by Jo Holloway
CARA CHEWED THE INSIDE of her lower lip as she sat on the stairs inside the front door of Jory’s house. After the brief rain and the following couple windy days, summer had returned to its swelteringly new norm for the rest of the week. The heat coupled with the tension was impacting them all, but none more so than Jory.
She shot him a dark look, wishing he would stop pacing and settle down. Wes stood calmly against the wall across from where she sat. She caught his eye. “How do you think we should start?”
Jory gave a snort and turned. “Won’t matter. We have nothing to tell him.”
She sighed. “I was asking Wes.”
Jory’s head rolled around, and he went back to pacing. She shook her head and exchanged a glance with Wes.
He adjusted his hands on the wall behind his back. “We ask Rhys to go over everything he tried with the animals, and try not to piss him off.”
“It’ll be tough. He seems so fragile. We’ll have to be careful not to set him off.”
Jory completed another lap and stopped in front of them. “This jerk probably won’t even show up. Why’d you have to give him my address, anyway?”
“You thought it was a good idea at the time,” Wes reminded him.
“Yeah, well, I think a lot of dumb things.” Jory scowled. “We have nothing to say to the jack—”
Cara cut him off. “Enough already. I’m tired of ready-to-pick-a-fight Jory. You’re going to have to be nice to him. We all are. And it’s going to be hard enough since we don’t have a solution.”
They’d talked about it non-stop since leaving the Whaltons’ house. The answer was still the same. There was nothing they could do to help Liv. She could only hope something would come to them out of what Rhys shared with them today before he decided to go back to his own way of doing things.
“When do we get Sunshine back?” she asked Jory. Whatever had been bugging him for the past week, she wished she could help. There was just so much going on right now, and she’d never had to deal with sullen Jory. Wes had his quiet moods, but this was a first for her usually cheerful friend. He’d gone back and forth between being falsely cheerful and downright surly. She couldn’t keep up. She tried to give him a smile.
To his credit, he made an effort for her. One side of his mouth twitched up. “Sorry,” he muttered.
The doorbell rang. They all jumped.
Wes spun around from his spot and yanked the door open. Rhys stood on the step. He’d decided to trust them after all. Now came the tricky part.
Fifteen minutes later, Jory was still making an effort, but she could see he wasn’t happy about it. Mostly he sat on his hands on the big armchair in silence. She and Wes sat side by side on the smaller loveseat, and Rhys had ended up on the long couch alone.
“You don’t actually have any ideas, do you?” His face twitched. The yellow-tinged week-old bruise under his eye made him look a little more ominous than he might have intended.
“We have ideas. We just need to know what you’ve tried.” Cara tried not to stare at the bruise or the distracting eyes above it and dropped her gaze to the coffee table.
Wes cleared his throat. “We should probably get Jenyx and Tom—”
Jory cut him off with a sour tone. “Thomas shouldn’t be around him. He already tried to kill him.”
“Jory. Not helping,” Cara hissed at him. “You know he didn’t try to kill any of the animals. We’ve talked about this.”
“Except the mouse.” Rhys stared at his hands.
“Except the mouse.” She shot Jory another look to shut him up. “You know what, I’m tired of all this. Cards on the table. Everything out in the open. Wes, go grab Jenner and Thomas. It’s time we put everything out in the light so we can stop with all the accusations and misunderstandings. Jory, either pull it together or take a walk. Rhys, I’m trusting you now, so don’t try anything.”
The three boys all stared at her like she’d grown a second head. Wes was the first to move, standing to go get the animals from the other end of the house.
“What?” She glared at the other two. Maybe the heat was affecting her too. But this was starting to be ridiculous. She leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms. She stood by her outburst.
Jenner bounded through the door, eager to be reunited with her. He jumped up, placing both front paws on her chest with his tail beating back and forth across the coffee table.
“Um, Jenyx, maybe not the best time to let Jenner have his way completely,” she said, checking the stony expression on Rhys’s face while she rubbed the fur around Jenner’s neck.
“Oh, certainly, child,” said Jenyx. The green gleam passed across Jenner’s eyes as he settled back to the floor and sat quietly.
Rhys flinched at the voice, but he didn’t move. Thomas came in more slowly, stopping halfway across the room to stretch out on the cool tile. Rhys eyed him too. Finally, Wes came back in and took his spot beside Cara again.
“Uh, Rhys . . . This is Jenyx. Well, this is my dog, Jenner, but Jenyx can introduce himself too.”
“Hello, Rhys Whalton. A pleasure to meet you,” Jenyx said.
She’d spent all last summer and the first few months of school last year helping Jenyx try to find other Pyx who’d been taken by this guy, and all Jenyx had to say was “pleasure to meet you.” Cara shook her head at his compulsive politeness, and then introduced Thomas and Tomyx.
“We’ve met,” grumbled Tomyx.
Rhys sat rigid in his spot with his eyes narrowed to slits. She half expected another explosion and slid her leg out in front of Jenner. His eye traced her leg’s movement before he finally spoke. She became acutely aware of the tan lines across her feet from her running shoes, but she also hoped he wouldn’t overreact to her protective gesture. He’d clearly noticed it.
“I’m not going to do anything,” he said, “but I don’t see what good talking to them will do.”
“Well, they are millions of years older than us—than all humans. So I imagine they could tell us a thing or two.” The tone of her voice said the heat was definitely getting the best of her, even inside in the air conditioning. She didn’t know she’d be so defensive.
“While I am certain that is true, perhaps today it is you who could tell us some things,” Jenyx said.
Rhys flinched again at being addressed directly. “You actually talk to them like this? Like people?”
She nodded. “It was weird at first, but you get used to it. The trick is remembering not to answer in public.” She tried for a little grin, but he wasn’t amused. She kept waiting for him to stand up and storm out. Instead, he kept one eye on her and stayed put.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. Okay, what do you want to know?”
They went over every detail of the things he’d tried with the animals, after the mouse, of course. Most were simple threats, still brutal even though she knew he never actually hurt any of them. Still, picturing the animals with terror in their eyes made her have to keep looking away from him. She focused on the fact that all the animals were now back wherever they belonged, and none of them seemed to have any lasting effects.
The Pyx kept circling back to what he’d tried with the snails. The answer was not much.
After he’d squished the first few only to immediately spot new Pyx in animals outside, he figured out it wasn’t working.
“They still managed to escape somehow when the snail died. I couldn’t figure it out.” Rhys stared at his hands for most of the conversation and avoided looking at her.
“And you never were able to kill one?” Jenyx asked.
“He’d know if he did,” Tomyx said.
Cara felt a flash of irritation that didn’t belong to her and looked curiously at Jenner.
“Cara, child, I must ask you a favor. Tomyx and I need to speak with young Rhys alone, please.”
“What? No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Seriously?” Rhys said, finally looking at her. “I thought you were tru
sting me, or whatever.”
To be fair, the fight had mostly gone out of him, no matter what the tough-guy bruise on his face said. His shoulders sloped forward. He didn’t look like a person about to try anything.
“We’ll be right next door,” she said.
With an exasperated sigh, she grabbed Jory by the hand and dragged him out to the kitchen. Wes followed them.
She let go of Jory and leaned against the counter. “They’re hiding something. Something’s going on,” she grumbled.
Jory propped himself up beside her. “And you hate missing things.”
She looked at him sideways with a half smile.
“They must have a reason,” Wes said, tapping a finger against his lips. Her smile sank back to a frown.
An eternity later, Thomas strolled into the kitchen alone.
“You can come back now,” Tomyx said.
“You left Jenner in there?” Cara started for the door.
“Relax. That kid has no clue what he’s doing. And he can’t shut his own feelings off enough to do the really hard things.” Thomas stalked over to the corner of the room where a water dish sat on the floor.
All things considered, Cara figured it was good Rhys wasn’t able to do whatever Tomyx saw as the really hard things. Both for the Pyx and for him. She rushed ahead to the living room.
Rhys had drawn his feet up onto the couch to sit cross-legged. He was tucked back into the corner, looking smaller. His face was drawn. She wanted to ask Jenyx what they’d done to him to make him look like he’d just been interrogated.
Instead, she asked him, “Are you okay?”
His grey-and-gold eyes flashed up to her face, and for a moment, the stony look was gone. He gazed at her with innocence and desperation—and something that made tiny bubbles rise from her toes to her chest. Then he muttered, “Sure, fine,” and looked past her to Jory entering the room behind her, followed by Wes. He sat up straighter and set his feet back on the floor. The vulnerability vanished.
If it wasn’t already settled for her, it was now. They had to help him.
“So, anything else we all need to know? Or is now when I get to hear your plan?” he asked the room.
“We’ve probably questioned you enough.” Cara sat at the opposite end of the couch, facing him, while Wes and Jory took up their old positions. “Do you need to ask us anything?”
“Plenty, but right now, I only care about what you can do for Liv. The rest can wait.”
The trouble was, nothing had come to them while they’d talked. The same problems were still there. They couldn’t scare or threaten the Pyx out, because her host couldn’t be scared or threatened. They couldn’t coax the Pyx to leave, because she was no longer there by choice. An icky feeling of reluctance itched at her brain. She really didn’t want to tell him there was nothing they could do for Liv.
The itch in her mind got bad enough to make her squirm. Maybe it wasn’t all coming from her anymore. She shifted on the couch as Thomas stalked back into the room. Jenner stood and shook himself before circling the carpet again.
Wes cleared his throat. “We’ve covered everything, but—”
“Shh.” Cara held up a hand to stop him from saying what he was about to say. All her discomfort was weirdly giving her hope.
Eyes burned into the side of her face as Rhys stared at her from the other end of the couch, but she watched Jenner until he settled. And waited.
“There is one way,” Jenyx said finally.
She’d never heard that tone to his voice before. Somber.
The hope started to fade.
CHAPTER 17
One Thing
“OLIVIA HAS TO DIE.”
Cara’s insides went cold at Jenyx’s statement. The words were barely out before the expected explosion came from the far end of the couch. A string of swearing cut through the air. Rhys stood up hard enough to shove the couch back, causing Cara to lurch in her seat at the other end while her head spun at the words.
So not helpful, Jenyx!
Wes, who’d been sitting closest to Rhys before the explosion, jumped to his feet too. With his hands outstretched, he tried to calm the tall, stormy figure in front of him.
“Easy.” He leaned back from the arm flailing in front of his face.
“This is a joke. I knew it,” Rhys thundered. He threw his hands in the air again, throwing Wes off balance as he dodged them. “I should never have come. I can’t believe I trusted you.”
Rhys glared in Cara’s direction as he stormed past Wes to leave. He only brushed him, but Wes was already leaning backward too much to keep his balance, and he fell back onto the loveseat with a crash. Jory, who’d barely been containing himself as it was, darted across the room. Clenched teeth showed through the grimace in his bright red face until his forehead was an inch from Rhys’s yellowed, swollen eye.
“Don’t touch him.”
“Get out of my way.”
“It’s MY HOUSE. I swear I’ll—”
What he would do, they never heard. Cara leaped from the couch. Her bare feet flew across the cold coffee table, and she flung herself between them. She bumped hard into Jory’s shoulder on the way past, and landed in the middle of the two guys with her back to her friend and both hands on the chest of the towering Rhys. Jenner’s low growls and the boys’ sharp breaths were the only sounds.
Wes stood up again from the loveseat. She turned her head over her shoulder to Jory without dropping her hands from the rigid chest in front of her. The heat from both their bodies radiated to her. A prickle of sweat broke out over her skin.
“Just go,” she pleaded across her shoulder.
Jory’s eyelids twitched and his eyes flashed a hurt look, but his shoulders dropped a fraction. Then Wes was there, guiding him backward.
She turned back to Rhys, adrenaline still coursing through her, and tried not to flinch from the hard look she got from the stormy eyes. Whatever trust she might have started to build was gone in one flash of lightning. The clouds settled back in. A pit formed in her stomach.
“I know, I know,” she said, trying to keep her voice soothing without the trace of sadness she still heard. “That wasn’t helpful.” She didn’t look down at Jenner but hoped Jenyx knew the comment was directed at him. “Just give him a chance to explain what he means, please.”
She tried to push against the hard chest to coax him to move back and sit again, but it was like pushing a boulder.
“I gave them a chance. I gave all of you a chance—”
“Please sit down.” She spoke over him, but he wasn’t done yet.
“I should have known a bunch of kids couldn’t help me.”
The words made her feel even smaller, which said a lot since her head barely reached his shoulder and she was craning her neck up to look into his face. Her hands curled uselessly into fists in the front of his shirt.
“Stay. Please,” she tried one last time before dropping her hands to let him go.
His jaw muscles twitched and he looked down into her eyes. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He must hate her now, and the rest of them, but how far would he go for a chance? Even if everything she did only made him hate her more. Even if he kept feeling more and more distant. Would he cling to a chance for Liv’s sake?
Inexplicably . . . suddenly . . . he stepped back and sat on the loveseat. She exhaled.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Not for you,” he replied.
“I know.”
He was focused on his sister, and she would too. She had to.
Wes came back into the room. She raised an eyebrow at him in a question, but he shook his head. Jory wasn’t coming back. The poor guy would have been the only non-Pyxsee in the room, and a guilty weight settled on her shoulders at how left out he must feel. She was going to have to talk to him after this was all over. Their friendship mattered more to her than she could bear to think about right now, and if she’d done anything to hurt it by focusing on Rhys, she w
ould hate herself. For now, though, they had to finish what they’d started.
One thing at a time, Cara.
She kept her eyes from going back to Rhys and waited for Wes to sit down in Jory’s old spot. Then she swallowed and started the conversation.
“Jenyx, you know we can’t kill Liv, so please explain what you actually meant.” She struggled to keep the emotion out of her voice.
“I do regret my directness. My sincerest apologies.”
Rhys’s lip curled back at the sound of Jenyx’s voice. This had better be a good explanation if it was going to even begin to rebuild the trust they’d just lost.
“Just explain, please,” she said.
“I should have clarified. Her body must die, at least temporarily, though that is not without its risks. Nothing short of the death of the pyxis will release the trapped Pyx now that the mind has locked her in. As we’ve discussed, simply making Olivia think she is about to die is not enough in this situation because it will not cause a response. She must actually die.”
“But not really,” Cara said quickly, seeing Rhys tighten his arms out of the corner of her eye. “You’re saying we have to . . . um . . . kill her but without killing her. Right? Please tell me that’s what you mean.”
“You do have to actually kill Olivia. Her heart must stop, at the very least. Once the Pyx has been released and removed, then the plan would be to revive her, of course.”
“No way,” Rhys said. “There’s no way that’s happening. There’s so much that could go wrong there. Just . . . no way. Find something else.”
“There is nothing else, child,” Jenyx responded.
Rhys growled under his breath.
Cara’s mind was already spinning with ways to kill someone without killing them, at least not permanently, but she wasn’t getting anywhere.
After another tense moment of silence, Wes spoke quietly from the chair. “What happens to her if we do nothing?”
