by Anna Silver
“We know.” London scowled. “He’s afraid we’ll run off and tell everyone in Capital City about your crummy camp.”
But Tora shook her head slowly from side to side. “He’s afraid whatever’s happened to your friend will happen to you, too.”
“What do you mean?” Rye asked. “What’s happened to our friend? What do you know about Avery?”
Tora looked from London to Rye and explained, “We have scouts. It’s the only way we can track the Tycoons. Yesterday, we received word from one of them that a Sympathizer had been taken into custody.”
“What’s a Sympathizer?” Rye asked.
“Someone who helps or cooperates with Outroaders,” Tora’s eyes grew wider, and London looked back over her shoulder to see one of the gunmen rise and start in their direction. They only had a moment or two left of privacy.
“Big deal,” London hissed. “What does that have to do with us?”
“It’s not one of ours,” Tora whispered. “Whoever the Sympathizer is, the scout confirmed that it was no one connected to us.”
“What are you saying?” Rye asked. “Are you saying you think the Tycoons have Avery?”
London was completely off-balance. Why would the Outroaders need to spy on the Tycoons? And how did they manage it? No one was supposed to know where the Tycoons were exactly. And why would the Tycoons have any interest in Avery? Or in the Outroaders and their Sympathizers, for that matter, besides stringing up the occasional example on Old Green?
Tora nodded. “Harlan thinks so. He won’t tell you that, not yet. He doesn’t trust you. He doesn’t even know I know all this. I overheard our contact deliver the message to him outside the camp.”
London watched as the gunman drew nearer, a look of increased agitation on his sweating face. He suspected more than a kitchen lecture. “Why are you telling us this?” she asked.
Tora shrugged. “I know you’re not being fully honest with Harlan but…I trust you.” She cast a nervous, simpering glance up at Rye. “I don’t want you to hate it here or be afraid. I know you don’t understand it all now, but we’re going to be great friends.”
She laid a delicate hand on Rye’s arm and London fumed, but a sharp nudge in her shoulder blade interrupted London’s fury. She turned to see that the watchman had arrived and he looked none too pleased. He was poking London with the gun barrel.
“What are you on about over here, Tora?” he growled.
“Nothing, Clark. I was just explaining how the solar smokers work,” she said innocently. Then she continued in mock elucidation, “So, when there’s enough sun, we can reflect its energy at this point to create heat strong enough to boil water, start a fire, anything we need. The smokers are technically wood burning though, which is where a good arm and a sharp ax come in handy. Right, Clark?” A subtle flutter of her lashes eased the man’s suspicions and bolstered his ego. London wasn’t sure if this devious side of Tora made her more or less appealing.
“Hmm,” the man grunted. “Come on then. That’s enough. They get the idea.”
London squared her shoulders and said in a condescending tone, “Harlan said we were free to explore the camp, so why don’t you back off, skunk-ape.”
Tora let out an illicit snigger at this, which apparently embarrassed Clark. He responded by grabbing London’s arm and jerking her toward him. “I said, let’s go.”
Unfortunately for London, he grabbed her left arm.
A lightning bolt of pain ripped up to her shoulder and she cried out in agony, falling to her knees, her vision swimming with black dots.
“London!” Rye screamed.
Clark let go in surprise, but it was too late.
Furious, Rye swung an unexpected right hook at the skunk-ape’s jaw, which sent him staggering several steps back.
Tora hooked a hand underneath each of London’s arms and pulled her to her feet. She wrapped London’s right arm behind her neck for support and said quickly, “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Rye,” London called. He turned to follow, but Clark had recovered his balance, and, cocking the rifle once, he put the barrel to Rye’s temple before he could move.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” he snarled.
Rye froze, his eyes meeting London’s in shared fear.
“Stop it, Clark!” Tora shouted.
London realized the entire clearing, which had been buzzing with life only moments before, was now watching in silence. Near the fire pit, she could make out Zen and Kim who, like Rye, were on their feet but frozen in mid-step by the gun barrel of the remaining watchman. In the distance, Harlan was emerging from his tent, moving swiftly through the group to where their scene was unfolding.
Watching Harlan, London’s vision blurred, and she felt as though the earth were slanting. The pain in her left arm, which hung limply at her side, continued to radiate up through her shoulder. London looked to Rye, but saw only a swimming mist. She shook her head once. Were her eyes deceiving her?
For a brief second, she thought she saw the image of Roanyk’s chiseled, powerful form flicker before her. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him she knew him and he knew her. To say, “It’s me—Si’dah!” But nothing came out.
Tora’s voice reached her mind, faintly, as though it were being carried on a distant breeze, “Hang on, London!” Then, “Harlan, I’m losing her!”
London. Not Si’dah. London.
London strained once more to see Rye through the blur and failed. Instead, blackness fell like a mighty curtain, and London slipped away behind it.
~
Rye crouched next to London’s cot and rubbed sleepily at his eyes. It had to be one o’clock in the morning by now. Kim and Zen were curled up nearby, fast asleep, Kim snoring softly. London hadn’t stirred for hours. She was so still and pale that Rye had to put his fingers under her nose to reassure himself that she was breathing. He felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Tora standing there, a finger to her lips.
“Just checking on you,” she whispered. “How is she?”
“The same,” Rye said.
Tora squatted next to him and raised the bandage on London’s left arm gently. She winced in the lantern’s light as she dropped the bandage again. “It’s bad.”
“I know,” Rye sighed. “It’s my fault. I knew it was there. I just…I had no idea it had gotten this bad. She didn’t tell me.”
“It’s not your fault.” Tora shook her head gently. “You couldn’t have known with those sleeves covering it up. She probably wasn’t even aware herself how dangerous it was.”
London’s favorite striped sweater was now bundled beneath her head on the cot, leaving her in the thin, white tank. Her left arm blazed scarlet around the bandage from the infection, angry red streaks coursing up it from the wound.
Tora stared instead at the lacework of scars on London’s ghostly right arm. “She did these, didn’t she? To herself?” she asked, studying London’s scars with great interest.
“Yeah,” Rye answered, his voice choked with shame.
“Why?” Tora asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said, not wanting to meet Tora’s eyes. They had barged in on the Outroaders camp, created a big, ugly scene, and now revealed London’s darkest secret. Even with the strange haircuts, odd dress, and hodge-podge lifestyle, the Outroaders suddenly seemed infinitely more normal compared to him and his friends. Rye felt like the Waller freak they judged him to be. He couldn’t imagine what Tora must think of them. The shame of it burned in him, and yet, he could not stand the thought of anyone judging London, especially when they didn’t know—couldn’t know—everything.
As she had all evening, Tora seemed to take this in with quiet understanding. After all, she’d been the one who’d finally talked Clark into lowering his gun, while supporting a limp and unconscious London with one arm. Together, Tora and Rye had carried London into this tent, which he later found out was her own, while Harlan fetched their most experienced Healer, Abigail.
Rye watched Tora carefully cut London’s sweater off of her and aided Abigail in dressing the inflamed wound—broken open and weeping yellow with infection—in a honeyed bandage. The smell was overpowering in the tiny space, and the Healer took to hanging bunches of herbs from the tent poles to diffuse it. Rye had to pull his shirt up over the bridge of his nose, hoping the thin, reprocessed cotton would act as a filter. He had felt so helpless then. Now, Tora was the only one up with him as he waited patiently at London’s bedside for her to stir or mumble or show some sign of life.
“Abigail says the medicine will make her sleep like this for some time and that it’s good for her because it will allow her body to fight the infection naturally. You shouldn’t worry so,” Tora told him.
“I know,” Rye conceded. “She’s just so…so still. You don’t know her. London is never like this. It scares me.”
“I know her well enough,” Tora said cryptically. “She will be okay.”
She grinned when Rye looked at her curiously. “I have my secrets, too.”
He looked away, afraid that Tora might read something in his eyes. He wondered if London was walking the verdant Midplane as Si’dah, her ebony, beaded plaits trailing behind her. Maybe she was looking for him, searching for his Otherborn, Roanyk, along the lonely horizon.
Tora rose. “You need your rest. Why don’t you lie down for a while and let me take a shift. I don’t sleep much anyway.”
Rye reluctantly scooted to a pallet across the room. He watched Tora as she sat in his place at London’s bedside, leaning back against the cloth wall as it gave gently.
“I can’t,” he said quietly to her, compelled by her green eyes. “I can’t explain. Not any of it.”
She smiled subtly. “In time, all our secrets will be revealed.”
THIRTEEN
Delirious
It was midmorning the following day when her fever skyrocketed. London remained unconscious. Rye stayed by her side, venturing out briefly to eat with Kim and Zen that evening, who were no longer subject to being guarded at gunpoint. Of course, little good it was now. They would never make a break for it without London, and Harlan seemed to realize that.
Aside from Tora and Abigail, they received no visitors in or out of Tora’s tent. Even when they shuffled into the clearing for a late meal, the Outroaders kept their distance. Either out of fear or respect.
Rye was not amused when a gaunt boy of seven or eight started milling about the tent, peeking inside while he and the others picked restlessly at plates of smoked hog and potato. He assumed morbid curiosity had gotten the better of the youngster.
“Hey! Get away from there!” Rye shouted from his seat at the edge of the clearing. He insisted on keeping Tora’s tent in his sights at all times.
The boy was dirty and dressed in fraying overalls with a mess of brown, unkempt hair. He looked mischievously back over his shoulder at Rye then slipped inside the blue polyester folds of the tent.
“What the— Hey!”
Rye, Zen, and Kim were on their feet, racing to the tent. Tora beat them to the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked with one arm out to stop them.
“Some kid just went in there!” Rye exclaimed, making for the flap that hung across the entrance, but Tora’s arm held.
“Let me handle it,” she said firmly, though she made no move to enter. Instead, she called in a stern voice, “Reginald!”
Four filthy fingers grasped the edge of the flap.
“Come out,” she insisted.
The fingers didn’t budge.
“This is ridiculous!” Rye barked, and, with one swift move, he reached in and dragged the boy out by a skinny arm.
Tora’s face contorted, and she snatched the boy away from Rye, pulling him protectively against her. “This is my brother,” she told them.
“And this is my tent!” the boy shouted.
Tora spun him around, gripped him by his shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “Reg, we talked about this, remember? You’re going to stay with Abigail for a while until we find a permanent bed for the—”
“Hostages,” he grumbled, crossing his arms. “I know.”
“Guests,” Tora corrected.
Rye looked at Zen, and Kim rolled his eyes. None of them liked the sound of permanent bed.
“But I don’t wanna stay in Abby’s stinky old hut! It smells like medicine and smoke. I hate it! I want to stay in our tent! I want to stay with you!”
Tora sighed. “I know Reg, but it’s only for a little while.”
“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t know why she can’t go someplace else now that she’s talking.” He jabbed a grimy finger toward the tent where London lay inside. His nails were long and caked with dirt.
Rye’s fox-red eyes narrowed. Did he understand the kid correctly? London was talking? Awake?
“Who Reg? Who’s talking?” Tora asked quickly, seeing Rye’s reaction.
“The lady. The one from your dreams—in there,” he answered.
Tora shot Rye an I’ll explain later look and told the boy to run and fetch Abigail quickly. Then she, Rye, Zen, and Kim all burst into the tent expecting to find a conscious, upright London waiting to give everyone a piece of her mind.
Instead, they found her as still and deathly ill as before. Only now, as Tora laid a hand on her head, it was clear the fever had spiked. Whispers of hair stuck to the sticky, hot skin all around her face, and her cheeks were flushed with the rising temperature.
“She’s burning up,” Tora confirmed. “Her body’s fighting hard.”
Zen placed a hand on Rye’s shoulder, and Kim looked at them both. What were they without London? There’d been no dreams since the night at the fueling station. How could there be? London was the first Otherborn. Could they be Otherborn without her? Would they ever dream again? All of these questions passed silently between them, but they could speak nothing aloud. Not with the Outroaders always around, always listening.
The boy returned in minutes with both Abigail and Harlan. The Healer was an older woman, though Rye could see now that she was younger than Harlan by maybe ten or so years. She was thick around the middle, with long mousy hair that she tied back in multicolored pieces of string. Her demeanor was one of confidence and authority, and her face had been round and affable the last time she checked in on her Waller patient. Yet as she examined London this time, it became stony and grave.
“The infection is spreading. Her body is giving all it can. There is little we can do but wait,” she said, rising.
“But Abi—” Tora started.
The woman gave Tora a stern look that quickly silenced her. “We must wait,” she said to Tora again.
“The boy said she was talking,” Rye mentioned quickly before Abigail could leave.
“She was!” Reginald insisted.
“What did she say to you?” Harlan asked Reginald.
“She weren’t talking to me,” he said with an air of defiance.
Harlan arched his eyebrows, but Abigail nodded as though she understood perfectly. “Were her eyes open, Reginald? When she spoke?” the Healer asked patiently.
“Nope,” he said.
“Delirium,” Abigail sighed. “From the fever. It’s not uncommon.”
Rye’s shoulders sagged as Abigail and Harlan turned to exit the tent.
Then Reginald added unexpectedly, “Besides, she wasn’t talking English. So I wouldn’t know what she said no-how.”
“Anyhow,” Tora corrected him, but Abigail and Harlan stopped dead in their tracks. Harlan looked at Rye, Zen, and Kim with wrinkled brows.
It was extremely uncommon to hear another language besides English anymore. Immigration was dead. Communication with those in other countries cut off to anyone besides government officials or the Tycoons. Television broadcasts and the intranet were strictly controlled. Even racially pure families such as Kim’s had lost touch with much of their original heritage and language. Kim’s great-grandmoth
er was the last one rumored to be fluent in Korean. He couldn’t speak a lick. And here was London, no more racially pure than the alley cats outside her building, being accused of speaking a foreign language. Rye didn’t know what to say. It certainly didn’t help their case. Harlan would never believe they’d told him their whole story now.
“Who is she?” Harlan asked the three of them, scratching tensely at his short, thick beard. “What is she?”
Everyone else fell quiet, and the tension in Tora’s one-room tent mounted, stifling the air. What could they possibly say? Rye shrugged for lack of a better answer.
Harlan was not impressed. “What language is the boy speaking of?” he asked.
This time, Rye gave him the truth. “I don’t know.”
Harlan zeroed in on Kim. He snatched up Kim’s wrist, exposing the black bars of the trigram like they were evidence of their traitorousness. “Is it yours, her language? Answer me!”
Kim jerked his arm away. “Does she look like me?” he spat.
It was true that they shared the same dark eyes and hair, but that was all. Kim’s broad face and narrow gaze were nothing like London’s pallid, oval bone structure and wide-set eyes. And while his hair was razor straight and sleek as oil, London’s rose and fell in wayward waves and loose curls, which she detested but could never quite tame.
“He doesn’t speak anything but English,” Zen interjected into the terse silence, taking up for Kim.
Harlan glanced at Abigail and back at the three of them. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll find out for myself,” he said. “Tora, take Zen and Kim to my tent. Tell Clark to bring me a bed roll and some chairs. Abigail and I will be spending the night here.”
Rye started to protest, but Tora cast him an uneasy glance as she gestured to Zen and Kim to follow and do as Harlan commanded.
They filed out silently, but Kim looked back over his shoulder at London and gave Rye the slightest nod as if to say, Take care of her.
It was a long night in Tora’s cramped tent. London’s feverish body heat melded with the naturally humid climate, and the unspoken tension made the tent almost unbearable. No one was getting any sleep. Abigail and Harlan took to sitting just outside the door for long periods to escape the discomfort. Rye wouldn’t budge from London’s side, and Tora kept a close eye on them both. Her face so full of questions and concerns that there were moments Rye thought she might burst. But she seemed as uneasy talking in front of the camp Healer and Elder as Rye. Reginald, much to his chagrin, had been sent to wile another night away in Abigail’s shack a few feet over.
