Unravel

by Imogen Howson

  Cassiopeia’s eyes were so wide the eyelids seemed to have disappeared. Although she was staring at Cadan, nothing registered on her face. She was looking at him, but not seeing him.

  “Cassiopeia? Cassiopeia?” Nothing. Cadan swung his head to where El knelt. “El, listen, I need someone to take over here. . . .” This time his words trailed off as he recognized that El was going to be no more use than Cassiopeia, and his eyes went to Emily Greythorn. He raised his voice a little. “Mom?”

  It was just Emily’s head that moved. Her arm stayed close around Sofia, her other hand still pressed tight against the bloody pad on Sofia’s head.

  “Are you safe to leave her?” Cadan said.

  Emily glanced at Felicia, at Cassiopeia’s fixed, wide eyes, at Elissa and Lin. “If it’s vital.”

  “It’s vital. Felicia’s still bleeding badly. If you can leave Sofia, I need you to come deal with Felicia.”

  Emily withdrew her arm from Sofia’s shoulders, took the girl’s hand in hers, and guided it up to the pad on Sofia’s head. She spoke to Sofia, quietly, her voice steady, and after a moment Sofia’s fingers spread to hold the pad in place. As Emily got to her feet, though, Sofia’s eyes followed her as if she represented the only safety anywhere.

  Emily came over to where Felicia lay. For a moment her gaze brushed Elissa and Lin. Her expression was neutral enough that Elissa couldn’t read what Cadan’s mother was thinking, but all the same she thought it was something pretty much like, What the hell are they doing, then, that stops them helping you?

  “Mom,” said Cadan, and Emily’s eyes went straight to him. “Here.”

  Emily knelt, sliding her hands under Elissa’s onto the folded hoodie. She didn’t look at Elissa as she did so, not as if she were deliberately ignoring her, just as if Elissa was no longer relevant to what was happening.

  “Mom, you need to press harder than that—” Cadan broke off as his mother shifted her hands, pressing down as firmly as he’d been doing. She slanted him a look that was very slightly amused.

  “I know first aid, Cay. Go, do what you need to before they start their next attack.”

  As Cadan stood, Lin put her hand out for Elissa’s. Elissa reached out, then stopped as she saw the lines of her own palm, the crease at the base of each finger, the crescents beneath her nails all lined with blood. It was no longer bright, fresh scarlet, but it wasn’t the unalarming color of old blood either. It’s her life on my hands. Felicia’s life, Felicia who stayed on the ship with us instead of leaving like most of them, Felicia who was kind to me and told me to stop feeling guilty. Is that still what she’d tell me, now, with her blood drying on my hands?

  “Lissa.” Lin’s hand slid into hers, covering the blood, bringing Elissa out of the sudden onslaught of horrified thoughts.

  “Okay.” Elissa turned her head to look at the nearest of the supports, feeling rather than seeing Lin do the same.

  Pushing at the base of the support wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t even come close to knocking it over. It was thickest at the bottom, designed so that would-be vandals or criminals couldn’t knock it down to smash the row of cameras it held. But if we push halfway up . . . And we’ll have to do them one after another, as fast as we can, or all we’re doing is warning the attackers what we’re doing and giving them time to move from alley to alley and attack again.

  She didn’t realize she’d been thinking it at Lin until her twin’s reply sounded in her mind. Okay. Let’s go.

  If they hadn’t done something very similar with the fire escape earlier, Elissa didn’t think they’d have been able to manage this at all. As it was, she didn’t feel the weight of the metal in just her hands, but throughout her body. Dragging on her shoulder sockets, stabbing pain, real pain, through the muscles down the sides of her spine. I’m going to bruise this time. This isn’t just some sort of creative transference thing going on in my imagination, this is actually taking physical strength.

  But they did manage it. Slowly, slowly, the breath burning in Elissa’s chest, they forced the metal strip to bend.

  “Now,” said Lin, and Elissa heard it like an echo, doubled in her ears and her mind. “Now.” Now.

  A whip-crack-short agony of effort, a shock of pain that sliced knifelike through her palms, and the support snapped across its base. It fell, clanging, to bounce on the ground.

  After that, it felt almost easy to flip it up, push it into the mouth of the nearest alley. It went in diagonally, curving to fit along the sides of the alley, forming—not a complete barrier, but half of one.

  Now another.

  I know. If Elissa had had to say the words out loud, she would have sobbed it. Her muscles were screaming, and her hands throbbed so badly she didn’t dare look at them for fear she’d see her own blood welling up from her ruined, mangled palms, to mingle with the dried blood from Felicia’s wound.

  They moved on to the next support, bent it over and over until they could break it, stuffed it crosswise into the mouth of the alley. It was no less difficult this time, and no less pain shrieked along Elissa’s nerves, making her wish for enough leftover energy to cry out, but at least this time they knew what they were doing.

  The support clanged and scraped into place. There was still a gap above and below the makeshift barrier it formed with the first support, but it meant that anyone wanting to throw grenades into the square would have to come a lot closer to the alley entrance.

  Let them come closer. Let them get themselves shot!

  For a flicker of a moment, at the very edge of her attention, she was aware that Cadan had taken over the commander’s place guarding one of the many still-unblocked alleys, that the commander had retreated to the edge of one of the tower blocks and was speaking into her wrist-unit.

  Then she and Lin were focusing on the next support, and the next, and the next, and she had no attention left for anything other than turning to look at one support after another, forcing the metal to bend beneath their will. No attention left for anything other than making barriers across entrance after entrance, knowing they couldn’t hold forever, hoping they’d hold just long enough to allow the flyer to descend.

  But after the fifth support, or maybe the seventh, or maybe the thousandth, she had no attention left for hoping that, either. She had scarcely attention left for anything other than trying to hold herself together against the pain, trying not to let it win, no longer even remembering why she mustn’t give in under it. Every time she had to look at the next support, had to focus on it with her eyes in order to focus on it with her mind, it blurred and wavered before her, like something seen through a heat haze.

  Eventually, after minutes . . . or hours . . . or days . . . it was the sudden storm of the descending flyer’s propellers that pulled her out of the haze enveloping her. And it was Cadan’s voice that pushed her into movement, half blind as she was, caught inside her own mind, lost in a blur of pain.

  “Lissa, go! Run for the flyer!”

  She made an automatic step, realized she couldn’t see and didn’t remember which direction she was supposed to be running in, and stopped.

  “Lissa!”

  She shook her head, trying to clear her vision, terror sweeping over her. “I can’t see. Cadan? Cadan?”

  Someone grabbed her arm and spun her. She reached out, almost stumbling, finding nothing to grab, and then she was running, sand and the grit of broken masonry scraping beneath her feet, her free hand out in front of her, her eyes screwed up against the fear she was going to crash straight into something she couldn’t see, the terror between her shoulder blades driving her on.

  Whoever was holding her slowed, pulling her to a stop. Something seemed to clear from her eyes and the sleek silver side of the flyer rose in front of her, its side door open, hands—Lin’s and Ady’s—reaching out to pull her in.

  “Up you go,” said whoever had been holding her, and as she scrambled up into the body of the flyer, she recognized Mr. Greythorn’s voice.

>   “Cadan?” she said, suddenly frantic.

  “He’s coming. Look.” Mr. Greythorn had climbed up beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders, turning her back toward the flyer’s entrance.

  Cadan was running flat out across the square. There was blood on his face, his gun was still in his hand, and behind him one of the supports was just crashing to the ground. A shot zinged over it as it fell. Not a grenade but a bullet.

  Elissa saw Cadan’s face change as he registered the sound. He slewed sideways, then back, running in a zigzag pattern.

  “Good boy,” said Mr. Greythorn next to her.

  The other support clanged to the ground. There were people in the mouth of the alley—people with masks pulled down over their faces, weapons in their hands. One of them drew an arm back. In his hand an oval something gleamed dull gray.

  “Cadan!” Elissa shrieked.

  The grenade flew up against the pale backdrop of the buildings, then curved, falling in an arc, horrible and slow. Cadan was running beneath its trajectory, set on a collision course with it. Time slowed. The world stopped spinning.

  Cadan. Cadan, oh God, no.

  The grenade hit the top of the flyer with a clang. Every cell in Elissa’s body went still, waiting for the explosion to end it all.

  The explosion came, thunderous, world shaking, but from behind the flyer. The grenade had bounced off it, struck the ground before it exploded.

  Every last bit of strength went from Elissa’s knees. She started to crumple, and Ady caught her. He pulled her away from the doorway and lowered her to the floor.

  Then Cadan was there, swinging himself up into the flyer. He reached up, hit the door button, and the door clamped shut, sealing them all in.

  THE PROPELLERS raced above them. Elissa’s stomach dropped with a violent lurch as the flyer rose into the air.

  “Lissa.” Cadan went to one knee in front of her, shoving his gun into its holster.

  “Oh God, Cadan, I thought . . .” She couldn’t say it. She rose to her knees, reaching for him.

  He shifted position so he was on both knees too, drawing her into his arms. She put her arms up around his neck, feeling him safe and whole against her, feeling his hands shaking where they touched her, warm through the back of her T-shirt. “Lissa, God, when I told you to run and you didn’t move . . .”

  “I tried to. I couldn’t see.”

  “Jeez, not blaming you.” He pulled back enough to look down into her face. His eyes were blazing, the bright blue of a sunlit sky. “That was incredible. What you and Lin did. We’d never have gotten out if it hadn’t been for you.”

  The sunlight seemed to go all through her, lighting her up from inside. “I didn’t think we’d manage it. It was the hardest thing ever.”

  “Yeah, I believe you.” His lips curved in a smile. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  “Not just me.”

  Cadan flicked a quick look up. Above them, in the jumble of people, no one was paying them any attention. He looked back at Elissa, the smile creeping into his eyes, and lowered his voice, for her ears only. “Mostly just you.”

  He pulled her tight against him and kissed her, harder than he’d ever done before, his fingers threading through the hair at the back of her head, his hand tilting her face to his. Her heart picked up, thundering against his body where he held her. Her arms locked around his neck, her mouth opened under the insistent pressure of his lips, and the world disappeared.

  Except not really. A long way off, someone cleared their throat. Cadan pulled away, leaving her dizzy. She put a hand up to cover her tingling lips, ducking her head, swept by shyness.

  Cadan looked a little dizzy too. He glanced up, a flush coloring his face.

  His father was standing close by. He looked down at Cadan, raising one eyebrow, and Cadan’s flush deepened.

  “More important things at hand, son?”

  Cadan rolled his eyes a little. “Jeez, can’t a guy get half a minute?” He looked quickly back at Elissa, and suddenly there was a slight hesitation in his face, as if he’d been brought back to the moment, back to the life where he was supposed to stay in control at all times. “You okay? That wasn’t—I didn’t . . .” He trailed off, leaving it unspoken. That wasn’t too much? I didn’t go too far?

  She was breathless, heart still thumping, not to mention nerve endings all over her body. “I think we should risk our lives more often,” she said, low enough so that only he could hear her.

  His eyes met hers, and a spark seemed to jump between them. “I’ll remember that,” he said, and the grin he gave her made her blush from forehead to toes.

  When he stood up he moved a little awkwardly, pulling his jacket down with what seemed like unnecessary care. Elissa looked at him for a puzzled moment, then—Oh.

  A burst of almost-shocked giggles rose within her. That must have happened before today—okay, she hadn’t done a ton of dating, but she wasn’t an idiot—but it was the first time it had happened so obviously.

  Her skin tingled all over again, as if a shower of warm sparks had fallen over and through her. It wasn’t just . . . that. It was the way he’d touched her. The urgency in his hands, in the feel of his mouth, was all new, as if seeing her in danger had forced him, just for a instant, into letting go of all his usual careful control.

  The flyer tipped, making her sway sideways, bump against the wall. It brought her out of the bubble of glowing warmth to which the world had momentarily shrunk. Above her the flyer’s propellers beat the air, and all around her were refugees, shocked and wounded.

  Felicia! Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?

  She scrambled to her feet, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. The body of the flyer, separated from the cockpit by a clear barrier, stretched out before her, easily big enough to hold all the passengers plus two crew members, a man and a woman, both dressed in light blue shirts and pants, the trident-caduceus showing on their right sleeves.

  Felicia had been lifted onto a pull-down bed, and both crew members were bending over her. Her shirt had been cut off, and the female crew member was holding a clean white pad to her shoulder while the male crew member hooked her up to an IV unit.

  Sofia was lying on another bed, Emily Greythorn attending to her head wound. Her movements were calm and steady, betraying no urgency. Head wounds bleed a lot anyway, thought Elissa, the snippet of random information entering her mind from nowhere. Despite the gray look to Sofia’s face, and the expression of barely controlled panic on El’s, it didn’t look as if Sofia’s wound was anywhere near life threatening.

  It was Sofia getting hurt that freaked El out so badly, then. It wasn’t just getting attacked—it was her twin getting hurt. From how Sofia and El had interacted back at the safe house, Elissa wouldn’t have thought there was enough of a bond between them to make El react like that. I should have known better, though. Once I’d gotten over the weirdness of meeting Lin, it hardly took any time before she mattered more than anything. . . .

  Everyone else who’d fled the safe house was sitting or standing around the flyer, holding on to grab handles to keep them steady as the flyer banked in the air.

  And not just the people from the safe house. As Elissa’s brain caught up with what she was looking at, she realized that the parents and children from the playground were on board as well, grouped at the end of the flyer farthest from the cockpit. When had they gotten on board?

  “They all ran for the flyer when we did,” said Samuel’s voice behind her. Elissa turned to see him sitting, his back against the wall, his shoulder close to Jay’s. “That big guy who came with you—Ivan? He pulled them all on board. The commander said they didn’t have refugee clearance, and . . . well, he didn’t pay much attention.” He grinned. “It was very cool.”

  Elissa shot a look down to the other end of the flyer, where the commander stood, speaking to Cadan and Mr. Greythorn. “Jeez, I should hope he didn’t pay attention. Those little kids, with grenades
and bullets flying—you couldn’t just leave them there! But what are they going to do with them now? I mean, they’re not up for relocation, are they?”

  “They’re putting them back down,” said Lin. She was kneeling beyond Samuel, next to where Cassiopeia huddled. Cassiopeia’s face was hidden on her knees. After a second Elissa noticed that Lin’s hand was on the other girl’s shoulder, as if she was trying to comfort her but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

  That’s new. Although Lin had wanted to come back to Sekoia in order to help other Spares, this was the first time Elissa had seen her do anything so normally human as offer comfort to anyone—apart, of course, from Elissa herself.

  Big change. Was that the effect of escaping immediate danger, or was it just a natural development of meeting people like herself?

  Belatedly, Elissa realized she hadn’t responded to Lin. “Back down? Near where we were?”

  “I guess so.” Lin slid a glance at the unmoving Cassiopeia, putting her free hand up to her mouth to chew on the edge of her thumbnail. Her look at Elissa had some appeal in it. I’m trying, her expression said, but I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Elissa choked back a giggle. It was really cool that Lin was trying to look after Cassiopeia, but it was a bit like watching a robot follow some kind of preselected “empathy” program. The right gestures, but performed in a way that made them a little alien.

  “Cassiopeia?” she said. “Are you okay?”

  A dark swathe of hair slid back from Cassiopeia’s face as she turned her head to the side to look at Elissa. “I . . . don’t think I’m hurt.” Her voice came out as a croak, and she stopped and swallowed. “I . . .” A shudder took her, making her teeth chatter together.

  “It was pretty freaky back there,” Elissa said, speaking as gently as she could. All at once she was remembering the first time she’d seen Lin, filthy, shaking with fever, tipped out into a world she didn’t understand, a world that had no welcome for her. “You’re probably kind of shocked.”