She nodded, numb. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“And you and Lin—once they see it’s a gift you’re offering them—” He broke off. “What is it?”
You and Lin. The instant he spoke, that anxiety had swooped back over her, eclipsing the more recent worries. Her eyes burned, and her throat, too, as she tried to hold back the tears. His mother’s words—more of his mother’s words—sounded in her brain. You can’t afford to depend on just Cadan—and he can’t afford to have you doing it.
But who else am I going to talk to? Who else understands what Lin is like, who’ll listen and who won’t instantly see her as a monster?
“It’s Lin,” she said.
As understanding dawned in his face, she knew she wouldn’t need to explain further, and the knowledge was such a relief she went weak.
“It’s what happened on the med-flyer?”
She nodded, blinking back tears, feeling her nose sting. “She let them die, Cadan. I asked her. I asked her to help me save them, and she . . .” Elissa shook her head, not wanting to spell out the details, not wanting to relive that horrible moment when she’d realized her sister wasn’t going to step in like she’d always done before. “She let them die.”
Cadan drew her over to sit on a narrow white bench standing at the side of the lobby, then took a seat next to her. His eyes were bleak. “We all did that, Lis.”
“But only because most of us couldn’t do anything else! Because if you, or Commander Dacre, or the pilot had tried to save them, you’d have gotten yourselves killed. But Lin . . .” She couldn’t look at him as she said it. She put her hands up over her face. “She could have done something. She almost . . . kind of . . . considered it, because she knew I wanted her to. But she decided not to because—because she said it would hurt her.” She drove her fingers into her hair, pressing hard against her forehead as if to press the realization away. “When those children . . . those little kids were . . . I thought, when I looked down, I thought I could hear them. . . .”
“Lis,” Cadan said, his voice very gentle, “there was a hell of a lot of noise. You couldn’t have heard them, not really. You must know that.”
“I know.” She spoke into her hands, her breath warm and damp against her palms.
“And we didn’t see what happened to them. They might have gotten down.”
“But they were on the fire escape. It was hanging out from the building, didn’t you see?” Behind her hands, her eyes screwed shut as if, too late, they could protect themselves from the image that was burned into her retinas.
“I saw it. But I didn’t see them. And you didn’t either. They might have managed to get down before it went.”
She took her hands down, looked at him. “But do you think they did?”
His eyes met hers. “No.” A pause. He was trying to find a way to soften it, a way to make it better. But of course there wasn’t anything. Nothing he could say, nothing he could do. She knew that, and after a few seconds she saw that he knew it too. “I’m sorry, Lis,” he said.
A sob rose in her chest, like a balloon filled with grief and horror, emotions that swelled like expanding liquid. She felt the feelings pressing against her lungs, ready to rise into her throat, to sweep through and drown her.
If she gave in, if she let herself start crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop until she was drained of tears, until she’d sobbed herself sick and empty. It would be a relief . . . maybe.
But even as she thought it, sudden cold iced her veins. All at once, it came to her that she didn’t dare. She didn’t dare give in to tears.
Those emotions—Lin’s emotions—that had reached her on the flyer: She’d had no warning of them, and for a few seconds not even any indication that they weren’t her own.
Yesterday she dragged me into doing something I’d said no to. I resisted, I tried to stop her, and she was still able to do it. Today I’ve been feeling her thoughts as if they’re mine.
Lin was stronger than her. Elissa knew that, she’d always known that. It was Lin with the electrokinesis, Lin who’d been able to drag Elissa into her mind, forcing Elissa to share Lin’s experiences, to see through Lin’s eyes. The link worked both ways, but its strongest pull—its gravity—was always in Lin’s favor.
If, now, the link was getting stronger still . . . and it is, there’s no “if,” it is getting stronger . . . then it meant, it must mean, that Lin’s power over Elissa was getting stronger too.
Elissa shivered, an involuntary shudder that prickled over her from the nape of her neck down to behind her knees. Now, if I let my guard down the tiniest bit, if I give in to my own emotions, let alone hers, if I let myself get just a little out of control . . . what will that give her the power to do?
“What is it, Lissa?” Cadan was watching her, his eyes too intent, too observant. She had wanted—needed—to talk to him. But now . . . I can’t. I can’t talk to him about this.
It wasn’t just her fear of what Lin might be able to do. It was worse. In that moment of chill clarity, Elissa had remembered, all too clearly, what she’d thought as she’d stood in the flyer as it descended to let the families out, knowing that beside her Lin was rigid with hurt.
Let’s dump them, Elissa had thought. Forget about them. We shouldn’t have bothered with them in the first place. People like that—they’re not worth even thinking about, let alone helping.
If she could, she’d put the blame for those thoughts, too, on Lin. But they hadn’t been Lin’s thoughts. They’d been her own. She had looked at the people who’d hurt Lin, and she’d hated them. She had wanted them punished.
What if, this time, it was the other way around? What if it was Lin who was hearing my thoughts? My thoughts that tipped her over into not caring at all, into being able to stand aside and watch those people die?
It had been Elissa who, all along, had taught Lin what it meant to be human. It had been her horrified reactions that had shown Lin it wasn’t okay to hurt people, it wasn’t okay to threaten people to get what you wanted, it wasn’t okay to risk innocent lives. And Lin had learned. She’d learned empathy—enough to make her willing to sacrifice herself, not just for Elissa, but for the whole crew of the Phoenix.
But what if she never really learned it? What if she was just . . . unconsciously mimicking me, just doing what I was trying to do, what I wanted from her?
I can control my behavior, if that’s what she’s going to copy, if that’s what I need to do. But I can’t . . . whatever I do, however hard I try, I can’t control my thoughts!
“Lis?” said Cadan.
Her eyes came up to his, horrified at what he might read in her expression, horrified at the idea of telling him—oh God, any of this, any of it.
If his mom talked to him, if he’s already thinking I’m not good enough . . .
If he found out that it was her thoughts—her out-of-control, vicious, shameful thoughts—that had affected Lin, had caused the deaths of those people, what would that do to what he thought of her?
She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t talk to you about this.”
“What? Lis, of course you can. Look, I get how horrible it is for you. . . .”
Concern filled his face. His eyes were sympathetic, observant—one of which she didn’t deserve, the other which she couldn’t afford.
This last twenty-four hours had taken something from her. She was afraid of her sister now, the sister she’d given up everything for. Afraid, too, of the link between them, the link by which she’d begun to define herself. If she told Cadan what she was scared of—if she told him and it turned out to be true . . .
I can’t lose him. If I’ve lost what I thought I had with Lin, I can’t lose Cadan, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t. It’s not your fault. It’s me. I’m . . . oh God, I’m just a mess.”
“Like I’m going to agree with that?” There was a note of gentle mockery in his voice. He put his hand on her upper arm, and its solid
warmth came through her sleeve. For a moment, more than anything she wanted to lean into him, into his warmth, into the comfort he was offering, and spill everything. How scared she was—scared of what Lin had done, of what she herself might have done. Scared of how out of control their world had become, how impossible it seemed that they might ever be able to do anything to fix it. Scared of losing him.
But as she let her body relax just the tiniest fraction, as she leaned a very little toward him, that sob swelled again inside her, the feeling that if she let go even the tiniest bit she’d lose control of everything.
“Cadan,” she said, miserably, a plea for him not to push for what she couldn’t say.
“Okay.” He brushed a strand of hair off her face, a gentle, one-finger touch, then took his hand back and leaned away from her. “Do you want to talk to someone else, then? I’m not pressuring, Lis. I just—you’re in kind of a state and, okay, of course you don’t have to talk to me, but maybe you need to talk to someone?” He lifted a shoulder in half a shrug. “I don’t know . . . my mom?”
“No,” she said, with more emphasis than she’d meant to, not getting a chance to moderate her voice, to make the word come out less rudely.
Just a flicker in Cadan’s eyes showed that he’d registered her tone. “Okay,” he said, calm, expressionless. “I’m not sure, though, who else . . . When Sofia’s recovered a bit more?”
All the suitable women, Elissa thought. Then, on a note of half-hysterical amusement: At least he knows better than to suggest Commander Dacre! He was trying his best, God knew, thinking she needed a nice kind female friend to talk to.
But, oh God, it would be a relief to talk to someone. Someone who’d have at least a chance of understanding the whole mess of fears and confusions in her head. Someone who could relate, at least to some extent, to the . . . the utter, disorienting weirdness of having a Spare, someone who was both a total stranger and yet more familiar than anyone else in the world.
Sofia would understand some of it, she thought, but like Cadan had said, Sofia wasn’t exactly in a fit state to be talked to right now. Samuel, too—he’d grown up, as she had, with an awareness of his twin.
But she didn’t want to talk to Samuel—nor to Sofia, either, not really. It wasn’t that she disliked them or anything, but she didn’t really feel she knew them either. Of all the people she’d met since returning to Sekoia, it was only Ady she’d felt any real connection to. Ady, who couldn’t understand the link between her and Lin, because his link with Zee had died out years ago.
He does understand the complicatedness of it, though. She remembered, now, the guilt and torment in his face. I feel so guilty, he’d said. And What if it was my fault?
It wasn’t the same, the things tormenting him, but at least . . . again, it was the word “complicatedness” that came to her. The wretched, messy mass of emotions she’d never had to feel before, the responsibility, the guilt, the fear . . . the resentment that she was only seventeen, for God’s sake, and she was having to deal with a whole bunch of things most grown-ups never had to think about.
“I could talk to Ady,” she said. “I think.”
“Ady.”
“Yes.” Relief didn’t exactly sweep through her as she said it, but there was a lightening within her, a feeling that she was no longer in danger of breaking out sobbing.
Talking to Ady . . . well, it wasn’t like she wanted him to be appalled by her either, but if for some reason what he was going through with Zee didn’t force him to understand, at least . . .
At least it won’t be Cadan’s expression I see change as he realizes what a mess I’ve made of everything, as he realizes it was my fault those people died.
Maybe, too, when his mother saw Elissa making other friendships, talking to the other twins, taking her advice, maybe she’d start approving of her a bit more.
“Yes.” She found herself saying it with more certainty this time. “I’ll go in a few minutes to see if I can talk to him now.”
Buoyed by even that little bit of relief, she leaned in to Cadan as she’d wanted to do before, his presence a comfort rather than a dangerous temptation to weakness.
He put his arm around her, but after a half second of hesitation that made her glance up at his face, thrown off balance.
“Cadan? What is it?”
He looked down at her, a slight, unexpected hardness to his mouth. “You can’t talk to me, but you’ll talk to Ady. Who you met all of a day ago.”
She leaned a little away from him, feeling as if he’d pushed her. “Yes, but . . . He has a Spare.”
“He might as well not, though. They don’t even have a link!” Sudden frustration stabbed through Cadan’s voice. “I don’t get it, Lissa. I’m here, I’m trying to help, and you’re saying you’d rather talk to some guy you didn’t even know before yesterday.”
Elissa pushed herself right away from him now, and he didn’t try to hold on to her. “Hey, you just asked me if I wanted to talk to someone else!”
“Yes, someone who might actually have some real support to offer you—”
“Oh, like your mom?” Once again, it came out with more of a bite than she’d meant to give it, and this time Cadan did react.
“Okay, you don’t get to talk about my mother in that voice. She’s been nothing but nice to you—”
“Jeez, wow, I suppose I should be just completely grateful?”
Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she’d gone too far. Her throat locked up at the idea of telling Cadan about the conversation with his mother, but she couldn’t say something like that and not let him know why. She opened her lips to try, somehow, for an explanation, but he spoke before she could manage it.
“Be grateful or not, your choice. But you can damn well be polite.” He stood, folding his arms.
She was still about to try apologizing, but when she met his eyes, they were like ice.
Okay, so she shouldn’t have said it, but he had no business giving her that look. She was super upset, and dealing with six hundred things all at once, and now he was defending his mother against her?
“Well, you can stop swearing at me!” she snapped.
Cadan laughed, a hard sound. “You call that swearing at you? Step into the real world a moment.”
“The real world? What world do you think I’m in?”
He gave her a look of utter exasperation. “You tell me. For God’s sake, look, I have to go finish prepping the Phoenix. We’ve got a full complement of passengers we’re taking to Philomel, plus what possessions they’ve been able to bring. I’m just trying to help here—”
“Well, you’re not,” she snapped at him.
“Clearly.” He took another step back, his hands up, a gesture of abdication. “Fine. You do what you want, okay?”
“I’m going to! You’re not fair, Cadan. You asked me who I wanted to talk to, and I said Ady, and now you don’t want me to—”
“Have I said that?”
“You didn’t need to! It’s so completely obvious!”
“Oh for God’s sake, Lissa.” His voice seemed to explode into the room. “And you’re telling me I’m not fair? Look, am I thrilled my girlfriend would rather talk to some guy she’s known five minutes than to me? No, not really. But jeez, Lissa, it’s not like I own you. I don’t have the right to try to stop you talking to whoever you want.”
All at once, everything about what he was saying—his tone of voice, the way he refused to see why she might have a problem with confiding in his parents, the fact that, just as his mother had, he seemed determined to emphasize exactly how temporary their relationship was—was more than she could bear to listen to.
She shot to her feet. “You’re right,” she said. “You don’t.”
She turned on her heel and marched across the lobby to the internal doors. Cadan said nothing. He didn’t try to call her back, and she didn’t look around. She slammed her hand on the doorpad, the doors sprang open, and she walked through th
em without even glancing back.
The corridor walls were so shiny white that Elissa’s reflection, a shadowy shimmer in the slight curve of each wall, kept pace with her as she marched down flight after flight of stairs, down one corridor after another.
The fury stayed with her, a heat behind her eyes, a burning in her hands, all-encompassing. It left no room for anything more than just a suggestion of coldness sinking through her stomach, the merest hint that there were emotions much worse than anger waiting to envelop her.
Cadan had asked her who she’d like to talk to. He’d asked her, for goodness’ sake! Elissa stuffed her hands in her pockets, a swift, jerky motion. The stupid irony of it all was that it was he who’d have been her first choice even as short a time ago as this morning. And the other stupid irony was that she’d wanted him to be jealous, had wanted the reassurance that he cared that much.
But not when I need him not to be!
Elissa shoved her hands farther into her pockets, not caring if she wrecked the seams. Fine, so she wasn’t being totally rational here. Who would be? After this day from hell, and then getting all that patronizing advice from Cadan’s mother—no one would be rational after that.
If you’d told Cadan, if he knew what his mom had said to you, he’d never have suggested you talk to her.
And great, so now a bit of her mind was being rational—and apparently determined to be fair to Cadan, too. Because it was true. She might be furious with him right now, but she knew that he wouldn’t have suggested she talk to his mother if he’d had any idea of the talk they’d already had. And if I’d told him, he’d have understood why I was so upset.
Struggling with contradictory thoughts, and with the nasty feeling that as well as being angry with Cadan and his mother, she might need to be angry with herself, Elissa kept walking, shoulders hunched, head down.
She was most of the way along the last corridor and nearly at the double doors leading to the main waiting area, before she realized someone was standing outside them. Her brain registered who it was while she was still lifting her head to look.
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