AQUA (The Elements Series Book 1)

by Korn, Tracy

  "I know. Liddick told me," I say, then catch his eye again, tilting my head toward Arco.

  Jax knows what he needs to do; he's just too proud to do it. I raise an eyebrow at him, then the other and angle my head toward Arco again. He rolls his eyes, then nods after a second, and I feel his ice wall start to melt. He takes another deep breath and presses his lips into a line, then swallows down the anger and pain trying to surface and explode all over Arco again. I can see him make up his mind right there, just decide to feel a different way. He's done this so many times before when things haven't gone the way he's expected—when Cora Avery broke up with him, when we thought our father died…

  He suffers until he decides he's not going to anymore, then just flips the switch somehow. I've always been envious of that ability. His face softens, the hard lines around his brown eyes melt away, and the ridged set of his mouth and jaw relaxes. He pushes his hands through his dark, curly hair, closes his eyes to shut off this reality so he can open them in another. When he does open them, the wall is gone. Arco must feel it too because he stops talking with Ellis and looks over to Jax, who finally looks like his best friend again.

  "Ripley, I—" Arco starts, but Jax shakes his head at him.

  "I know. It was the only choice you had. I would have done the same thing in your shoes," he says with a nod at Arco, then winces. "Sorry I hit you. Apparently, a lot." Arco smiles to the right, his left cheekbone starting to redden more deeply now, not to mention the cut on his lip and eyebrow.

  "I'd have done the same thing," he says. Ellis looks over to us tentatively now that the others at the table have noticed Arco's face, and have realized that Vox and Fraya aren't going to show up.

  "What's going on?" Joss asks, and the table falls silent awaiting an answer from someone. I take a deep breath. There's no way we're going to be able to avoid talking about this, at least to some degree.

  "You know our test drive today, the Leviathan ships and the Stingray roamers?" I ask, and Joss nods. "We were on our exploration and Vox steered off course for a minute, then disappeared. Fraya was in the Stingray with her," I continue, trying to figure out how much to hold back and how much I won't be able to, but I don't know what Ms. Reynolt expects me to say when two of our friends just don't show up for dinner, and the last place anyone saw them was with us.

  "Disappeared?" he asks, his eyebrows knitting together when he sees Pitt's arm move around Myra's shoulder. "You were out there when that happened?" he asks her.

  I can feel Myra's worry starting to percolate and need to stop that before it even starts, or it's going to spread like a grassfire.

  "Ms. Reynolt and Dr. Denison have it all handled. They're sending a team to find them—I'm sure it will all be OK," I lie, hoping no one can tell.

  "So they just went off the sonar?" Joss asks, still not quite sure this isn't a bad joke.

  "We were all on our way back, and they just went a different way. That's all we know right now," Arco says, trying to squash the questioning.

  "That doesn't make any sense—why would she just turn off in a different direction?" Joss presses. "Especially with Fraya on board—did anyone go after them?" he asks, and I feel the stab of regret that goes through Arco.

  "We couldn't," Jax says. "It was too risky, so we came back for help."

  Arco looks at Jax, surprised as Joss raises his blond eyebrows and swallows whatever he was going to say, clear disapproval on his face.

  "It all went sideways pretty fast," Ellis says. "We did everything we could in the time we had." He nods to Arco, following Jax's supportive lead, which gives way to a heavy silence.

  "We'll get them back," Arco says. "One way or another, we'll get them back."

  CHAPTER 41

  The Call

  We start for the Records room after Joss and Pitt leave for the fitness room, but no one has seen Tieg or Liddick since before dinner.

  "I'll go back and check our dorm—maybe Tieg is there. I only want to say all this once," Arco says.

  "Maybe he went down to the fitness room too. That's the first thing Pitt wants to do whenever we have ten seconds," Jax says impatiently, then tilts his head to Ellis. "We'll go check."

  Ellis nods as they head for the fitness wing, then stops and darts a glance at Arco. "Who's Liddick's roommate?" he asks all of a sudden. "Mine is Avis, yours is Tieg, Jax's is Pitt…"

  "And Joss's roommate is someone named Parker," Myra adds.

  "I don't think he's mentioned having one," I say. "Can you have a single room here?"

  "We're talking about Liddick—he probably talked them into giving him a penthouse," Avis says, then gestures to Myra. "We'll see if he's in the Boundaries room. He was heading that way after we docked. Meet back here in what, an hour?"

  "That works," Arco says. Jax nods, cutting Arco a look before he catches himself, then he and Ellis turn to follow Avis and Myra out.

  "He still wants to kill me," Arco says around a forced laugh as he interlaces his fingers with mine.

  "Then I guess we should go find Tieg so you can start explaining everything," I say.

  He gives me a sideways look and squints. "Maybe we both shouldn't go find him…" he says, and realization dawns on me. After what Liddick said about him seeing Arco and me, it would probably be awkward if we both actually found him. I nod at Arco. "I'm sure he won't be happy if I find him, but hey, it's not like he can make this much worse, right?" Arco gestures to his face and tries to smile, and I wince at the now dark bruising.

  "Does it hurt a lot?" I ask, angling his left side toward me with my fingertips.

  "Nah," he lies, judging from the way his free left hand clenches into a fist as he turns his head, "but don't worry. I never saw Jax coming, if Tieg tries—" he stops abruptly and looks at me again, gripping my hand tightly in realization of what he's just said. "Jazz, that's it."

  "What?" I say, not sure what I'm feeling from him right now—dread and excitement all at once.

  "When Jax hit me, I never saw it coming. That's what the mar—" he stops himself again and presses his lips together like the words are still trying to come out against his will.

  "Arco, what?"

  "We'll talk about it in an hour, I promise. Are you going to go back to your room, or are you heading over to Records?"

  "I don't know. I haven't thought about it. But my room might be weird since Vox isn't…" I say, trailing off. He nods, and relaxes his grip on my hand.

  "We'll find them," he says, and it's my turn to nod.

  "I'm going to find Tieg. You'll be in the Records room in an hour?"

  "On one condition," I say, which makes his eyes widen in surprise. He lowers his chin and cocks an eyebrow as a smile starts in the corner of his mouth.

  "And what's that?"

  "Call the medi-droid? It's the button on your wall by your bed. At least that's where it is in my room," I say. His smile widens as he nods.

  "All right," he says, and slips his hand into my hair, his fingers folding around the back of my neck like before.

  This kiss is different from the other two, not desperate like the first, not heated like the second. This one is gentle and warm, and I feel my whole body flood with it. He touches his forehead to mine like he did with our helmets earlier, the tips of our noses touching. I imagine the gagging noises Vox might make in my head if she saw us like this, and I smile for a second before I remember everything all over again. How do I keep forgetting the reality that she's gone?

  "Hey," Arco traces his thumb over the edge of my bottom lip and smiles, which gives way to a small laugh that makes something in my chest swell.

  "What?" I ask, starting to laugh myself, but he just shakes his head.

  "Nothing, it's going to be OK," he says, and then I understand what it is that keeps pushing the worry and fear away…I believe him.

  ***

  After Arco goes to find Tieg, I remember that Ms. Reynolt was supposed to talk to me at some point tonight. My heart starts pounding at the idea
of it, but I have to talk to her. I have to find out what she knows. I look at my bracelet cuff for any messages, but there are none, so I decide to walk back to her room to see if she might be there. When I get there, the room is locked and the light is out. I could wait in my dorm, but I can't bring myself to go back there before I have to, not while I know that Vox is out there somewhere, and I can't even imagine poor Fraya. At least Vox knows how to survive in strange places since she's a boundary scout; didn't she say she even escaped from an underground trap once? She survived then, she can survive this. I have to believe that. But Fraya has never even been to the edge of the beach where the woods start because she's always been too afraid that Vox's people were cannibals. The irony of it all hits me, and I sigh. I have to stop thinking about it for now and remember that Vox won't let anything happen to her. I know she won't.

  Before long, I'm wandering by the Boundaries room, which is just barely illuminated in that same pearlescent light that filters through everything here. It's empty when I walk in, but it doesn't feel empty, although I'm sure I don't see anyone. All the stations are turned off, but there's a low hum coming from somewhere. I look around again for the source of it, but stupidly realize I'm not going to be able to see a noise, so try to listen harder.

  I close my eyes and take a step. It starts to get a little louder, so I take another step toward one of the stations, and then it fades. I readjust in the other direction and follow the trajectory, noticing that it gets even louder the closer I get to the chair where we'd found Vox sitting on Arco's lap before. The memory of that sight sends lines of fire up the sides of my throat all the way to my scalp, and I'm instantly, violently angry. The abruptness of the feelings makes me anticipate Vox's tingle in the back of my head, but of course that doesn't come. These are my feelings, and they must have been mine in the cafeteria when I saw her hanging all over him. This makes me wonder if when Liddick said I didn't know it was like that with Arco, did he really mean I didn't know it was like that for me too?

  The buzzing is louder now, just like it was in Ms. Plume's office and just like it was in the cave. I have to get closer. I force myself to take the last few steps toward the station, compelled by the droning buzz that gets more and more urgent the closer I get. I squeeze my eyes until they're nearly closed trying to brace against the growing sound as I reach for the helmet, and a static crackling begins to compete with the sound in my head. For a second, I think I can hear a voice.

  Vox? I push myself into the chair against the noise as if it were a solid force, the buzzing stitched with a low-pitched ringing now, and the crackling becoming more frequent. I focus as hard as I can on reaching out to Vox with my thoughts on the wild chance it could be her, but she doesn't reply. I look up at the helmet and realize it's the source of the buzzing that now turns into peals of high-pitched squealing, and I fight with myself to bring that impossible sound down directly over my ears. I reach for it, every muscle in my body protesting. I clench my jaw, squeezing my eyes closed even more tightly now against the noise that feels like it's ricocheting off my skull and into my teeth as I lock the helmet in place on my head. Then, all at once, the noise stops, leaving only the static.

  Vox? I think again, hoping. But there is no reply except the crackle. I brace myself again in anticipation of the returning noise once I raise my hands to take off the helmet, and as soon as my hands touch it, I hear her.

  She's OK. Vox says as clearly as if she were standing right next to me, and I can hardly believe it's really her.

  Vox! Where are you? What happened? How are you making this transmission? I think.

  Don't have time. Fraya is OK. Don't come through the cave—they're waiting there. There's a vent opening just past the cave that comes through to us, but I don't know if it's safe. I'll try to find another way. She replies.

  Who's waiting? Vox? What's happening? Are you with Liam? I ramble, but she's gone, and so is the static. I sit in denial for another minute calling to her, but she doesn't come back. My heart pounds against my ribs as I lift the helmet, half of it physiological in preparation for the deafening buzz, which I anticipate, but never comes. I stand and press my hands to my face before turning around and jumping at the sight of Liddick standing in the doorway, his forearms hoisted up to his shoulders and braced against either side of the frame. He looks like he hasn't slept in days with his jaw set hard and his eyes almost pleading.

  "Liddick?" I say, startled. "What's wrong?" But he only shakes his head. "Where were you all this time? I looked for you at dinner, but…"

  "I wasn't hungry," he says abruptly. His voice is gruff, and the general exhaustion I've just felt from him turns to fear. Something has happened.

  Liddick, what is it? I think, hoping he'll talk to me this way. He just looks up at me with wounded eyes, and I see the muscles working in his jaw for control. I feel like something is reaching into my chest and ripping out everything, but I don't know how to stop it—how to stop him from feeling this way. Tell me what happened to you. I think, starting to panic, then take several steps toward him. He doesn't budge from the doorframe, and his chin falls to his chest when I reach him. His face is pale with a thin sheen of sweat coating his skin, and he's ice cold when I reach up to angle his face so I can see his eyes.

  "Liddick?" I say out loud, trying to keep my voice level.

  "It's OK," he says, closing his eyes and swallowing. He releases the fist in his right hand and waves me over, his wrist propping him up against the doorframe. I raise my eyebrows, but take a few more steps until I'm perpendicular to him. "More," he says, and I move until my hip is touching his.

  "Liddick, what—?" I start to ask, but he answers me by nearly collapsing onto my shoulder before I can get the rest of the words out. I catch him, my hand instinctively flying to his chest as I take a few stumbling steps forward, then back to balance us. I wrap my other arm around his waist and get him through the doorway enough to position his back against the wall inside the room. He slides down it, and I kneel beside him, taking his freezing hands in mine to try and warm them. "Liddick, what happened? I'm calling a medi-droid," I say, tapping screen after screen on my bracelet trying to find the instructions.

  "No…" he answers, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. "Don't call. It'll scan me. I just need to sit here a minute," he says, swallowing again.

  "You need some water. I can go to the student center and—"

  "No. Stay," he says, swallowing again. I don't know what to do—even what I can do.

  "You're freezing. How are you freezing and sweating at the same time?" I ask, and he shakes his head slightly from side to side.

  Too hard to talk. I hear him say in my head. Your hands are warm. I move closer and wrap my hand around his fingers again, bringing my other to hold against his cheek.

  Liddick, what happened to you?

  Port-carnate, I hear him think, and that's when everything inside me stops.

  Port-carnate? Are you split? You promised you wouldn't try that!

  Had to. I went to see a friend who can help us, he thinks, the color starting to come back into his cheeks as I move my hand over his face. He blinks several times, then squeezes his eyes shut for a second before reopening them. They're bloodshot, making the blue seem almost supernatural.

  What's wrong? Can you see? I ask him.

  You're just a little blurry, he thinks, smirking, then tries to blink a few more times.

  How long have you been like this?

  Just got back. Maybe 10 minutes. I was in that station where you were.

  You were in here the whole time I was? Where? I think, looking around the room for somewhere I could have overlooked.

  Over there. He angles his head to the opposite corner near the back of the room. I moved to the doorway when you sat at the station. I thought I could get back to my dorm without you seeing me like this.

  "Well, I'm taking you there now. Come on," I say out loud, then wedge my shoulder under his arm. He pushe
s off the floor and against the wall, trying to get to his feet, which he manages after a stumble. He leans heavily on my shoulder, and I push against him as we walk a few steps before he stops to brace his hands on his knees.

  "Dizzy," he says out loud.

  "Crite, Liddick. What did you do to yourself?" I ask, my pulse racing because I can't fix this—I can't do anything to repair whatever he's cooked inside himself. Port-carnate, what kind of stupid…"Liddick?" I say suddenly as he starts to sway, then I move to his side and put my shoulder under his arm again. "OK, we have to call a medi-droid."

  "No!" he says adamantly, then drops to his hands and knees and begins to cough.

  "OK, OK, let's just go to your room then. Come on. Can you get up?"

  He lifts one knee off the floor and levers up on it, his arm around my shoulder for balance. We stand, and he lets his head fall back, closing his eyes and taking a long, deep breath before we take another step. When he looks forward, he opens his eyes, blinks again, and starts to walk slowly. I hold onto his wrist draping over my shoulder and lean into his ribs to help keep him upright, my fingers gripping the waist of his jumpsuit, which surprisingly makes him laugh.

  You're going to give me a flosser like that, he thinks, and now I laugh too, loosening my grip on his waistband.

  "Sorry," I say out loud through an exhale. We're able to pick up the pace a little as we approach the boys' corridor, and I scan for anyone who might see us. "Listen, there may be people in the hallway here." I say. He nods, and tries to straighten up as much as he can.

  You'll just have to pretend to be my girl, he thinks, and I can't help but smile at his audacity, even now, feeling the way he must. I want to be fearless like he is.

  You're impossible, I reply, shaking my head.

  Hope Hart's not around. Or Spaulding…crite, Rip, you're breaking hearts everywhere today, he thinks, and I roll my eyes.

  Tieg is split—I've only had two conversations with him, and if I would have known anyone was watching us out there…