by Everly Frost
While the first one grinned at me, the second Rift crunched through the leaves to Snowboy and gave him a firm enough nudge to push him to the side. Snowboy laughed and jostled him back and the two boys grappled each other until Quake cleared his throat.
I picked my jaw up. The third Rift snapped back to the second who snapped back to the first.
He let go of my arm and backed off, his white teeth disappearing as his grin faded. He gave me a nod, his reserve returning.
I stared at them. “You all…”
They seemed perfectly at ease with the strange power they all exhibited: Snowboy’s ice, Blaze’s fire, Quake’s strength, and Rift’s … I wasn’t sure what to call what he did … shadows maybe. “All of this is because of nectar,” I said. “But you’re not afraid.”
“Why would we be afraid of life?” Blaze asked, a bemused expression on his face.
I was still catching my breath when Pip tugged on my arm.
I took his hand and said, “Please don’t tell me you split into lots of Pips?”
“Nope. My gift is quiet. I’m still kind of figuring it out. But I can hear and smell stuff.”
That explained him inhaling when he hugged me, as well as the way he’d pressed his ear to my heart as though he were listening to my heartbeat.
“Pip is our ears,” Snowboy explained. “We have an underground surveillance system that shows us what’s happening inside each of Starsgard’s towers, but short of stationing a watch out here at all times, we have a limited ability to observe what’s going on in our immediate environment. Pip can hear anything within a half mile radius and his secondary sensory trait—his ability to scent—helps with locating animals.”
Pip must have been listening to my thumping heart, because he said, “Don’t be afraid.”
“It also makes him incredibly empathetic,” Snowboy continued, his expression becoming serious. “Which isn’t always a good thing.”
“I didn’t like it when the Protectors put the cameras up,” Pip said. “I could feel them watching us all the time.” He shuddered. “It was like someone breathing through the cameras.”
Rift was beside him immediately. “We took care of those for you, didn’t we?”
The discomfort left Pip’s face. “You sure did.”
I asked, “Who are the Protectors?”
Rift returned to silence, but Snowboy said, “The Council has a special team of highly trained soldiers—”
“They need to be,” Blaze interrupted, his eyes glowing.
Snowboy snorted. “Despite what Blaze says, the Protectors don’t actually know about us, but we’ve come close to being discovered several times. Both times, Pip warned us. Currently there are five Protectors. Which corresponds to how many there are of us. We aren’t sure if that’s a deliberate move on the part of the Council. I guess we’ll wait and see if they train another Protector because of you.”
“Are you sure they don’t know about us?”
Pip shook his head. “Whenever the Protectors come anywhere near us, they only talk about the bears and leopards and stuff. They think the cameras are here to monitor the animals’ movement, not ours.”
Snowboy nodded. “The animals seem to be the cover story. Our tower surveillance doesn’t show us what happens in the Council’s secret meetings underground, but the snippets of conversation we’ve heard tell us that they use the animals as a way of getting the Protectors to do routine checks up this way—and they also use the animals to explain why the cameras keep breaking.”
“Except it’s not only us they want to watch. It’s the source too.” Rift’s sudden words met silence.
Before I could speak, Snowboy cleared his throat, nudging Pip. “Why don’t you show Ava what you can do?”
Pip became very still and the others did too. He placed his hand on my arm and pulled me closer. He closed his eyes. “Listen. I’ll tell you what I sense.”
For another moment he was silent, contemplative, his expression serene. “I hear heartbeats first, but I have to put them aside or they drown everything else out. Then I sense the insects in the leaves beneath our feet, worms working their way through the dirt, ants, that kind of thing. And … there’s a rabbit over there. They have a strong smell.” He pointed without opening his eyes, his nose wrinkling. “Kind of like you, Ava, but theirs isn’t so nice as yours.”
I tried not to laugh.
“The chickens near the tower have found some tasty scraps. The ocean beyond the cliff is extra rough today, crashing against the rocks.” Then he frowned. “The leopards have moved and … wait…” Pip’s eyes flashed open. “There’s something wrong with Glacier!”
In an instant, Snowboy disappeared, reappearing a moment later outside in the clearing next to the female snow leopard. I followed as quickly as I could while Quake thundered beside me and Blaze left a trail of melted snow. Rift was last, keeping watch at the tree line.
Snowboy ran his hands over Glacier’s hide while she purred up at him. “She seems fine.”
Pip dropped into the snow next to her. “No, her heartbeat’s funny. It’s all over the place.”
“She’s not even panting, Pip. Focus and tell me what you sense. Maybe she’s about to get sick and isn’t showing external signs yet.”
Pip closed his eyes again, frowning as he rested his hand on Glacier’s soft hide. “Okay, I can hear her heartbeat, but it’s like she has more than one heart. She’s never sounded like that before. It’s like she’s…”
He paused and suddenly he was laughing. He leaned back with a grin that could have lit up the darkest night. “Kittens! She’s having kittens! I can hear all their heartbeats.”
The boys crowded around her and even Rift left his post at the edge of the clearing. I was amazed, dismayed, and overawed all at once. “But she carried me all that way. I never should have let her do that…”
Suddenly, all the boys were talking at once, laughing and patting Glacier. I moved to the outside, happy to observe them. I shuffled back in the snow, reaching the male leopard, Avalanche, who rested in the snow. He lifted his head and I bent to stroke his soft fur, my heart warming. “Congratulations.”
He growled, a sound that quickly became a snarl, and I withdrew my hand with a fright. At first I thought he was growling at me, but his head turned toward the slope behind us where something stirred. The fur on the back of his spine stood on end as he jumped to his feet. With a yelp, he raced toward Glacier.
I froze, trying to see what had alarmed him, but all I could see were the boys, the gray boulders farther to the left, and snow everywhere.
At the same time, Pip raised his hands and the others became silent.
Then they were all looking at me.
Their faces turned paler than the sleeping dead.
There was a rush of air at my back, a whisper of danger, and a dark shadow rose up and engulfed me, slamming me into the snow.
Chapter Six
A GIANT PAW smashed down beside me. A muzzle filled with sharp teeth descended to my cheek. When I flailed and tried to turn onto my back, the bear shoved its nose against my back and forced me down.
The beast inhaled, long and deep, a gusty indrawn breath, sucking in my scent. Then it roared and the snow around me erupted with claws and teeth. The thick snow on the slope exploded upward and three more bears leaped from beneath cover. Within seconds they placed themselves in front of the boys, forcing them back and forming a barrier between us.
Sprawled against the snow bed, I struggled to turn, but the bear forced me onto my stomach again, a ton of weight pinning me. Keeping me trapped, it slipped an enormous arm beneath me and dragged me upward against its chest, pinning my own arms to my sides. Coarse fur prickled the back of my head and exposed neck. I struggled as it dragged me backward, trying to dig my heels in and slow it down.
Pip was shouting. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t hear them!” over and over until Quake lifted him up, crushing him to his chest so he couldn’t see what
was happening, murmuring in his ear. In the next instant, he put Pip down and the little boy shot into the trees.
As I scrabbled my feet against the snow, I inhaled the bear’s scent like it had inhaled mine—and it was icy, cold, a kind of nothing. No wonder Pip hadn’t sensed it. It was like trying to sense snow.
Crying out in my efforts to make the bear release me, my eyes widened as I met Snowboy’s across the distance. His arm was up, telling me to stop.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop. I fought with all my might, but the bear began to roll down on itself and I saw why Snowboy wanted me to stop moving.
Jagged bones, like claws, protruded from the bear’s arms. If I hit the wrong spot in my frenzy to escape, I’d impale myself. I remembered Snowboy’s words and his fear. Mountain bears are the only animals we don’t take on. They were designed to be angry and violent.
Then Pip was back, holding a backpack, and the boys’ expressions changed from afraid to determined.
There was a sudden gap where Snowboy had stood. He disappeared for a mere second. In that second there was a flurry of snow first around Pip and then around the other boys as Snowboy ran from one to the other with something in his hand.
When he returned to his spot, each of the boys pulled something out of their necks and flung the objects into the snow.
With another word from Snowboy, Pip ran away again, and I was glad to see him disappear into the safety of the trees with the leopards.
As soon as he was gone, Snowboy drew a deep breath, so deep that the air sucked around me, and then he roared back at the bears, causing the snow to blast around us. The other three boys took up the shout, drowning out everything else, their voices echoing around and around the vast snow bed.
The bear that was holding me stopped curling inward. It snorted, a deep rumbling growl sounded deep inside its chest, and suddenly I found myself pushed to the ground again. I lifted my head just in time to see Blaze, Quake, and Rift collide with the waiting bears, slamming them apart and creating a gap for Snowboy to dart through.
As the bears retaliated, Snowboy’s running feet beat toward me, leaving the ground in a ferocious leap. I sensed him connect with the bear behind me and in the next moment, the creature’s weight was gone.
I scrambled onto my knees, dragging air into my lungs. I turned to see Snowboy and the bear collide against the nearest rocky outcrop.
The beast was wild and raw, easily eight feet tall, its body covered in pure white fur and its arms and legs decorated with short, bony spikes. Claws extended from its paws as it grappled with Snowboy and its big head sported sharp eyes and even sharper teeth.
Snowboy’s fists connected with its chest, slamming over and over as he pounded the beast with the kind of force that would pulverize rock.
Yet the beast didn’t flinch. It regained its balance and hit back, grabbing Snowboy and flinging him into the ground, smashing him down so hard the crack echoed across the distance.
It roared again, its enormous mouth wide open, its jaws large enough to rip off his head.
Snowboy jumped to his feet and leaped back into the fight as though he’d felt nothing. He threw himself through the air, shouting, “Run, Ava! Go with Pip!”
I scrambled to my feet as his fist connected with the bear’s snout, using his momentum in an audible wallop. The animal responded by trying to bite, but Snowboy snatched at its jaws, pushing back, keeping it at bay.
He was doing everything he could, but the bear wouldn’t stop. It looked as though its bones were made of steel. It responded by flinging him again, so far this time that Snowboy skidded and rolled. Without hesitation, the bear ducked its head and tucked in its limbs, compressing itself inward. Its body turned into a sphere—the same shape I’d seen zigzagging down the mountain—and it rolled faster than I thought possible, reaching Snowboy within moments.
I ran toward the tree line, but all the while my mind was churning. The other boys were fairing no better—not even Rift and his shadows. Nearby, Quake had a bear in a headlock and was swinging it around, flinging it like a ball, but it simply recovered on landing and swung back to him.
They were giving me the chance to get away, but what then? I could run, but the bears had clearly wanted to take me away. They’d come for me. The boys could fight them, but eventually they’d tire, their nectar would run out, and then the bears would crush them and take me anyway.
The bears fought with a kind of military precision, grouping themselves, strategizing like a person would. They’d even given the boys the chance to bow out—the first bear had roared a challenge and the other bears had waited, creating a barrier without attacking, giving the boys the chance to leave me to my fate.
Those were not the actions of a mere animal.
Snowboy wanted me to run away, but that wasn’t going to work.
Movement on the slope caught my attention and four more spherical beasts sped down it toward the boys. Within moments, the four bears had reached the bottom of the slope and raced toward us across the flat expanse, impossibly fast, two straight for me and the other two circling around to come at the boys from each side.
If it was unlikely that the boys would survive before, it was impossible now that the bears’ numbers had doubled.
Snowboy had told me to run, but there was nowhere to go.
I skidded to a stop at the place where the boys had stood moments before. I knew what I’d find lying in the snow. Fear spiked through me, but I was done running.
I was dead to the world and to anyone who cared about me. I’d lost Michael. I’d lost Josh. My parents slept under a tower and wouldn’t wake during my lifetime. Josh had told me to find a source of nectar, that it was the only way to survive.
Whatever nectar really was. Wherever it really came from. Josh was right.
I snatched up one of the injectors from the snow, hesitating only another second, knowing that in this moment, I would make a choice.
Without another moment’s pause, I rammed the implement into the side of my neck like the boys had done just before—compressing what remained of its glistening black contents into my bloodstream.
Nectar shot straight into my head and through my shoulders, down my arms. I took a deep breath, waiting a millisecond for my body to burn. A cry began in the bottom of my lungs, pushing up through my chest, an undeniable force—the beginning of a flame so fierce it threatened to crush me. I shut my mouth and held it in. I held my breath, waiting another moment, waiting for the bears to reach me.
Nearby, Snowboy grappled with the first bear and I didn’t know if he’d seen the others, but it didn’t matter because I’d take care of them.
The center two bears were twenty feet away, closer than the ones at the side. As they headed straight for me, I ran toward them, gasping in a breath, holding it in, reveling in the relief I felt when I moved, as though throwing myself forward was the only way to survive, the only way to control the raging fire that wanted to rip my muscles and bones apart.
As they sped in our direction, closer and closer, both bears unfurled and at the last moment they changed direction and leaped, all fur and teeth and claws toward Snowboy, like eagles ready to pluck him from the ground.
I adjusted my course, coming at them from the side. The one on the left had a black stripe on its upper chest—a slash of ink marring its otherwise white fur—and that was the one I raced toward. Using the new strength in my legs to fling myself higher than I ever could before, I launched myself into the air to meet it midair, mere feet away from its target, sensing the chill wind rush around me, soothing my frayed nerves.
I collided with the bear, my body punching it off course, forcing it into the other one, knocking them both awry. The collision eased the pressure inside me for a moment, like a heartbeat shooting life-giving blood around my body, but within the next moment, the pressure increased and I could barely hold it in.
The bears and I ricocheted away from Snowboy’s position. I wasn’t sure if he looked up. I
was briefly aware of his eyes on me before the first bear swung at him again, demanding his attention.
Somehow, I grabbed hold of the marked bear’s body as we spun toward the ground. Despite its fur, it was icy next to my skin and its spikes pierced my body in a hundred places. It snapped its teeth at me, barely missing my neck. The reflex in my arms pulled the bear close. The ground rose up at us. It was only three feet away before we would crash into it.
At the last moment, I let go of the raging explosion inside me.
I exhaled the fiery force I’d kept within, releasing it through my hands, my skin, my whole body.
It exploded through the bear.
The force knocked the creature into the ground and pitched me in the opposite direction, back up into the air. As the bear slammed into the rocks and snow, the earth cracked around it. Fissures ran toward the other bears that were racing in from the side, forcing them off course. Ripples of flame spread out across the snow. Snowflakes exploded upward, melting into rain, evaporating into steam. What was left of the rock below glowed bright red.
The bear I’d hit was hunched in the middle of the charred rock.
I floated within a bubble of heat, suspended ten feet above ground, somehow staying aloft, as though I weren’t a part of anything anymore. Not the broken bear, nor the wash of melting snow, nor even the silence that had descended. Nothing touched me. I was separated from it all—a mere observer. I wanted to stay there. To not come back down, to remain in the illusion of being able to subvert gravity, to float without wings.
I knew without looking that two of the bears tumbled through the flames, that the ones fighting the boys had been knocked to the side, that the boys themselves had tumbled and rolled, their bodies healing—mercifully—and that the only unscathed bear had thundered to a halt at the edge of the explosion, braced on all four legs.
Snowboy was the only one standing, his icy face upturned to me, a burst of cold protecting him as I floated above the ground.