When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  I’d raised my brows, unfamiliar with the term. “I won’t.”

  “If the infected live long enough, they eventually transform into a different class of Mute—a Haunt, we call them, because they no longer need physical sustenance to live.” He’d thrown his cigarette into the snow, bitterly. “They suck the souls right out of the living. I’ve seen it myself, seen the way they reap a life and get stronger from it.”

  “How?” I’d asked disbelievingly.

  “Nobody knows.” Jac, being who he is, laughed fully and genuinely at the absurdity of it all, tilting his neck back and forth, giving it a crude popping. “But the others infected—the smaller, second-class ones—are fucking obsessed with them.”

  “Obsessed?” I’d asked as he started walking off, no longer interested in the conversation.

  Jac’s eyes had glinted malevolently. “They will die trying to devour a Haunt—that’s why we caught one and used it to lead all the others away.”

  At that point in time, Silas arrived, jabbing an elbow into my side as he passed. “Didn’t you figure that out already?”

  To this day, a week later, Mabel hasn’t returned and nobody has really been the same—especially Rion, who disappears where nobody can find him, not even Jac or Silas.

  And when he “supervises” me at night, we barely talk.

  So far, it appears they don’t know anything about who we really are or where we’ve come from—and I wonder if that’s the only reason we’re still alive.

  Will it be this easy to fool Mabel?

  This afternoon, I help Merope clean guns—an order issued by Silas, who’s impressively managed to keep his head straight since the breach last week.

  We sit outside of the barn, running dirty rags over the guns set aside for us, watching grievers wandering the compound with bouquets of sage smoking in their hands. They mutter prayers and sing sad songs, a terrifying lethargy wrought into their bleak and hollowed eyes.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about Nova. More and more, I get the feeling she was just crazy—just crazy, like I was desperate and angry, resentful toward the Project.

  I couldn’t handle everybody else getting to deploy, and my being held back—so I found reasons to trash the Project even if it meant believing in a sick girl with treasonous claims.

  Foolish, Eos . . . Stupid.

  I polish another pistol, snapping its pieces back together and closing its slide. The grievers wander by, hanging chips of crystal and dirty, uncut gemstones along the wall.

  Merope clears her throat. “Something,” she whispers, eyeing the grievers as they pass, “is off about this place.”

  “Fifty of their people died a week ago. They’re mourning.”

  “Where is Mabel?” Merope leans forward, elbows resting on her knees as she adds in a whisper, “Fifty of her people have died and she still isn’t here? And nobody has a way of reaching her?”

  Just then, the barn’s door whines, slamming shut.

  Rion walks out, gripping a bottle of vodka. He stumbles off in the direction of his hut, garnering startled glances from those he shoulders roughly through on his way.

  I sigh, setting aside the pistol.

  “That’s my cue,” I say, getting up to go.

  “Wait—where are you going?”

  “To get some answers.”

  “You’re leaving me to clean all these alone?”

  “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t worry,” I say, giving her a playful wink she doesn’t return before jetting off in the direction of Rion’s hut.

  It isn’t long before I’ve caught up with him; his pace is off balance, slow. He keeps pausing to drink deeply from the jug of vodka dangling in his hands before shoving his way through a throng of people also walking the path.

  By the time he’s ripping his hut’s door open, I’m standing directly at his back.

  “Hey,” I say, announcing myself. His eyes drift sidelong to behold me blearily. “Mind if I join you?”

  He follows my gaze, resting on the vodka.

  Then, sighing, he hands it over. I’m startled to see that it’s nearly half gone.

  “Probably best if you cut me off, anyway,” he says.

  I follow gingerly at his back. The hut’s curtains are drawn and the fire’s gone out, leaving it gloomy inside. He collapses on his unmade bed, pressing his palms to his eyes, and groans.

  He clumsily rips off a hat, his almost-black hair awry, a mop of wild strands dipping into his eyes.

  Leaning up against a map of Asia, I casually uncap the jug of vodka and lift it to my lips. The taste is unlike anything I’ve ever sampled before, and I try not to gag.

  I’ve never had alcohol before.

  “So,” I begin. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Elizabeth,” he scoffs lazily. “The world is ending—that’s the only occasion there is.”

  “You’re drinking because the world’s ending?”

  “No,” he says—thoughtful, quiet.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I slink down the wall, sitting on the floor with my back up against it. At my side is a shelf. I run my finger along it.

  Rion’s head lolls back, his eyes staring at the ceiling.

  “Go for it,” he says.

  “What,” I say, holding up the military tags, “are these?”

  “They’re military tags.”

  “Obviously, but where did you get them?”

  “I—” He pauses, exhaling. “My dad was a great man, back when he was alive.”

  This takes me completely off guard. “These were . . . ?”

  “My dad’s, yeah.”

  “He was a pilot?”

  “The best.”

  “Tell me more,” I say, relocating to his bed. I sit perched on the edge, right beside him. “Why did he join the air force?”

  “My little sister, Lindall, caught the A-42.” Rion’s voice is all of a sudden very angry. “Have you ever seen anybody with the plague flip before?”

  I shake my head—a small, fractional movement.

  He smiles cynically. “You’re lucky.”

  “What happened?”

  “Right before she flipped, my dad killed her—it was what was best for her, the merciful thing to do.” Rion drops his dark eyes to his open palms. “My mom got the A-42 too, less than a month later, but we waited too long.”

  “She . . . flipped?” I breathe.

  “Dad was really brave about the whole thing.”

  “I’m sure he was,” I say, handing over the tags. He grips them so tight, they nearly cut into his calloused palm.

  “You think that’s brave?” he asks contradictorily, his focus waxing and waning. “Killing your family? Would you have?”

  I rest a hand on his forearm. “You can’t kill somebody who is already dead, Rion.”

  “Would you have done it?”

  “Of course,” I say softly, shocked by how imploringly he’s looking back at me—a void gaping wide behind his eyes, stirring and dilated, ringed in maple. “Your father was brave enough to give them the one thing they really wanted before dying.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Dignity,” I say, and for a long while Rion’s quiet.

  Then, all of a sudden, he’s clasped his hand over my own, and is pulling me close—a delicate tug, an invitation, which I’m startled to be so willing to follow. I collapse sideways, lying flush against him in his bed, the two of us operating wordlessly—and I don’t know what I’m doing or why, just that I am.

  We lie together quietly, only our sides touching but our eyes locked on each other—a smile rising on Rion’s full lips like dawn.

  “Your parents,” he asks. “What were they like?”

  “They . . .” I wet my lips, stalling. My parents are long dead and never kne
w each other—they are DNA samples thrown together in a genetic log without names, without faces, without memory . . .

  I don’t really have parents.

  My eyes fall to the thin scar along my inner wrist—it arcs flawlessly, almost invisible. “My mom always inspired me to try harder, to be better. For a long time, the only thing I cared about was earning her approval, her respect.”

  “Did you?” he surprises me by asking. I can’t believe the way my throat tightens in response.

  “No,” I breathe—and I don’t know why, but it feels less like a lie and more like a confession. “I never did.”

  Rion’s eyes float to the ceiling—bleary still, and sad—and I feel his hand lift a fraction, resting itself on mine.

  “You should’ve stayed,” he whispers. His hand clasps mine a little tighter, a warmth blooming through me like the spill of summer sunlight.

  “What?” I gasp.

  “You should’ve stayed.”

  “I didn’t want to,” I hear myself say. My voice sounds like a shout stifled by a gust of wind—far away and unfamiliar, even to my own ears.

  “Why didn’t you?” Rion rolls over, cupping my cheek in his hand now, the feel of his touch like an open flame. “You’ve got to get out of here. It isn’t safe for you.”

  I gasp, suddenly euphoric and blissful and high—a tickling warmth pooling at my center, filling me up as the beat of a song thunders rhythmically through my veins.

  It shakes my heart in a way I’ve only felt once before.

  Only this is deeper, clawing at my roots.

  And abruptly, without warning, I’m sinking into Rion’s eyes the way I would if diving into the ocean—a terrifying, blind fall that is as exhilarating as it is stupid.

  I hold my breath, squeezing my eyes shut—and when they reopen again, I’m not looking back at Rion. I’m looking through his eyes, from sometime in the past.

  And somehow, I know everything about him.

  I know what he knows.

  He’s twenty. Injured severely. Vision blurry, unfixed, as he peers up at a dilapidated sign looming over him—a stark green that has dented and faded over time.

  It reads:

  KIPLING, COLORADO

  He’s on the side of an old highway, his wrists pumping out blood to the beat of his heart. Across the road, having flown over a guardrail and into a rock wall, a car hisses with steam, its hood folded and crumpled like an accordion.

  The driver is facedown against the steering wheel.

  Dead.

  I feel my breath quicken, readying to scream, when Rion’s hand slips out of my own and the connection’s lost.

  I’m back at the quarantine, lying beside him, feeling high and happy, pleasure as rife in my veins as the rush of adrenaline whistling and wild with every beat of my heart.

  And all I want to do is touch him, to put my hands all over his body and drink—

  Reality falls slowly, a net enveloping me, triggered by the untrusting look in Rion’s beautiful eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I gasp, the dawning of comprehension as fast and unpleasant as getting whiplashed. I saw Rion’s past. A fatal car crash, which he survived, in Kipling, Colorado. Not far from here . . .

  I saw it all, but how?

  My chest feels as though it’s caved in on itself.

  I whisper again, “I’m so sorry,” and get up, feeling unsteady on my feet and dangerously close to throwing up. “I don’t know what happened—”

  I lean against the wall, heaving. As fast as I’ve stood up, so has Rion, who pilots me to a chair beside his unlit hearth—all of a sudden very serious, very sobered.

  As I sit, I grab his wrist and pull it out for inspection.

  He’s a specimen, I think frantically, seeing a trail of knotted scars along it—exactly like a butchered extraction might look if a professional didn’t take out his microchips.

  I glare at him. “What is—”

  Rion jerks back his hand. “Be quiet,” he hisses, eyes leaping to the door anxiously. “We can’t let anybody know you’re hearing what I’m about to tell you, Eos.”

  “You,” I breathe, feeling ill again. “You know my . . . !?”

  “Be quiet. It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not!”

  “I’m not like you,” Rion reiterates, speaking so quietly he’s almost completely inaudible. “I’m not like your league, or any of the other leagues that’ve come off the Ora.”

  “But your wrist,” I insist hysterically.

  “You just saw where that came from!” he says, spitting the words through gritted teeth—angry and ashamed. I think of the blood pulsing out of his wrists and realize that maybe these scars didn’t come from the car wreck—but from something else.

  I’m not like your league . . .

  Or any of the other leagues that’ve come off the Ora.

  The room is netted in heavy silence, letting my thoughts buzz in full measure. So all along, he’s known . . . but what about everybody else? If they know who we truly are, why have they yet to capture us the way the other leagues were?

  I change the subject as well as I can: “Those scars weren’t from the car wreck.”

  Rion exhales, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair.

  Then, as though he’s afraid waiting any longer might risk the possibility of him losing his nerve, he rolls up his sleeves and shows me both wrists in full.

  “I . . .” He stops, shaking his head. “I tried . . .”

  Each wrist wears an ugly, knotted bracelet of scars. One of his forearms is marred as well, a vertical slice that meets the band around his inner-wrist with gruesome precision.

  The other forearm is untouched. I bet he lost consciousness before he could get to it.

  After I’ve seen enough, he rolls up his sleeves. A stark quiet ensues during which I wonder if he’ll ever speak to me again after what I’ve seen—scars, yes, but also a piece of himself, of his soul.

  Eventually he scoffs, head shaking. “Weak.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” I get up, still uneasy, approaching only to have him turn his back on me. “You’re not weak, Rion.”

  “Stop,” he says, turning to face me. “I don’t need sympathy from anybody, Eos.”

  “I wasn’t giving you sympathy.”

  “Just go, okay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve got what I came for.”

  “Which is . . . what? To kill—”

  We both freeze, startled by shouting. Rion’s up and tearing open his hut’s door before I can say another word, looking for the source of the yelling.

  A second later, he’s looking back at me—and I find myself unable to look at those lovely, stirring maple eyes in the same way anymore, and wonder if I ever will.

  “It’s Merope,” he says, using her real name.

  “What’s going on?” I bolt to the door, standing halfway in the hut and halfway out. The snow falls heavily in the creeping shadow of dusk, and I shout out for her. “I’m over here!”

  Merope gallops up, her cheeks reddened and her face pale in a sickly, terrified way. “It’s Lucas,” she gasps.

  She doesn’t have to say a word more.

  I run.

  17

  i plunge into the darkening day, flecks of snow slapping my cheeks as I push into a sprint.

  Rion follows, not even caring to put on a jacket.

  Merope updates me as we run. “He’s awake, but he’s in a lot of pain without his meds.”

  “Mia’s holding off on his pain killers?” Rion asks as we turn the corner, getting to a more populated area—cressets fiery, laid alongside the path.

  We swing past the bonfire and barn, ignoring the curious faces of onlookers queued up for dinner. Just like Pudge night, a line has formed in front of a large ca
uldron-like pot bubbling on top of a fire; inside there’s an off-white, pasty substance.

  Replying to Rion, Merope says, “Mia’s trying to keep him awake for a while; he’s been unconscious for too long.”

  “He’s going to be in bad shape,” Rion says.

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “How long has he been awake?” I ask.

  “Ten minutes, tops.” Merope breathes heavily as we walk up the stone walkway to the cabin. Firelight glows through the dirty windows, emphasizing the falling snow.

  “Let’s go,” Rion offers, nodding at Merope. “You first.”

  “Cyb’s already here—” Merope’s voice is cut off as the door slams behind her. I’m unable to follow, anchored by a gentle tug on the back of my jacket’s hood.

  Rion’s towing me back.

  “Stop,” I say, trying to yank away. “What’re you doing?”

  “Hey, listen,” Rion exhales, speaking tentatively. “He’s not going to be himself in there, okay?”

  “I know that,” I seethe.

  “Just prepare yourself, that’s all I’m saying.”

  He drops my hood and I leave, frazzled by the fact that my whole sense of reality has been upset. Who is Rion, anyway? How much does he really know? Can he be trusted?

  In a daze, I fly through the cabin’s front door and navigate the familiar labyrinth of dark hallways, my every step followed by the shadow of Rion clinging to my heels.

  Before I’ve left the living room, I hear sobbing from Lios’s bedroom—a horrible, visceral sound that leaves my heart beating a little faster and my palms sweaty.

  I’ve never been good with sick people. Or emotional people.

  It makes me nervous.

  For the second time upon reaching Lios’s door, I can’t get myself to enter immediately. After running all the way here, and caring so deeply . . . I’m still somehow stopped cold by the sound of his sobbing.

  Behind me, Rion leans against the opposing wall. He holds my gaze with the steady grip of familiarity—the way somebody might with a best friend, with family. Unflinching and soft.