by Trisha Leigh
“We need to be able to come up with a plan—me and the guys, you, Leah. Any ideas how we can do that? Are the weird tents they have us in monitored?”
She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t seem that way. If you’re caught out after dark you’re exposed. Outside. Killed.” I nod to show I understand. “But we’ve never found any recording devices like the ones in the Sanctioned Cities.”
“In theory, then, maybe we could all plan to spend the night in our tent one night or something.”
“Maybe, except I’m the only one here. They moved Leah to Station Two after they decided she and I were talking a bit too much. They separate family members and people who were friends back home. The Wardens say nothing good will come of our connections, whatever that means.” Emmy’s eyes cut left and right again as she leans toward the curtain, listening.
“And there’s no way to talk to people from the other stations?”
Emmy presses her lips together. “Not that I know of.”
“Okay. Let me talk to the guys and think this over. I know this all seems hopeless, but we’ve still got a chance to beat the Others and get them off our planet.” A small chance, one that hinges on Deshi, a boy who may or may not decide to help us. Still. “How can I get a message to you, if I want to talk again?”
She steps out of the curtain, smiling a little over her shoulder. “I found you, Althea. Just find me if you need to talk. But be careful.”
Then she’s gone from my stall, disappearing into the now thick crowd as I step out into the cleansing room.
Chapter 15.
I brush my teeth, feeling better than I have all day, then walk quickly back to our tent to dress in some fresh clothes. Lucas sits at the chair in front of the desk, pulling on socks. Pax isn’t here, and out of nowhere I wish I’d walked in five minutes earlier and caught another glimpse of Lucas half-dressed. The errant thought warms me from the inside until my cheeks heat up. They must be bright red by the time Lucas looks up.
His face lights up with relief and a playful grin emerges as he realizes I’m in nothing but a towel again, and he crosses the room in a couple of steps. His cold arms go around my waist, hoisting me off the ground as he presses a hard kiss to my mouth.
It occurs to me as he pulls away and sets me back on my toes that I don’t have to try to catch him in a compromising position. If we ever had more than ten minutes alone together, I’m pretty sure Lucas would willingly put himself in one. Even if neither of us knows exactly what that means, I’m sure we could figure it out.
“Where’s Pax?” I ask, my voice a little scratchy through my dry throat.
“He left a couple minutes ago to shower. He got back later than I did. And apparently than you, too.” He grins down at me, his dimples tipping my world sideways the way they have since I met him.
This is the first time we’ve been alone and sure of each other, and even if we don’t have very long, I’m taking advantage.
I summon the same courage that helped me confront Carrej earlier and step around Lucas toward the bed. He turns, his eyes following me as I slide across the covers until my back rests against the wall. Lucas might be surprised, but it doesn’t stop him crawling onto the bed in half a second. His smile softens, no longer teasing but serious, as he kneels in front of me. One hand reaches out to brush my cheek, and I lean into his cold palm, breathing in the scent of him.
“You are so beautiful, Althea. Have I ever told you that?”
I shake my head, not trusting my voice.
I like that he never said it until now, until after he told me he loves me. It means that he thinks the other reasons he fell in love with me are more important that what we look like—even if the sight of his face swells my heart until it wants to burst.
“I should have. We shouldn’t have wasted a minute.”
Lucas leans forward, his hand dropping to my waist as his cool lips land on the bare skin covering my collarbone. The flick of his tongue makes me gasp. Black spots dance in front of my vision, and a dazed smile trembles across my face.
He lifts his lips from my skin but doesn’t move, his breath tickling the same spot. “The first day we met, when you sat down and the scent of you went straight to my head, I wondered whether you would taste as good as you smell.”
My whole body trembles as his lips move up my neck, kissing their way to my jaw. “And?”
“Better,” he whispers, raising his hands to either side of my neck.
Our lips meet and nothing else matters. Not the admission that he wanted to taste me from the first moment we met, or the idea that he thinks I’m beautiful even with a scar slashing down one side of my face. His soft lips, the slip of his tongue against mine, and the way his hands explore me through the towel make everything in the room besides us fade away.
My own hands are busy, touching him the way they always itch to when we’re alone. His shoulders and chest tense under my fingers, and when they twist into his hair the little groan that escapes him pushes me forward. The need to be closer to him, as close as humanly possible, overtakes my senses and my arms tighten around his neck.
Lucas grips my waist, scooting us both around until his back is against the wall and I’m in his lap, pressed against his chest. His fingers slide inside the flap of my towel, brushing my bare stomach. I gasp as much from the sensation of his hands on me as from the cold.
He eases back, not moving his hand, concern fighting the desire in his bright blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
I know in my mind that things can’t go on much longer—Pax will be back soon—but my heart is pounding. I feel… different. It’s the same feeling I had in the woods the first time we got carried away. As though my body wants something I don’t understand, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it. I feel as though I’m going to explode.
I give him a sly smile, leaning my forehead against his. “Are you?”
“I honestly have no idea.” Lucas sighs, and it’s full of pleasure and just the rightness of this moment, of the two of us together.
Like the first time he kissed me, we’re so close that it’s hard to tell who’s who, and I like it that way. His cold fingers whisper across my burning skin, and our scents grow stronger as we move toward the unknown, tangling in time with our tongues.
Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, Lucas settles his hands on my hips, fingers gripping tight. He leans his head back against the wall, breathing hard but still smiling. I press my palms against his chest and struggle to control my own breathing, and after a moment he extracts his hands, putting his arms around me and tugging me close until my head nestles against his neck.
“That was interesting,” I comment, smiling against his cool skin.
“That’s one word for it. I would have gone with amazing.” When I don’t answer he reaches down, pulling my chin up so he can look into my eyes. “One day, when this is all over, we’re going to do this right. If you’re ready, and I’m ready, and Pax isn’t going to walk in any minute.”
I move the couple of inches necessary to kiss him lightly, then pull away and smile. “Promise?”
Concern flits across his features. “I don’t ever want to break a promise to you, Althea. I can’t promise we’re ever going to get the chance. But I can promise that until this is over, where you are, I am. We’ll be together, even if it’s not this way.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He pushes me off his lap, swatting my butt. “Now, go get dressed before we embarrass Pax.”
I do what he asks, and even though we were just tangled together with nothing but a towel between us, Lucas turns his back while I yank on clean underclothes and pants. He peeks after a minute, catching sight of me in ratty brown pants and a plain white bra, and my cheeks go hot. I pull on the matching shirt quickly, making Lucas chuckle as he sits back on the bed.
“What got into you, anyway? Not that I mind at all, I just… I don’t want to hurt you. I’d never forgive myself.” He look
s up at the end of the speech, his eyes soft.
It melts my heart, the constant desire Lucas has to protect me against everything, even myself. I sit next to him on my knees, turning his face until we’re staring into each other’s eyes. As always, it makes me feel at home, as though I could find the answers to everything inside his gaze for the rest of my life. “Lucas, we can’t take any chances, and we certainly don’t want to complicate this situation even more, but I’m sure of you. And you would never hurt me.”
He breaks into a smile, kissing the end of my nose. “I would never hurt you.”
I smile back, even though his statement fills me with sadness. “I want us to have everything we want, but we have to admit that we might not have five more years to figure it out.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to push things is all I’m saying. It’s enough for me to kiss you and hold you and touch you and hear you say that you love me every single day.” He reconsiders, laughing a little and giving his ear a quick tug. “I mean, it’s not all I want. But it’s enough for now.”
I lean forward, kissing him a little harder than I mean to and nipping his bottom lip between my teeth. This cheekiness just keeps coming today. “Good. Because it’s not all I want, either. I want it all. A future. A life.”
Before Lucas can answer, Pax comes in smelling like apples and cinnamon and the best parts of autumn. His black hair is wet and freshly washed, and he doesn’t look our direction for a couple of seconds, I suspect on purpose. He’s being so considerate, making sure we have a moment to collect ourselves just in case. Fondness races through my blood and I hop off the bed, giving him a hug. He’s already dressed; Pax must have wised up and brought clean clothes to the cleansing tent with him.
I’ll have to remember that tomorrow. As much as I love the fact that kissing Lucas makes me forget the horrible realities we’re facing, we can’t continue that way. We need to use every spare moment to figure out how we’re going to get out of here and back to our friends in Deadwood.
“I’m glad you’re back,” I tell Pax.
“You are?” He quirks an eyebrow my direction, shooting a pointed glance at Lucas. “I took as long as I dared. The dinner horn’s going to go off any minute.”
I punch his arm lightly. “That’s sweet of you. Or weird, I can’t decide right now. But I have good news!”
“What?” Guarded hope hangs in his eyes.
I’m so glad I’m not going to dash it.
“I saw Tommy today. He’s alive.” Tears fill Pax’s eyes. He sinks down on the edge of his bed and I kneel on the floor at his feet. He lets out a shaky breath. “And here I thought I’d have the best news of the day.” His sad eyes find mine, hesitant but determined. “Does he hate me?”
His fisted hand is cool under mine, and I tug it to my chest. “No, Pax. He was relieved to hear you’re okay. And I think he knows something about you, or at least suspects, now that he’s unveiled.”
“What makes you say that?”
The dinner announcement blasts through the igloo at that moment, so I tell them the rest in a hushed voice on the way to dinner. About how Tommy asked if I was like Pax, and about Jas’s attack and having to save her from the old woman.
We fill our plates with bread, cheese, peas, and one banana each. The room’s as quiet as it was yesterday, but this time I spot Emmy as she’s leaving. Our eyes meet but she gives me no sort of acknowledgment. The three of us eat in silence, unwilling to share any other details of the day while Others could overhear.
Emmy’s nervous, flitting gaze in the shower continues to haunt me—the suggestion that not only are the Wardens not to be trusted but the humans aren’t, either. After what happened in the mine today I know she’s right to be careful—that old woman can’t be the only person here willing to side with the Others if it means the smallest of comforts in return.
When people are in a bad situation with their backs against a wall, most will do anything to ease their own suffering. The Others themselves are proof of that, and so are the stories we’ve read about both real events and made up ones.
And these people are suffering.
We get back to the tent after stopping on the way to use the wasteroom for the night, and crawl under the covers just as the lights wink out. I stay on the outside of the bed tonight, rolled toward Pax, and cup my hand around a ball of light big enough to reveal his face across the room.
Lucas is sitting, his knees drawn up to his chest and his cold toes tucked under the small of my back.
“Your turn, Pax. You said you had good news, too?”
“I do. Leah’s alive.”
Chapter 16.
We pass the next several weeks the same way we passed that first day on the South Pole. That’s where we are. Some older people know a few facts here and there about it, from before they were mind-controlled. Not that it matters—all the knowledge does is verify that we’re impossibly far from home.
None of the humans I’m supervising have attempted to challenge my authority after that first day, but the old woman I burned—Eula—has recovered from her fright and shoots daggers at me with her eyes every time I walk past. She’s trouble waiting to happen, and I’ve heard her talking to the boy next to her about me, too.
The days are the same. I come down here. I watch them break off hunks of glittering rock for hours, observe the system the kids use to sweep the lines and gather the Others’ treasures into those rolling metal bins. Count them three times a day to make sure no one has disappeared or died.
One person died last week. An elderly man. He keeled over and no one said a word. It was over three hours before I reached his spot during a count. He was already cold.
I’ve taken to helping at least a few hours a day, mostly to pass the time. It might make the workers less inclined to trust me as someone in charge, but I need the distraction. Focusing on the pain in my hands, the ache in my back, and the rock in front of me takes my mind off everything else. Hours with nothing to do but swallow anxiety about running out of time will make me banana balls.
I can’t think about how we’ve been here at the Harvest Site almost three weeks with nothing to show for it. We need to get to Leah, but how?
The Wardens continue to keep Lucas, Pax, and I separated during the day. I’m still supervising at Station Three, we spend the night at Station One, and Pax patrols Station Two. We don’t know what happens at Station Four, or who we might find if we went there. Lucas stays outside all day, making sure the ice refreezes when the activity below the surface starts to thaw it too quickly.
With this big of a landmass made of ice, it’s easy to see that it would have an effect on all of the oceans we saw on the map if it melts. How big of one is hard to say, but the Others obviously aren’t taking the chance. We fall into our beds every night exhausted, and even though we brainstorm the twenty minutes before we pass out and have sixteen hours a day to come up with ideas, we haven’t figured out a way to get out of here and back to South Dakota.
Our friends—or our army, depending on how we look at them—will have gathered at the cabin by now. On one hand, it’s good that they’re working on alternate solutions for beating the Others. On the other, now that Deshi knows about the cabin, they’re all doomed if he decides to forgo our cause.
It would make me feel better if I could tell them what Emmy said about the Others mining neodymium, but I don’t see how that’s possible.
Pax and Leah have talked as much as they dare, and although it sounds as though they’ve been spending hours together, he hasn’t brought home any gems, either. The most interesting tidbit is that our old chemistry Monitor from Danbury works at the same Station as Leah, and the two of them have been working on how to use the element against the Others for weeks. The Monitor’s passion for chemistry, for science in general, along with her pre-Other training means she could have ideas the rest of us can only guess at, and we need to talk to her.
Like every other time we managed to make strides
, the three of us need help. A Goblert that can transport us home, or a Sidhe to tear open a portal. Even our Spritan bracelets would do the trick. But those things are inaccessible or gone for good, and it’s becoming clearer with each passing day that we’re ill-equipped to win this war on our own.
We’re made from a combination of two species with plenty to offer, but not much that’s helpful at the moment. The only things the Others are especially good at is gene manipulation and mind control, neither of which is going to help us here. They also can’t seem to be killed, but we don’t know if we’ve inherited their ability to heal quickly from mortal wounds. Given that it took Pax days to heal from his wound last spring, probably not.
Kendaja has powers that go beyond what I’ve seen the rest of the Others display, but I’m guessing she’s a freak even among her own people.
Humans don’t have any of the magic powers that Spritans or Sidhe have, and the facts of the environment at the South Pole stifle our elemental abilities. There’s nothing to blow around, and it’s already cold. Melting the ice or starting a fire wouldn’t do anything but get everyone killed.
My inability to find a way out of here changes the day Jas has another breathing attack.
Tommy runs to get me between my second and third counting pass of the day. I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how many hours have ticked by and how many remain, even though there are no clocks down here.
I follow him, aware from the frightened look on his face that it’s bad. She’s slumped against a wall at the far end of the Southeast Main, and the other kids are nowhere to be found, as usual. It makes me angry that they abandon her this way, even if they are just scared of being associated with someone who can’t fulfill her duties.
Tommy’s tried to tell them that I’m not like the Others, but they don’t believe him or don’t care, one or the other.
Jas’s lips are blue, her face pasty white against her black hair when I arrive. Usually she gasps, but this attack is different; instead, small yips escape her lips. There’s no way she’s getting enough air, and before I can say anything, her eyes roll back in her head. Dark circles sink above her cheekbones, and her chest concaves with each desperate attempt to draw oxygen.
