Betrayals in Spring (The Last Year, #3)

by Trisha Leigh

  “That’s what changed my mind once and for all. No matter how much time I spend with Apa, or how sure I am that he wants the best for me—and I do believe that—it doesn’t alter the bald truth that they don’t care about the humans. It doesn’t mean they won’t do the same thing to another planet. The bottom line for them isn’t love, it’s survival.” He breaks off, biting his lower lip. “That’s not what I want to believe. So, I’m in for saving Earth, for ousting the Others, for setting those people—all people—free. No matter what it costs, no matter who has to die. I’m in.”

  The bottom line for them isn’t love, it’s survival.

  Those words wrap around my brain like a freezing wet blanket, uncomfortable and hard to cast off. It’s the essence of the questions that have been rattling around inside me for the past several weeks, as I wonder about my mother and about how we’ll defeat the Others or whether they’re evil at all.

  “Is it evil to try to survive, even if that means kill or be killed?” I watch the question harden disdain into lines around Lucas’s eyes.

  “It’s not evil to try to survive, Althea, but they don’t have to do it this way. Their presence does fundamentally change a planet’s atmosphere, that’s true. But they don’t have to slip the veils into people’s minds—that’s for their convenience. They don’t have to take people who don’t fit into society, whether it’s because of how smart they are or if they’re physically deformed or maybe their brain just can’t handle being controlled, but they do. They call them Broken and enslave them, and they don’t think it’s wrong.” He frowns at me. “I know how you feel, because you’ve spent time with your mother and seen the love in her eyes. Pax’s dad saved his life a couple of weeks ago, too. Maybe the Elements have changed, but we can’t let the fact that they’re our parents cloud our judgment.”

  “And we have human parents, too, you know,” Pax interjects, his voice urgent, as though he can’t stand the fact that we can’t jump into a battle right this second. “Just because we never met them doesn’t mean they didn’t love us, too.”

  Sadness opens up in my heart like a flower, one that might always be there, fed by the knowledge that I’ll never meet my father—that he died because of my mom and me. “You’re right. We might be half-Other, but we’re half-human, too. And in this fight, I don’t see how we can choose the Others’ side. Even if it means we don’t live through the war.”

  The relief that Lucas’s time at the Harvest Site deposited him back in the right frame of mind loosens my muscles until I want to collapse. “If the Harvest Site is surrounded by nothing but a huge expanse of ice, so there were no trees, how did you use Greer’s portal to return?”

  “Once my dad healed enough to take over, they sent me back with the Goblert. He was supposed to take me to where Deshi is and hold me like bait for you two. Once we were off the ice block, I leaned on the first tree we passed and poof—back at the cabin.” He shrugs. “He didn’t seem interested in stopping me.”

  “What’s a Goblert?” Pax asks the question I’m suddenly too exhausted to form.

  “Another half-breed experiment. They can forge certain elements, and the Others thought perhaps they could learn to synthetically create the resource that sustains them. It didn’t work; apparently the Goblerts can only forge gases. The one you saw is one of three, but he can’t tell us what the resource is, either. The Others genetically engineered the half-Goblerts to be born without tongues.” He shivers, then slides sideways until his head lays on one of the backpacks. “I think I’ll go to sleep now.”

  “Me, too.” Pax drags his blankets farther away from the fire so he can nestle against a tree.

  My eyes droop, too; the past few days have completely drained me. Wolf’s snores wind through the night, and Pax’s join them a few minutes later. The sounds of animals in the hills, rustling, hooting, holding indecipherable conversations in the night, twine into a sort of lullaby that’s become a familiar comfort over the past several months.

  The fire has gone out when movement starts me fully awake, and then the scent of pine brushes my cheek and threads through my hair. Breath catches in my lungs as Lucas climbs over me and settles so we’re facing each other but not touching, the lengths of our bodies stretched out on my thick pad of blankets. I huddle under one, but of course Lucas isn’t chilled by the northern spring air.

  Even so, every inch of me is aware of him—from my toes, up my shins, across my belly, and into the tip of my nose. My skin prickles and shivers, alight with the knowledge that I could reach out and hold him the way I used to, but that now something more urgent runs beneath the thrilling familiarity.

  For a moment I worry about Pax, but he’s at least fifteen feet away and clouds have rolled over the moon and stars, leaving the night oppressively black.

  Lucas gives me a weary smile, but the sight of his dimple drops my stomach into my toes. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” I smile back, laying my hand flat on the blanket in the space between us.

  Lucas copies my movement so that our pinkie fingers are touching. We breathe each other in for a while, and even though we’re not talking and it should be weird, searching his eyes for the answers to my life seems like a normal thing to do for the next couple of hours. Or days. Or for the rest of my life.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I want to wipe away the guilt crinkling the corners of his worried blue eyes. It’s behind us now.

  “For scaring you. For letting the time I spent with my dad cloud my judgment. I was always coming back, Althea. Even if I had to walk from the Harvest Site. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere without you. For a while I just thought…I guess I wondered if both of us wouldn’t have a better future with them.” He moves his hand until his pinkie intertwines with mine.

  “They wouldn’t let us have a life, Lucas. We’d be prisoners. Like our parents.”

  “I know. I realized that pretty quickly. While I was there, I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was lie awake, staring at all that ice, terrified I was never going to see you again.” He swallows hard a couple of times, anxiety washing off of him in pine-scented waves.

  Like the first time he kissed me, his nerves infect me, smudge the world around us out of existence. He snuck over here to say something, and the thought of what it might be pounds my heart into a frantic beat.

  “You asked me to leave the feelings between us on the back burner until we got through the coming fight, Althea, and I get why. But being away reminded me that we might not have a chance to move them to the front. If we never get to know what the future will bring, then that’s the way it is. But I can’t live another minute scared that you aren’t sure of me. Of what I want.” He pauses, eyes finding mine and holding on for dear life. His hand crosses farther into my space, covering mine and squeezing hard. “I love you, Althea. I didn’t even know what that meant before I met you, and sometimes I still think we really don’t, but when I see you and touch you and feelings fill me and turn into words, that’s what’s there. I love you.”

  His face blurs through my tears, and no matter how many times I swallow, I can’t respond. It’s too much to believe—that he’s never going to leave me, that we’re going to fight the Others together the way we planned last autumn, that the possibility of what’s between us could solidify into something lasting.

  That he loves me as much as I love him.

  It’s not confusion that stills my tongue. It’s partly fear of ruining the moment, and partly the fact that we don’t know if we’ll ever have a future, and talking about how we’d like it to be scares me all over again.

  He doesn’t let go of my hand or get angry or act like I’m letting him down when I don’t respond. He simply watches me, his face wide open with emotion, the truth of his feelings pouring out of his eyes and into my heart.

  “You don’t have to say anything. I know there are the Others and Greer and Pax all fighting for your attention.” He chokes a little on the last word. “But if we di
e tomorrow…” He gulps a breath, and tears fill my eyes. “I just want to know it’s still the two of us. You and me.”

  “But it’s not, Lucas. It’s never going to be the way it was again. No matter how much we wish we could go back there.”

  “We wish?” Hope lights his blue eyes, lifting the guilt and worry out of the lines around them.

  No matter how much I want to make it all better, the looming battle, the fear of upsetting the tenuous balance the three of us managed to achieve tonight won’t let me say the words. I can’t tell Lucas how much hidden parts of me are hoping that one day, it will be the two of us again.

  But I can show him.

  This time it’s me who crosses the space between us, closes the gap I put there, and presses my lips against his.

  Pleasure sighs out of him and wraps around me, and a perfect sense of shelter pulls me tight against him. My free arm slides around Lucas’s neck and his tightens around my waist until our bodies are flush under the moonlight. I lay my head back on his hard bicep and his face covers mine, his hand slipping around to press against my stomach.

  There’s no hurry to the kiss, no sense of frenetic need, but it sizzles like none we’ve shared before tonight. My heart pounds wildly as my hands explore the muscles in his back and shoulders, my trailing fingers eliciting delightful gasps. The intense emotion fills me with a thrilling mixture of soft contentment and simmering desire.

  This time, I don’t stop him. I’m the one opening my lips against Lucas’s, begging for more, asking him not to halt this perfect moment. The fire blazing through me meets the icy chill of him, playing into a snug warmth that hovers around us. My hands leave his body, wrestle loose the blanket that keeps my body from touching his, and the weight of him offers a new sensation, one I want to feel again and again.

  His hand slips underneath my sweatshirt, making me shiver. I copy his movement, sliding my palm up the goose-bumped skin of his side, until we’ve moved enough material that the bare skin of our stomachs press together and we both gasp, our quiet confessions vibrating through our lips.

  It’s then that I pull back, as much as I want more. My body needs something my brain doesn’t understand, doesn’t have words for, but hungers for with an innate craving. I fight with my head, which knows that no matter how Lucas can surround me with love and refuge, this isn’t the time or place. The rest of me longs to drag him away into the woods, where no one could see us except perhaps the animals lurking in the night, and follow our bodies down a path they seem to know.

  We stare at each other, still pressed tight together, while my heartbeat returns to normal and Lucas’s breath no longer pants against my cheek. My mind clicks back into control, worrying that if I don’t return Lucas’s profession of love that he’ll eventually decide he doesn’t love me after all, or that he shouldn’t.

  But I promised myself we wouldn’t let these feelings interfere with the coming fight. As much as I love him, the idea of promising a future after this mess strikes me as tempting fate.

  I scoot to the side until we return to our own space, only our hands touching between us. “I’m…sorry. I got carried away. I know I’m the one who said we need to keep things friendly and that was…not.”

  It’s hard to apologize for something I’m definitely not sorry happened.

  “Oh, on the contrary, that was very friendly behavior.” He flashes me his dimple, but the grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t act like it’s okay.”

  Lucas reaches over and settles his hand on my hip, his cold lingering. “It’s going to be okay. I know it.” He leans forward and kisses the corners of my mouth, then presses his lips against mine until I relax and sigh.

  We stay cuddled together under the stars, not speaking. I remember the first night we spent together in my bedroom at the Morgans’, how Lucas’s arms have always given me at least the illusion that they can keep all of the bad things away. The air wrapping around us is a perfect, warm temperature and, after a few minutes, my eyes grow heavy.

  Lucas brushes a reluctant, lingering kiss over my cheek, then goes back to his spot on the opposite side of the extinguished fire. The air around me grows too cold immediately, and I wrap the blanket back around me, burrowing against the ground for warmth.

  In the dark, I raise my fingers to my mouth, feel the cold intensity of him against me. In spite of all of my fighting, I ignore the terror of disappointment and peek into the future.

  Hope against hope that our wish will come true.

  CHAPTER 15.

  The next morning, I’m the first one awake. I roll over, stretching muscles rolled into tight balls from sleeping on the ground. Greer’s purple eyes are open wide, staring as though she’s sightless and reflecting nothing but abject terror.

  Then I scream, and everyone else, including Wolf, struggles frantically to consciousness and to my side. We all stare at Greer.

  She makes no attempt to move or to speak, not when we address her or touch her. Just stares.

  “I Broke her.” Tears clog my throat. “I Broke her mind. I shouldn’t have gone in there, we don’t understand enough. Why did I think was a good idea?”

  “Summer, stop.” Pax grabs me firmly by the shoulders, turns me to face him. It helps, not being able to see her blank expression. “We don’t know anything. Once we find cover somewhere, we can freak out and try to figure out what’s going on, but for now we need to pack up and leave. Quietly.”

  He’s right. Screaming out here, with the Wardens so close on both sides, will be the death of us. I don’t know what we’re going to do about Greer. What I do know is that I’m done hiding. Once we locate the Underground Core, I’m never hiding again.

  I don’t voice the sentiment to the boys, who will both disagree for safety’s sake. Instead I pull my hair down and run my fingers through the dirt, the benefits of yesterday’s shower long since worn off. “Pax, did you throw any shampoo in the packs? Or toothpaste?” I ask, trying to focus on what I can control.

  “Um, toothpaste yes, shampoo no. I threw in a bar of soap, though.”

  It’s better than nothing. “I’m going to wash up.”

  Leaving Greer brings me both relief and instant concern, not that the boys won’t watch over her or come and get me if anything changes for the worse. I strip and lower myself into the freezing stream, letting the heat inside me flow out and warm the water to a bearable degree. The soap slicks my skin, and my hair hangs in sudsy clumps as my brain tries to untangle my feelings from what needs to be done.

  We need to get Deshi. We need to figure out how to help Greer, and maybe Nat and Griffin, if they’re still alive. Maybe the boys think that the Sidhe and especially Nat aren’t our problem, but it doesn’t seem right to pick and choose who we try to steal from the Others’ death grasp. Still, Deshi remains the priority. Getting him will mean the difference between hope and failure.

  I finish cleaning myself, getting dressed and then letting my hands warm as I run them through my hair. It’s dry in a couple of minutes, and for once my inherited ability to heat up brings a smile to my face. It does have a few convenient uses, now that I’m comfortable enough to experiment with it.

  Lucas trades places with me, heading down to the creek to wash up, and Pax’s eyes light up at my improved appearance. I smile back distractedly, watching Greer stare off into nothing.

  I suppose we should be happy she’s not dead or hard to handle. At least this way we can take care of her. Maybe she can even walk. It occurs to me that even though she’s in some kind of weird mental state, her body probably still needs to go through routine functions. “Hey Pax, come here a second.”

  He stands up from where he’s packing the blankets in our bags and rounds the remnants of the fire to stand at my side. “Why are you staring at her?”

  “Let’s see if we can get her to stand up.”

  “You don’t need me for that.” Pax reaches both hands down toward Greer, waving them in he
r face.

  After a minute of befuddled staring, she sticks out her hands. The motion is so jerky that I half expect her limbs to creak as though they’re made out of wood. Pax slides his hands against hers and slowly pulls her up while she unfolds her legs and stumbles upright. When he lets go she sways and threatens to topple over again, so he leaves one strong, tanned arm around her waist.

  “Help me walk her a little ways away so she can make waste, okay?”

  Lucas hands me a water bottle and some paper we took from the wasteroom at the cabin, then I wind an arm around Greer’s waist and take her weight from Pax. The boys are right about her not weighing anything, but she does lean on me more than a little as the two of us help her a couple minutes into the hills.

  I nod at Pax and he slowly lets her go, checking to make sure I’ve got her before heading back toward our fire. “Just whistle when you’re done, or if you need help, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  It takes a long time and near-constant urging to get Greer to eliminate.

  When she does make waste, she doesn’t pull up her dress and squat the way I would, but instead pads to the base of a tree in her bare feet and curls her toes into the mud. A few minutes later, spring flowers push up around her toes and circle around her heels, small and weak and most likely unable to survive the frosty spring day.

  I fall into a fit of giggles and am actually glad she’s only semiconscious or she would be embarrassed. It’s strange the way I keep expecting all beings to be like me, even though they continually surprise me.

  The boys are both clean and ready to leave when Greer and I struggle back to them. She’s supporting more of her own weight now, her step light through the wooded hills, and only needs my hand to steady her once in a while. We find the road again and follow it the direction she pointed yesterday, when she still had wits and life and I hadn’t Broken her.