Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  Protection could be a prison. Judah was sick of prison.

  “What about Noa then, Big Brother?” he said, dropping the name like one might a bomb: anticipating detonation.

  Callum’s face furrowed. His ‘being-grown-up-is-so-difficult’ face. Judah knew it well from when they had been kids. It was even more annoying now.

  “You remember her, don’t you? I guess you should, since you say you love her.”

  Callum looked annoyed. Which was something. “What is your point?”

  “Well, just wondering how she fits into this nice, happy-go-lucky, Kells-worshipping religion of yours. Kells wanted Noa killed. And he wanted me to do it. And who the hell knows—” Judah’s breath caught but he didn’t relent or lose his determined nonchalance. “Maybe I even did, when I pushed her into that stupid chute.”

  Callum’s face wavered. “Those were Arik’s orders, not Kells’. And no body was recovered.”

  “You don’t know, though. And, what, if she comes back, you think Kells will welcome her with open arms?”

  The muscles in Callum’s face worked and knotted. He got up, paced to the tiny, taunting window. “She’s … not family.”

  Judah’s eyes widened. “You chose her, Callum—”

  “I have a duty!” Callum snapped. “I don’t have a choice! I ran once from my family and that was wrong, and now I owe them! Noa, love, the mortal realm—it was selfish!” His hands went angrily to his curls.

  “But you remember, you remember it?” Judah replied quickly, clinging the bars.

  Callum shook his head violently. “Stop! You’re sucking me in! You’re warping my eyes to see like yours! You always do that!” He hurled himself at Judah’s cell, shoving Judah’s pathetic body from the bars into a ragged heap. “We can’t all be selfish like you! You need to grow up, Judah—”

  “Cal—”

  “You’re a child! We have responsibilities in this world, the one that made us! Those are bonds we cannot break! We both used Noa as an excuse to act like children, run away—maybe we need to leave her behind!”

  “So you … you don’t love her anymore?” Judah whispered in shock.

  “You’re my brother, Judah!” Callum ripped his hands through his curls, erupted into angry, rapid muttering, almost to himself. “I had hoped you would see this, that I could help you see, but I think now you may be too far gone, that Kells is right—”

  Judah could see him shutting down, welding himself closed, pushing out things that didn’t fit into boxes and straight lines.

  “And Lily?” Judah cried desperately. “Have you forgotten our sister?”

  Callum whirled on Judah. “How could I forget! You killed her! I knew you were dangerous and I let it happen anyway! Now I must atone! I must atone!” Callum’s face broke open, completely tortured and distraught, and he began to wail and beat himself.

  Judah fell back against the floor, stunned. “Callum, she’s not dead—don’t you remember?”

  Callum pressed his hands to his head, shook it harder and harder. “I remember—I remember—” he wailed, “Lorelei, when she saw me carry Lily’s body from the flames—because of you, because of you—”

  “But she wasn’t dead then Callum,” Judah repeated more urgently, crawling and pulling himself toward the bars. “You took her to Noa, to protect her, make her Sasha—”

  Callum growled and flung Judah back again with an almost primal force. “And then you killed her! You threw her into the Portal and you took her from me, from Noa, from everyone!”

  “Callum—”

  Callum’s eyes were fire. “One more word, and I don’t care, I will kill you where you stand!”

  Judah closed his mouth. He felt himself trembling.

  He didn’t know this Callum, not really, but he knew his brother. And he knew his brother well enough to know that in that moment, Callum meant every single word.

  • • •

  Noa and Hilo lay crumpled partway inside the tunnel, blown back among rubble, too hurt for tears and too tired for words. The opening was completely gone, sealed and plugged deep with crumbled rock.

  Noa was on her stomach in something wet, Hilo on her back.

  There was only one thing to say.

  “Forward,” Noa croaked without moving.

  “Forward,” Hilo croaked in agreement.

  Noa counted to five in her head—five seconds to gather her courage—then pushed herself up. To her surprise, Hilo moved at exactly the same moment.

  “What?” Hilo asked.

  Noa shook her head. Hilo moved gingerly, wincing and trying not to use her bad shoulder. It still hung at a gruesome angle.

  “I wish we had Callum,” Noa murmured.

  Hilo one-shoulder shrugged. “Eh, he’d have got in the way of all this fun anyway. Telling us to be careful.”

  Noa smiled, even though it hurt. “True.”

  “I’ll be okay. My Light will heal it a little as we go. Not all, but enough to make it not-so-gross and only partly excruciating.”

  Noa bit her lip. “Thank you for protecting me when we fell. How you kind of … shielded me.”

  “Well you don’t have Light. Made sense,” Hilo replied. “You coulda gobbin’ killed us though, letting go like that.”

  Noa flushed. “We wouldn’t have made it—”

  Hilo smirked. “No, I’m saying it was smart. Risky. But smart.”

  Noa smiled back. She still wasn’t sure she really liked Hilo, let alone trusted her, but it was nice to have her now. That much was true.

  Noa and Hilo turned together to the only way that lay ahead. The only ‘forward’ left.

  “It’s a good thing this tunnel’s lit, or I wouldn’t have seen it,” Noa said, as they began to trudge together toward the pale white light she had glimpsed inside the cavern.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What?” Noa demanded, hands on hips. “Me reckless and smart, remember? Speak.”

  Hilo sighed. “Just … the light? Why light all of a sudden? And where did all those gobbin’ rocks come from? The whole mountain didn’t just suddenly collapse.” They started to walk again, and Noa felt that twistiness again. The same twistiness she’d felt when she’d realized they had to go down into the chasm, not across it.

  “They’re tests, aren’t they.”

  Hilo nodded. “Or security protocols.”

  “That’s a pretty important difference.”

  Hilo rolled her eyes. “Do we have a choice?”

  Noa thought of starfish sisters and forward!, but her anxiety grew stronger anyway. She thought of Sasha, of Callum and Judah who needed her help—then locked their faces away tight, sensing for some reason that they needed protection.

  “No. We don’t have a choice,” she agreed.

  They soldiered on silently.

  “Something…,” Hilo murmured, squinting uncertainly ahead. Noa felt it too: they’d been walking farther and farther toward the white source of light, but with every step it seemed to be receding. It was leading them somewhere.

  “Another test?” Noa murmured.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Hilo said with a bitter smile. Noa closed her eyes briefly, thankful at least that she wasn’t alone.

  The light continued to lead them around several turns, winding deeper and deeper into the dripping, dank dark, until it finally brought them to a wider room. Their tunnel opened into a narrow but towering space, bordered on the far side by a rushing river of black, opaque water. Across the river was another tunnel entrance, embedded in another wall, from which the hallway seemed to continue on.

  Noa and Hilo, however, were looking up, mesmerized. They could see, finally, the light source: a white ball of iridescent flame, which had come to rest high above them like a mini-sun. It was absolutely breathtaking.

  Hilo murmured
, awestruck, “That has to be made from Blue magic. Just like the avalanche. But it would take way more than just one Fae…”

  “But who—”

  “Noser! Thank God! I told Miles you would come for us!”

  Noa spun, flabbergasted, at the sound of that sardonic, beloved voice.

  “Oh shut up, Livi! You’re the one who’s been freaking out! Seriously Noa, I’ve been the one mopping up the tears—”

  “Lies, Mr. Kessler! Such lies!”

  Noa blinked, heart beating so fast she was dizzy. She didn’t know how, or why, but it was true: Olivia and Miles, her Olivia and Miles whom she’d pushed from the In Between Portal world through some crazy door, were here, here, standing in front of this underground black river deep in the Tunnels beneath Aurora. And they were themselves—real, not Portal-y: Olivia with her blunt black hair and tattoos hidden; Miles scruffy in his uniform, golden-retriever smile slightly confused—

  “Miles! O!” Noa cried, sprinting to them, grabbing them in desperate hugs. Solid, so solid, and smelling just like them, like her mint gum and his flannel sheets—

  “Noa!” Hilo called from somewhere behind her, but Noa didn’t listen. She didn’t have time for her, for Hilo, because she wasn’t alone here, not anymore, she had her best friends who were mortal too and now everything would be okay—

  “But, you guys, why are you here? When I freed you from the In Between, I thought I was sending you home—”

  Olivia made her ‘crazy eyes’ face. “Nose, I don’t know what kind of paint we’ve been huffing, but I swear you just spoke gibberish, and this trip is making me seriously wish I’d listened to Nancy Reagan and ‘just-said-no’.”

  “Yeah, you’re here so let’s just wake up now!” Miles said with evident relief.

  “Noa!” Hilo said from behind her, pulling on her shoulder. Noa shook her off.

  “Who’s Grabby?” Olivia asked.

  “Did she huff the paint too?” Miles wondered.

  “They were pills, weren’t they, Nose. Is this bitch the pill-pusher?”

  Miles reached for Noa’s hand. “Let’s just wake up, okay? Forget her.”

  Noa nodded, letting the warmth of Miles’ familiar touch soothe all the places she was hurt. Olivia took her other hand, and the warmth swelled, magnified outward, washing away all the running and the crying and the seeing—

  “I want to wake up,” Noa said, and she found her eyes were blurred with tears. “Yes, please let’s all wake up!”

  “Don’t cry, Nose,” Olivia cooed, squeezing her hand. “Don’t cry when it’s almost over.”

  “I d-don’t know how to—”

  “It’s okay,” Miles said reassuringly. “We’ve been down here a long time, and we figured it all out. We were just waiting for you.”

  “Noa! Noa!” Hilo again, somewhere behind Noa, trying to pull her back from her friends. Annoying Hilo, horrible Hilo, so jealous of Noa and everything she had, how could Noa have ever thought she liked her, even for a second—“it’s Green, it’s Green, there’s no one there—Noa shook her head, refused to hear Hilo’s petty, jealous words. She turned to Miles instead, drinking in his chocolate-brown eyes. “How do we wake up?”

  Miles grinned his retriever grin. “Easy silly. Jump in the water. Water always wakes people up.”

  “Duh,” Olivia agreed, punching Miles playfully. “Guess he’s good for something after all.”

  “I try.”

  “Not real … Green…” Hilo again, hammering with fists and words, hammering on this shell of peace and warmth of calm, just—

  “Stop!” Noa pushed hard, shoved Hilo’s mass somewhere away. Then she let Olivia and Miles take her hands and guide her to the rushing black river. It was so black and opaque. And moving very, very fast.

  “Okay Noa? We get to wake up, on the count of—”

  “Noa!”

  A tiny doubt, a single drop, dripped into Noa’s happy gaze. “Not yet.”

  Olivia frowned. “Girl, we’ve been waiting.”

  “I need to get my sister.”

  Miles squeezed her hand. “She’s at daycare. We’ll pick her up when we get home.”

  The drip again. A flash. Was that … Isla? “No, not just Sasha, Isla too. She’s here I think. I can’t leave without her.”

  Olivia and Miles exchanged a look. “We can’t wait for her,” Olivia said.

  Noa hesitated—this could end, I could go home—but finally, took a step back from the creek. “Go without me.”

  Olivia and Miles looked worriedly at her. “We can’t go without you.”

  “Come on, Noa, let’s wake up—”

  “I want to, I do, but I can’t leave her, I need her—”

  “Green, Green…”

  Isla was coming, Noa couldn’t see her but she could feel her, somewhere behind her, where Hilo was yelling.

  Olivia and Miles exchanged another look, and then they looked at Noa with terrible, crushing sadness. Their forms became wavy, blurry, then disintegrated into nothing. The sudden coldness in Noa’s palms crumpled her to her knees, took her wind; she felt bereft.

  Hilo collapsed at Noa’s side on the ground, grasped Noa’s shoulder and shook her as hard as she could. “Listen to me! It’s not real! I can sense the Green magic! You’re not feeling anything real—”

  Noa couldn’t stop herself; she began bawling, fell onto her side, curled into a shaking, helpless ball.

  Hilo hesitated, then wrapped her body around Noa’s, the way she had when they’d been crashing down the rock face. She let her warmth push away Noa’s chill, murmured close into Noa’s ear. “It’s okay Noa. You’re in Green withdrawal, I can make it better—”

  “Noooo,” Noa wailed. “No more, no more. I was going home, I was going to see Sasha—”

  “No, Noa, no you weren’t. It was a lie,” Hilo soothed, holding Noa like a child. “Please, please, Noa, please hold on.”

  And finally, finally, because she could not fight it any longer, Noa sank into Hilo, imagining Hilo’s arms were Hannah’s arms and she was Sasha’s age, in a place that was warm and safe.

  Finally, slowly, Noa stopped sobbing, and Hilo helped her to sit up.

  “It was Green?” Noa murmured wetly.

  Hilo nodded. “Very advanced Green. A hallucination pulled from your own heart … it woulda got me too, but being Green, I felt it…”

  Noa wiped her nose. “Makes sense.”

  Hilo smiled encouragingly. “But you finally heard me. You finally broke through.”

  Noa frowned. “Isla helped.”

  “Isla?”

  “My dead sister. Her ghost. I see her sometimes, even here in Aurora. That’s what stopped me from jumping in the river. I suddenly didn’t want to leave here without her.”

  “A touchstone,” Hilo guessed. “Something real.”

  They both got to their feet, looked doubtfully at the river.

  “I’m guessing we should avoid that.”

  Hilo frowned. “Agreed. But how else can we get across? That’s obviously the right way. The tunnel continues on the other side.”

  Noa looked to either side of the rushing river; it was too wide to jump across from any angle.

  Noa frowned. It felt like forever since she’d been anywhere dry and warm, since there hadn’t been this wetness, coldness, dankness always and everywhere—even under her feet, sinking and sucking at her every step.

  Noa crouched, pushing a finger into the sucky mouth of the riverbank sludge. It was some sort of clay.

  Noa turned to Hilo, suddenly not caring at all about the wetness. She grinned.

  “How do you feel about making a bridge?”

  Hilo looked at her like she’d finally lost her mind. “Out of that?”

  Noa scooped up some of the clay. It was dense but oozing, and mad
e a slopping, kissing noise when she squeezed a chunk free. She held it up excitedly, and Hilo watched askance as it began slowly melting through her fingers.

  “Um, Noa, I’m not Callum. What am I supposed to do with that? Make it feel like a bridge?”

  Noa rolled her eyes in an excellent imitation of the pixie. “Faefyre, Hilo. That’s Green. If you flashfyre this clay stuff, it’ll be like firing it in a kiln. We just need to make a long enough plank to walk across.”

  Hilo slowly began to smile with this possibility for mischief. It lit her up, sizzled inside her. This was the Hilo, Noa knew, whom Judah had come to love.

  Hilo and Noa sprang into action immediately, buzzing with excited energy as they worked together to shape the plank. They moved in and by and around each other with effortless cooperation, two needles looping complex, four-handed stitches.

  As soon as they had the shape they wanted, Hilo raised her hands over her head, closed her eyes, and let out a wail like a banshee. Taloned flames flew from her mouth along with her scream, glittering with the fire eyes of a Faefyre serpent. It was a sight Noa had seen before—from Pearl, in the sex club back in the mortal realm, when the pixie had sent Faefyre to kill her. Just like Pearl’s, Hilo’s serpent uncoiled as soon as it hit air, stretching its long, lizard body, aiming its tentacle arms. Its eyes became dragon eyes, and the mouth roared wide—but instead of diving down on Noa, as Pearl’s viper had, Hilo’s soared over their plank, roaring flames before it could lose its shape. When the serpent reached the end of the plank, Hilo pulled her body inward, as if choking herself on her own air, and the Faefyre spat into smoke.

  As Hilo caught her breath, Noa ran forward: the Fyred plank was hard and dry, still steamy to the touch. Perfect. Noa caught Hilo’s eye as the pixie panted. They shared twin grins.

  Once recovered, Hilo almost seemed to dance to Noa as they worked together to maneuver the plank to the rushing river. It reminded Noa a little bit of Isla, the way she used to dance around their kitchen when they would make blintzes with their father.

  Will I ever see my dad again?

  “Ready?” Hilo said, bringing Noa back to the here and now. Noa nodded, and together, they lifted the plank from one end. It took both of them, straining hard—Hilo’s pixie strength, even, was stretched to its limit—to get the plank across without letting the far side dip into the ominous, swirling water. With a final shove, they heaved, and the far edge clattered to the narrow bank on the other side. Noa stumbled forward with the effort, but Hilo caught her by the back of the shirt before she fell into the rushing river. Hilo hurled them backward; they sprawled on the bank, Noa’s heart hammering wildly at how close she’d come to falling in.