TERRA (The Elements Series Book 2)

by Tracy Korn

  Cal and Zoe start walking next, and Arco crosses his arms over my shoulders, pressing his chest to my back as we watch them. He leans down and whispers in my ear.

  "I'm right behind you," he says, then kisses my temple. I look back at him and nod, then see Liddick standing just off his shoulder.

  Just one more cliff edge, Riptide, he thinks. Nothing to fear, not even in falling…remember? He flattens his hand over his heart, and I feel the beat of it competing for space in my chest, pushing everything else out of the way…all the nerves, all the fear, and then I feel it beat against the palm of my hand at my side.

  We start walking to the cliff edge, and I look over my shoulder again at Jax, Arco, and Liddick, then take two short breaths and one more, then none at all as I look out over the long, narrow path before my first steps over the chasm.

  CHAPTER 50

  The Wind and the Chasm

  The wind comes up within the first 10 feet of crossing the chasm, and although it's cold, my steps feel sure because the ridge is at least three feet wide. I keep my eyes fixed on Dell, whose fists at his sides hold the rocks he took from the solid ground we just left. I know they're a reminder of his one reason—his concrete, solid reason for needing to get to the other side, but I don't know what that reason is other than maybe he believes that demons can't find any footing this high up, on this difficult a path, and with nowhere to hide. Maybe he needs to be free once and for all of his experiences in this place…to put an end to what Gaia is doing before anyone else has to go through it.

  Other people pound the lock…those are the ones who get out…

  The wind starts reverberating, and for a second I wonder if the hum in my ears is the precursor to another message from Vox, but her voice never comes…just the low humming of impossibly sized insect wings beating at the back of my teeth.

  It's not real…the mosquito is gone. I killed it. I watched it burn. I will cross—I will cross because we have come too far. I will. I will…

  Flames break through Zoe's shirt sleeves in front of me and I feel my breath hitch in my chest. She's losing her focus, and she's not even halfway across the chasm.

  Breathe…breathe…I think, trying to push her…trying to send the message somehow on the very wind that's whipping her fire into a tangle over her head.

  Her right sleeve falls away in a ball of red flames, and I have to force my eyes from following its trajectory into the chasm. Ash swirls upward from it, twisting into a little cyclone, and I see Joss's face in the sky—his neck and arms, his skin peeling away, his muscles fraying, disintegrating. I hear him screaming, and then see my own red fire in the corner of my eye.

  Breathe…I'm right behind you…I'm right behind you…

  I make my hands into fists and push down the tears that are burning the back of my throat.

  I will cross…I have come too far, and I will cross!

  But the tears come anyway. They burn my face until the wind hits them, and then they cool to a tickle that I don't dare move to rub out. The howling wind compresses until the low moan of it sounds like a pinched off scream, then a squeal that breaks into squeaks, then chirps and clicks, and every tickle on my cheeks becomes the dragging of legs, of stingers just waiting for an excuse, waiting for the slightest provocation like Dez and her ice lately, her cold shoulder because she thinks I want Liddick.

  Some people are cage-rattled…

  First Pitt…not him too…she can't lose him too…

  Other people pound the lock…

  My breath hitches again and I feel my heartbeat getting louder.

  Pound the lock…

  Breathe…

  I'm hearing it. I'm hearing the wind just like Dell said we would…but he's wrong. It doesn't try to convince us of anything…it's just amplifying what we already know, at least deep down. Liddick is another anchor for Dez…I think. She can be the bridge again. She can keep the peace between Liddick and Tieg just like she did for Pitt and Tieg. He puts her world back together. The thoughts fly loose in my mind, and I almost feel dizzy, like my chest is cracking open and spilling everything inside into the chasm beneath me where I'm sure it will just keep falling forever. No wonder…crite, Dez, no wonder you're so afraid…I think, trying to keep my throat from closing up again.

  Breathe…breathe…

  But then she screams from somewhere behind me, and I'm instantly afraid that she fell.

  No, Dez! Please, no!

  I can't lose them, I can't lose them…

  Dez, hang on! Liddick, tell her to hang on!

  Just one more cliff edge…we'll do it together.

  No! Liddick! Wait!

  I don't know how to be with you when I have to accept that when you need someone most, he's the one in your head. He's the one who's right there.

  Arco!

  In the next breath, I see Nann, my little sister, pulling at my sleeve.

  Jazz, will you port-call me?

  My mother is waving to me as our shuttle pulls away, but then it sinks into the ocean, and she just keeps waving. She just keeps waving with Nann as we sink…as the water covers the little port window.

  Welcome to Gaia, Jazwyn Ripley…

  Ms. Rheen's red hair turns into fire, and her red dragon-lady nails scrape my arm when she clamps on my Gaia bracelet cuff.

  Get out of my head…Get out of my head! I think, trying to push the wind out, but the flames from Ms. Rheen's hair turn into a curtain of fire. Inside it, I see the zippered mouths of the tunnel shark as Dez starts screaming all over again. Get out of my head! I think, then realize that the fire I see is real. It's my fire all around me! No…no…breathe…I can't tweak out here. Not up here…breathe…

  Pound the lock! Pound the lock!

  I will…I will!

  I take a deep breath and blow it out, then another, and another, timing them with each of my steps. In….out…

  I'm right behind you…

  Count, Rip…just 10 more seconds…one…

  I told you I couldn't watch you like that again and not be able to do anything. So if he can get to you…if he can help you when I can't, then maybe you should be with him instead of me.

  Arco! Wait!

  Little breaths, Rip…two…

  How can you not be tangled up with someone who always knows everything you feel and think?

  Arco!

  Three…four…I've got your back.

  I'll never be able to do what he can do for you, Jazz, don't you see that?

  The clouds thicken all around me, and I can't see Dell or Zoe any more up ahead. I can't see anything any more.

  "Arco!!" I hear myself yell out loud.

  I know it hurts, but just take little breaths…it doesn't make it wrong just because it scares you…

  Liddick is next to me on the dune, the dark roots of his hair disappearing against the backdrop of night, which makes him look like a beach apparition. Then his lips are hard on mine in his room after his port-carnate disaster. South American villages…I hear him saying, then hear myself laughing from far away.

  I love you—I know you can hear me. I love you…

  The words echo all through the canyon, and then so does Arco's scream.

  ***

  Something pulls me forward, and I land hard on the rock. I look at my stinging hands and see blood—real blood, my blood. But when I look around, I'm alone. I struggle to my feet only to fall again in the first step, hitting my knee on another rock in exactly the place where the material there is burned clean through. I watch the blood pool on my skin, hypnotizing me for a second until the wind howling in my ear pulls me out of it.

  "Hello!" I shout, but I still don't see anyone. Dell, Cal, and Zoe were ahead of me. If I've finished crossing, they have to be here. "Dell!"

  No one answers. I turn around to see who is coming after me down the ridge, but there's only rolling fog covering the chasm…where's the ridge…they won't be able to see the ridge in that…I think. What if they're all gone? What if they all fel
l?

  Our one thing…I remember Jax's words. Remember our one thing…

  But I don't want to remember. I want my brother, I want my friends…

  "Sand dollar, run!"

  I hear her. I actually hear her voice.

  "Vox…Vox!" I yell her name out loud, but she doesn't answer me, and all I hear now is the steady buzz in my ears of where her voice used to be. Vox! I think.

  Run, it's coming!

  What's coming!?

  The wind! Run! she answers in my mind this time, and I look around like it must be everywhere—anywhere, then I see the fog rising from the chasm out of the corner of my eye. It twists into the tubular dark rain clouds that look like the buckling blankets from over the Bale field, and then again from over the Sand biome, but then the clouds stack on top of each other three at a time in the same symbol that Azeris wrote on the Phase Three triangle he drew. I look back at the chasm now that the fog has lifted, but the ridge is gone.

  "Jax!" I yell into it, taking a few running steps toward the cliff edge until the three wavy clouds start to swim toward me like synchronized snakes, slowly at first as I skid to a stop, then more quickly as I take steps backward. I turn to run again, and within a few strides the low howling fills my head.

  "Jazz!" I hear Arco's voice coming from somewhere in the distance, and I run toward it, but then hear Liddick's voice coming from the place I just left as the fog swirls all around me.

  "Rip! Riptide!"

  I skid to a stop again, then slide on the slippery grass under my feet. I try to stop myself with my hands, but just manage to grind dirt into the scrapes on my palms. I dig my boot heels into the ground and stop sliding, then hear Tieg screaming.

  "It's your fault! He's dead because of you!" he yells, but I don't see him anywhere.

  "Dez! Tieg! Where are you!?"

  "You already know I couldn't want anything more than that with her, Rip. I told you what I was coming for."

  "Liddick!" I yell, but then hear the too fast, too high squealing of the marlin from our port-festival the night before we left for Gaia.

  "I never saw it coming—I never saw it coming—"

  "Stop! Stop!" I scream, then crawl under a big evergreen tree and push my fists against my ears, pressing my nose and mouth against my knees, then I squeeze my eyes shut so I can disappear inside myself.

  And then I do, or it feels like I do. The wind stops howling, and the only thing I hear is the rustling and crunching of dried leaves until I see a long-eared brown rabbit, though I'm sure I haven't opened my eyes…have I? I'm afraid to move to find out. Its nose twitches, and then it looks right into my eyes.

  "Our one thing," it says, then twitches its whiskers again, and now I'm sure I open my eyes as I push back from the rabbit, but it's not there any more. The howling returns, and it feels like there's a boulder on my chest as I try to catch my breath.

  OK…OK…stop tweaking…I think. Why am I out here…why do I keep going? Dad…my dad. Even if everything else is gone, especially if everything—if everyone else is gone. But they can't be. They can't be gone because we've come too far.

  I get to my feet, and the wind picks up as if it's watching me—as if that's its countermove. It's biting cold, scraping my face again like the tree branches from when we ran through the Rainforest biome. The twisting clouds are gone, and the sky now is the same dark gray with surreal yellow light as it was back at the Bale field. As I remember this, the wind starts to feel like hands pushing me back—gripping and pulling me all the way back to the beginning of the Rush, or at least trying to, which only confirms that I have to go in this direction.

  I have to go just like I had to stand up to Mr. Tark when he tried to intimidate me after the virtuo-cine beach attack by the Badlander cannibals. He wanted me to see that I could stand my ground. That's why he was proud of me so suddenly—why he gave up the act. That was the real test. This is the right direction—the mountain has to be on the other side of this wind because it wouldn't be pushing against me so hard unless it was trying to keep me away…stuck in these woods with the whispers and voices of all my fears and shortcomings, but I will cross out of here.

  "I will cross out of here…" I yell. "I will. I will!"

  "I'm right behind you…" I hear, but I'm afraid to turn around and discover he's just another trick of the wind. I don't move when I feel his hands on my shoulders, then his arms wrapping around me and pulling me back against his chest, and it's so much like him that for just one second, I don't care if it's real or not. But the second passes, and I know if I don't pull away right now, I may never see my dad, or anyone again. I try to push out of the hold, then hear my own sobs crashing in front of me.

  "Just let me go…you're not him. I'm going to get my dad…I'm going…"

  "And I said I'm right behind you," Arco says, still holding me against his chest. He really says it. I feel his warm breath on my neck and his fingers pressing into my shoulders like he's afraid I'm going to fall through the ground. "I'm right behind you…" his voice breaks, and he buries his face in my hair.

  "Arco…?" I say his name, but my voice is so hammered flat by the pounding in my ears I'm not sure I do.

  "The fog came. You screamed for me, and then you were…gone. Crite, you were gone…" he says, his voice collapsing on the last words.

  I turn into him and throw my arms around his neck, clinging, gripping the fabric of his tattered, burned, torn dive suit until I feel his skin under my fingertips. He's holding me so tightly I can't breathe, but I don't care. I don't need to breathe because he's here. He's really here. We drop to our knees, and for a second I'm terrified all over again, pushing back from him so I can see him, but I can't see anything because of the tears burning my eyes, so I wipe them away with the back of my hand. I bring my fingers to the sides of his face, which are scraped and dirty except for the clean lines of new tear tracks.

  "You're here…? You're here?" I say with the quietest voice I can so I don't alert anything that could be watching and waiting to take him away.

  He nods, then swallows hard and kisses me like he's not sure I'm real either, like I'm made of glass…or air.

  "Jazz!" Jax shouts, and by the time I look up he's already picking me up in a bear hug that crushes my ribs. I try to yell his name but I can't get enough of a breath, and I start coughing. "Sorry! Sorry…" he says, his heavy, dark brows knit together as he puts me down and starts pushing the hair out of my face. "You're OK? You're all right?" he asks, completely out of breath. I nod frantically because my voice is still choked off, then I see Ellis, Dell, Cal, and Zoe approaching. Tieg and Dez, Myra, Fraya, and Avis follow…but not Liddick.

  "We thought you fell…crite, Jazz, we all thought you fell when we heard you scream for Arco," Fraya says, throwing her arms around me.

  "No…no," I say, choking back tears. "Everyone disappeared in the fog, but that's when I crossed, I think. I landed on the rock at the edge of the Woods—these are the Woods, right? We're in the Woods biome?" I scan everyone's faces until I find Dell's.

  "We're here. We made it," he says with a nod, then pushes his hand through his feathered brown hair, which clings to his temples with sweat.

  "Liddick? Where is he? Where's Liddick?" I ask, and Dell's expression tenses as he shakes his head, pressing his lips into a line.

  "He didn't come off the ridge behind me," he answers after a long minute.

  "How do you know that? I came off the ridge behind you and you didn't see me. Liddick!" I shout, but don't even hear an echo.

  "Jazz…" Dez says in a broken voice, then shakes her head as tears stream down her face.

  "No! He's here somewhere. I would know if he were gone. Vox!" I scream into the trees. "Tell Azeris! Tell Azeris to find him!"

  "Jazz! Stop…please stop…" Dez crumples into Tieg's chest, and Myra aggressively wipes the tears falling down her own face as she convulses in an effort to swallow her sobs, but I look away, refusing to acknowledge their fears.

  "He
'll head for the mountain," I say in an even, cool tone. "That's what I was doing. He'd know that…we need to keep going. We'll find him. I'll find him."

  CHAPTER 51

  Out of the Woods

  The fog settles around our feet, but not so thickly that we can't see the grass, which gives way to black sand, and finally, the same volcanic glass and porous rock that was back at the Lookout Pier.

  "This is it," Dell says. "We're out of the Woods."

  "So, now we climb up there?" Arco asks, still gripping my hand as he cranes his neck to see the top of the volcano in front of us.

  "No climbing," Dell answers while looking over his shoulder at the trees behind us, and I start to hear a low buzzing in my ears again as the light shifts and pulses on the ground several yards to our left.

  "We don't climb up there?" Cal confirms under raised eyebrows, which wrinkle the diamond and arrow scars on his forehead. He shakes his head in disbelief as Dell aligns himself with a tall poplar tree that is situated between two evergreens, then walks back to the base of the volcano and runs his hands along the wall.

  "Here," Dell says after several minutes, then pushes something that opens a panel in the ground exactly where the light was just shifting. "Let's go," he adds before disappearing through the opening, and I can feel a cold twist of anxiety in his wake.

  Cal is speechless, his mouth hanging open until Zoe reaches over and taps the bottom of his chin, what's left of her leather sleeve burned to a gnarled edge at her shoulder.

  "Can't wait to hear how you spin this for Veece," she says, then clicks her tongue against her teeth before slipping through the hole in the ground after Dell.

  Inside, a narrow, white corridor wraps down a flight of stairs just beyond the hatch we've just come through. The passage reminds me of the relay sub that took us to Gaia Sur, and for a second, my stomach swims at the memory of the matter board and Vox creating a parson fish that almost got our entire cadet class disintegrated.