by Trisha Leigh
Don’t lose hope,
Althea
I imagine a fresh envelope and seal the letter inside, wincing at the bitter taste of the glue. It’s weird that an envelope I imagined would taste bad. Deshi’s right. I don’t understand the hive mind at all. With any luck—okay, with a ton of luck—we’ll get rid of the Others and I’ll never need to set foot in this place again.
Outside, I set the reply in Deshi’s hand. There’s nothing in it that would be terrible for him to see, and if he read Brittany’s it would have only bolstered his faith in the humans he’s met. He cuts a glance to the left, and moisture immediately dampens my palms.
“What? Is someone coming?”
He nods slowly and heat builds inside me, ready to pour out at whoever rounds the corner. Deshi puts a hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Althea. She only wants to talk to you.”
My mother’s thick crimson curls pop into the corridor. She stays a safe distance away, but I could only think of two women when Deshi said that, and Flacara is preferable to Kendaja any day.
Kendaja doesn’t seem much for girl talk.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Deshi starts to leave without a backward glance.
“Hey, Deshi?” I call out.
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For saving our lives.”
That startled look that stutters through his gaze every time I say something nice makes an appearance, and then he nods. He’s gone a second later, and Fire takes his place at my side.
“Althea.” She pulls me into a hug before I can decide whether or not it’s okay. It’s strange—previously she’s been hesitant to touch me, kind of the way I am with Deshi. Worried that she’ll scare me away by forcing me into a relationship I’m not ready for, I think.
A force pulses between us, hot and powerful enough to make me gasp before she steps away. “It’s the element inside us. It matches, so it attracts and grows when we get close.” A faraway smile touches Flacara’s lips. “When you were little and I’d hug you, you’d let me for a minute and then you would jump back like I threw you and go, ‘Boom, mama! Boom!’ And you’d keep saying it and giggling and running away when I tried to hug you again.”
I stare at her, stunned at this simple insight into a time in my life I can’t remember, but one in which I must have been happy. Loved. Part of a family.
Flacara’s smile turns sad as her eyes slide over my face. “That was your favorite word. Boom. Your father loved it.”
With that she turns and steps through my barrier. The one no one but Lucas, Pax, and I are supposed to be able to penetrate.
Chapter 20.
After my body catches up with my eyes, I shoot into my sinum after her. “How did you do that? You’re not supposed to be able to get in here!”
Panic raises my voice until it’s shrill even to my ears, but my mother doesn’t flinch. Her eyes lock on my face, and after a moment I calm down. My legs shake from fatigue and fear, and I imagine a fluffy sofa such as the one Greer brought to her alcove one day, flopping onto it when it appears.
My mother raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess, one of the Sidhe put that idea in your head.”
“What makes you say that?”
“They are a particularly self-indulgent species.”
“Well, Greer’s been a better friend to me than you ever have.” It’s petulant and mean, but it slips out anyway. For some reason, I want to hurt Flacara. I want her to pay for creating me and then leaving me alone, for not being there for over ten years while I went to bed and woke up with strangers who didn’t know me at all.
She sighs, sinking down beside me even though I didn’t invite her. “I don’t blame you for being angry with me, Althea. I wish we had time to work everything out, but we don’t.”
I cross my arms, scooting to one end of the couch so we’re not touching. I think of the comfort I drew from being crammed into a bed with Emmy, Reese, and Leah earlier tonight, and how being able to curl into my mother would feel. It’s a thing I have craved, always. To be able to bury my face in my mother’s lap, for her to thread her fingers in my hair and tell me everything will be okay.
That was before I knew my mother was Flacara. An Element, an Other.
A monster.
And maybe she’s not that last thing, but I can’t let myself relax into this relationship. Losing it again, or being betrayed by her one more time… I’m afraid it would be the end of me.
“How did you get in here? Is it because you’re my mom?”
She fights a smile at my casual use of the term. “No. The Prime has us working on getting through the barrier you created for Nat. Or that Lucas created. It took us a while, but we did discover a way to cross through any wall that contains a piece of our own Element.” Flacara covers my hand with hers. “We haven’t told the Prime, but it’s only a matter of time before he stops believing us and finds out the truth.”
“Wait, I thought the Elements were like us—you can keep the Prime from your thoughts, right?”
“The Prime, yes, but not from one another. The four Elements are not united in our goals, and haven’t been since last autumn.”
“Pamant will tell the Prime you can get into our sinums, and he’ll force you to hurt us until we tell him everything?” I spit the words at her, but my traitorous heart refuses to believe it. We haven’t come this far for our parents to be the ones to defeat us.
“We won’t do that, Althea. I am firmly on your side, whatever the cost. Pamant is the only one willing to hurt the three of you, and that is only because Deshi remains within his grasp. He’s been able to love and spend time with his son these past months, so don’t blame him for not wanting to lose that. I don’t.” She sighs, reaching out to smooth the hair off my forehead. I let her. “That said, Deshi is yours for the taking. Whatever you revealed to him while you were kept at the Underground Core changed him. He may not realize it fully yet, but I believe he will help you in your time of need.”
All of this information sinks in while my mind tries to sort it into compartments that make sense. I go back a few beats. “The Prime wants Nat back badly enough to use you to get to him? Why?”
Her eyes turn sad. “The Wardens do not betray the Prime. I’ve never seen it happen in my lifetime, and there are no stories about it happening. Ever. It’s my opinion that he will study Nat’s brain to try to discern the malfunction, then kill him. Honestly, the process will probably render him a vegetable before his death.”
Nausea burns my stomach. The Prime would consider love a malfunction. Poor Nat. And Greer—what will she think when she wakes up to find him gone? What will she do?
Losing her isn’t something I’m ready to do. I have Leah now, and maybe Brittany and I could be friends, but Greer is special. She’s the first girlfriend I ever had, the first person aside from Lucas and Pax to make me feel as though what I have to say is important. “How long until the Prime gets him?”
“If we’re lucky? A week or two. And aside from your affection for Greer, there’s a bigger problem than Nat’s death.”
I think for a moment. “If they get through the barrier they can track him. They’ll know where he is.”
“Yes. If he’s hidden with the Sidhe or anyone else you don’t want compromised, you’ll need to move them.”
“Move them? We’re trapped on an island made of ice, traipsing through mines sixteen hours a day and desperately trying to figure out a plan the other eight! How am I supposed to do anything but watch them all die?” I’m yelling, but I don’t care.
My legs tremble and jerk, needing to move, so I get up, pacing the small space five or six times before I stop and stare at her. My heart pounds, anger and impotence racing through me, but Fire doesn’t have the answers. She’s an Other; they can’t travel. She can’t bring Cadi and Ko back to life, or give me my bracelet.
We might have help in this world, but not from her. The Elements’ assistance is confined to what they can do from the hive or the Underground Core,
and even then, only without detection. It’s not their fault. It’s who they are, and if I’ve learned anything since this all began last autumn, it’s that there’s no changing that.
We’re safe in our minds, at least for now, and I’m not losing anything except more sleep. If there’s one thing I know how to cope with, it’s functioning with little to none of that. After a few deep calming breaths, I sit next to her again. It’s impossible to know if we’ll ever have another opportunity to speak in private, or if tomorrow the Prime will discover baby Elements among his population and kill us in our sleep.
“What do you want to know?” She guesses my intention in a soft voice.
It almost brings me to tears the way this woman knows me even though we’ve been separated for so long. I swallow the emotion, trying hard to keep a wall between my feelings and Flacara, but at best it’s a screen door. “Will you tell me about my dad?”
“Of course.” Fire settles back into the cushions of my imagined couch, tucking her feet underneath her. She twists a lock of her hair between her fingers, the same thing I do when I’m trying to decide what to say.
I try to relax next to her, making a conscious effort to leave my legs stretched in front of me to avoid an identical posture to hers.
“His name was Ben Davies. We met in a place called Washington, D.C., which used to be the capital city of the United States of America.” She raises her eyebrows at me, a silent question as to whether I know what that means.
“We found some maps and Cadi told us about where we’re all from. Before… while she still could.”
“The Spritans were a great help to all of us, Althea.”
“And they paid for it.”
“Both Cadi and Ko were willing participants in protecting your lives and our secrets. Feel sorry that they are no more, but not that they helped. They would not be sorry.” Her tone turns stern, her gaze insistent.
I nod, but not because she’s intimidating me. Because it somehow dishonors their memory to wish they had never been involved.
“What were Pax’s and Lucas’s mothers’ names?” I want to know so I can tell them. It shouldn’t be just me who gets this priceless look into the family that was torn from me at five years old.
“Lucas’s mother was Sophie Belgarde. She was from a truly beautiful city called Paris, in a country called France. She was a singer. Pax’s mother was Gisela Alves, from a seaside town in Brazil named Recife. An artist. She painted pictures.”
I lock their names and places of origin into place in my memory before she goes on.
“Your father worked as a clerk for a judge. A judge is what it sounds like—someone who hears arguments from two parties and decides who is right based on the laws of America. And Ben clerked for—assisted—one of the highest judges in the land.”
“How did you meet?”
“We met in the courtroom. I was doing reconnaissance, checking out how the country’s legal system functioned and who held the most power in the government. He confronted me outside the courthouse—that’s where the human judges heard cases—thinking I was a spy for one of the parties involved.” She’s smiling at the memory and, in spite of everything, it warms my heart. I can picture the story in my head, except for one thing.
“What did he look like? My dad.”
“He was so handsome, Althea. Dark brown hair and these brown eyes that were so soft you’d swear they were made of velvet. He was tall. His voice struck me first; it had this quality, like music, and I thought right away that I could listen to him speak for hours and never get tired of it, no matter what he was saying.” She gives me a look from the corner of her eye. “He had these impossibly deep dimples. It seems you share your mother’s weakness for those.”
Heat blossoms in my cheeks and swims through my blood. “You know about Lucas and me?”
“Yes. Very little escapes the Prime’s attention. It makes you vulnerable, your love for him. The Prime will exploit it. He’ll use it to hurt you, my daughter. And it will hurt like nothing you can imagine.” Tears gather in her black eyes, the blue pinpoints expanding with her growing emotion.
The pain collapsing her throat makes me want to cover my ears, but then her words sink in and I raise my chin. “Love might make us vulnerable, Flacara, but it also makes us strong. It’s what we’re fighting for. All of us, in our own way.”
She leans forward, slipping an arm around my shoulder and tugging me against her side. Since this may be my last chance, I let her do it, laying my head on her chest.
“You are right, of course. That is why we are fighting still. For love.” Her fingers comb my sleep-tangled hair. “I love you, Althea. It is the only thing that has mattered since the minute you came into my life.”
As much as I want this moment to be perfect, I can’t say it back. I don’t love her, not the way kids who grow up with parents seem to naturally care for them. My whole life, her image has frightened me and driven intimidation through me, not affection. This sweetness is new, and I like it. Instead of lying, I settle closer. “So, what happened after he yelled at you? My dad.”
Flacara chuckles, and the beautiful water-tripping-over-rocks sound tumbles out of her and into my memory where I can keep it safe. “Your father, he fancied himself charming and claimed he needed more time to determine whether or not I was lying about being in the courtroom for research, and would I have dinner with him to be sure. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Who says that?”
“I don’t know. Humans, I suppose.”
She tells me stories for the next hour, about how my dad loved lasagna, too, and that she would find him in my room hours after I went to sleep, just staring at me. He told her he was afraid I’d be grown up in the morning, and he wanted to remember me as I was that day. How we all enjoyed the lake and the ocean, and how I loved swimming and sunshine before I could walk. That we were happy, and the three of us laughed every day.
Then my mother tells me about how he made her promise to keep me safe, no matter what happened to him. That Ben Davies knew he would die to keep his daughter alive, and that was what he wanted. And that Fire let him, even though she still feels, every day, as though someone ripped her in half.
For me. Because I’m what they created, and as long as I’m alive, so is their love.
Chapter 21.
Everyone’s deep asleep when my eyes open to the blackness of the furnicar. The night has taken every last ounce of energy remaining in my already dead body, but the morning announcement rings through the still darkness seconds after my eyes fall closed.
As the girls and then Wes slip out one at a time, hurrying to their tents to dress for breakfast, I huddle with Pax and Lucas and share my nighttime adventures.
“So our parents… they’re going to help us?” Lucas asks, pride and love shining in his eyes so bright it hurts to look at him.
“I don’t know if they’re going to help us, but they’re going to refuse to take part in anything that will hurt us. Except Pamant. Although if we can get Deshi on our side, he might come along, too.” I take a deep breath. “But we have to figure out how to get out of here and back to the cabin. Fire said it will be a week, maybe two—if we’re lucky--before the Prime forces Apa into Nat’s sinum, and then the Others will know where he’s hidden. We’re out of time.”
“But how?” Pax grabs a handful of his hair, clenching a fist and leaving wild tufts in its wake. “We can’t travel without help, and from what I recall about our maps, we must be way too far away to even think about walking or Lucas building a boat made of ice or whatever.”
A desperate clawing sensation shreds my lungs, and my overwrought brain tries again to spit out any kind of solution. Then Pax’s suggestion that Lucas’s ability could build us a boat smacks me between the eyes. “Maybe a boat can’t get us home, Pax, but what about you? Could you fly us the way you took us up to the top of Mount Rushmore?”
He looks at me, considering, while I smooth his hair bac
k into place. “It’s possible, and I know we’re running out of options. But that took tons of energy, and this would be three of us instead of two. And a lot farther. I might not be able to sustain enough power.”
“I bet you could. If our lives depended on it,” Lucas adds softly.
Pax’s eyes flash, landing hard on mine. “And what, Althea? Leave our friends here after they’ve taken huge risks to try to help us? Leave Leah again? And Tommy?”
He looks away when I don’t answer right away, but I snag his hand and force him to turn back. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we don’t have any good options. At least Leah and the rest are safe for now. If we don’t go, everyone at the cabin could die.”
“We can’t win.” His shoulders sag, and even though I know he’s talking about the choice we’re facing, it feels as though he means it on a larger scale.
We finish getting dressed in silence, then hurry over to get breakfast. More bread, more cheese, and a special treat—pears. The day in the mines passes quickly, and so does the next. Workers dislodge chunks of rocks, kids retrieve and deliver them. I count my people three times, work for a while, glare back at Eula when she sneers at me. Jas doesn’t have any attacks, and even though the eight of us spend hours alone in our furnicar at night, we don’t come up with a better idea than Pax using his power to get us home.
Rita drills Leah on a list of lab equipment we’ll need to deconstruct the Others’ brand of dymium—we’ve taken to just calling it dymium, instead of neodymium, since that’s not exactly what it is—and also gives us some suggestions on potentially still standing places that house sophisticated enough equipment. She’s also told us all, more than once, the process for breaking an element down to its basic components—isotopes. It’s dangerous, since neodymium is radioactive, and it’s going to take us a while, but I think we can do it. We have to do it.