The driver pulls up in front of one of the larger houses and gets out to open the door as he did before. Asher’s grandmother steps out first, then Asher scoots around me and turns to offer me his hand.
His grandmother’s house is stunning. Easily the most amazing of all the houses on this street. Judging by the windows, it’s three stories tall, which is the same as Gavin’s house but this one seems larger somehow, more imposing. Concrete steps lead up to a set of magnificent wood and glass doors. On either side of that, two large windows jut out from the brick siding at strange angles.
“What do you think?” Asher asks in my ear.
“It’s … it’s amazing.” I can’t keep the awe from my voice.
“Are you going to keep the girl in the cold all day, Asher?” his grandmother asks.
He shakes himself and says, “Uh … no.” He looks a little embarrassed, but offers me his arm to help me up the steps. “This way.”
Just before I pass through the door a blast of freezing wind makes me shiver.
“Let’s get you to your room,” Asher says. “You can take a nice hot shower. By that time, I’m sure Cook will have breakfast ready.”
I nod and let him escort me to my room. Along the way I stare, amazed at how much wood is in the house. Everything is wood. The stairs. The walls. The furniture in the rooms I pass. Even the floors.
The most surprising—in a completely fantastic way—is the bathroom. Two large wooden doors open into a large room at least twice the size of Gavin’s bathroom. The walls have pretty gray tile crawling halfway up the walls. The rest of the wall to the ceiling, which is I don’t know how many meters above my head and has a window in it that I can see through to the beautiful blue sky, is more wood.
Attached to this first room is another, smaller room, which has big black square tiles up the entire wall and along the floor. Upon closer inspection, I realize that the smaller room is actually a really large, luxurious shower. Glass doors section that room in half with one half being the shower, and the other holding white robes on hooks. Underneath the hooks, towels are folded neatly on a wooden bench.
In the main part of the room, there’s a low-to-the-ground, egg-shaped bathtub where the faucet comes straight out of the wood paneling, allowing water to fall into the tub. It looks deliciously inviting, but I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep if I use it, so I figure I’ll shower instead.
Asher shows me where everything is and how it all works. It’s different from the village. For one, we don’t have to ration the water. I can take as long of a shower as I want. And there’s a heater built into the ceiling. I don’t even have to switch on a pump like at Gavin’s house.
The hot water sluices away days of dirt and grime, stinging the fresh wounds on my leg and shoulder, while the old bullet wound just stirs with its familiar throb. As refreshing as the water is, I’m achy, and confused, and my heart feels heavy every time I think of Gavin. Which is pretty much always. I don’t bother to look at any of the scrapes and cuts and bruises crisscrossing my body, and I specifically avoid looking at my shoulder.
When I finish, I slip into one of the robes, then limp into the bedroom. Asher’s grandmother is waiting for me. She’s sitting on the bed, holding something red and silky-looking in her weathered hands. She holds out the fabric when she sees me.
“Here, they’re pajamas. They should fit you well enough.”
With a murmured “Thank you,” I take them, and hobble back into the bathroom to pull them on. They’re cool to the touch and so soft I can’t help but coo a little when the fabric rubs against my wind, sand, and sunburned skin.
When I come back, adjusting the top over the bottoms, Asher and his grandmother are sitting at a little table in the corner of the bedroom. There are bowls set out and when I sit at the empty seat, Asher ladles soup into the bowl in front of me.
At first I gobble it down, along with the bread his grandmother places on a plate next to me. Asher does the same and there’s no other sound except the scraping of our spoons against the bowls and the occasional slurp as we drink.
But my mind keeps circling back around to Gavin. How he’s still out there. Somewhere. Probably hungry and hurt. Burning under the heat of the sun as it shoves the chill of night rudely away. All of the things Asher and I were, but now aren’t. I don’t know what else to do about it, though, so I just keep eating. Keep feeling guilty. Keep aching for him.
Finally full, I push the bowl away and rest my chin on my palm as Asher and his grandmother get caught up. I’m trying to come up with a plan to find Gavin, but my eyelids feel so heavy I’m having trouble keeping them open. Eventually I stop fighting it and close them, promising myself that I’m just going to rest my eyes and let myself drift to the ebb and flow of their voices.
After a few minutes, his grandmother says, “Aw, the poor dear. She’s falling asleep in her soup.” There’s a pause before she continues, “You used to do that when you were a babe. It was so cute to see your little head bob and sway as you tried to stay awake, but couldn’t.”
“Grandma,” Asher sighs. Then, even though I don’t hear the chair move, I feel myself being lifted.
Asher grunts a little when he picks me up, then he places me in the bed and pulls the soft blankets over me. I fall instantly to sleep.
* * *
I wake in a panic, my mind swirling with images of Gavin and giant birds. Those horrible beast-dogs. I sit straight up, gasping and scanning for danger. It takes me a minute to calm down and remember I’m in Asher’s grandmother’s house and I’m safe. Well. Safe from anything other than myself. My mind immediately goes to Gavin and how we just left him. In the woods. With man-eating birds. To die.
“No! He isn’t dead,” I say aloud. He’s a fighter. He’s probably just slower than we were. We had a horse for most of it, after all. And we found that underground place. That probably cut off kilometers from our trip. Maybe he’s just stuck outside the gates and they won’t let him in.
But all my reasoning fails to silence the nagging voice in my head that tells me he’s dead. And it’s my fault. For being weak. For being soft. For being damaged.
Because, if I’d been none of those, we wouldn’t have been out there in the first place.
There’s a knock on the door and I sit up straighter in the bed. I force a smile to my lips when Asher pokes his head around the door. “Hey, you’re awake! Wonderful. I was getting worried there.”
I give him a confused smile. “Why?”
“You’ve been asleep for almost thirty-six hours. The doctors said your body just needed the sleep, though. I guess they were right. Are you hungry?”
Thirty-six hours? An entire day and half of another? Surely Gavin’s arrived by now. I peer around Asher to see if anyone else came with him. “Where’s Gavin?”
His mouth draws into a straight, thin line. He picks at something on his shirt; then, when he realizes what he’s doing, he shoves his hands in his pockets before looking down at this feet. “He’s…” He clears his throat, and I want to throw something at him. Part of me already knows what he’s going to say. “… he hasn’t arrived … yet.”
Even though part of me had been expecting that answer, I still have to stop myself from screeching What? “I’ve been here almost two days and he’s still not here?”
He doesn’t say anything, only stares at the ground as if it might swallow him whole. Maybe he wishes it would.
Unable to remain sitting, I thrust myself to my feet. Although my legs are shaky and weak, I stumble my way over to the balcony and shove open the doors with Asher not far behind me. It’s cold, but I lean against the metal railing. My breath puffs out in plumes in front of my face. The balcony overlooks the house next door, but in my mind’s eye I’m picturing the Outlands.
Too long. Entirely too long. No food. No water. Way too long.
Asher steps up beside me and places his hand on my shoulder.
I can’t help it. I blurt out, “Do you think Gavin’s
just stuck outside the gates? That that’s why he hasn’t come yet?”
The hand on my shoulder tightens and I know what he’s going to say before he does. I keep talking so that I don’t have to hear it.
“Maybe we should have left the visa there with them. Maybe we should go there and see. Maybe he’s waiting for us and wondering why we haven’t come.”
He turns me around slowly to face him, his face a mask of misery.
He can’t be gone. He can’t be gone.
“Evie. He’s not there.”
Panic rises up in me, and I try pushing it back down, but it’s almost impossible. I know any minute I’m going to lose it. I’m going to fall apart. Right here. Right now. I wrap my arms around my waist as if I can keep myself together that way. “How do you know? You can’t know that.”
“I do. I’ve gone every day to check with the guards to see if he’s shown.”
I curl into myself. “But he could be there now!” I try to make it sound like I believe it myself, but even I know I’m not very convincing. “We should head over there and see if he’s waiting.”
He shakes his head. “He’s not coming, Evie. The odds of him getting away from the vultures were extremely slim. And even if he did,” he barrels on, ignoring my open mouth, obviously knowing what I was going to say, “he’d have been hurt, with no food or water. In the Outlands it’s been over a hundred degrees every day this week during the day, and near freezing at night. Not to mention the coyotes and the wolves. There’s no way he made it through all that.”
My heart lurches in my chest and I stagger against the railing. I have to close my eyes against the pain, but still I can see him perfectly. His golden hair blowing in the breeze from the birds’ wings and his beautiful gray eyes staring into mine as Starshine raced from him. I can see, now, he knew then he wasn’t going to make it. When he said “I love you,” what he really meant was “Good-bye.”
Suddenly I’m so angry, it wouldn’t surprise me to actually see red seeping into the corners of my eyes. “And whose fault is that? You left him! You wouldn’t let me go back for him! It’s your fault. Yours!” I scream at him.
He only nods, which makes me even angrier. “I know.”
I can’t stop myself—I punch him in the chest. But he doesn’t even stop me. Which makes me even angrier and I punch him again. And again. It isn’t making me feel any better, it just makes me more irate with each hit. Because he doesn’t even try to stop me.
Obviously I’m not hitting very hard, because he doesn’t move, doesn’t even wince. He only continues to stare at me with those pain-filled eyes.
That just infuriates me more. How dare he just stand there and take it? How dare he not even fight back—not even tell me I’m wrong. That it’s really my fault that Gavin’s gone. Probably dead. Why is he just standing there taking it?
My mind’s a jumble of emotions and thoughts. Pain. Anger. Sorrow. Frustration. Back to pain.
It isn’t until the tears I hadn’t noticed blind me and I can’t breathe that Asher stops me, taking my wrists into his hands.
Exhausted, I slump against him, sobbing into my hands. My heart is cracked in so many places, it’s hard to imagine it ever getting put back together completely.
“He can’t be gone,” I whisper, not because I don’t believe he’s dead, but because I need him. And I know it’s really my fault he’s gone. He’d always been there when I needed him, but I wasn’t there the one time he needed me.
Asher lowers us so that we’re both kneeling on the floor. And despite the fact that I just spent the last who-knows-how-long hitting him, he gathers me into his arms and holds me. Not saying a word, simply holding me.
The doors to the room open, but he shakes his head and whoever it was leaves, shutting the door quietly behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Not since the Gutenberg printing press has anything had such a profound impact on the peoples of this world as the nanorevolution. Nanotechnology, developed in part by Lenore Allen, changed the entire course of the War in favor of those in possession of the technology.
—EXCERPT FROM A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 21ST CENTURY, “NANOREVOLUTION”
Evie
After a long time, I finally cry myself out. Asher still holds me tightly against him. I push gently away, brushing the tears from my face with my sleeve, and look up to the stars. I’m too tired to pull completely away from Asher and it feels so nice, I don’t really want to anyway. It’s the small comforts now. The cold wind bites and snaps at my skin, but I don’t care.
“They’re not as pretty here,” I say, thinking of that last night with Gavin in the clearing. Just us two. Lying next to each other, discussing the stars. It makes me sad. They kind of remind me of myself with their faded lights, and I’m reminded that every day I’m fading. Without Gavin, I have nothing to anchor me to my old life. Who I used to be.
“No, they’re not.” His voice is soft. “It’s all the lights. They’re jealous of the stars, and try to drown them out.”
I know it’s not true, but it’s a nice thought.
We sit, both of us lost in our thoughts. I know something is bothering him, but I also know that he’ll tell me what it is. Especially if it has something to do with me. That’s one of the things I like about Asher. His unwavering honesty. No matter how terrible—or how difficult—he will always tell me the truth. Even when I don’t want him to.
My mind flits over to Gavin and my heart squeezes. I miss that stupid little smile he gets when he looks at me and doesn’t think I’m looking. I miss the way just the touch of him makes my heart swell, and how he looks at me like I’m the only one in the world. Or at least the only one that matters. I miss how he paces every time he’s frustrated, or trying to figure something out, or nervous. I even miss that he doesn’t tell me everything. Even as frustrating as that can be.
“They did some tests. While you were out. The test results came back,” Asher says, yanking me from my thoughts.
“Hmm?” I turn to face him. I’m numb now. I can’t seem to find the energy to care about the results, but for Asher’s sake, I try to force enthusiasm. “Oh. That’s great. Any news?”
“Nothing we don’t know already.”
I nod and turn my face back up to the stars. That didn’t seem all that bad, but Asher still acts like something is bothering him.
“The doctor wants to draw more blood tomorrow. Talk with you, too. If you’re up to it.”
I sigh, but nod. That’s not entirely unexpected, either. And again, I don’t really care. “Of course. Whatever he thinks is necessary.”
“Evie? Look at me.” His voice is still low, but there’s something in his tone that has fear pushing past the numbness.
I turn to face him, furrowing my brow.
“They want to study your nanos. They think that … that they might have something to do with you being sick.”
“My … nanos?” Nanos were what destroyed that town. What turned living, breathing people into rock and stone. My hand shakes and I frown even more as terror makes my heart kick in my chest. “I have nanos in me? How do you know?”
“Gavin told me,” he says without meeting my eyes. “I—I thought you knew that.”
Another of Gavin’s omissions. For a minute, anger chases the terror away. So, even though there’s bad blood between Asher and Gavin, Gavin still told Asher things about me. Maybe even everything about me. Asher was good enough to trust with my secrets, but not me.
When Gavin gets here, I’m so going to tell him exactly what I think about that, and then I’m going to demand he tell me absolutely everything. And if he thinks he can talk himself out of this one, he’s got another think coming.
But then I remember Gavin isn’t here. Isn’t coming. Ever. And that numbness returns, replacing the anger. Concealing the fear. And then I can only nod.
I knead my skirt in my hands, pulling and tugging softly at the fabric. “I see. So are they like the ones that killed thos
e people? Am I going to turn into stone like they did?”
Something like sadness flashes before his eyes and he stretches out his hand. Probably to take my hand, but I slide it out of reach.
He rakes it through his hair instead and tugs on the ends. “Yes. And no. It’s not the same kind, I guess. More … complex or something. They don’t really know, but they want to find out.”
“So … I won’t turn to stone?”
He shakes his head. “They don’t think so. From what Gavin said, you’ve had them a long time and they were meant to help … not hurt. They just want to do more testing to see if they’re malfunctioning.”
I’m grateful for the numbness I feel. Being numb is so much better than being afraid. Better than feeling your heart break into tiny pieces. Better than any of the emotions I could—probably should—be feeling right now.
“Of course. Whatever they think is necessary.”
My voice is flat as I say it and I know Asher’s worried, but he only sighs.
“You don’t have to worry.” He grabs my hand and squeezes it before I can pull away again. “I’ll be there for you. I won’t leave you by yourself. I promise.”
For a minute, a spark of anger ignites in me again. I remember Gavin saying that in the village right before the trip. And, softly, in the back of my head like an echo of a memory, I hear someone else saying it.
I can’t stop myself from saying, “I’ve heard that before.” I turn away from him as self-pity pricks at my heart. “But it’s a lie. It’s always a lie.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The answer to our problem has fallen in our laps, gentlemen. One of my son’s friends has made a marvelous find. A young girl, the heir to a throne it would seem, from a city under the ocean. I know what you are thinking, and at first I didn’t believe it either, but I’ve watched this girl and talked with the village doctor. She is most certainly different from any young woman we’ve ever seen. She appears quite ill, although it’s unclear whether it’s emotional or physical, and I think we would find it most beneficial to bring this child under our wing and offer our help in return for hers.
Revelations (The Elysium Chronicles) Page 13
