Whispers in Autumn (The Last Year, #1)

by Trisha Leigh

  I reach out a finger and touch the glass, feeling my eyes widen. It’s frozen solid. “You’ve been practicing.”

  “Yes. It took me a few tries to figure out how much power to use.”

  “Can you control it?”

  He avoids my gaze. “I’m getting better. I accidentally froze all the clothes in my closet this morning.”

  I laugh, noticing now that he’s wearing the same outfit as the day before. “Interesting. What are you going to do to the Others, imprison them in blocks of ice?”

  “Maybe. At least I’m trying.”

  Lucas’s response gets under my skin, but he’s right. Trying to harness the heat still scares me, even though I managed to keep a tight rein on it when heating the water in Fils’ bowl house. It’s fire, though. If I lose control, or use too much, things could get ugly fast. “So what are you going to do about these frozen beakers now?”

  Students will begin to trickle in any moment. He gives me a sly look that I interpret and shake my head. Now is not the time to give it a go. “No way, Lucas. People are going to be here any second. You shouldn’t be fooling around with this at Cell.”

  He shrugs. “We have an exam today. They’ll thaw before anyone notices.”

  Lucas and I move from the counter and take our seats as people file in. The giggling and other end-of-the-day nonsense dissipates as the lights dim and the Monitor begins block.

  “Students, we’ve had a change of plans for today. The Wardens asked that we wait to give your first exam until everyone has completed their interview. Instead, we’ll conduct an experiment. Partner with the person to your right; go pick up the trays assembled at the back.”

  My mouth goes dry. I shoot to my feet beside Lucas but by the time we get to the counter half the class is in front of us. Several pairs have selected trays, and the frozen beakers are gone. There’s no way to find out who has them.

  The Monitor projects the experiment on the screen and there’s nothing to do but get started. We are to boil water over a burner, then dump it into one beaker. The other is to be filled with cold water. Afterward we’ll place them in a cooler and observe which freezes first.

  The hot one will. We all know it. It kind of defeats the purpose of an experiment when you complete it multiple times.

  My hands shake, spilling some of the cold water onto Lucas’s desk. He takes the pitcher from me in silence, nerves crackling between us like electricity. No one speaks up about having frozen beakers. Maybe they don’t notice, or perhaps they think everyone else’s are as well.

  Lucas’s hand brushes mine and turns it into ice. Not literally, thank the stars. I glare at him, lecturing with my eyes. This is what he gets for experimenting at Cell. If we’re going to test the extent of our capabilities, we need to be careful. Smart.

  The pot of water on the heating device reaches a boil and Lucas uses a towel to grab it by the handle and dump in into the second container. Steam begins to waft off the scalding water when a loud crack followed by the sound of water pouring onto the floor stops my heart. My body, already tense, springs forward in search of the source. A girl near the front gasps for breath, dark red blood spilling out of her clenched left hand. Her lab partner stares, open-mouthed and helpless.

  The sight of the blood burns my stomach and black spots pop in front of my eyes. I stop dead in my tracks, waiting to see what will happen. The rest of our Cellmates continue their experiments, glancing up at the commotion every couple of seconds.

  The injured girl makes strange whimpering noises but no water spills down her face. Her skin looks white as a sheet, colorless against her rich brown sweater and the crimson liquid puddles on her desk. She grabs her lab partner with her free hand, squeezing so hard I can see her skin redden from here. “It hurts, Emmy.”

  The Monitor’s voice punches through my deadened hearing. “What’s going on, girls? Reese, why are you bleeding?” She’s calm and collected even though Reese’s blood collects on the desk and floor. It’s not like she’s going to Break, though she does look ready to fall down.

  Then again, the kids with the nosebleeds shouldn’t have Broken, either.

  Reese’s eyes cloud over and she sways on her feet. Emmy reaches out an arm and answers for her partner. “The beaker broke, ma’am. I think it was frozen.”

  My heart stops and my body rocks in sympathy with Reese’s. Lucas steps up beside me, close enough to touch. He sucks in a breath and holds it; my own lungs burn with unspent air.

  The Monitor’s eyebrows dart up in surprise. “Frozen? Why would your supplies be frozen? I’m going to have to report this. In the meantime, Emmy, take her to the Administrator’s office and call a Healer.”

  Emmy nods, still supporting a wobbly Reese as they head out of the room. The Monitor clears her throat at the rest of us, still immobilized by the incident. “Get back to your experiments, class. Are anyone else’s beakers frozen?” When she doesn’t get a response she nods. “Very well. Carry on.”

  Lucas and I huddle over his desk, resuming our work as the Monitor puts us on mute and activates her personal communication device. She’s definitely reporting what happened to the Others. What Lucas has done, in effect, is tell them there’s an abnormality in this period, and with our interviews the week after next. It’s one thing to sneak outside the boundary, to have secret paper cup conversations, even to try overhearing an interview, but it’s another thing entirely to face the Others head-on.

  A couple of Wardens enter the room five minutes later, laden with cleaning supplies and irritated dispositions. They make quick work of the blood and broken glass, then station themselves on either side of the exit. When the bell rings we put away our materials, gather our things, and get in the line waiting to leave.

  The Wardens don’t speak to anyone but we pass right in between them on our way out. I go first, then Lucas. They don’t stop us. We separate to stop at our respective lockers. The dread burrowed inside me pulses and grows, encouraged by concern.

  I don’t know those girls, Emmy and Reese, at all. I’ve never spoken to them. Now Reese has been injured, and even though I didn’t do it, part of me feels responsible. Lucas would never have frozen those beakers if we hadn’t agreed to test ourselves.

  I grab my coat and scarf out of my locker and slam it shut, jumping when Leah’s rosy complexion appears where the door was. “Leah. You scared me.”

  “Sorry.” Her eerie smiles sends shivers down the back of my neck. “Did you hear about Emmy and Reese?”

  It’s a strange question, considering we all have chemistry together and everyone saw what happened to Reese’s hand. Silent warnings to tread carefully echo in my mind. “Yes, I did. Reese got cut.”

  Leah shakes her head, messy curls full of life. “No. After they went to the Administrator.”

  My fingers curl tight around my backpack. “What happened?”

  Her smile stretches wider, pleased by her secret. “They had to talk to the Wardens because the Monitor reported their frozen beakers…” She draws out the story as though she wants me to beg, but when I refuse she continues with a quiet grunt. “They’re Broken. The Wardens took them away.”

  CHAPTER 20.

  That could have been us.

  I stomp out the front doors and pass Lucas without speaking, fighting shame at my selfishness. He jogs to catch up and keeps pace. When we’re alone—as much as we ever are—I stop and face him. “I told you we shouldn’t be fooling around at Cell.”

  The color drains from his face as he reads the mix of emotions in my eyes. “There’s something besides the beakers. What’s going on?”

  A lump crawls into my throat, pasty like a wet piece of paper. I am angry with Lucas for being careless, but it’s relief that makes me want to collapse. We weren’t caught today, but the strange episode means our chemistry block could fall under even more scrutiny in the interviews. Words take a minute, first having to wiggle past the clump of thick emotions. “The Wardens took those girls away.”

>   At least Lucas has the good sense to look guilty, too. He bends over and presses his hands into his knees, breathing deep. I want to sit in the grass and let water leak from my eyes until it dries up. Autumn has spiraled out of control, my emotions tugging me one way and then another hard enough to cause an allover ache. Lucas straightens and grabs my hands, squishing my fingers together. The pain of his grip clears my mind, exchanges guilt for self-preservation. Without a word we stumble home, our feet on some kind of autopilot. We go slow, eating up more than half of our hour in silence.

  The Crawfords’ house looms too soon, and I don’t want Lucas to go inside. I have the ridiculous notion he can keep me safe just by walking at my side. We settle on the Morgans’ front porch, my left hip pressed against his right.

  “What are we going to do?” My voice shakes.

  “We can’t do anything for Emmy and Reese, or anyone else. Not until we can figure out how to help ourselves. And we have to do that before the interviews.”

  “I know.”

  I rest my cheek on his shoulder. There are so many things about us we can’t erase or hide. We can’t change what we are. We don’t even know what we are.

  Lucas remains silent for several minutes and transfers a nervous energy through his hand to mine. I raise my head, meet his eyes. A secret lurks in them, one that scares me.

  “Althea, I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Promise you aren’t going to think I’m a bad person.”

  “Lucas, look at us. We’re the same. I could never in a million years think you’re a bad person.”

  He doesn’t look convinced, the somber, serious expression on his face remaining in place. “It’s about the day I told you I overheard in the Administrative Center that the Wardens are here looking for something.”

  “Oh, yeah! You never did tell me how you really heard that.” Suspicion clouds my mind, wondering if his reasons for keeping his secret could be sinister.

  “I don’t know if I can explain it very well, but I’ll try. That day, I tried getting information from the girls at lunch, but they didn’t know a whole lot. More than I’d figured, but after that bizarre scene at the Family Outing and the realization that the Others were targeting our class, it wasn’t enough.” He runs a thumb over my knuckles and I forget to listen for a second. “I followed one of the Wardens. He went into the Administrator’s office but I couldn’t get in—you saw the cameras.”

  He falls silent, staring down at our linked fingers.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I walked away and stayed out of sight until the doors opened again.” He pauses, free hand shaking as he runs it through his curls.

  “So how did you know they were sent to find something if you didn’t overhear the conversation?” He’s taking an awful long time to tell this story, and impatience crisscrosses my words.

  “It wasn’t a Warden who walked out of the office. It was Leah.”

  “Leah? Black-haired, pissy Leah?”

  Anticipation crackles along my nerves. His gaze darts to his watch and he pulls on one ear, a peculiar motion I haven’t seen him make until now. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen him this nervous. The feeling infects me and I chew on my fingers as he finds the courage to go on.

  “Yeah. She walked around the corner and I just…grabbed her.” My mouth falls open, but he holds up a hand. “Let me get it all out. I wanted so badly to know why the Wardens were here. I thought maybe I could get her to tell me.”

  “You asked her? What did she say?”

  His eyes glaze over, staring past me like he’s seeing the whole thing over again. “Nothing, at first. She looked at me funny, then her eyes got wide and she said she was going to report me. Obviously, I couldn’t let her do that so I dragged her into an empty closet and shut the door.”

  I suck a breath in through clenched teeth. Not just because of what he’s said but because it reminds me of that night in the kitchen, when Mrs. Morgan wanted to run out the door.

  He pauses, meeting my eyes. “What?”

  “Nothing. Go ahead.”

  “She looked more scared than angry. I didn’t know how to convince her not to report me but my mind raced. I silently begged her to tell me what the Wardens said. I told her they aren’t the good guys, that the interviews scare the living daylights out of me. It was like I’d flipped a switch. She got more and more scared and she looked crazy. I asked her to tell me what happened in the office, and she did.”

  “The bruises on her arms, you did that?” The shame on his face twists a knife in my heart. “What did she tell you?”

  “Exactly what I told you in the park that day. That the Wardens are looking for something—she didn’t hear what—and they think they’ll find it by interviewing the Terms. After she spilled, her voice got soft, like a little girl’s, and she asked me what was going to happen to us. She asked me what I was.”

  A gasp whistles through my lips. “That’s almost the same thing Mrs. Morgan said.”

  “I was so scared. I had no idea what happened to her. And I couldn’t let her go and start blabbing all over Cell about me. So I tried something. I pushed opposite thoughts at her. That she never talked to me, never even saw me. A film drew over her eyes, until she looked through me again. When I let her go, she turned and went back to block.”

  He stops, sitting back against the step. He pulls on his ear again, looking as though he’s making a decision. Finally, he sighs. “There’s more. The other day, after you suggested trying to find out about the interviews, I did it again.”

  “What?”

  “I know, it’s just that she’s the only person I can think of who might know where they’re conducting them, and I already screwed her up so what’s the difference?” Misery deepens his voice, makes it scratchy. “She said they’re conducting them in the Administrator’s office, so there’s no way we could listen in. And she either doesn’t know or wouldn’t tell me the questions.”

  The entire story sinks in, and the fact that my idea to somehow prepare for the interviews is a bust is the least interesting tidbit of information. Lucas’s story mingles with what I learned the night Mrs. Morgan Broke, and pieces start to fall into place.

  “You got around the Others’ control. That night they took me outside the boundary, they talked about refreshing Leah. One Other said she’d shed her veil, but Elij said it looked like it had holes in it. You did that.”

  He looks up with caution, encouraged by the revelation in my voice. “After you told me what happened to Mrs. Morgan and what the Others said about her shedding her veil, it started to add up. You must have done the same thing to her.”

  Realization pummels my brain and water springs into my eyes. Lucas’s fingers tighten around mine, his concern making everything harder.

  “Lucas—” Emotions close off my throat, making it impossible to continue. After a minute I fight them off. “It’s not the same. I didn’t put Mrs. Morgan back together and now she’s dead.”

  Panic, guilt, and shame wash through me with no way to escape. Instead, they bottle up until they ooze down my cheeks in fat, salty streams. Lucas scoots closer, but for the first time having him near offers little comfort.

  “It’s not your fault, Althea. We didn’t know our thoughts could do that. When it happened, you didn’t even know about veils. Stop beating yourself up; I did it, too.”

  “Stop beating myself up? I Broke someone, Lucas! She might have acted like a robot, but she was a good person and she didn’t deserve to die because I can’t control myself. And don’t even compare what I did to what you did. I was too stupid to realize I’d caused something I should have tried to fix. Leah’s still alive, remember?”

  “Althea, if you want to blame someone, blame the Others. They’re the ones who put the veils up in the first place. And it’s not like I did a bang-up job fixing Leah. You see how she’s different. Aggressive. Angry. She’s courting Deshi, to top it all off.” Gui
lt laces his voice as it falters over the admission.

  It’s true Leah’s different. Still, angry is better than Broken. The old, troublesome fear bends me forward over my legs for a minute. “We’re not human, Lucas. We’re Other. We must be.”

  When I look up, Lucas’s beautiful, sorrow-filled eyes meet mine. He doesn’t argue. How can he? We can mess with human minds like only they can. I’ve never known the Others to melt or freeze objects, and they don’t smell odd, but humans certainly don’t either. If Deshi is like us, maybe he has the answers to our questions.

  “What about Deshi? He’s so much like us, Lucas, but he spends time alone with the Others. I want to know what he knows. He could tell us everything about the interviews, or maybe convince the Others we don’t have what they’re looking for at all.”

  “Althea, slow down. One thing at a time. If we’re Other, there’s nothing we can do to change it. But Deshi…I agree it makes sense that he’s another Dissident, and all the signs point toward that but I just don’t trust him. Not the way I trusted you.”

  I shake my head, unwilling to totally give up on the idea. Lucas hugs me, right there in front of the Morgans’ house. It’s a good thing people think we’re courting. His arms are strong and wrap tightly around me. The length of our bodies mold together until we feel like one person instead of two. I bury my face in his shoulder, lace my fingers together behind his back. Warmth, a mixture of our body temperatures, flows between us. In spite of everything my spirit lifts, if only a little.

  I might be Other, but I’m not alone. Not anymore.

  He murmurs against my hair, his cool breath chilling my sweat. “We’ll figure out what to do about Deshi.”

  Lucas pulls away and starts toward the Crawfords’. A ragged fissure gapes inside me, tearing wider with each step he takes. The last thing in the world I want is to be alone. Mrs. Morgan, Sarah, Emmy, Reese, Greg…all gone. I can’t help them, can’t save them.

  “Lucas?”