I’d find if I made my way beneath it?

  I get up and begin traipsing off—putting a stale, wintery chill between the pair of us—only to rethink it immediately and turn to see him looking back at me, a question poised in his eyes that’s as shrill as a bell crying against silence.

  I don’t look away. Eyes on him—unafraid to linger, to lean against the embrace of his scrutiny and find the miracle of solace, in a post-apocalyptic world, awaiting me there.

  My hands fold into fists, and I turn back. Because he isn’t the only one with armor as thick as a slab of asphalt, nor is he the only one with baggage. I won’t walk away from him just because I can’t find the right words to say—this isn’t about me, anyway.

  I sit beside him, the dying light of the fire glowing in the mirrored reflection of our eyes. The question bubbles up on my lips involuntarily. “What are you so afraid of, Rion?”

  At first, he doesn’t reply, stoking the fire back to life with the thick dagger in his hands. “For a long time,” he says, after a stretched pause, “I felt I’d lost everything—and when you’ve lost everything, is there anything left to fear?”

  I hold his gaze, staying quiet.

  He sets a lip between his teeth and grimaces. “It might’ve been easier, if it had stayed like that—if the world only took away and didn’t spontaneously give back.”

  “I know,” I breathe, thinking about how I’ve lost the life I had aboard the Ora and everybody on it and my life’s Purpose all at once—and yet I haven’t come away empty handed.

  I’ve come away with Jac and Silas—with Mia, even.

  I’ve come away with Rion.

  “When you’ve lost everything, life gives you more to lose.”

  Rion nods cynically—then, so fast I barely keep up, he grabs my sleeve and pulls me to a standing position, forcing me to take the knife he’s been holding.

  “There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he says fiercely, his eyes unyielding. “There isn’t time to explain—you’re just going to have to listen to me. You’ve got to run.”

  “Rion,” I say, voice pitched in warning.

  “I became a pilot because I wanted to help. I didn’t realize it wasn’t actually a military camp, but—”

  He freezes and I do the same, as a bolt of neon-green light cleaves the sky into halves: a neon-green light I recognize with such brutal familiarity, I can’t help but smile.

  And then I remember to be afraid.

  “Was that a—”

  “—podcraft,” I say, glaring at the streak of green following in its wake, a sparkling trail. Rion takes my shoulders and pilots me deeper into the cover of the forest.

  “If they’re here, Eos, then we’re already out of time.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I seethe, whirling on him.

  “Eos,” he says, tone taking on an edge of severity that roots me icily to the spot. “Whatever you do, don’t let Mabel take you to the other leagues staying at PIO Morse. Actually, get as far away from it as you possibly can.”

  “Why?”

  He exhales, eyeing the sky. There’s an edge to his demeanor as he rakes a hand through the copse of his dark hair, jaw tight against words unspoken. I wonder what he’s thinking . . . why he looks like he’s about to do something dangerous . . .

  “I won’t let them take you,” he whispers.

  Suddenly a horn blares, lancing through the night’s syrupy quiet like the slice of a knife. A horn, belonging to what sounds disturbingly like—

  “A car,” Rion breathes, resting a hand against the small of my back as we run together toward the sound. “It’s coming from the same direction Apollo went.”

  Abandoning camp, we sprint along the hem of the clearing over the lake and toward a bulbous hill—where a dirt road loops back to the highway, a gray ribbon of concrete carving through the landscape.

  We dig our hands into the cliff, snagging rocks and fingers burning against ice as the horn continues to sound repetitively—a lifeline to which we cling. I heave over the lip of the road first and extend a hand to Rion, helping him up.

  The first thing we see is a spate of familiar faces. Our whole group is here, including Cyb, Apollo, Jac and Merope, as well as the people in the car.

  Mia and Silas, their faces lit up intensely.

  And in the back seat—

  “LIOS!” I cry, voice breaking as he throws open the back door of the geriatric sedan and gets out.

  “My little Eos,” he says, wrapping me up in arms that aren’t quite as strong as they used to be. Though he’s pale, with a layer of bandages still thick under his clothes, the sparkle of his light eyes has returned in full.

  And perhaps, with a vengeance.

  He administers hugs, getting to Cyb last. He falls into her arms and stays there for a while without moving. Cyb cries and whispers in his ears until he eventually breaks away and kisses her full on the lips, despite all of us watchi
ng.

  “They’re coming,” Mia says as we pile into the car, the soft fabric of the seats a balm after nights in the forest. “Lios knows everything—we filled him in.”

  Ignoring this, Jac glares across Silas and at Mia, who’s the one driving. “What do you mean, they’re coming?”

  A beat of silence ensues. The crackle of gravel under tires and a light murmuring of a radio fills up the empty stretch of time as Silas and Mia regard each other wordlessly.

  “Mia?” Rion barks, voice pitched low.

  “Every quarantine we have alliances with—the ones we get medical supplies from, mainly—flipped at the same time, on the same night, just days ago.”

  “We’re isolated,” Silas divulges. “No allies. And with every member flipped into a Mute, we’re fighting off pushbacks on a daily basis—and tonight, didn’t you see the green light?”

  Silas looks at us ominously. “We’re the last quarantine on our side of Colorado. By infecting the other quarantines with the plague, they’ve cut off our resources and all our allies, and there’s nothing left stopping them.”

  “Where’s Mabel?” Rion asks.

  “Going down with the ship.” Silas scoffs angrily, righting himself in his seat. “She says PIO Morse is secure—she’s got an insider there capable of taking over if necessary.”

  Rion shifts, orienting himself. “Where are we going?”

  Nobody speaks.

  Without another word, he tries ripping the car door open to free himself—an effort that provokes a chorus of disapproving shouts and protests—but we’re locked in, not only by the doors but by the windows, which also won’t open.

  Rion slams a fist viciously against the window. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Silas!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Apollo tentatively asks, gripping the arm rest like his life depends on it. “The military base is the safest place for us to go!”

  The military base . . .

  We aren’t going back to the quarantine?

  “It’s not,” Rion raves, punching the window again. “We’re safest somewhere remote—not the quarantine, or the safe-house, and especially not the military base.”