Winter Omens

by Trisha Leigh

  Pax interrupts my thoughts again, and his words are strangely along the same lines. “Maybe the humans are better off. They’re innocent, like the boys were before the war. Happy. Who are we to take that away from them?”

  “They didn’t choose it, that’s why. And because we know something they don’t. That the Others have no intention of leaving this planet inhabitable when they leave.” I wait for him to give some sign of agreement, but he doesn’t. I remind myself of what he’s been through, that he’s sure that trying to tell the truth cost little Tommy a family. I understand his hesitance, but it’s not going to change my mind. “They’ll never give up, Pax. They won’t leave us alone, not even if we stay out of sight for the rest of our lives.”

  “I just don’t know what’s right anymore. Let’s keep taking this one day at a time, okay? Right now, what I know is that you can’t stop sleeping. It’s impossible. So for you, Althea, and for today, I’ll face them. We’ll figure out how to keep them out of your head—or keep you out of theirs—and we’ll at least discuss our options as far as waking up the humans. After we find out what happened to Tommy.”

  Gratitude floods me from head to toe until I want to collapse into a puddle of relief. Pax presses his shoulders back into my knees, his version of a handshake, I suppose. I’m relieved he doesn’t turn to face me, because I doubt I’d have the willpower to keep my hands to myself and then who knows where we’d end up. The whole building could go up in a storm of fire and wind.

  A noisy yawn, attended by an exhausted gurgle, escapes his hold and makes me giggle. I get up. “Here. Get some rest.”

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

  Pax would stay awake if I asked him to, but he’s already climbing onto the couch hoping I won’t. It gives me a little bit of happiness, to be able to do something for him. “Yes. I’m not ready to sleep yet, anyway. I’m going to read, or sit outside for a while. Or just be thankful I’m alive.”

  “I really am sorry, Summer. About letting you down.”

  “You didn’t let me down, Pax. You saved me.”

  CHAPTER 17.

  When Pax wakes up later, we take a walk into the woods to find something for dinner that doesn’t currently reside in a can or jar. I would do terrible things for a slice of bread, so killing a squirrel or rabbit doesn’t seem like such an abhorrent prospect. Until now, Wolf has done the dirty work, but that’s really not fair.

  We stumble across three deer grazing near an almost frozen stream. Two have antlers and one doesn’t, and the memory of the deer Lucas and I met in Connecticut lifts wistfulness through me like a breeze. She was the first animal we met, the one that proved the Others had lied, and the gentleness in her eyes stilled my heart.

  Pax quirks an eyebrow in a silent question. My stomach and heart and brain wage a silent battle: one begging for food, the next arguing for mercy for an animal who would never hurt me, and the last lecturing that people eat meat. A rabbit or squirrel wouldn’t hurt me, either, but I’ve eaten plenty of those. What stops me is the fact that we’re planning on leaving this place, maybe tomorrow if Wolf can travel, and we can’t carry meat with us. I’m not going to take a life and then waste it, leave it behind to rot in an abandoned ranger’s station.

  I shake my head, putting a finger to my lips so we can watch them for another couple of seconds. The deer sense our presence before long, evidenced by their twitching tails and pricked ears. A few minutes after the last one disappears into the trees, we spot two gray squirrels—much more reasonable—on the lowest branch of a tree. This time I nod in response to Pax’s silent question, and he begins like we discussed before leaving on this mission today.

  He raises his palms upward, and within seconds the squirrels’ perch whips violently, creaking in the unnatural wind. Nothing is burning, but Pax’s scent of smoky leaves threads through my hair and I know it’s going to smell like that until I wash it again. The small animals freeze, uncertain and fearful, and drop toward the ground with the branch when it snaps free from the trunk. Pax lowers his hand and I run toward the falling animals. Before the squirrels can smash into the ground and feel pain, I shoot what I hope is the right amount of heat at them.

  I get one right, but the second is a blackened husk. The good one’s fur smokes a little bit, but otherwise it looks simply dead. Pax comes over and grabs them both by the tail, which is also part of our agreement, and we trek back to the cabin.

  Wolf is in a tizzy about being left behind, and licks our hands, sniffing the already-cooked animals curiously. He’s moving better, though he still limps on his bad leg. It worries me, when he forgets he’s hurt, that he’s going to rip open the closing wound if he gets too excited.

  Pax and I share the meat of the nonblackened rodent, pairing it with our last can of corn. Wolf seems perfectly happy with the crispy one. Even though the sound of his chomping makes me a little sick to my stomach, it pleases me to have been able to catch him dinner for once.

  After we eat, my eyes feel heavy but my heart can’t settle down long enough to fall asleep. Pax tries to talk me into it for a while, promising a million different ways to stay right by my side and wake me up every hour, but when I don’t take him up on the offer, he changes tact.

  “Let’s try the wall thing, then.”

  “No, I told you. It’s too soon. I’m not ready to go back there.” I don’t even know if I can go back there, but my mouth feels like someone stuffed cotton into it at the thought of trying.

  “We can do this.”

  “What do you mean we, Pax? It’s me that has to go, and I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Summer, you can’t keep this up. You want me to say I’ll fight? Well, we can’t fight anything if you’re not at full strength, and you haven’t slept a whole night in weeks. How are you going to hike anywhere tomorrow or the next day?” He takes a deep breath, his mouth set in a determined line. “And I meant we. I’ll go with you. Or I plan to try.”

  “How?”

  “The same way you and Winter traveled. We share our power, and let it take us away.”

  All of the moisture goes out of my mouth, making it hard to swallow. After a moment, I force myself to nod, fighting with the strange mixture of thankfulness and terror closing up my throat.

  We arrange ourselves on the floor in front of the fire, facing each other with our crossed legs barely touching at the knees so we can’t get lost. My hands hold tight to his. Our eyes meet for a minute, then we close them. On the count of three, we push a little bit of our power through our hands, until mine are hot but not scorching and a sweet, burnt-smelling breeze sweeps ashes out of the fireplace.

  I turn my mind inward, searching for the area where Fire talks to me. I don’t feel alone, but once I let go of reality, there’s no way to tell whether or not it’s Pax with me in the ranger’s station or Chief and his creepy sister waiting for me on the far side of this experiment. There’s nothing concrete in this place—this hollow, black cavern of my mind. In a moment of sudden, terrifying clarity, the crushing emptiness of my travels slams into my chest and I know this is how Ko and Cadi move us around—through the tunnels. I don’t know how it works, but this solid belief that I don’t really exist has never taken hold of me anywhere else.

  My stomach clenches and fear spins alarm down my legs. What if I get stuck in the blackness? We’re not supposed to be in here on our own, I’m guessing, and the anxiety over being trapped here forever makes me want to turn around and fumble my way back to the station in the woods. It might be my imagination but support blows against my back, smelling briefly of cinnamon, and I stop fighting. Pax is here. I have to sleep. There must be a way to keep the Others out while I’m not protecting my consciousness.

  It dawns on me again that if we can get into human heads, and if I can enter the hive, then we might be able to invade the Others’ minds, too. It’s already been established that we’re linked, but what if we could hear their plans or know if they’re close to discovering us?
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  What if we could cause them pain instead of the other way around?

  I’m not sure what good this would do, because Cadi said no one had figured out how to defeat them, and she and Ko have had years of practice. As far as torture, I doubt I have the stomach for it. But right now, with my lack of sleep, I think maybe I could do anything.

  I’m literally stumbling around in here like a person with no eyes. Instead of trying to move my feet, which isn’t doing any discernible good, I concentrate on my sinum, what it looks like, the way the tunnels stretch outside the opening. How the packed dirt smells faintly loamy, and what my mother’s face looks like when she smiles at me.

  It works. Not only that, but when shapes melt from the pressing blackness, I can feel Pax’s hands still clutched around mine. And to my utter astonishment, a pile of red bricks, like the ones that build our Cells, fill up a corner of my alcove. Next to the stack is a bucket of some gray goop and a tool, probably to stick them together.

  That my mind can build a wall with my hands is too much to comprehend. In fact, a year ago I would not have believed a tenth of what my brain is apparently capable of. Pax doesn’t speak, just catches my gaze and then points down the tunnels, then to his eyes.

  He goes to the opening, putting his back to me. He’s keeping watch, I guess. We need to work on our nonverbal communication. Only not the kissing kind.

  I get to work on the wall, stacking layers of bricks and smearing gray, sticky stuff in between them. No noises beside the occasional scrape of a brick filter down the tunnels, which should calm me down, but it shakes my nerves instead. It’s not that I want the Others paying attention to what’s going on in this corner of the hive, but where they all might be instead concerns me. They could be out looking for me and Pax, or hunting down Lucas. Getting rid of Ko or Deshi. Anything. Anywhere.

  As the wall grows, a feeling that this will work fills my fingertips, and strength flows into my hands. I’m not constructing it with bricks, but out of fierce determination.

  When only a couple of columns remain, Pax backs inside and helps me finish. We’re trapped inside my little alcove, and a strange claustrophobia like I haven’t felt since the night I took my first trip in a hot, stuffy rider claws at my lungs. My breath chokes out in gasps and the tiny space heats to an uncomfortable degree.

  Althea, honey. Calm down. All you have to do is imagine where you want to be instead. No one is keeping you here against your will.

  My mother’s image shimmers in the wall, then disappears. It’s working. She can’t get in, even though she knows I’m here.

  Flacara. You betrayed me. If you had never found my alcove, none of this would be happening. I hope she can hear me.

  I’m sorry. I’m not as strong as I should be, and what happened to you is my fault. But you must know I didn’t do it so I could lead the Prime and his children to your mind. I only wanted to know you. To help you if I could. I thought I could be careful.

  I grind my teeth together. Well, you were wrong.

  I hear her sigh. I know. I won’t come to you again. The wall won’t hold forever. Your strength of will keeps it intact, but they are strong willed, too. Especially Kendaja. They’ll get through, eventually.

  What’s wrong with her? I ask.

  She’s been Broken since birth. Were she not the Prime Other’s offspring, she would have been disposed of as an infant. Kendaja is, as you would say my daughter, totally banana balls. Unhinged. A wild card, though she wasn’t always cruel.

  There’s no answer for the information but to have her confirm my fears thickens the cold pool of dread in my gut. Good-bye, Fire.

  Good-bye, my darling girl.

  I pull Pax into a hug, pressing our bodies together just in case, because I can’t bear the thought of having to come back to this place to get him. I imagine the ranger’s station and the place we sat in front of the fire, Wolf stretched out beside us.

  And then we’re there. Brick dust and gray adhesive crumbles off my hands when I brush them together, trying to stop the trembling and get a grip before Pax asks me what’s wrong. I don’t want to talk about my mother, mostly because I don’t know how to feel. Besides her, all of the people in my life fit into nice little molds. The Others are bad. Cadi and Ko are good. The humans aren’t a threat. Lucas is who I depend on, Pax a buoyant strength.

  Fire, though? I have no read on whether she’s telling the truth about not leading the Prime and his children right to me with her silent orders and comfort over the past couple of years. The images of the Elements that hang in our Cells are cold, their eyes revealing nothing but revulsion for the population they rule, but now I know they fell in love with human beings. Fire loved a man, Ben, and together they made me, even though they both knew the Others would kill them if my existence was discovered. She took steps to hide me when the Others did find out, so why would she help them capture me now?

  The truth burrows beneath my questions, perhaps kept hidden by my fear, by the fact that maybe I’m not ready to know. Whatever the truth is, it isn’t simple. The Elements aren’t good or bad. They’re neither friend nor enemy. My soul aches to know my mother, to feel the warmth of her arms around me, to let her tell me how to harness my reactions to Pax and help me understand my feelings for Lucas. My brain urges caution, though, reminding me of the Others’ level of control over their own. Fire is a prisoner, after all.

  My heart can’t decide which side to take, but no matter what else is true, I know I’d be stupid to trust her.

  CHAPTER 18.

  It’s early evening when we return from our successful covert mission in the hive. I have trouble believing it worked but, with Fire’s warning about it not lasting forever ringing in my ears, I snuggle into the couch, head to toe with Pax. With my free hand dangling onto Wolf’s back, my eyes slip closed with breathless anticipation of sleep for the first time in weeks.

  My dreams are nonexistent, and I don’t wake up in my walled-off sinum or anywhere else. In the morning, my eyes pop open to an empty room, which speeds my heartbeat for a moment until the sound of Pax in the wasteroom finds its way to my ears. The hours of uninterrupted rest make my body feel loose and fresh for the first time in weeks. I stretch my arms all the way above my head, squeaking a little as my joints pop and my toes dig into the arm of the couch.

  When Pax walks into the room and smiles at me, I smile back, thinking that this is how life could be if things were different. Maybe this is how it was on Earth before the Others.

  A shadow crosses Pax’s face. “I only left you for, like, three minutes, I promise. I had to get a drink of water and brush my teeth.”

  “It’s okay. How long did I sleep?”

  “A long time. It’s almost dark again.” He grins once more, confidence returned. “And guess what else?”

  I sit up, propping my back against an arm of the couch and drawing my knees to my chest. His excitement infects the air and stretches my smile wider, even though I’m a little concerned that he let me sleep so long. We should have left this morning. Then again, we don’t actually know where we’re going. “What?”

  “Wolf caught us some dinner.”

  Pax disappears into the kitchen for a few seconds, returning with an animal I’ve never seen before and don’t recall learning about in any textbook. Kind of like a squirrel, but about four times as large, a darker brown, and with a flat tail.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea, but it’s nice and fat.”

  My stomach rumbles in response. “Wolf’s feeling better then, I guess?”

  “Yeah. He scratched at the door this morning until I woke up and let him out. Instead of limping out and doing his business as usual, he took off. I was glad he came back, too, because you would have been pretty ticked off at me if he disappeared while you slept.”

  “Very true.”

  I slide to the floor and crawl to the fire, tossing on a few more soggy pieces of wood and coaxing the flames higher. Pax goes into the kitchen an
d the sound of him whacking at the dead animal makes me grateful all over again for his presence in my life. It’s enough for me to know that I can skin and cook an animal. Not having to actually do it is preferable.

  Wolf noses under my arm, earning some pets. Twigs and mud decorate his thick black-and-white coat, but by the time Pax brings in the skewered pieces of meat, the dog has cleaned himself up. I’ve considered washing him in the basin, but for one, he probably wouldn’t like it, and two, he’s going to get filthy again as soon as we leave anyway.

  While the meat heats and sizzles, dripping juices into my crackling fire, the scent of food makes my hollow center throb. We’ve avoided the decision of what to do next long enough, so as we pick dinner from the animal’s bones and listen to Wolf crunch his portion, I bring it up. “What are we going to do now that they know we’re going to Portland?”

  Pax chews for a couple of minutes; whether he’s gathering his thoughts or simply doesn’t want to talk with his mouth full, I can’t say. He tosses Wolf a bone, then wipes his greasy hands on his pants. “I still want to go see what we can find out about Tommy, and maybe Deshi, too. You said you didn’t see Desh in the hive, right?”

  “Nope.” To be honest, it hadn’t crossed my mind to look for the real Deshi, our fourth, but he would have stuck out like a sore thumb in that room filled with blond-haired, black-eyed Others had he been there. “But the Others will be waiting for us, won’t they?”

  “Well, for one thing, they have to figure we’re not stupid enough to go there now. For another, we might be able to convince them we’re somewhere else.” Pax’s mischievous smile returns, flickering all the way into his eyes.

  In spite of the situation, my own grin emerges without a second thought. That undeniable pull between us tugs hard when he looks at me like that, as though tackling me to the ground and kissing me in between laughs for hours might be all that’s on his mind. It’s confusing. Lucas made me feel something similar, but this is different. Without Lucas here, with everything Pax and I have been through now, my memory seems to be playing tricks on me, trying to convince me last autumn wasn’t what I imagined, that it didn’t feel like a promise of more to come.