by Tracy Korn
"They're rolling up. Zoe is going to show us where to sleep, and tomorrow they'll take us to the Lookout," he answers, nodding to Zoe, who is waiting for us to follow her. I get to my feet and pull in a deep breath, taking Arco's hand as we walk to the other side of the cook pot where Liddick has disappeared in the mix.
Jax is fast asleep on one of the bedding areas to our left, and Fraya sits next to him on another stack of blankets as she sorts through her pack. To our right, Dell looks like he's trying to facilitate something between Jesse and Tieg, neither of whom look terribly happy to be in the other's presence. I scan for Dez and find her along the wall with Liddick, his brows raised and chin lowered as he holds out his hand to her while he talks. Both her hands suddenly fly up, cutting off whatever he's saying, and I feel the reverberation of it hit him like a crashing wave.
"You'll all be hereabouts," Zoe says, making me flinch as she fans her hands toward the large area in front of us with several neutrally colored blankets stacked up, all of them sitting perpendicularly to the stone wall. None of them are separated by stone dividers like the other areas, and there are no makeshift shelves.
"Thank you," I say, my initial startle subsiding as the sight of the blankets suddenly makes me feel like I haven't slept in a week.
"Not as fancy as some stacks, but we figured your people would want to stay together," she nods, then gestures to the area next to Jax. "Ada's just there in case your walrus needs anything, and I'm right here, plus Veece, Dell, and some other familiars," she adds, motioning to the sections to our right. "Settle where you like, and I'll collect you in the morning for the Lookout. Oh, and Vox wanted me to give you this—said it would help you find your way." She hands me something small wrapped in cloth, then smiles one more time before turning to crawl onto her stack of blankets, her copper hair catching the last of the red light, which is so dark now that it's almost purple.
I let go of Arco's hand to unfold the stiff cloth as I sit on the blankets, which are coarsely woven, but soft, and piled almost a foot off the ground like the rest of the stacks.
"What is it?" Arco asks as he slides his blankets more closely to mine, then sits next to me as I feel a dull buzz starting in the back of my teeth again.
"It's…Vox's pick knife."
CHAPTER 20
Coming Clean
The metal is warm, and the weight of the little knife in the palm of my hand is somehow reassuring…it was the only thing she was allowed to bring from home on her boundary scouting trips, and only because she was supposed to use it to record her path—to help her find her way…I think as the last of the light gleams off the thin blade, which is about as long as my little finger, and I resist the urge to touch the sharp point.
"Isn't that what she used to make her map tattoos? Does she expect you to do that?" Arco tramples into my observations, and I suddenly want him to go away.
"Of course she doesn't!" I snap at him before I even realize it, immediately wrapping the knife and putting it between the folds of blankets. The buzz in my teeth increases just enough that I can feel it surge before it subsides and is gone again, and with it, the reassuring feeling I had.
"Whoa, what—?" he starts to question, but I turn to him and cut him off, outraged that he's doubting me.
"And what if she did believe I could make my own map tattoos? Is that really so hard for you to imagine? Who jumped off those falls, Arco? Not you, not Tieg, it was me, and I didn't even hesitate!" My throat constricts on the last words as I lie down and turn away from him.
"Hey…" Arco says carefully after a beat and puts his hand on my hip.
"Seriously, could you just not?" I hear the sharp edge in my voice, and then feel his reaction sink into my chest where it starts hollowing everything. He removes his hand, and I hear him lie back on his blankets, then blow out a breath as my heart starts to pound in my ears. I'm compelled to reach for the wrapped pick knife again, to feel that reassurance for just one more second instead of the weight of this whole stupid ocean on top of us. When I curl my fingers around it, the buzzing gets stronger, echoing the pulse in my ears, but after a few minutes, everything calms, and my throat starts to relax enough for me to take a slow, deep breath.
A wave of guilt hits me when the anger recedes, but I don't want to acknowledge it because anger feels better—not right, but better, and right now all I want to do is stop everything from feeling like it's being pulled in different directions. We're miles underwater, and no one is coming to get us…nothing is how we planned, and we really do have to make our own way, ready or not, I think to myself.
"You know, I've never wanted anything Wright had," Arco's voice is so quiet I almost don't hear it. "Never envied his girls or his important friends, but when I found out you could hear his thoughts and that he could hear yours—crite, there's so much I don't know how to say," he adds, sighing just before I hear him shifting on his blankets, his voice a little louder now just behind my ear, "It guts me that I'm never going to be able to read your mind like your other Reader Empaths can—like he can—but if you can sense anything about me, Jazz, you know I believe you could do anything. Whatever this is really about, just talk to me," he pauses, then takes in a few deep breaths in the dark before the hollow feeling in my chest spreads to my stomach, that gnawing hunger feeling again…his helplessness, and I don't know what to say to fix it until I realize it's really not him who doubts my abilities, it's me.
I turn back over my shoulder and feel him right there, strong and solid like a wall holding back the rest of the world, and even though I don't know where I'm going from here, at least I know now where I should begin.
"I'm sorry…" I say quietly, and then feel his hand move tentatively back to my hip. "We just have so far to go, and I don't know where we'll end up. We've always known; we've always been able to see where the roads lead. Now we don't even have roads."
"There are always roads," he whispers, causing a tingle to shoot up my spine and rest at the nape of my neck as I close my eyes, remembering that this is exactly what Vox said back in our dorm. The buzz in my ears turns into a low hum, and in this minute, no matter what Cal thinks, I know she's all right out there when I repeat her words.
"You either find them or make them…"
***
The dull buzzing still in my head wakes me up, and the light is bright even before I open my eyes. It smells like onions cooking along with the dampness of the cave, and I hear voices and stirrings all around me. I blink so my eyes will adjust as I inch out from under Arco's arm, then sit at the edge of my blanket stack and scrub my hands over my face. I comb my fingers through my hair and study the others—the Vishan, the Badlanders, who are all making their way to the Swim and then disappearing down the chute—then scan for everyone in our group. They're all scattered nearby, but still asleep, and the sight of Dez curled against Liddick burns off the rest of my sleepy fog. I take a deep breath and try to cool the jealousy, and when that doesn't work, I force it out. Good…I think. He fixed it. This is how it should be.
"What is it with him?" Zoe asks in a hushed voice, suddenly looking over my shoulder at Liddick, whose arm is draped over his eyes. She lowers her chin to her chest and looks down at me in utter disbelief when I nearly jump out of my skin, her wide brown eyes afloat in the sea of freckles that spatter her nose and cheeks. "Criminy, Cal's right," she sighs, shifting her leather pouch around to her lower back before pushing up her long, dark sleeves and pulling her fiery hair into a little ponytail. "You'll never make it like this. Come on."
"What?" I ask, but she just sucks in a resolute breath and straightens, then grabs my arm and starts walking us toward the Swim.
"First off, that one…" she says quietly, flicking a glance back at Liddick. "How did he know who I was?"
"What?" I ask, still confused. "Where are we going?"
"You are going to talk to Cal, but that's second—we're still on first," she whispers without looking at me. "He knew who I was because he went all wondrous a
t my second name being Frank, and then he just happened to figure my mom got pulled through the sand with me? Pfffft," she rolls her eyes. "He knows more than he's offering."
"So just ask him," I say, forgetting to whisper, then look over my shoulder to make sure I haven't woken anyone up. "Why am I talking to Cal?"
"Training for the Rush," she says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I've just about got Dell worked into it. Kesh too, and if Kesh and Dell are in, then Alec and Ty are just a matter of asking. As for Jesse, might need to have Ada fashion a pie or—"
"They'll take us to the mountain?"
"Well, no," she says in a normal voice now that we're far enough away from the others. "At least not all of them—that's why you're talking to Cal. The rest can be persuaded to show you how to keep yourself uneaten and all your parts attached while you try. Ready?" she asks with a shrug, but doesn't wait for my answer before stepping over the lip of the Swim opening while still holding onto my arm. The ground falls out from under me, and before I can even process what has just happened, we're at the bottom of the chute.
"Crite! A little warning next time?" My words come out strangled as my heart pounds in my ears.
"No fun if you see it coming!" she says as she hops from the edge of the chute, and I crawl after her. Outside, she's waving me past the other Vishan and Badlanders who are gathering along the stream, some of them scooping water from it over their heads and necks while others just stand around and stretch. "Hurry before he's here and gone. It's his day for crops."
She leads me along the stream until we turn the corner and come to a new part of the cavern. The white and yellow glow worms still light the walls, but the ceiling seems to glow with another kind of light. Large sections of green moss also carpet the areas surrounding another pool, which is about 20 feet in any direction, and covered in steam.
"Whoa…" I gasp, touching the wall of thick moss next to me, which is cool and soft. When I turn back to ask Zoe about it, I see Dell surfacing in the pool and swimming away from us until he pulls out to his waist at the edge. He lifts his arms to squeeze the water out of his dark hair before letting it fall over his shoulders, the muscles weaving and wrapping into each other before running down the column of his broad back. The random scars there match the ones I remember seeing yesterday on his torso—some of them smooth and shiny, and the one rounded, ragged one that sits to the left of his lower back just like the one over his hipbone. Zoe catches me staring.
"He was in the Rush awhile after another tunnel shark tried to take him back to the mountain. That's what gave him the scar that looks like it's run clean through…must be a year ago now," she says, pulling her hair down from the ponytail she'd just made. "Nanites repair damage inside to out, wise? And a good thing too because his stopped working at the far edge of the boundary. No way he could have made it from there to here with his insides sloshing around, especially not since all the rest of those marks are just from hiking the rainforest system—his repair nanites worked until then," she adds, then walks to the edge of the pool.
Almost in punctuation to her story, Dell palms the ground to hop out of the water, and after my initial shock, I laugh nervously wondering how it's possible that he has tan lines when he hasn't seen the sun in a year. He grabs his dark clothes from a nearby rock, then turns toward me after he's squeezed all the water from his hair. Before I see anything that I can't un-see, I start walking purposefully to catch up to Zoe at the edge of the water, crossing my arms over my chest and rolling my lips between my teeth until he passes behind us and stops at my side.
"Cal is taking the perimeter today if it's all the same to you," he says to Zoe, and out of the corner of my eye, I can tell he's stepping into his pants just like no one is there. She nods at him, and he brushes my arm, "Then I'll go collect your friends."
"Right, yes…thanks," I squeak in response, still unable to look directly at him. Zoe nods as Dell turns to leave, then picks up where she left off after he's gone.
"So, Cal found him at the crop edge one morning and brought him up to Vita for patching and treatments, and after hearing his story, Cal was set on seeing for himself about the mountain…he was sore about the council sending Vox off without more help, so my advice would be to start with that when he gets here," she says, then drops her bag and pulls her shirt over her head. I turn to face the water directly in front of me and clear my throat as Zoe starts laughing.
"I went a whole month clinging to my clothes when I first got here," she chuckles. "My mom and Vita finally had to toss me in the water dressed head to toe because I refused to get natural. After walking around dripping wet clear up until it was time for bed, I just washed up the easy way from then out," she grins, and I'm lost for what to say in response until I see Cal and Jesse approaching out of the corner of my eye. A cold panic hits me as I scramble for her shirt, and I can't get the words out fast enough.
"The boys are coming!" I yell-whisper and shove her shirt at her, surprised when the sleeves rattle like a tin of stones, but she just shrugs and shimmies out of her matching pants that I haven't really noticed until now.
"So," she says, navigating over the rock ledge and stepping into the water. "Parts are parts…mine aren't strange or new."
"Zoe—" I start, but swallow it when Jesse walks up next to me.
"Are you all still here?" he asks, narrowing his eyes and looking down his long nose at me as he pulls his shirt over his head. It's the same as Zoe's with dark, little scale-like pieces that seem to be sewn together, but I can't get a good look before he drops it to the ground. He turns to the water, and I notice the scratches that ran the length of his side are almost healed, and still partially covered in the same green mud that Ada put on Jax's eyebrow. He catches me looking at them, and I look back at the water just in time to learn that Zoe is a good diver, and that apparently, she has freckles everywhere. This is not happening.
"Uh, yep! Still here," I say, frantically scanning the area in every possible direction for somewhere else I can be until Cal walks up and starts untying the drawstring of his pants, at which time I begin a most heartfelt and attentive conversation with the ceiling. "Still trying not to be here, trust me…hoping you all might help with that…"
"Getting in? We're going to the crop edge today," Cal asks, and I immediately shake my head.
"Ah, no, I'm… no. You all just carry on," I trip through the words.
"Can't Ghost or Calliope fashion our suits to have a higic….a higee…what did the other one call it?" Jesse asks.
"Hygienic Climate System," Zoe answers from somewhere in the water. "Fraya said those suits do all but walk around for you," she laughs and splashes me, and I'm surprised that the water is so warm. "Jump in!"
"I am really good right here. Hygienic climate whatever and all…" I stutter at the ceiling, which is really quite lovely with the stones shining the way they are, and I make a mental note to ask everyone about it when they aren't all glow-in-the-dark naked right in front of me.
"Fa na vish," Zoe chuckles again, and in the span of five seconds, I'm being dumped head first into the warm, fresh water.
CHAPTER 21
Zephyrs
It's hard to commit to swearing after coughing out the first few words when I feel the warm water soaking into my scalp and running down my face. I clear enough of it to see the skin-blur of Jesse hopping over the rock barrier, and then Cal dunking his blond head.
Jesse laughs at me as he pretends to dust off his hands, and I narrow my eyes at him. Zoe climbs out of the water and slips back into her clothes—her skin tanned with the exception of small, white, circular scars under her arm and down the length of her ribs, her dark freckles, and the long, snake-like scar over her shoulder. But then everything is laser focused once I realize we're all actually back in a pool of water down here.
"What about the worm!?" I cough again, looking around in a panic.
"Worms can't fit through the crevices leading to hot springs. Only water can
leak through those little cracks, then it pushes up through there," Zoe answers, gesturing to the pool. "Cal, hurry up if you're running the perimeter, or I'm taking it."
"We get in here once a week…why do you always kill the moment?" he asks, diving under again, and I start making my way toward the edge to climb out.
"Why do you only go once a week?" I ask, then wish I hadn't once I realize I could live my whole life without knowing their bathing habits and be just fine.
"Only need bugs once a week for the crop edge—everyone rotates so it's fair."
"Bugs?" I gasp and start looking at my hands and arms as Cal, Jesse, and Zoe laugh.
"You can't even see them without a scope, and they can't hurt you, relax," Zoe finishes chuckling as she buckles her rustling black pants. "They make the crops think that you're native—otherwise the stalks will attack you when you get close enough to pull harvest, which is what we have to go do before we can go to the Lookout. Cal!" Zoe straightens and throws a loose stone at him as he floats on his back in the pool. It hits him in the stomach, and the shock makes him jerk his head into the water, then choke. "Tell him I'm taking perimeter when he gets done dying?" she says to Jesse, who is already breathless with laughter. "Come on, Jazz."
My dive suit goes from dripping to damp in the time it takes me to climb out of the pool. I wring out my hair and follow her, looking back over my shoulder to see Cal scrubbing his hands over his face as he coughs.
"Where are we going?"
"Down and down some more, then out," she says as we continue through the corridor. "We have to set the pull tarps for the grain—well, Cal and Jesse have to set the pull tarps. We are running the perimeter to make sure nobody gets snatched," she adds, excitement lighting her eyes. "Then we can climb to the Lookout."
I shake my head trying to process. "Did you say so they don't get snatched? By what?"