by Caryn Lix
Her soldiers closed rank in front of her. “No,” said Eden softly, “let her come.”
I faced her in the beating sun, caked in blood, my body battered and sore. “What’s in the boxes?” I growled.
I heard, rather than saw, Cage and Matt draw up behind me, Matt dragging in the sand.
Eden regarded each of us in turn and then closed her eyes, as if tired. “Supplies,” she said. “Emergency rations. Water. Enough to keep us alive for another six to eight months.”
“And that was your real reason for dragging us here.” Cage’s voice had gone calm again, almost pleasant, the way it did when he was so angry he could barely think. “You wanted us to provide a distraction so you could get your hands on those supplies.”
“Yes.” Eden squared her shoulders and met his gaze defiantly. “It was the difference between life and death for my people. I won’t apologize for that.”
“You lied about everything,” Cage continued in that strained, cheerful tone. “Even the size of the damn facility.”
She shrugged. “You wouldn’t have gone in if you’d realized how big it was, the chances of getting lost down there. So I exaggerated.”
I nodded, staring at my feet, betrayal churning in my stomach. I twisted my neck, examining the others, and landed on Reed holding Priya’s arm. I traced a path to his fingers and shuddered: a jagged edge of bone protruded from her skin. Quickly, I looked away, my stomach churning.
Mia slept in the sand, and I realized these were her last moments before she’d have to face Alexei’s death. Once she opened her eyes, she’d never again live without his absence hanging over her like a weight about to fall.
I didn’t even think. The rage swelled and grew and choked, and the next thing I knew, I was on top of Eden, swinging my fists at her face. She brought her arms up to block me but didn’t hit me back. It was Cage and Matt who grabbed me and hauled me off her. “We can’t afford a war,” Matt whispered, and I realized Eden’s soldiers were surrounding us, weapons drawn.
“I know how you feel,” Cage said in my other ear. His grasp on my arm was almost as comforting as it was restraining. “Believe me, I know. But this isn’t you. It’s not how you solve problems.”
“Maybe it should be.” I almost choked. I spit my words at Eden. “I told you to trust her. I said she was fine. This is my fault.”
“This is her fault.” Cage glared at Eden.
“No,” said Jasper tiredly from the ground nearby. “She’s despicable, but no. This is the aliens’ fault.”
“Cage,” said Rune softly, her eyes growing wider by the second. “Gege. Where’s Alexei?”
A horrible silence fell over the desert as the others finally noticed his absence.
Cage shook his head and gestured at the collapsed warehouse, apparently at a loss for words. He bit his lower lip and turned away. “No,” Rune whispered. She fumbled for Imani, whose eyes had gone so wide they were almost pure circles. The two girls clung together, staring at us as if willing us to deny their fears.
Jasper, on the other hand, laughed. “Alexei?” he said. “Come on. He’s the toughest of us all. There’s no way he …” His smile faded as he stared at my face. “Cage?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
Cage swallowed audibly. “I couldn’t … I didn’t …”
And Mia picked that moment to stir. Imani dropped to her knees, sliding her arms around the other girl, helping her to sit, her shock and fear vanishing beneath almost professional concern. “Mia, breathe,” she said. “There was some damage to your throat, but I repaired it. You’re fine. You’re—”
Mia shoved her aside. She seemed angrier than anything else, maybe at being forced to reveal this kind of physical weakness, and somehow I didn’t think her anger would dissipate when she learned what she’d missed.
It didn’t take long. Her eyes flickered between us before settling on Cage. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
“Mia,” I whispered.
She shook her head, clambered to unsteady feet, and spun to examine the collapsed warehouse. She still hadn’t made a sound.
“Mia,” Cage tried, finding his voice at last. He took a step toward her.
Mia spun on him, her steely gaze stopping him in his tracks. She examined each of us in turn: Jasper and Hallam hovering by Rune, Imani and Reed nearby, Priya to one side, Cage and me and Matt and Eden with the mass of soldiers and boxes in the background.
“Mia, please,” said Imani. “You’re still hurt. Sit down. Take a few breaths. Let’s get you some water, get you some—”
“Did you carry me out?” Mia’s voice emerged in a soft rasp, but there was nothing soft about the glare she turned on Cage.
He hesitated only a moment. “Yes.”
Mia nodded. She turned away, scrutinizing the ruins of the facility once more.
And then, without warning, she flew across the sand, her fist colliding with Cage’s face. Blood spurted from his nose as he stumbled back, toppling to the sand. Mia followed him with a resolute determination that put my earlier attack on Eden to shame. Before anyone could react, she’d driven her knee into his chest, pinning him to the sand, and landed two more punches with such force that bones crunched with every swing.
“Mia!” I flew at her, but she caught me with her drawn-back elbow, not even on purpose, though hard enough to send me to the ground. I sank my fingers into the sand, dazed from the fall after my earlier injuries.
When I regained myself, Matt had grabbed Mia and hauled her off Cage. He clamped his hands behind her neck, pinning her arms behind her. She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t even moving. She was just glaring at Cage with such rage it diminished everything around us.
Slowly, as if terrified Mia would break free, Reed edged to Cage’s side. “It’s broken,” he said, examining Cage’s nose. “In a couple of places, I think. Just stay still and let me work.”
“He sacrificed himself,” said Matt in Mia’s ear, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. “We would have died without him.” He spun on Eden, eyes flashing with the new anger I’d only seen since he returned with Legion. “Of course, that was the idea, wasn’t it?”
Eden shook her head frantically. “No. I tried to warn you off when you came down the stairs.”
“Knowing we wouldn’t listen.” I stepped back and stared at her hollowly. “You figured the aliens would take us out while we explored the facility, and while they were busy with us, you’d snag those supplies you needed. And then what? What happens when those run out?”
She tossed her head. “There have to be other cities. Other survivors. There has to be a way to get food and water. Gideon kept us in one place too long, but now, with these supplies, we have time to explore. And it doesn’t hurt that this alien base is gone, either.”
“There are others,” said Priya. She was standing unsteadily, batting Imani away from her. Imani hesitated a moment, then edged toward Matt, keeping a wary eye on Mia. “Rune found information, whether you expected her to or not. There are more creatures on this planet than you can imagine.”
Eden’s eyes flew open. “You actually found something?”
Rune snorted. “Didn’t expect that, did you? Yeah. I did. I was able to use the preexisting system to link up with the zemdyut network. I couldn’t understand the symbols, of course, but I remembered how the system functioned from the ship, and I was able to get the general sense of what was going on through the images and telepathic links in the network. Although calling it a network isn’t really accurate. It’s something else, something I’ve never seen before, even on the ship …”
“What did you learn?” Eden demanded. “Where are the other bases? Where are the zemdyut?”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Rune replied coldly. She folded her arms over her chest and glared at the older woman, suddenly looking much more dangerous—much more like Cage. “You led us into a trap. You lied to us. You killed my friend. You get nothing. Nothing,” she snarled, spitting the last wo
rd like a snake unleashing its venom, her rage so physical that several of Eden’s soldiers retreated.
Mia too spit on the ground, her glare making it clear she intended it as a statement on Eden. “You can let go now,” she told Matt sharply. “I’m not going to kill anyone.”
He released her by inches, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Jasper, Hallam, and Priya tense, reaching for their weapons as if they planned to shoot her down like a rabid dog. But Mia only cracked her neck and moved away, standing at the perimeter, arms folded over her chest, her back to us as she stared at the fallen warehouse.
Imani laid her hand on Matt’s arm and whispered something in his ear, and he sat heavily in the sand as she set to work on his injured legs. The rest of us just stared at one another, Eden and her soldiers against us and ours. We all had weapons. We had near-equal numbers. They had a driving need to survive, but we … we had anger. It seethed inside me, rolling like a bubbling volcano, needing just one push to send it all spilling over the edge.
“Kenzie.” Reed had finished with Cage and was scrutinizing me the way everyone else was scrutinizing Mia. “You look pretty beat up. Maybe you’d better come sit down a minute, let us check things out.”
I waved him aside. My own injuries could wait. I wasn’t finished with Eden. “And what about the rest? Was anything true? What you said about the facility, the spaceship … although even if it exists, I suppose it’s buried under rubble right now.”
“It wouldn’t have done us any good anyway.” Rune stepped forward, her hair a tangled halo around her pixie face, her fists clenched at her side. Hallam moved with her. Apparently, it had taken Rune all of one mission to get him on her side, because he seemed poised to clobber anyone who looked at her the wrong way. “I was able to access some of the files on the facility mainframe. That’s right,” she said, spinning on Eden, who looked more exhausted than anything, “I know exactly where we are.”
Dread swirled in my chest. No no no. I didn’t want to know this. I couldn’t handle any more, not on top of losing my family, of losing Alexei.
But Cage didn’t give me an option. “What is it, meimei?” he asked softly.
“I saw our coordinates. We’re on Earth.”
THIRTY-TWO
“NO.” I GAPED AT HER, my jaw working frantically even though only one syllable emerged. The truth of what she said—all the signs I’d tried to ignore—piled up in my mind, but I waved them aside in desperate denial. “No no no …”
“I was afraid of this,” Imani murmured. “It was too familiar. Too neat. The odds against another culture like ours, speaking a language like ours, with people like ours, randomly spawning even close to home …”
“Liam didn’t travel through time,” I insisted hoarsely.
“No, he didn’t.” Rune was still glaring at Eden, but she spared a sympathetic glance for me. “Kenzie … he traveled through dimensions.”
Dimensions. “No,” I repeated. “Rune, I used his ability. Over and over again. And it never threw me into another dimension!”
She lifted her hands helplessly. “I can’t explain it, Kenzie. It’s possible his power had evolved to allow him to travel through space and dimensions, and you only tapped the dimensional ability in that moment of desperation. Or … maybe you were skipping dimensions, but over such tiny distances the changes were negligible.”
The world swam. “You mean I could be several dimensions away from where I started?”
“At this point none of us are where we started. This planet might be called Wreithe here, but it is Earth. The tech hasn’t changed; the time hasn’t changed. Alternate dimensions are the only possible explanation.”
I met Cage’s gaze, and my knees gave out. He had me before I hit the sand, tipping my head between my knees. “Breathe,” he murmured, the words ghosting over my ear. “Imani …”
Imani’s hands landed on my back, soft and reassuring, contrasting the stronger pressure of Cage holding me. Warmth flowed from her touch, easing whatever damage I’d taken in the facility. A pain I hadn’t noticed in my stomach relented, and my world stopped spinning as the wounds on my arm knitted themselves together.
But I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of that. I raised my head to meet Cage’s eyes. “We’re trapped here after all,” I whispered. “There’s no hope of anyone finding us. No hope of getting back.” Unbidden, I searched the area for Jasper. He appeared, if anything, worse than me; he was on the ground, head buried in his hands, elbows propped against his knees. Reed and Rune knelt beside him, Reed talking quickly while Rune rubbed his back. Mia was still staring off into the distance, and Legion had regrouped, their faces three identical masks of dismay. Not even their fancy training hid it this time.
Cage shook his head, but I’d seen the alarm on his face, and the quick flash of rage that followed. He pinned Eden with his glare.
She shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry I misled you.”
“Lied,” said Hallam, clearly and distinctly. “You lied. Let’s not sugarcoat it.”
“Call it what you want. I did it to save a lot of lives, and I’d do it again.”
I staggered to my feet, leaning on Cage for support. “How did you know?” I snarled.
“I didn’t know, but I guessed.” She sighed, leaning against one of the crates, scraping her dark hair off her neck. “The similarities you spotted between our worlds only had one explanation. We’ve been looking for alien life for a long time, and we’ve never found it. What we did find was something else: other dimensions. Worlds that existed along ours. We were even able to peer into neighboring worlds—yours, and a few others. With that knowledge, it didn’t take our scientists long to realize that the zemdyut were crossing dimensions, not space. They aren’t aliens at all. Or if they are, they’re not from this universe.”
My head spun. All along. She’d known all along. And on the heels of that, another realization: although she’d let us ramble on, Eden herself never used the word “alien.” It was always zemdyut or “creatures.” She hadn’t just known, she’d manipulated us with practiced ease. Her story about shielding their planet from outside intervention … God, why had I ever fallen for that?
Because, I realized. Eden had been convincing. She’d known about our world, about the corporations. And … I’d been so eager to believe the worst of Omnistellar, so desperate to find a way home, that I’d overlooked the signs. Or made excuses for them. We’d all done it to avoid this moment: this crushing sense of defeat and despair as the utter bleakness of our situation finally dawned on us.
Or maybe … Had I identified too much with Eden? Encouraged the others to trust her because I saw too much of myself in her, because I wanted to believe that my mom and dad could have changed, that our destinies weren’t locked in stone? I ground my nails into my palms. I’d told Cage to trust Eden. How much of this was my fault?
“I don’t care about any of this,” Priya barked. “Just tell us what we need to know. Is that Karoch thing real? Was there actually a ship in the base?”
“Did you kill Gideon because he was acting erratic or because you wanted to be in charge?” I added. A murmur rose among her soldiers, and I laughed, the sound high and almost hysterical to my own ears, as if coming from someone else. “Oh, she didn’t mention that? Yeah. She shot him because he wouldn’t let us into your base. Part of her grand plan, I guess.”
“That’s enough,” Eden snapped.
“Is it true?” demanded one of the soldiers. His face was hidden behind his mask, but he sounded young. “Did you kill Gideon?”
“To save these people. To save us.” She glared at us. “Yes. I did.”
“To save us?” One of the soldiers stepped forward. “Or to save yourself, Eden? Because not two months ago, you told me Gideon was a problem. You said we might have to get rid of him.” Another murmur went up through the crowd.
Eden’s expression barely changed. “I thought I could trust you.”
“You could. But that was b
efore I realized you murdered our leader in cold blood.”
“It wasn’t in cold blood. He attacked me. It was self-defense.” She looked to me as if in appeal and then, obviously realizing I had no intention of helping her, she closed her eyes and passed a weary hand over her face. “Listen, Gideon knew about these supplies, but he’d become so frightened he didn’t dare leave the base to get them. And he wouldn’t let me, either. If he’d kept leading us, we all would have been dead in months. And now? Now we have supplies to keep us going. I didn’t want to kill him, but he was paranoid. He was seeing zemdyut around every corner, starting to see enemies in our ranks, and he was going to get us killed!”
“And what happens when one of them is ‘going to get you killed’?” Priya jerked her head at the soldiers, and they exchanged uneasy glances.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Eden snarled. “I did this to protect them.”
“We can talk about this later.” Eden’s soldier eyed her with suspicion but then shifted his anger to Priya and me. “This isn’t the place or time. We have to get these supplies back to the city.”
The soldiers hesitated, then stepped into line, but a ripple of discontentment shivered through the ranks. Good.
Eden fixed me with a glare. “And for what it’s worth, most of what I told you was true enough. Karoch, I hope, died in that base. The ship should have been in the hangar. I don’t know where it went. I didn’t lie to you any more than necessary.” She picked up one of the boxes. “We have enough supplies to carry us through whatever we do next. You’re welcome to join us. We could use your skills, and it’s the least I can offer considering—”
Mia, who had remained silent and motionless through all of this, moved with sudden speed and grace, pivoting like a dancer and drawing her gun in a single motion. “Mia!” Rune shrieked, flying at her. They collided just as Mia pulled the trigger. Her shot went wide, whistling past Eden’s head. Eden’s eyes narrowed, the blood draining from her face as she grasped how close she’d come to dying. In the same instant, her soldiers drew their guns and trained them on us—but Priya and Hallam were already on Mia, disarming and restraining her.
