Betrayals in Spring (The Last Year, #3)

by Trisha Leigh

  That’s what he said last autumn after two girls in our chemistry class, Emmy and Reese, were taken away when we weren’t careful enough with our abilities. We can’t spend all of our time wishing we could undo the past, or get back people who are gone, Broken. The only way to help them is to find out what we can do, and then use it to beat the Others.

  It strikes me again how slowly we’re moving toward our goal. We know what we can do now, and the three of us are together. We lost help from Cadi and Ko, but gained it—at least briefly—from Griffin and Greer. We’ve learned the Broken aren’t necessarily dead; we know where Deshi is and that we can unveil humans. But the vast space we’ll still have to cover in order to actually take back this planet stretches in front us like the bodies of water on that map.

  Sometimes, like now, it’s hard to even believe there’s a destination out there.

  They’re standing shoulder to shoulder, these boys I love, finally united in a common cause—opposing me and leaving Greer for dead. Anger heats my palms and I snatch them off Greer and press them together, holding the fire inside me.

  “It’s not the same thing, Lucas. Emmy and Reese, we weren’t sure what happened to them. Now we know they might still be alive.” I swallow hard. “You didn’t hear the way they were talking. Greer…they’ll kill her—and Zakej will make sure it hurts.”

  Silence pokes at me until it bruises. Finally, Lucas gives me a tight nod, and a surrendering sigh whistles out of Pax’s chest.

  Relief and trepidation mingle in my mind, paralyzing me for a minute. “We can take her with us and at least keep her safe, if we can figure out a way to keep the Others out of her head, right?”

  “Right, but she said herself they can’t build barriers,” Pax reminds me.

  “I know. That’s why we’re going to build one for her.”

  They suck in a breath at the same instant, both ready to talk me out of it, but Lucas beats Pax to the punch. “It won’t work, Althea. If she can’t help build it, all we’re going to do is trap her in her own mind. She won’t be connected to the hive anymore, but we don’t know what it will do to her, not having access to part of herself.”

  “Whatever happens, it’s better than her being dead.”

  “Is it?” Pax raises his eyebrows, a cruel and silent reminder of all I’ve been through.

  Would I rather die than submit to Zakej’s torture again? Would I unveil Mrs. Morgan again, knowing that it would lead to her disposal? Would we have asked Leah for help if we knew it would lead to damaging her family?

  I shake my head, tugging the rubber band out of my hair and then smoothing it into a fresh ponytail. “Yes. Once we’re somewhere safe, or somewhere she can hide or we can figure out how to help her, we’ll take it down. The wall.”

  “We don’t even know if we can take it down, Althea. What happens if we can’t?” Lucas will help me, I know, but his nature is to question everything before making a move. Typically it’s a quality I appreciate, but right now we’re short on time, and if saving Greer means living with the consequences of messing with her head, then that’s what we’re going to do.

  “I’m going to do it alone. All three of us don’t need to go in and out of her alcove, and maybe it’s easier to take down a single elemental barrier instead of the combination.”

  “How are you going to find her? It could take hours, or you could get caught. One of us is going with you,” Lucas insists.

  I avoid their gazes, tearing at the skin around my nails. “I, um, know where her sinum is. I went there a couple nights ago.”

  “You what?” Pax shouts. “How could you do that, Summer, and not even tell me! You could have died while I slept in that chair. When did you get so stupid?”

  I flinch away from his anger, shrinking toward Lucas for support, but find none. A muscle jerks in his jaw and his eyes harden into sapphires. “While I don’t agree with the name-calling, I do agree with the sentiment. What were you thinking?”

  “I guess I wasn’t. I was worried about you, and I thought if I could eavesdrop and find out how you were doing it would make me feel better. But when I got there, Griffin was lurking around and he took me to Greer—mostly to interrupt her time with Nat, I suspect—and she and I talked for a while. There’s a secret about Deshi she couldn’t tell me because it’s protected, and I think it’s bad. But she did show Pax and me where to find him.”

  “I don’t care if going in there gave you the keys to the kingdom, Althea, don’t do it again. What’s going to happen to all of us if something happens to one of us? Think about that the next time you decide to make a dangerous decision on your own.”

  My anger flares. “I’ve been through a lot of things on my own, Lucas. Half the reason I felt like I had to go was because of the way you’ve been talking since you came back. What happened at the Harvest Site? Whose side are you on?”

  “Look, you guys, now isn’t the time. If we’re going to build Greer a wall, then let’s do it. We can find out what happened and whose side everyone’s on and wrestle it out once we’re all safe.”

  It’s strange to see Pax, normally the instigator in our trio, smoothing things out. But it’s appreciated. “Fine. Pax, you’ll stay here with Greer since of the three of us, you have the most Healing knowledge. Lucas, you’ll come with me in case we’re confronted.”

  We will be confronted, I realize as soon as the words fall out of my face. They’ve been causing Greer pain; to do that, they’ll have to have her trapped. Lucas’s tense frame tells me he figures the same thing, but it’s not going to stop me. Us.

  “Let’s go, then,” he says.

  “Thank you for trusting me.”

  His eyes probe mine, searching for something that eludes me. “I’ve always trusted you, Althea, and tried to keep you safe. But protection isn’t what you need from me. We’ll do it your way.”

  There are so many things I want to say to that, but I squelch the emotions roaring in my ears. “Needing and wanting are two different things, Lucas.”

  He gives me a small, private smile and we grasp hands, the play of hot and cold immediately slamming up my arm and soaking into my bloodstream. Jasmine and pine dance together in the air, and I concentrate hard on my sinum, since I know how to get to Greer’s from there. It’s pretty quiet in the hive, like the previous time I arrived, though the sound of voices echoes quietly off the packed dirt the deeper we go.

  “How much farther?” Lucas whispers.

  “Not much. I think the longer a person has been a part of the hive, the deeper their alcove. Like they built it from the bottom up.”

  I slow my steps as we approach the last turn before our destination. He follows my finger when I point, then presses an arm around me. We hold a wordless conversation, which doesn’t have a specific point other than we’re going to kick some Warden butt if they get in our way.

  Around the corner we find three Wardens outside Greer’s alcove. They see us the same moment we see them, but the difference is that Lucas and I knew they’d be there. In less than ten seconds, I’ve got two of them burned badly enough to slump into sleep states. I’m battling guilt when a grunt of pain catches my attention and I whip around to see Lucas slammed against the wall, the third Warden punching him, not for the first time.

  Blood trickles from Lucas’s bottom lip and fuels rage hotter than I’ve ever felt. When that Warden ignites and stumbles backward, screeching and beating at the flames devouring him, I don’t feel badly at all.

  “Lucas!” I run to him as he struggles to his feet against the dirt wall and press a finger to the corner of his mouth. “Are you okay?”

  He winces at my touch, but holds my hand against his face when I try to yank it away. A lopsided, bloody smile sends relief rushing through me so fast my knees go weak. “I’m fine. I guess it’s time to get used to the fact that you really don’t need me anymore.”

  “I need you. Lucas, I need you so much, just not the way I did last autumn.”

  Noises�
�maybe the sound of boots clunking down a corridor above our heads—call a halt to the moment, but not before Lucas leans down and gently presses his lips against mine. They taste like blood and sweat, but also like everything is going to be okay.

  I move in front of Greer’s sinum, choking on grief when her bent form comes into view. She’s twitching here even though she’s limp in the cabin, and purple blood smears her face. She doesn’t move at our presence, more unaware than Pax was after the battle outside Portland. A brief moment of concentration fills her doorway with metal sheets, and I melt them to the edges until the entrance is completely blocked.

  We’re back in the cabin five minutes after we left, staring at Pax’s nervous face. Greer doesn’t look any different than before, so we’re not going to be able to tell whether she’s okay or not until she wakes up. If she wakes up.

  “Let’s go. Winter and I can take turns carrying Greer, she doesn’t weigh anything.” Pax scoops her up and tosses her over his shoulder, then heads out the door.

  I start to protest the rough treatment, since she’s already injured, but now isn’t the time. We need to move, and we need to do it fast.

  While I was gone earlier, Pax must have cleaned up; except for the dying embers in the fireplace, it doesn’t look as though we’ve spent several days here at all. If the Others show up before the last of the fire goes cold, though, they’ll know someone was living there. And since we’re the last people on the planet who exist outside the controlled boundaries, and they already know someone has been helping us, it’s not going to be hard to put two and two together since they tracked Greer to that place.

  But Greer did say their mother protected this place somehow. Maybe that’s enough. Let’s hope.

  Lucas grabs one backpack, and I sling the other across my shoulders as we leave the cabin behind.

  We’re through the graveyard and moving toward the road when I pull Pax to a stop. “We can’t use the road like Greer said. The Wardens must be on their way here by now, and even though the riders don’t need streets we can’t chance it. We’ll have to stay in the woods but keep the road in sight, if we can, like we did last season.”

  “Good thinking.”

  We struggle through steep, wooded hills and thick underbrush for the better part of the evening, but I know we’re not going to make it before dark. On the map I guessed we were about ten or fifteen hours from our destination on foot, not to mention we don’t exactly know where that is to begin with, even though Greer promised we couldn’t miss it.

  A few minutes before the sun disappears, we find a good spot to stay the night. The trees are dense—good for hiding us—and a flowing stream of fresh water bubbles nearby. Pax yanks a couple of blankets out of one of the packs and spreads them out next to a huge pine tree; Lucas sets Greer down gently. I use another blanket to cover her up, and the hills fill with gentle groans and the sounds of popping joints as we all stretch away the aches and tight muscles deposited by the hike.

  Wolf trots away into the Wilds, looking for food or a break from us, it’s hard to say which.

  “I’m going to wash up a little in the stream.” My feet are so tired I can’t feel them. Dirt from multiple trips into the hive smears my skin, and bits of foliage from trekking through these hills snarl through my hair.

  It hardly seems possible that I had a shower in Danbury just this morning.

  The cold water of the stream arrests the skin on my face and refreshes me even as shivers follow droplets down my throat and neck. A few extra minutes of simply breathing, all alone, help with collecting myself and ordering the events of the past couple of days: the information we’ve learned, and what there still is to figure out.

  Back at our campsite, I try to retain some peace while we build a tiny fire and settle around it. Pax and Lucas are on one side, sitting close but not talking. Pax reads one of the local history books we took from the cabin, and Lucas stares into the flames with a faraway look in his eyes. Greer is spread out a ways behind me against a tree. Wolf pads up and flops down, gently nosing Greer’s limp hand. He whines and looks to me when he gets no response, a simple expression of worry that pushes my heart into my throat.

  I lean back and bury my face in the thick fur of his scruff, scratching his belly. “It’ll be okay, buddy.”

  When we first sat down, Pax and I filled Lucas in on the high points of our trip to Danbury—and the low points. It’s been quiet for a long time now, though, all of us lost in our own thoughts. When Lucas’s voice shudders into the night it speeds my heart to a gallop even before my brain registers his words.

  “I’m going to tell you what happened at the Harvest Site…and exactly whose side I’m on now.”

  CHAPTER 14.

  For a couple seconds, nothing but undiluted terror bangs around inside me. If we’ve been wrong to trust him, if he’s been spying on us this whole time, we’re dead. The Wardens could be waiting in the woods to snatch us up.

  I tell myself that’s not possible. Why would he have helped with Greer only to betray us now? It shocks me that even as my brain remains unsure of Lucas’s allegiance, my heart instinctively believes in him.

  Lucas heaves a sigh, looking twenty years older than when I left him in the park last autumn. “I wish Cadi were here. She could just show you the whole thing and I wouldn’t have to tell you about it.”

  He looks so tired, so lost. It makes me want to wrap my arms around him and make it all go away. But nothing is going away, and if this spring has taught me anything, it’s that whether alone or together, Lucas and I are capable of handling it.

  Pax sets his book down carefully, looking a little bit as if he’s prepared to jump up and sock Lucas in the jaw if he says anything that’s less than agreeable. The two of us lock eyes through the dying flames, sharing concern at the detached tone of Lucas’s voice. I give him a tight shake of the head and he shrugs.

  “She’s not here, Lucas, and you’re scaring us,” I prod.

  “The Goblert—the little guy who blew the dust on me—transported me straight to the Harvest Site. This place…you guys wouldn’t believe it. My fantastic dream, your nightmare, Althea. Ice as far as you can see. Temperatures so cold the Others built these structures just so human beings can survive. They told me regular people would freeze to death in less than fifteen minutes if unprotected, and there isn’t any wildlife.”

  “This is on Earth? How is that possible?” It’s fascinating, but now that we’ve seen a map that shows just how small of a speck our Sanctioned Cities are, I suppose it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds that there could be a place with such an extreme climate.

  “They put me to work. The Prime was there along with some Wardens, maybe fifty. Apa’s job is to keep the ice thick so they can mine. They’re extracting something underneath the surface, pulling it up through the ice, and all of the activity melts it unless Apa—or me, I guess—keeps it frozen.”

  “What happens if it melts?” Pax leaps in with a question this time, his eyes riveted by Lucas.

  “Primarily their concern is that it would compromise their resource. I still don’t know what it is, by the way. I never saw what they’re harvesting, but if the ice melts the mines will collapse. Secondary issues are what would have forced them off the planet—if the ice all melts, eventually the rest of the planet would be uninhabitable. It would flood the oceans and swamp most of the landmasses, given enough time.”

  “How could you not see the resource? And if only some of the Wardens were there with the Prime, how are they harvesting enough of whatever it is to sustain their race?”

  Lucas levels me with an empty gaze. “That Nat guy didn’t lie about the Broken not being dead. They’re there. At the Harvest Site. Thousands of them.”

  The forest and the hills, the crackling fire, the warmth of Wolf’s presence at my back, everything disappears into blackness. A buzzing takes up residence in my ears, but I can hear Pax’s gasped reaction, so I’m not passed out, even though I can’t s
ee. Finally my vision clears, and Lucas’s stare has filled with concern, at least around the edges.

  “You okay, Althea?”

  “No. No, I’m definitely not okay. Tell us about them. The Broken.”

  “The Prime made sure to keep me separated from them. I saw them from afar; he kept me locked in a cage like our parents, and no one was allowed to speak to me. It was a boring job, honestly, just pressing my hands into the ice three times a day and expending enough energy to refreeze the water that started to flow deep down. The ice goes down forever, from what I could feel, and the mines reach like fingers into the deepest parts of the earth. But I saw them. People we know…knew.”

  I’m holding my breath, but it squeaks out at those last words. “Who? Who did you see?”

  “One of the girls from our chemistry class. Emmy, I think. Our chemistry Monitor, the one whose smile always quivered. That little boy from the news, the one whose parents Broke and killed each other or whatever.”

  Pax’s strangled gasp squeezes my heart. Tommy’s alive after all.

  “What are they doing to them?” Pax manages to croak. The fear and desperate guilt swirl off him like a windstorm, sweeping up little tornados and swirling his spicy-sweet scent through the air.

  Lucas shoots Pax a strange look, then turns one full of questions at me, but I give him a tiny head shake. It’s Pax’s story to tell, not mine.

  “They’re prisoners, obviously. And they’re not treated very well, from what I can see. They’re thin and they look tired, but they don’t seem veiled. Unhappy faces all around. I’m guessing the Others don’t bother with controlling their minds since they’re in control of their bodies.” Lucas stops, sucks in a deep breath. “They work all day and half the night. If they don’t cooperate they’re punished. Even the…even the kids.”

  Silence returns, and I don’t know about Pax, but my emotions start at horrified, climb toward distress, and end up at anger like I’ve haven’t felt since Zakej tortured Lucas right in front of me or those Wardens hurt Wolf in Wyoming. “At least they’re alive. Even if things are bad, we can still save them,” I bite out.