by Tracy Korn
"What is it?" Arco shakes his head a little and tries to find the answer in my eyes as I feel a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. "What's in your head all of a sudden?" he asks.
"I…love you," I say, then watch his eyes widen for a fraction of a second before he swallows, then takes a deep breath as a smile spreads over his face and his chest rises and falls.
I let my hand slide down from his treatment scar and feel his heart is pounding hard and fast beneath it when he wraps his arm around my waist, then pulls me into him. His other hand moves through my hair as he lifts me to my toes, squeezing me so tightly that I can't suppress the bubbling giddiness that is pushing up in my chest like a geyser. I laugh as he kisses me, then forget for a second where we are.
"Say it again," he finally whispers against my lips, making our teeth click together since we're now both grinning like idiots.
"I love you, Arco" I say, and then laugh out loud when he wraps both of his arms around me and lifts me off the ground in a bearhug.
He looks up at me as I brace my forearms on his shoulders and meet his eyes, which are bright green in the yellowish torchlight and crinkling in the corners. I lean down and kiss him again, then hear Alec's voice just a few feet away.
"Or don't turn into a human bonfire in the middle of everyone maybe?" he says, clapping Arco on the back as he passes, but I don't understand what he's talking about until Arco puts me down and I see red flames out of the corner of my eye.
"Whoa!" Arco says, jumping back from me and closing his hands into fists, which only makes the flames snap out from the sides. He tries to put his hands under his arms to smother the fire, but this only gives him flaming red wings. His throat and cheeks blotch with color, and I can't stop myself from giggling.
"OK, just take a deep breath and concentrate on blowing it out. Just focus on your breaths and your heartbeat… " I say, trying to remember what I did, what I thought as Liddick coached me through the same thing.
Arco nods and closes his eyes, then takes several deep breaths. Slowly, the flames shooting from his hands start to dissipate, and he opens his eyes again.
"I don't know why that suddenly…I mean…I didn't even know that I…" Arco stumbles through an attempted explanation, and I just shake my head and laugh again as I try to get enough breath to remind him that the same thing happened to me. "Oh, that's funny, huh? I'm funny?" he nods quickly. A wide smile spreads over his face before he puts his arm around my waist and pokes my ribs until I squirm the rest of the way to the Swim. We stop then, look down over the edge, and get ready to jump.
CHAPTER 34
Do What You Can
When Arco and I walk into the training circle cave, Veece and Cal are already talking with Kesh and about five or six other Badlanders, including a big one I haven't seen before. He stands with his back to us at first, but turns when he hears us come in. He's missing his right hand from the wrist down, and I freeze in my steps as he looks directly at me with large, yellow-gold eyes that are set like a panther's against his dark skin. For a split second, I think he's Mr. Tark, our Endurance and Survival instructor from Gaia Sur, which sends a wave of prickly heat down my spine until I see that he's much too young to be Tark, though, no less intimidating.
"Who is that?" I whisper to Arco. "I thought he was Mr. Tark just now."
"I thought the same thing when I first saw him the other day. Jesse called him 'General,'" he says, quirking an eyebrow.
"General? Like, the old military rank?"
Arco shrugs again, "I mean, look at him…he's at parade rest or something," he says through a small laugh as General stands with his feet shoulder width apart while listening to Kesh, his chest pushed out and his one hand gripping the wrist of his other arm behind his back.
The green torches glow all around the perimeter of the ceiling, highlighting the stripes in the walls that everyone calls vein rock. Kesh nods, then walks with the other Badlanders to the far edge of the training circle, and after a few more minutes of everyone talking, Veece turns to the rest of us.
"Vox left before we could prepare her for the Rush. I take responsibility for that," he says, cutting a glance at Cal, who pulls a stray thread from the hem of his loose, thermal style shirt, then raises steely blue eyes at Veece. "But the rest of you will learn to control the fire before you cross the barrier," he adds, holding out his palm. After a few seconds, a small, bright red flame flickers, then grows until it surrounds his whole hand.
"Why is it red?" Tieg asks, standing with his arms folded under his broad chest as he tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes, which seem to glow an even more surreal blue in this light.
"It takes on the color of our blood," Veece says, concentrating on the flame to make it grow and shrink, then spill to the floor and encircle him before he somehow pulls it back into his hand. He takes a small, white cloth from his pocket and holds it just above the snapping flames. It starts to blacken and curl, then vanishes in a whoosh of fire, leaving only flecks of char floating in the air like some kind of disappeared phantom. "It burns…it just can't burn us," Veece adds. "You shape it by picturing it moving to where you intend—any shape, and direction, but its size will depend on your control. If you're careless, the smoke of whatever you set on fire can still kill you, so be careful…aggression is the fastest ignition, so we will start there," Veece says, then turns to Cal, who starts walking toward us. "Pair them up."
"Pick up where you left off with Dell," Cal says to Liddick as he passes him, then waves him on with a nod over his shoulder. Dell grins and cracks his neck.
"It's our second date, Princess," he smirks, and I try to stifle a laugh when Liddick rolls his eyes.
"You're with Kesh," Cal says, surprising me at my shoulder. I look around, but don't see her until she startles me from behind, moving like a shadow just beyond my peripheral vision. My heart starts to pound in my ears.
"Ready or not," she says as she passes in front of me, making a clicking sound with her mouth like I'm her pet and she's calling me to her. A wave of anger pushes up from my chest and makes my face hot. I glance at Arco, who raises his eyebrows, then nods at me while forcing back the smile that he must know will make me kill him if he actually let's himself laugh.
"Whoa…it'll be OK," he whispers through a chuckle, then clears his throat, clearly knowing how close to the end of his life he is when I angle my head at him. "She knows what she's doing—we wouldn't have made it out of the falls without her," he adds, and this relieves some of the outrage percolating just under the skin of my palms. He blows out a breath, and I nod back at him before following Kesh. When I look back over my shoulder, I hear Cal telling Arco to wait for him in the middle of the training circle, then watch him point Jax toward General.
General…I say his name again in my head. Does he really go by that? My thoughts stop when Zoe's voice cuts a path in the air as she crosses to Dez.
"So, if you don't have any individual teeth in there, what happens when I hit you…the whole soap dish falls out?" she asks, then laughs in satisfaction as little snaps of fire immediately whip into and out of existence from Dez's arms and shoulders. "There! Now we can work," Zoe nods, still grinning when I catch her eyes. She winks, then angles her head to something behind me. I turn around right into a blur of white and a whoosh of air, which makes me instinctively jump back, then fall hard on the stone ground.
"What the—" I start, but Kesh is already walking toward me, spinning and tossing a small knife just like Zoe did after she and her crew hauled Liddick and me into the little cave by the falls. I scramble to my feet.
"Hey! Whoa! I thought we were fire training!" I stammer. Kesh stops in her tracks and raises her eyebrows at me.
"We are," she says, pretending to straighten her short frenzy of black hair as she dips her chin at my shoulder. I follow her eyes and discover several licks of flame shooting up through my dive suit, which I quickly try to take off before it burns through. I pull the cord that releases the back panel
, then shimmy out of the sleeves and fumble for the invisible zipper of my jumpsuit. I find it just in time to unzip it and pull my arms out, but between last night's pyrotechnics and now this, a small singe line mars the left shoulder of my jumpsuit, which is still smoking.
"Great…" I say, dropping the sleeve at my side, then roll my eyes. Kesh snickers, and I glare up at her. "What's so funny?"
"You look like a squid," she says, angling her head at the double set of sleeves hanging around my waist. I roll my eyes and step out of both suit layers, then feel the damp air on my skin. It sends a line of chills down my spine, which somehow, are warm. "They give you all the same skivvies?" Kesh asks, incredulous. I look down at my base layer shorts and tank top style shirt, which fits more like a bathing suit than an actual shirt.
"Apparently," I say, feeling the tingle in my palms spread over my arms and shoulders more strongly now. I jerk my eyes away from her and inspect my forearms, which prickle. Flecks of red sparks seem to strike, but then immediately disappear, and for a few seconds it looks like my arms are covered in glitter the way they catch the light. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kesh advancing toward me again.
"Tunnel sharks, zephyrs, worms…none of them tend to wait for you to finish admiring yourself before they grab you," she says, excitement flashing in her brown eyes when she sees the sparks of red fire at my shoulders, which crackle and pop near my ear. "Think of the prickling like water running down your arms and into your hands. Then throw it at me," Kesh adds, darting toward me and slashing her knife again, this time nearly cutting my base layer shirt. "The mosquitoes out there have talons," she winks, and my heart jumps into my throat. I swallow hard so I can breathe again, and try to focus enough to envision the little pin pricks all over my arms turning into water. I almost have it, but then see General rush Jax, driving his shoulder into Jax's stomach and knocking them both to the ground as another large Badlander boy with short blond hair moves in. Flames immediately engulf Jax as General rolls off him, but he doesn't have time to regroup before the other boy takes a swing at him. Jax ducks, but when he stands up again, his base layer shirt burns through at the shoulder and falls across his chest.
"Better put it out, boss. I give you one more flame out like that before you light your wick," General says in a low, casual voice that hovers just on the edge of a laugh. Jax takes an angled step and rips the rest of his base layer shirt away, then quickly tries patting the red flames that are traveling down the groove of muscle in the center of his chest to his stomach. He pulls in a deep breath when the patting doesn't work, and finally the flames stop their southern trajectory. The cords in his neck stand out as the muscles in his chest start to twitch with his effort to control his breathing, and I'm sure the only other time I've seen him this angry is when he confronted Arco about leaving Fraya and Vox behind in the cave during our explorative run in the Stingray ships.
In another blur, then flash of white, I feel a sudden burn on my upper arm, then find Kesh dancing back from me and wiping her knife on her pants. I look at the site of the burn to find a long, thin cut that is starting to well up with blood, so I close my hand over it.
"What is wrong with you!?" I hiss at her, but she just shakes her head at me like I'm the most pathetic person she's ever met and starts coming toward me again. I feel the prickle in my arms doubling, quadrupling, and spreading to my legs until I'm sure I will blow up like a volcano. Water…think of the water, I remind myself, and take several steps back from Kesh while holding my upper arm. To my surprise, a wave of pins and needles rushes downward until I can feel it pushing against the ends of my fingertips, and when I let go of my arm, a few small, explosive bursts turn into two large streams of red fire pouring from my hands. They travel about five feet before they hit the ground and form a red, flickering pool at Kesh's feet, then dissipate.
"Well, see there? Some people have to bleed before they know what they're made of," she says, then puts her knife back in her boot. I take a deep breath and swallow the acid in the back of my throat, then hear Cal from somewhere behind me.
"That's what you do when you can see something coming—but what about when you don't?" he says. I jerk my head in the direction of his voice only to find Dell sparring with Liddick and General trying to show Jax some kind of twisting throw movement with the other tall Badlander boy. The second I register that I don't see Cal anywhere, my air is cut off as an arm closes like a vice grip over my chest, pinning my elbows to my sides while fingers close over my throat and jaw. "This is how the tunnel sharks will carry you—what can you move? What's free?" he asks close to my ear as I struggle uselessly to breathe. "Don't think about your air. The tunnel sharks want you to think about that—about what you can't do instead of what you can. Everything in the Rush wants you to react instead of act," Cal adds, and I feel the pins and needles stirring under my skin again. I kick backward and connect with nothing, then try to stomp on what I hope will be his foot, but again, find nothing. A scream starts to strangle in my throat as my fingers curl into fists, but I can't lift them high enough to visualize any fire moving to them. I feel heat prickling my shoulders and arms, then see flames catch and fly like they did last night—uncontrolled and everywhere.
"The sharks are immune to the fire like we are—that won't do any good," Kesh coaches from somewhere I can't see, and Cal's grip around my ribs and jaw tightens. I struggle against him, but I don't gain any leverage. "What can you move?" he presses. "What is free?" I scream in frustration and see a curtain of fire drape in front of me. "What is free? Focus!"
My legs….my legs are free, I think to myself, but only accomplish more panic and frustration when I kick, but again, don't connect with anything.
"Swing your legs!" Kesh yells, and tiny flecks of light dance in the flames before me as my struggling somehow only increases Cal's hold on me.
"I can't…breathe…" I gasp.
"What can you move!?" Cal yells near my ear.
"Swing!" Kesh calls again. With everything starting to darken in the corners of my vision, I kick out instead of back, pretending I'm in a swing at the playground. At first, it doesn't feel that I've accomplished anything, but when I swing my legs backward, I feel Cal's grip loosen enough that I can slide my arms out from under his. I plant my feet on the ground and stand straight up, then pull downward on his wrist, which is near my throat. To my surprise, he flips over my shoulder and rolls to a stop in front of me before springing up, a wide grin spreading across his face.
"There. That's what you do when you don't see it coming."
CHAPTER 35
Boundary Lines
The Lookout Pier is surreal after curfew—after the orange light of the torches fades to red, then to purple, which only provides enough illumination for me to find the edges of the walls and the very next foothold in the corridor that opens over the Rush. I take off my dive suit so I don't accidentally burn it one too many times when I start practicing with my fire again, then walk as far as I dare over the smooth, black pier so I can look out at the distant volcano where my father, Liddick's brothers, and Arco's sister are being held in the labs somewhere at the bottom. The white, limestone towers pierce the cloud blanket and glint in the light that has changed from a sun-like ball to strips of parallel, iridescent bands in the sky…which I suppose isn't really a sky, but the vast ceiling of the cavern Zoe explained we're actually in. The saturated gold light seems to pour from the glowing gas strips and plunge into the dark pockets of clouds that aren't really clouds either, but dormant zephyr winds just waiting for someone to walk through the Bale field so they can suck them into their hidden miniature tornado mouths, skin first, then one layer of their body at a time until the unlucky person is just…gone.
How can we possibly survive out there, I think, then dig my fingernails into my palm, which has started to itch. A small red flame breaks through my fingers and flickers until it whiffs out of existence just as fast as it appeared. Just like we'll disappear when those things catch us cros
sing the boundary line, I think again, then shake my head and try to concentrate on bringing the flame back so I can practice directing it in spite of the dark, ghostly zephyrs in the distance putting me on edge. I can't freeze out there when I'm afraid. I can't panic, I tell myself, then squeeze my eyes shut against the low howl that trails off into a chittering sound coming from what must be somewhere in the Rainforest biome, the first biome just beyond the Bale field boundary line. If I can't control what's out there, at least I can control myself, I think.
Since we started training several days ago, I've been coming up to the Lookout Pier on my own after everyone else goes to sleep because I can't seem to sleep any more, not really. Not like before the Vishan's DNA treatment when my thoughts, Liddick's comments, or the buzzing from Vox's occasional messages were the only other sounds in my head, and even they weren't constant like these echoes of strange whale songs, or whispers of conversations that I'm not sure I hear because they just seem to float in the background of everything else. Dell said we would start picking up more random signals because the treatments would enhance our neural channels, but he also said we might become paranoid, so don't know what is actually happening or how much I should be worried about it. All this is supposed to last two weeks while we finish cooking, as Cal put it…two more weeks of this until our DNA finishes bonding with the Vishan's. Whatever is happening, I'm starting to fear heading into the Rush in the morning with these distractions in my head, but there's no other choice if we want to get to our families before our treatments become permanent…before Lyden and Arwyn are sent to wherever the Phase Three location is for the sick mutation experiments Liam said Gaia has planned for them next.