by Tracy Korn
"And now you," she says to him. "The blood needs to be arterial…as close to your heart as possible, where the oxygen is the newest." He blows out a breath and reaches behind his shoulder for the release cord of his dive suit to free his arm.
"No," Cal says quickly. "Vox's nose started bleeding as soon as she tried to take off her suit—took an hour to get it to stop. Your nanites aren't from the land shark. They need your suits to work…it'll have to be your throat."
Liddick swallows again, then takes a seat next to me on the stone slab so Vita can find the artery in his neck. He meets my eyes, and I can feel my heart start to hammer…it's going to be OK, I think, reminding us both as I interlace my fingers with his just as Dez crosses to him and puts her hand on his shoulder. She stares down at me with her wintery blue eyes, and I look away, refocusing on Liddick. Don't be afraid, I add, gripping his hand, then see the smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
Afraid of the stick she's about to shove into my neck, or of Dez going all pterodactyl on you any minute for holding my hand? he answers, and I can't keep the smile off my face. I take a deep breath at the same time he does as Vita presses her fingers along the side of his neck.
"Be very still," she says, then quickly jabs in another stalk, then draws the plunger up. Dez presses a cloth to Liddick's throat afterward as Vita mixes the blood with Cal's. "Zoe, a stone?" she asks, nodding to the tongs. Zoe reaches for it and scoops out one of the flaming, pebble sized silver rocks that Jesse had added to the three-tone fire, then drops it into the dish, causing the blood to hiss, then ignite.
"Whoa…" Joss says, wrapping a wide hand around the back of his neck as Avis and Ellis move closer.
"What's it doing?" Tieg asks, leaning into me as he looks over my shoulder. I give him a sideways glare and take a step forward.
"Binding," Vita answers as the flame dies down, then finally goes out. She pulls the plunger of the makeshift syringe again, and I stiffen as she draws the mixed blood into it.
"Wait, that was just on fire…you're going to inject it into him right now?" I ask, and I can hear my voice pitching as all the muscles in my body tense. Liddick clenches his jaw.
"There will be heat even if it is cool, but it can't be cool for the treatment to work," Vita says without looking at me as she turns again to Liddick. "Lie back."
Liddick's fear crashes into my chest in anticipation, and I grip his hand in an effort to hold off the anxiety suffocating us both. Dez is at Liddick's side, and Arco steps to mine as Vita repositions the point of the stalk syringe over Liddick's throat.
Happy thoughts, I think desperately, remembering what Azeris told me in the Boundaries room to help offset the stress of having to swallow the automators. He smiles at me, but I can feel his nerves fraying.
"This will burn as it makes its way through your body, but later tonight, you'll be like us," Vita says in a quiet voice, then pushes the point in and presses down on the plunger.
My heart pounds so hard that each beat becomes sharp and piercing under my ribs as the dull, aching pulse in my ears starts bludgeoning a path from behind my eyes to the back of my head. The trepidation that lit a million tiny prickles under my skin just seconds ago, or was it hours ago, now sears every surface of my body as Liddick grips my hand. He tries not to scream, but it escapes in pieces through his teeth anyway.
Happy thoughts…I think again, clenching my jaw and scrambling for a moment in time that will distract us both. And then it's there, the glowing little fish from the ocean that night he dared me to dive under with him when we were 13…the night I got stung by the jellyfish. Do you remember the fish from that night we sneaked away from the port festival? They were blue and green and white…and no one else ever saw them because we were the only ones brave enough to dive in the dark. We were always the brave ones, Liddick. Can you see them? I think, desperately trying to pull their colors back into view, to remember the bite of the freezing water on my skin that night, and the way he made me feel—free, invincible…
My teeth are clenched so tightly I don't even realize it until I have to consciously open my mouth to release the tension, and Liddick meets my eyes for just a second.
That was why I started calling you Riptide, he thinks as his eyelids start to fall and his hand relaxes in mine. I just couldn't…pull away.
"What's wrong with him?" I ask Vita before my throat pinches completely closed.
"He'll sleep now for several hours, don't worry," she says as she finishes packing up her materials and cleaning the work area. Liddick is asleep as soon as his eyes close all the way, and the raw places inside me start to fade. I take several shallow breaths until I'm sure they're not going to hurt, and then finally, one long, slow, deep one.
"So when he wakes up, he'll be fireproof?" Myra asks the question everyone is thinking judging from the way all eyes move to Vita.
"To all fire except the three together," she answers, angling her head to the center container of tri-colored flames, "but the combination of these three can only mark him; he won't feel any more pain from fire even though he'll have a scar like the other topsiders; his will be somewhere close to his throat…near the injection site," she adds, motioning for us to filter out of the room. "I'll send for you when he wakes up."
"My scar is here," Zoe says, pulling up her sleeve to reveal the arcing, S shaped scar on her shoulder, which pulls to a point at the top. Dell does the same as we start to walk, but his is lower on his bicep. When I look at Jesse, he shrugs and starts to pull his shirt over his head, and I hold up a hand to him and laugh.
"No, that's OK!" I say. "I'll use my imagination."
"Promise?" he smirks, then shifts his eyes to Arco and holds up his hands with a chuckle. I look over my shoulder to find Arco's brows drawn together and a scowl pulling at the corner of his mouth, so I push my shoulder into his chest to coax it into a smile.
"So now we just wait? And then if he doesn't implode or something, it's our turn before we all head out into whatever is out there?" Tieg asks, making the air prickle again with tension at the mouth of the fissure.
"No," Cal says. "You'll need to know how to use the gifts after the treatment first."
"Your walrus might need another day before being treated anyway," Dell adds with a nod to me, and a weight drops in my chest remembering Jax's concussion once we're out of the little room.
"I need to go to him," I say, my lungs compressing with a suffocating guilt for not insisting on this sooner.
"Whoa…he's OK, I talked to him before we came to the pier this morning—he's looking a lot better," Arco whispers as he leans over my shoulder.
"I still need to go," I answer, and Arco nods.
"Then if we're not performing any more miracles in the right now, can we eat already?" Jesse asks, shifting his weight and putting his hands on his hips as I look back through the fissure at Liddick.
"He'll be down awhile," Zoe says, catching my eye as she winks. "Let's go find your walrus."
***
Dez stays behind with Liddick, and as much as I want to do the same, I don't want to create any more tension between us. It's a short walk back to Center Hall, and the warm smell of bread baking fills the air. My stomach contracts as I remember that I haven't eaten anything except for the five bites of soup I had before I lost it somewhere last night.
"That smells good," I say to Arco as the others walk ahead.
"It's made out of the grain you helped pull in earlier. They were sending people down to get bags of it this morning." He shakes his head and chuckles at the ground, then slips his arm around my waist.
"What's so funny?" I ask.
"I just can't process all this…I mean, there's a whole civilization down here. Ecosystems. We must be at least six miles below the surface by now."
"I keep waiting for it to be a dream I'm having. Just weeks ago we were riding a shuttle bus to our interviews, and now we're six miles under water having our DNA grafted with a long lost society's so that we can cross se
ven different biomes…it's like a virtuo-cine," I add, and we both laugh as we approach the cook pot, which is filled with some kind of porridge, and next to it, a large bowl of biscuits. Jax and Fraya come up behind us with Ada and Ty, all of them with their bright eyes and big smiles generating a wave of happiness that seems to flow over everyone in their path.
"Hi, new sandies!" Ada says, tucking a nearly white curl behind her ear and shouldering Ty playfully in the side when he rolls his eyes at the nickname they have for the Badlanders. He puts his arm around her and kisses the top of her head, then lets her go to take a bowl from the two young Vishan girls passing them out.
"Thanks," he says with another huge smile that makes the two girls blush and giggle.
"Nice to see you vertical again, Ripley," Arco says, clapping a hand on Jax's shoulder. His eyebrow looks completely normal except for three small stitches toward the end, and his eyes are clear again.
"Nice to have the room finally stop spinning. Nanites are a bust this far out, then…" he says with a shrug. "That's inconvenient."
Arco laughs as a smile spreads over Jax's face, and Fraya takes a bowl from the Vishan girls with a nod.
"Thank you for everything you did," I say to her, then to Ada.
"You came for us…we take care of each other," Fraya says with a smile, and I swallow hard to keep my throat from closing up again about this.
"Ada wouldn't know what to do with herself if someone didn't need patching up," Ty says with a sideways grin as he offers a seat to Ada, then sits next to her. I stare at him in awe of how he can be so happy. Wasn't he pulled through the sand by one of those sharks like the others? Taken away from everything he knew, then told he could never go back? But he's there five feet from me beaming, laughing, content with his biscuit and porridge, and as inseparable as they are, I assume Ada must be his girlfriend. Is that all it takes to be happy here…is that really all anyone needs?
"How long did it take you to adjust completely to this life?" Arco asks Ty, and I nearly choke on the bite of biscuit in my mouth. Did I push him to ask that?
"Me? Whew…let's see…" Ty blows out a breath and interlaces his long fingers over his knees. "I suppose it was hard until I just started thinking about what I still had instead of what I lost, you know? I mean, here I was dragged all this way underground and messed up pretty good along the way. You don't expect to come through something like that, but I did. And it just got easier when I started seeing maybe I even gained some things too," he says, sneaking a look at Ada, whose cheeks are bulging around a giant bite of porridge.
"Wuh?" she tries to say in answer to everyone suddenly looking at her, and we all start laughing. Ty's dark eyes flicker as he leans over and kisses her temple, and it feels like my chest will explode as tears start in my eyes without warning…he really loves her. All right, what is happening with me all of a sudden? Why is everything so raw? I blink until I can see clearly again, but can't seem to push aside the feeling of uncertainty, of being lost.
Fraya leans her head on Jax's shoulder as his hand slides over her knee, and I feel the same wave of happiness flooding from them that Ty and Ada generate. He's right…we're alive. We're together, and we even have new friends. I shouldn't feel like part of me is empty, but I do.
"Let's take a walk," Arco whispers into my hair, then gets to his feet and extends his hand to me.
CHAPTER 27
Perspective
Arco takes my hand and leads us back to the rise that goes up to the Lookout Pier, and the empty, lost feeling compresses in my chest. I start to think that it might be coming from Arco, but when I feel it spreading even when he gets several feet ahead, I know that it's me.
"Watch the first few steps…there's loose rock up here," he says as the corridor narrows and the light dims.
"I thought you wanted to go for a walk, not a hike," I say, forcing a chuckle as my legs start to burn with the climb.
"Not much beachfront around here, sorry. The Lookout Pier is the only quiet place I could think of where we wouldn't have to worry about getting dragged off by whatever those tunnel shark things are, or worms, or killer mutant goldfish."
"Killer mutant goldfish?" I laugh, this time genuinely.
"I'm sure it's just a matter of time," he says, stepping over the lip of the fissure opening that leads to the Lookout Pier. He turns and offers his hand again to help me through, then leads me to the end of the dark, glassy wall just before the pier starts. The zephyrs have cleared, and the rest of the flat, white cloud shelf has pushed back far enough for us to see what must be at least the first four biomes spreading out beneath the jagged limestone towers.
"Look…that's where the sand starts," I say, pointing to the edge of the last smatterings of green about halfway to the far mountain, then suddenly feel my stomach drop with worry. "Do you think Vox has made it that far yet?" I ask.
"Knowing her, probably," Arco says, almost to himself, then turns to me. "Are you afraid?"
"Of crossing the Rush? Who wouldn't be?"
"Of losing her…" he says quietly, and then in a lower, even quieter voice, "and Liddick."
My heart starts pounding in my chest with the surge of adrenaline that suddenly hits me, and I stare at him, confused.
"What?" I try to laugh again, but it comes out too loud and too fast. He sighs, resigned to say whatever will come next, then leans his shoulder against a smooth slice of the faceted wall and crosses his long arms over his chest.
"I know I can't read your mind like they can, but Jazz, I can tell when something is wrong," he manages, his eyebrows raise just a little, and my defensive gut reaction outruns any concession I could possibly make.
"Well, besides the fact that we're several miles under water, plus inside a mountain under the ocean floor? Not to mention these split ecosystems and fireproof people who—"
"You know what I'm talking about," he interrupts with the same patience in his voice, and I immediately feel like I want to disappear. He angles his head at me, his hazel eyes green in this odd, golden light as he unfolds his arms and hooks his thumbs in the dive suit rigging loops at his hips. "I feel like you've just been…drifting," he adds, letting his eyes shift to the ground, and I let out a breath trying to figure out where to begin. We stand in silence like this for a while as a breeze just beyond the pier whistles and hums, and I swear I can smell rain in the air.
"I don't know how to explain it exactly," I force myself to say, and am relieved when the rest of the words eventually find me. "It's like I'm disconnected now. I didn't realize it until Liddick went under and everything got quiet in my head…as stupid as that sounds," I try to laugh, but only manage an awkward smile until the tears start to close my throat and sting my eyes again. I squeeze them shut and shake my head. "Ugh…this is what's stupid," I add, swallowing hard and willing this raw feeling to go away.
Arco doesn't answer for a long time, but then he clears his throat.
"You don't see yourself at all, do you?" he asks, still leaning against the smooth, black facet in the wall that shines like it's wet. "That's why you feel cut off without Vox and Liddick now…you told me as much back at Gaia, remember? That maybe you wanted to be like they were?"
"It's not like I need them to tell me who I am, Arco. I know who I am."
"Who? Without them here in your head taking the lead, when it's just your own voice, Jazz. Who are you?" he asks, not in confrontation, but almost in sympathy. The strangled burning in the back of my throat sinks into my chest, burrowing a hole until I'm furious.
"Do you think I need you to feel sorry for me now?" I fire back at him, and his eyes widen before a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, which only makes me angrier.
"You are the last person I could ever pity, Jazwyn Ripley," he laughs. "You know that," he adds, then looks straight into my eyes, dousing the outrage in me that was so easy to find…so easy to put in place of thinking for one second that he could be right. Anger feels better…not right, but better…I think, th
en remember that this lost feeling really started after my Gaia interview—when it didn't tell me anything about who I was, what I wanted, or where I fit in the world. Maybe he's right…maybe I am still looking for me. "I can tell you who I see, if it helps…" he starts again, and I shake my head, suddenly embarrassed.
"Arco, no, you don't need to—"
"I think my favorite thing is that you'll always be the last one standing," he says, pressing his lips together into a thin line, then his eyes crinkle in the corners with amused confusion as he lets his head rest on the wall behind him. "And I know this…I genuinely believe it, so I don't understand why I feel compelled to run interference at every possible turn for you—to protect you from whatever," he adds, shaking his head in astonishment before looking up at me again. "You'll always land on your feet one way or another, just like you always have, Jazz. Can you see that?" he asks with a crooked smile, then just watches me.
Crite, is he actually waiting for me to answer this? I think, as my insides begin to twist.
"I've always been stubborn I guess," I manage, feeling heat run into my cheeks for what must be the third time in the last 24 hours, and I want to change the subject to anything other than me.
"Don't minimize it," Arco says almost immediately as he crosses to me. "I've been thinking a lot lately about how sometimes we downplay our strengths to the point that we forget about them. Have you noticed that? I think that's why I choked in my interview…when I let the other guy struggle with the code because I was afraid I would mess it up. But afterward, I knew better…and he died because I didn't step up," he adds after a pause, then grips the back of his neck. "I keep thinking maybe Gaia wasn't really testing us for what we could do, you know? I think they were testing us to see what we couldn't," he laughs again, but it doesn't reach his eyes this time. "Guess we fooled them, didn't we?"