Summer Ruins

by Trisha Leigh

  My mind turns the question of the pink substance over and over, but although there are soft metals threading through the bedrock, none of them are the right color.

  Maybe it’s oxidation that turns it pink. That’s possible; I remember from Cell.

  I’m on my last count, all the way past eight hundred and twenty, when a loud bang echoes dimly off the rock walls. As I move to investigate, the desperate sound of someone struggling to breathe quickens my pulse.

  At the opposite end of the Southeast Main, near where Carrej brought me in this morning, are the kids in charge of collecting the mined rocks. Instead of pushing their bin, they’re crowded around a little girl with pitch-black hair who is slumped against the metal container holding the back of her head and taking shallow, wheezing breaths.

  When the children see me they back away, scurrying to return to work. They shove the bin forward, knocking the little girl to the ground. Her huge green eyes shine with terror—not being able to breathe would be one of the scariest things I can imagine. A single boy has stayed behind, kneeling at her side with her hand in his.

  He turns at the sound of my crunching footsteps and the sight of his face stops me cold. I’ve only seen it once before, on television several months ago, but I’ve heard so much about him I could never forget those few moments.

  Tommy.

  Chapter 14.

  “Tommy?” The incredulous tone in my voice narrows his eyes.

  His sandy hair and brown eyes are exactly as I remember them from the television.

  For a seven- or eight-year-old, he’s got a pretty decent stare. “Do I know you?”

  Tears fill my eyes. Pax will be so relieved to know that Tommy is alive and his mind seems okay, that he’s not Broken because of what happened to his parents, even if it did land him here. I shake my head, yanked back to the situation at hand by a particularly loud wheeze. “No. I’ll explain later. What’s the matter with her?”

  “She gets these attacks sometimes when we’re in the mine, always toward the end of the day. I think it’s the dust, but she doesn’t want us to tell anyone.” His lower lip trembles, reminding me he’s only a little boy. “They’ll throw her out in the cold if she can’t work.”

  I crouch beside the girl, brushing sweaty midnight hair off her forehead. “What’s her name?”

  “Jas. Jasmine.” He doesn’t let go of her hand, and Jasmine’s eyes find his and latch on. “If she panics it gets worse.”

  That her name matches my scent strikes me as odd, as though it’s some kind of sign that I was supposed to find her in this moment, to try to help her.

  “Jas, no one’s going to hurt you, okay? I’m not going to tell. I’m not an Other.” Technically. “Just calm down for me, okay? Close your eyes, and think about all the air in here and pulling it in and out.” I have no idea if this is going to work. It sounds like there’s something going on that would require a Healer, but from what I’ve seen and what Lucas told me, there’s no reason to question the girl’s fears. The Others would probably expose her and be done with the problem before trying to fix it.

  Her lips turn blue over the next several minutes and beads of icy sweat drip down the sides of her face. She’s going to die right here in this mine. Fear constricts my own lungs and I breathe deeply, trying to stay calm. There’s nothing we can do that we’re not already doing.

  Except maybe there is. Whenever I started to lose control of the heat, my mother would talk in my head. I think mostly it worked because she distracted me with something to concentrate on besides burning down the house.

  “Jas, look at me, okay?”

  She does, her eyes opening with the smallest of slits. The resignation in the emerald irises speeds up my heart again, but I smile at her anyway. “Look.”

  Her eyes grow open wider as I show her the dancing balls of fire in my palms, even tossing them back and forth a few times for entertainment. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got, especially down here.

  It seems to do the trick a minute or so later when she draws one huge, shaking breath and her hand relaxes around Tommy’s. Over the next five minutes she takes some more, and then we sit her up. She’s such a pretty little girl, with that straight dark hair brushing her shoulders and a hint of a single dimple when she smiles at me shyly. I’d guess she’s younger than Tommy, maybe only five.

  “How did you do that?”

  “You know what, Jas? It’s a really long story, but if you promise to keep it a secret, I’ll tell it to you one day.”

  She nods, her face serious. “We don’t tell the Wardens anything unless they make us.”

  “That’s a pretty good rule.”

  A single horn blasts through the sound of the mining, and both Jas and Tommy shoot to their feet. I get up a little slower, my joints and muscles aching from pacing on my feet all day. It’s not hard to imagine what the people doing the actual work must feel like. It’s no wonder they hardly uttered a peep at dinner last night. They’re probably too exhausted to form a thought, never mind hold a conversation.

  Or figure out a way to overcome their captors.

  Jas slides her hand into mine and I follow the line of people headed toward the elevator. It turns out there are about ten like the one Carrej and I took down, but even so the line moves slowly. I am probably supposed to be in the front, reinforce the idea that I’m in charge, but I’d rather talk to Tommy.

  Plus these people seem to have no fight left in them. If it was ever there to begin with, it’s been extracted through carefully managed labor that will kill them sooner rather than later. All day I noticed tears dripping down many cheeks, people swinging tools almost absently, as though they have no idea where they are or what they’re doing.

  I glance down at poor Jas, whose body rejects being underground in the rock dust, and wonder how many more of those attacks she’ll survive.

  “You can’t protect her,” a voice gasps roughly, almost painful in my ears.

  I turn toward the voice at the same instant as a hard tug rips Jas’s hand from mine, eliciting a whimper of protest from the girl and a flicker of anger in my center.

  An older woman with frazzled gray hair tucked into a haphazard bun clutches a squirming Jas to her chest, challenging my assumption that none of these people will fight me or anyone else.

  “Let her go,” I demand.

  People stop moving forward at the sound of my voice, gathering in wide-eyed silence to witness the confrontation.

  “No. I’m going to turn her in to the Wardens. Same thing we shoulda done the first time this happened.” Her dark eyes snap, wild but determined.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask her, more than a little stunned. “She’s just a little girl.”

  “We’re supposed to, that’s why. Seems to me they’d be plenty interested in their new supervisor not doin’ what she’s told, too.”

  Anger boils in my stomach, diffuses outward, and winds tension into my limbs. As though it’s not enough we’re dealing with cruelty and lack of understanding from the Others, I have to face it in humans, too. “You’re not going to tell them anything. Not about Jas, and not about me. Not if you know what’s good for you.”

  I don’t mean it as a threat, not really, but it sounds like one as it falls from my lips. The woman glares at me, making a noise that sounds like a mixture of annoyance and disbelief.

  “You don’t even have no whip. What’s a little scrap of a thing like you gonna do?” When I don’t answer or move, she pulls Jas tighter against her concave belly. “Exactly. Nothing. And once I tell them what’s going on, maybe I’ll get laundry duty instead of slaving down here.”

  The weight of hundreds of eyes fall on my face, my shoulders, my back—all waiting for me to put this woman in line or walk away in defeat. If I do nothing, just let her go and tattle to the Wardens, it’s going to cause more heartache than simply losing Jas. None of these people will follow my direction. While it doesn’t matter to me how many rocks they break sixte
en hours a day, it does matter to me that they stay alive.

  Not to mention that someday it might be in their best interests to believe I’ll follow through on my word.

  But the idea of putting her in line—hurting her—pumps heat through me until the hair at the back of my neck freezes with sweat. She’s an old woman, probably tired, and from the bend in her spine, aching and in pain. How can I blame her for wanting out of here, and for seeing me as a weak link?

  But what will happen to me if I fail in these duties? Will they take me away from Lucas and Pax? Hurt me?

  The fear of being alone again, of being separated from the boys, pushes enough courage through me to make me step toward the woman, holding my hand out. “Give her to me. I promise you, I don’t need a weapon to make sure you never question me again.”

  “No.”

  I don’t really want to show off my elemental abilities, although now that I think of it, that might be exactly what they need to see. Not only am I an Other assigned to oversee them, but an Element. They wouldn’t give me any more trouble.

  Jas starts wheezing again, her face slack with terror as she reaches for Tommy. Her struggle to breathe ignites what’s left of my reticence and regret, turning them to ash. My hand shoots out, wrapping around the woman’s spindly wrist. She tries to pull away but I tighten my grip, yanking her arm from around Jas, who stumbles away and into Tommy.

  I take a deep breath, controlling my anger and its accompanying heat, then push as little as possible into my hand.

  The woman shrieks, the sound of her pain making me want to vomit, and I turn her loose. Her wrist flames red, a few white blisters dotting the center, but she’ll recover.

  Her dark eyes, tinged with pain and real fear now, grow wide as she falls to her knees. She says nothing, cradling her arm against her chest, but the murmurs spreading through the crowd twist into my hair, falling on my ears.

  The truth of what I’ve done races through the gathered Broken, returning to me with whispered suspicions of what I might be—at the least, something unknown, a girl who controls heat.

  At the most, an Element.

  I turn and face them, willing my guilt at what I’ve done to stay hidden from my face. They all go silent so they can hear me. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not any of you. But there will not be any trouble in this Main while I’m in charge, and none of you will question my decisions or breathe a word to the Wardens without consulting me first.”

  They disperse when it’s clear I’m done talking, all of them avoiding my gaze. The woman is gone when I turn back around, disappeared into the throng of people heading toward the rickety elevators and igloo that waits for them at the top.

  Jas takes my hand again, holding on tighter. Tears fill my eyes and I grip her small palm, grateful for her implicit trust in me even after what she’s just seen. Tommy doesn’t run away, either, and the three of us bring up the rear of the line.

  “So, how do you know who I am? Because of the news?” Tommy eyes me, his suspicion back now that his friend can breathe and no one is trying to get her in trouble.

  “I did see you on the news, but if I hadn’t met your brother, Pax, I might have forgotten.”

  My heart breaks as Tommy’s face brightens as though a light bulb switched on behind his skin. “You know my brother? Is he okay? Is he here?”

  He’s so excited, and not upset with Pax at all for what happened. I wonder if Tommy knows the whole story, since Pax wasn’t even there when his family Broke. How does it work now that he’s unveiled? Does he remember that Pax was there sometimes and gone sometimes, or that he never really fit in?

  “He’s here. We’re in Station One, I think. He’s going to be so happy when I tell him you’re okay, Tommy. He’s been looking for you ever since he heard about what happened.” I swallow my emotion, my insides gooey with relief for Pax. At least one of us can feel better about the mistakes of our past.

  “And you’re like him? Different?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you guys going to get us out of here?” Tommy whispers the last question so quietly I barely hear it.

  Before I can answer, Carrej appears toward the front of the line, scanning the crowd. He must be searching for me, because when he spots my fiery red hair he pushes his way toward me. I squeeze Jas’s hand, then drop it and give Tommy a quick pat on the back.

  He gives me a tight smile in return, his eyes on Carrej so I know he understands that we can’t talk about it right now.

  “What are you doing way back here? Supervisors go to the elevator banks three minutes before end of day,” Carrej snaps.

  “You didn’t tell me any of that. Not all of us are mind readers.”

  He grabs my elbow and drags me forward, stuffing us both into the next haul upward. The three people who were on the elevator get off when they see us, so Carrej and I make the ten-minute trip up toward the surface alone. When we exit the shack and return to the relative comfort of the igloo he takes off without waiting, and I struggle to keep up.

  The rider is completely silent all the way back to Station One. I keep my palms pressed together, trying to forget what it felt like to hurt that woman on purpose. That human woman—one of the people I’m supposed to be trying to save.

  Instead I focus on what it felt like to hold Jas’s hand, to help her breathe. It reminds me that no matter how tired we are, no matter how the Others try to beat us into submission or how many people like that old woman don’t understand, humans are counting on us.

  Even if they don’t know it yet.

  ***

  I feel so disgusting when we get back that I go straight to the showers instead of stopping at the tent first. I’m also anxious to see Emmy and hear what it is she has to say. By the time I step under the lukewarm stream, other girls have started to trickle into the cleansing room. Their muffled footsteps and quiet conversation enters my stall even as the pounding water kneads the stiff muscles in my back.

  It’s working well enough to clean the dust and grime from my skin, but the mark left on my insides from hurting that old woman won’t budge. Maybe it won’t ever. But if we manage to somehow save this planet, I won’t feel so badly about it. Probably.

  The curtain surrounding my shower snaps open, and before I can scream, Emmy walks in and throws it shut behind her. I’m wet and naked with nothing to cover myself, and not sure how I’m supposed to feel other than exposed.

  “What are you doing?”

  Emmy’s hands clutch a big towel around her, and she puts a finger to her lips, listening. After a moment she must decide it’s safe. “This is the best place to talk.”

  Even though her eyes stay on mine, it’s not like I can just finish my shower with her in here staring at me. Shampoo drips down the side of my face and I wipe it away. “Can we talk about this when I have clothes on?”

  “No.” She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Althea. We’re both girls. Trust me, there’s no modesty here, anyway.”

  When I don’t move, she puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me gently back under the water. “Seriously, finish washing your hair so I can have a turn or I won’t get dinner.”

  I do as she says, feeling awkward as I tip my head and let the water rinse the suds out of my hair, then pick up a bar of soap. “So what did you want to tell me?”

  “I saw Leah when she first got here about a month ago. And she told me everything about you guys and what she’s been trying to do.”

  The confession makes me forget my embarrassment and I stare at her, letting spikes of water hit my back. “She told you about the… what she was looking for? And what she thinks it is?”

  Emmy nods, her chocolate eyes serious. “Yes. And I know what it is—what they’re mining.”

  “How?”

  “I took a turn delivering the mined material to the extraction tent and carting the unused portion out for disposal.”

  Her use of the word disposal, applied to rocks and dust as easily as the Others apply i
t to people, makes me sick.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, keep going.” I finish rinsing my hair and squeeze it as dry as possible.

  Emmy whips off her towel and hands it to me, taking my place under the stream as I back up toward the curtain.

  “Anyone the least bit observant can see the metals they’re keeping and what they’re throwing out. When Leah starting quizzing me about what they looked like or if I recognized any of them, we narrowed it down over the next several weeks.”

  “What is it?”

  “We think it’s called neodymium, though it’s not exactly the same as it was described in our chemistry or physics books.” Emmy’s voice is barely audible from inside the cloud of water, but I don’t want to ask her to come closer since I know how nice the shower feels.

  “What’s different about it?”

  “The metal they’re pulling out is softer, and when it oxidizes it turns pink instead of yellow. But it looks similar in the ground. Leah thinks it might be a variation they kept out of our study materials on purpose.”

  “That makes sense.” Even though the towel covers me, shivers start at my toes and crawl upward. It’s chilly in here, and almost without thinking, I allow the heat in my middle to diffuse outward until my skin dries.

  I tuck the towel around me until it holds itself up around my chest, then use my free hands to dry my hair. It’s not until I’m done that I realize Emmy’s staring, but I already showed off in the mines today, so why stop now. “Oh. Yeah, I…”

  “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” She grins at me, a real one this time.

  “Here.” I snag her the other towel, the one I left on the bench outside the curtain. While she dries off and wraps it around her, I reach over and pass my hands over her short-cropped hair until it’s dry and fluffy.

  “Thanks.” She bites her lip, cocking her head as though she’s listening harder now that the water’s turned off. I want to ask her who or what would be listening in, but don’t.