When Stars Burn Out (Europa Book 1)

by Anna Vera

  “Where, then?”

  “Just outside of Kipling, there’s a house with a cellar—”

  “You’re nuts,” Jac declares. “The military base has an army ready to fight for our lives—an army with special abilities that might stand a chance against the Borealians.” He eyes Cyb, Lios, and Merope. “We’re safest around the specimens, aren’t we?”

  I feel my skin prickle, realizing he didn’t meet my eyes.

  Intentionally.

  I look frantically at Rion—who’s more afraid than I’ve ever seen him before—and make my decision: I rip the revolver out of my waistband and fire it directly at the window, blasting a hole right through its center.

  The glass is a web of fissures. Rion lifts a fist, ready to break us out of the car, when we both hear the click of a cocked gun aimed at the space between my eyes.

  Jac’s chin wobbles, face still pale. “Sorry,” he says, less to me and more to Rion, who looks like he’s ready to murder. “But we think they’re coming for her.”

  “You didn’t—” Lios stops, frazzled. “You didn’t say we were giving her over to them!”

  Apollo grips Lios’s shoulder, agreeing. “If we give Eos back to the Borealians, they win this war,” he says with an icy severity that pools in my core. “They will use her as a weapon, and it’ll all be over for us, I can promise you that.”

  Rion inches closer, glaring daggers at Jac. “No matter where she goes, she’s a weapon.”

  Daringly, he pushes the gun down.

  Jac swallows hard, throat bobbing, and lets it fall.

  “Smart choice,” Cyb snarls in Jac’s ear, sheathing a knife she’d quietly extracted from her jacket. “I was just about to rake my dagger across your throat.”

  “We can’t forget we’re on the same side.” Apollo begs for calm with his palms raised. “We aren’t turning anybody in, but we also aren’t—”

  Our car lurches, stopping so abruptly, we’re thrown forward in our seats. Shrieking explodes as the Muted flood out of the forest and haphazardly on the dirt road—so thick we can’t drive anywhere, stuck.

  It isn’t long before a Mute smartly discovers the hole in the window I’ve just shot, peeling back the jagged edges, trying to rip it open and showering Rion and me in shards of glass.

  “See what I mean about the pushbacks?” Silas yells over the swelling chaos, just as a Mute blunders through the open window beside Rion, snapping its jaw wildly.

  Without thinking, Rion punches it in the face. The beast reels backward, returning a second later.

  But I’m ready.

  I launch myself into Rion’s lap, wielding the dagger he gave me earlier, and stake it into the Mute’s skull. It wilts, dragging itself off the blade of my knife, dying just in time for another to quickly take its place.

  “Hive mind,” Apollo shouts, panicking. “Drive, Mia!”

  “But what if they get—”

  “DRIVE,” everybody yells at once, shrinking away from an influx of the Muted digging their way through the window. Mia puts a foot to the accelerator and we fly.

  Our car plows through a cloud of the Muted, killing several in the process before hive mind catches on and they skitter away from the headlights.

  We find the highway at last—only to trip into sprawling tide of the Muted so immense it renders us all speechless.

  Every inch of ground is packed with the Muted, as though the whole city has flipped at once. The moonlight falls in shafts, exposing their eyeless faces in brutal clarity, all turning to look up in an orchestrated stare.

  I feel like I’m going to be sick. Thousands, if not more, are now licking their bloody maws, ready to dig their gummy fingers through our aluminum car doors to get to us, if they must.

  They are coming.

  Merope wilts, swearing through raspy coughs. “We’ve got to get out of here, now.”

  But we quickly discover we’re too late. We’ve stumbled into the heart of their nest. Every inch of our car is hugged by the body of a Mute, thudding violently against it.

  The window shatters—a burst of glass, which Rion’s quick to shield me from. Everybody screams. The Muted reach in, raking fingers over his clothes, tugging at him first.

  I cling tightly to him, firing every round of my pistol at the tempest of the Muted trying to infiltrate our car. Lios surges forth to provide backup, as does Apollo. Mia kicks the gas pedal, propelling us forth in a final effort to escape—only for us to crash so violently into a group of the Muted, they break through the windshield.

  And I know we’re done. We’re finished.

  This is the end.

  The Muted pour into our car—fingernails scraping, jaws set wide and snapping—and there’s nothing we can do to stop them from engulfing us, tearing us to shreds.

  I think of the campsite littered with Skim corpses: ribcages ripped halfway open, hearts missing; skulls cracked and brains slurped up—gone.

  That will be all that’s left of us.

  Rion grabs me, dragging me as far from the open window as we can get. I stay tucked in his arm, our hearts hammering in a furious rhythm, singing together.

  And I look for my power, but it isn’t there.

  Whatever it was the Haunt gave me, I don’t have any left.

  Mia screams shrilly. Merope and Cyb cling to Lios, who’s trying ferociously to protect them—his eyes locked protectively on mine, relieved to see Rion at my side.

  A loud crash.

  I coil against Rion’s chest with my eyes closed.

  And then, I hear the enfilade of rapid gunfire gunning down the Muted surrounding us. The Muted fall back, either dying or scared off, providing a temporary reprieve.

  Cyb whispers, “Who’s out there?”

  We get up and look outside, spotting a group of people who strike me as not belonging.

  They’re clean, for one thing. Their heads are shaved almost down to their scalps, girls included, and their eyes are uniformly the color of gemstones, vivid and conspicuously inhuman, with tattoos cupped around them.

  Tattooed spots, black and visible, forming a constellation.

  Cassiopeia.

  They fall back—obeying orders—and a familiar figure slides into view, replacing them. The figure is slender, a silhouette in the moonlight, that I recognize at once.

  “Specimens,” Pavo booms, his eyes like slivered windows looking out into the depths of space, “I believe it’s time for your league to return to our ship.”

  26

  Pavo raises a hand, palm facing us.

  I feel Rion shift uncomfortably. The others begin thrashing in their seats: Mia, Silas, and Jac lose their breath, casting each other panicked glances.

  “What’s wrong?” I snap, addressing Rion, who looks as if he’s entranced, in the throes of a nightmare: jaw gritted, a band of sweat around his temples, groaning.

  Apollo kicks open a door, climbing out of the car. When he speaks, his voice is laced with boredom. “You’ve decided to blow our cover why, Pavo?”

  “Well apparently, Apollo, if you want something done right, you better go about doing it yourself.” Pavo keeps his palm raised casually in the direction of the car. “Your league is being relieved of its Purpose.”

  Apollo sucks a bleeding finger. “Why?”

  “It’s a Purpose we should’ve given to the Elite.” Pavo’s lips spread apart, revealing yellow teeth. He nods at the group ringing the perimeter—keeping the Muted at bay. “It just so turns out there’s more at stake than I realized.”

  Pavo’s almond eyes click over to mine.

  Noticing as much, Apollo intervenes. “We are days from getting Mabel Faye into our custody! You can’t order us to pull out now that we’ve gotten—”

  Mia screams, a noise as jarring as a chainsaw.

  At the same time, Rion breat
hes heavily, pushing his palms in his eyes like he’s trying to quell a fierce headache. In the front seat beside Mia, Silas leans sideways, vomiting a spew of blood.

  Okay, that’s it.

  I’m getting out of the car.

  “Eos, no!” Merope gasps, clinging to my sleeve. Her face is still chalk-white in the Muted’s presence. “Let Apollo chip away at him first, we’ll follow his lead!”

  I ignore her and climb through the broken window. The air is crisp and wispy, the horizon edged by a smear of pale sea-green as yet another dawn rises.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop killing the very people who will give us access to our target,” I seethe, playing along. Apollo nods encouragingly. “You’re not ending this until they’ve taken us to their secret headquarters, sir.”

  At this, Pavo falters. “Secret headquarters?”

  I lower my voice, pretending it’s an act of discretion while the others are listening. “Why do you think we’re out here—at the break of dawn—in the middle of nowhere?”

  Pavo’s lips raise to a smile. “Lovely,” he concedes. “We’ll go there together.” But he doesn’t lift whatever mysterious power he has over the others, keeping his palm held high.

  Noticing my concern, he says, “We’ll only need one of them to show us the way, correct?”

  I hear Mia sigh in relief—being the driver, of course he’s going to keep her and kill Silas, Jac and Rion.

  “Where’s Onyx?” Lios growls, getting out of the car along with both Cyb and Merope in his wake. “I’d prefer my Purpose to be revoked by my own mentor.”

  Pavo laughs dryly, flicking his wrist. At once, Silas shrieks in agony, clawing his way out of the car, as though propelled by an invisible force.

  “Onyx won’t be joining us,” Pavo divulges nefariously.

  “And why not?” Cyb inquires, lips stiff. “Why would she not be here, as we’re her league?”

  Silas falls to his knees, coughing up blood; the sight lights a blaze of panic in my veins. What is Pavo doing? As a Borealian, he has multiple skillset abilities, but why kill somebody this way, this slowly and cruelly?

  Pavo steps closer, resting his palm flush against the crown of sandy hair atop Silas’s head. The second they touch, Silas looses a breathy cry, losing himself to hysteria: eyes jaundiced, saliva rolling in beads down his chin, vomiting up blood . . .

  The car doors snap open—Jac and Rion fall out.

  Are they next?

  Apollo sweats profusely, clearing his throat—his voice still kept light, feigning a general disinterest. “Are you not capable of killing him faster, Pavo?”

  “Oh!” Pavo says, delighted to be asked. “My contacts told me your league had learned he truth—the truth about us, about why the apocalypse actually began?”

  My league freezes collectively, watching Pavo drop his hand from Silas’s head. “Surely you know I’m not killing the boy, but infecting him?”

  Just as he says so, I realize Pavo’s skin is glowing.

  “Infecting?” Merope asks, abhorred.

  “I use that term because it’s all you know.” Pavo tightens a cloak he’s got on, chilly. “You aren’t yet familiar with the actual terms of my Borealian skillset abilities.”

  “Abilities?” Cyb asks, playing dumb. “Multiple?”

  “Interesting you should inquire about my skillsets over the lineage to which I’ve just referenced.” Pavo’s brows raise. “Aren’t any of you curious as to what a Borealian is?”

  “Your contacts are right.” Apollo’s face is white—with fear, or anger, or a surge of absolute hatred, I can’t tell. “They know as much as I do, Pavo.”

  “Not everything, then—not why I’m here with the Elite, or why we want Mabel Faye so badly, or why my kind has ventured to this blasted planet in the first place.”

  Pavo grips Silas’s hair, forcing his face up. “And certainly you don’t know what I’m doing right now—why the touch of my hand is capable of this.”

  In a flash, I see a glow slip out of Silas’s body, filtering up through Pavo’s touch, pooling into his chest. A shriek rakes its way out of Silas’s lungs, exploding into the quiet night.

  The shriek of a Mute.

  Silas falls forward, drained of color, and begins digging out his eyes with his fingernails—a feverish clawing that makes my stomach ache, my head spin, and sends my thoughts careening out of control in my mind.

  Mia falls out of the car, carrying a gun. “No,” she breathes at the sight of Silas. “No, no, no!”

  Palm raised yet again, Pavo takes the gun from her custody and claims it as his own. It floats in the air, gliding like a kite from her small hands and into his—a simper elevating his lips as he watches, amused, by Mia’s anguish.

  Pavo’s flesh glows brighter than ever, fueled by Silas’s . . .

  Fueled by Silas’s . . . what?

  Mia expels a scream, running furiously for Pavo. He raises a hooked finger up high, cutting it through the air like a weapon. Mia falls to her knees, eviscerated from the hilt of her pelvis to the dip of her sternum—guts tumbling out in ropes of steaming red, which she gathers feverishly in her arms before falling over.

  Pavo uses the gun he’s taken from Mia, shooting a bullet cleanly through Silas’s skull, who folds over himself and collapses beside a barely-alive Mia in the snow.

  In the car, Jac and Rion writhe in agony, and I feel myself starting to lose touch. Dizzy, feeling ill, I lean against a tree for support as I throw up.

  Apollo asks, abrasively, “How is any of this necessary?”

  Pavo doesn’t reply, glaring meaningfully at Mia and Silas in the snow, lying prostrate together. Losing his patience, Apollo gets in the face of our leader.

  “What kind of show are you putting on, Pavo?”

  “The show has ended, Apollo. What you’re seeing now is a cold truth you’ve been denied—but never fear, I’ve come to tell you everything.”

  Tightening his cloak again, Pavo goes on. “I’ve got my own set of spies here. My sister has been working against our kind for the better half of our stay, and until recently, it always felt like a child’s effort to thwart a parent—futile, vain.”

  Pavo faces me. “That is, until I discovered that Eos wasn’t defective the way her mentor repeatedly declared, but rather a very special specimen in possession of a very special skillset.

  “Which is, of course, why I’m here: no longer is my sister waging a futile war. With Eos’s skillset ability, she’s turned what was once a game into a real threat.” I feel the tug of an invisible force pull me closer, resisting a fruitless attempt. “But if I have her daughter on my side?”

  Before I can get a word in edgewise, Pavo’s pulled me so close to his face, we’re sharing breath. “Europa lineage is one of the oldest Borealian lines alive—and the only one that’s capable of producing a Scrying specimen.”

  “Onyx,” he seethes, shaking his head. “So dedicated to the cause she made for herself, she contributed her own DNA to the creation of a soldier that would pose a legitimate threat—to a soldier who would always take her side, due to sentimentality.”

  “That’s not why I’m on her side,” I snarl viciously, glaring at those big, slivered eyes.

  Pavo grabs my throat—a gesture met by fierce retaliation by my league, all of whom leap into action. But with a swift raise of his other hand, they all drop.

  Everybody lies limp, eyes blinking and aware, but paralyzed in every other way. Everybody except Apollo—who holds that strange, genetic anomaly granting him immunity.

  Pavo’s voice is cut like glass. “I am going to kill every person in your league, as well as the natives you’ve befriended, right now, in front of your eyes.”

  I struggle against his hold, flailing. “Why, Pavo?”

  “Because you’ll hate it,” he says simply.
<
br />   “Let them go, or I’ll—”

  “You’ve got the ability to stop this, Eos. Onyx will come to her senses if you’re on my side, and if she does, she will cut all ties with the PIO Morse agenda.”

  Pavo’s eyes, for once, take on a genuinely fearful gleam.

  I realize this isn’t about the war, or about moral and ethical repugnance of the Borealian race—but about a brother who loves his sister so much, he’d be willing to forgive and forget all she’s done to thwart the Project he’s required to defend.

  If I don’t end this, Onyx will die.

  He’ll have to terminate her.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” I say, buying time. “I don’t want a war either, Pavo. Tell me the truth about the Borealians, and I’ll agree to take your side, to go with you.”

  I see the eyes of my league widen with disbelief and fear.

  Apollo stares, horrified.

  I’m lying, you fools, I want to say, but can’t.

  Again, I face Pavo, adopting what is hopefully a look that is convincingly genuine. “Why are we here, Pavo?”

  We.

  Pavo nods subtly—skin aglow, but waxy and taut. “We, the race of the Borealians, are here because we cannot benefit from the ingestion of physical sustenance.”

  “You can’t eat?”

  “Our civilization has always fed on solar energy.”

  “Energy?”

  “When our sun—Rho, in Coronae Borealis—began to show signs of starting to supernova, our race faced extinction. But we knew of solar twins, which produced the same degree of energy we needed to ingest to survive.

  “Earth’s sun was the closest. But upon our arrival, we found energy far superior to the sun’s in terms of sustenance. This new, foreign energy provided us with abilities and powers which we never could’ve fathomed.

  “All Borealians have Source—a single skillset which, so long as it’s fueled, can produce a vast multitude of abilities. Feeding off the energy found on Earth fueled our skillsets, extending our life spans, enhancing our quality of existence . . .