Broken Skies

by Kay, Theresa

  I shove the map back in the satchel and make my way out of the tree. “Come on. We’re going swimming,” I say.

  FOURTEEN

  It’s not a lake, more of a reservoir that we find on the other side of the trees. It’s large enough for swimming at least, large enough to wash the feeling of blood off me, and large enough for me to dip my head under and feel clean again.

  I take off, half running and pulling my shirt off in the process. I have to sit to remove my boots, but it isn’t long before they’re left behind me as well. My fingers stall on my bra strap and an uncomfortable feeling gathers in my stomach. Lir is staring at my shirt, still fully clothed and looking less than enthusiastic. Meh. I shrug and shed my bra and pants. His hangups aren’t mine. Most of my clothes are covered in blood and I just can’t be in them any longer.

  The water cools my skin instantly, just on the edge of being too cold, but it’s wonderfully refreshing. I swim out to the middle and tread water, stirring up some sediment and clouding the water, and I’m almost grateful for the coverage. Lir is still standing there and my face is heating at his obvious stare.

  Of course I’ve swum with Jace before and even Flint a time or two, though Jace asked me to keep my shirt on then. But this… Lir’s eyes skitter across my skin and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Lir is not my brother and his darkened gaze proves it. I’ve gotten comfortable with him, but the way he’s looking at me now…part of me likes it, likes the power I have to draw his gaze, but then there’s also a scared cornered animal that wants to hiss and back away. I settle for turning away from him and swimming all the way across to the other side.

  It’s quiet out here, peaceful even and I let out one extended breath, releasing as much tension as I can from my body. On my next inhale, I suck in as much air as my lungs can hold and plunge my head under the water. The dark silence of the underwater refuge clears my mind enough that I feel almost sane again. I’m better, but not perfect. I don’t feel the blood against my skin and my hands are pale and just starting to wrinkle. More tension leaves me as I slowly release my breath into tiny bubbles that climb to the surface. Though the push to go get my brother sits in the back of my mind, the wrenching guilt over taking a life starts to recede and my worries slow and stop spinning around in my head.

  I rise back into the air-filled world and lean back until I’m floating. The dream still plays behind my eyes, but it’s fading now, getting hazier with each lap of the water against the shore. “Just a dream. Just a dream.” The chant continues in my head.

  The dark form of a bird drifts high in the cloudless sky. I lift my arm from the water and trace its flight with one finger. What would it be like to swoop and dive in the air? To be so far above everything and just go where the wind takes me? Peaceful.

  As the bird disappears in the distance, I realize I’ve been out here for a while. I swim closer to shore, lower my feet, and stand on the muddy bottom. Pulling my hair back from my face, I comb my fingers through it and braid it down my back in one long tail, just about touching the curve of my backside. Now that I’m clean and my head is a little clearer, the chill of the water starts seeping into my limbs. Indecision stalls me. How do I get my clothes back?

  There aren’t many choices, only two actually. I can either stroll over and pick them up like it’s nothing or cower here until… until what? Crap. Looks like there’s only one possible decision.

  I take a deep breath and stroke over to the other side of the pond, staying as submerged as possible until the last possible second. My eyes count the rocks at my feet as I retrieve my clothes. No chance of sitting out in the sun and drying here. I use my shirt to towel off and pull my jeans and boots back on, ignoring the dried blood that flakes off the pants.

  The air is too heavy and my face is starting to heat. “If I’d known it would make you be quiet, I would have taken my clothes off sooner,” I say, nervously laughing at my own joke. Lir hasn’t moved, so I nudge him with my shoulder. “Can’t swim huh?”

  He shakes his head. “No, uh, it’s not…” His eyes are everywhere but on me. “We don’t have any lakes in the city, so…”

  “You never had cause to learn.” I snicker at the flush creeping up his cheeks. I missed teasing him. “It’s a good thing I’m around then. Sheesh, forget bears and snakes, you would have died the first time you fell into water over your head.”

  His eyebrow goes up and a smile spreads across his face. “I am quite capable of swimming. You just distracted me.” I must be full on blushing now, but I smile anyway and then pull my shirt over my head.

  “So what was it that you were saying out there about a dream? Did you have an interesting one about me or something?” He’s teasing, but my stomach still lurches and my hard won calm starts to recede.

  “It was nothing. Just… a nightmare. About Jace.” Lir’s flinch at my brother’s name is slight, but still there. This isn’t something he wants to hear about, but now that he’s brought it up I can’t stop the words from falling out of my mouth. “He was there, reaching for me, trying to tell me something….but there was no sound until he started screaming, just screaming and screaming and screaming…” I trail off and brush my hands on my thighs and rusty specks stick to my palms. It’s not even something I want to hear about, to face, to realize. “It was awful. And I just know he’s in pain. He’s in danger…” Clenching my hands, I fight back the tears struggling to fall. I raise my eyes and find his, pleading for understanding with my gaze. “I don’t know how I know, but they’re hurting him.”

  He thinks for a moment before responding. “You don’t know that.”

  His denial only increases my conviction and anger. My hands move into tight fists. Yes, I’ve tried to discount the dream too… but he doesn’t get to patronize me. “I do know it. Maybe it’s only a twin thing and not as sophisticated as your alien link thingy, but I do know.” I narrow my eyes, preparing the verbal barb that is itching to leave my tongue. “Isn’t that what you would have done? A little bit of torture before killing him?” His shoulders straighten and the muscles in his jaw pop. It’s my turn to be cruel. “Seems your friends like to cause a little pain. Maybe you’re just like them. And you called us savages.”

  “If I’d known who he was then, I would’ve just killed him in the clearing.” His words are loud and rushed. They jumble together and it takes a moment for the truth of them to hit me. I step back, the air leaving my chest like he punched me. Lir rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “Before… that’s what I would have done before I knew you. The ones that took him, they’re not my friends, if anything they’re just as much my enemies as yours.” His head comes up. “Things have changed for me. I don’t plan on taking vengeance on your brother. To inspire such dedication and loyalty in you…he must be redeemable, there must be more to the story than I know.”

  The confession shatters my anger and leaves me speechless. I settle for nodding in acknowledgment and then heading back into the woods, my wet braid swinging against my back. “Come on,” I call back over my shoulder. “We’ve got to get going.”

  Lir’s feet pound up behind me and he falls into step beside me. Neither of us speaks.

  A few minutes later, we’re scrambling across some rocks and I hear it, the unmistakable sound of a rattler. It must feel threatened so it’s not hiding in one of the crevices, it’s somewhere where it was frightened by us. My eyes scan the rock bed, looking for a variation in the pattern, something that sticks out. I find the snake about a foot to Lir’s left.

  He keeps walking despite my stilled frame. I throw out an arm to stop him and he turns with both his body and his feet, bringing his foot even closer to the snake. Almost in slow motion the snake rears back to strike and I yank Lir by his shirt toward me. His body bowls me over and I fall to my back, legs extended right into the path of the snake’s strike.

  * * * * * * *

  My breath hisses in through my teeth when Lir places the
ragged piece of his shirt against my leg. Pain radiates up from the wound, the pressure building until I want to scream. A drop of sweat traces down the side of my face and falls onto my shoulder.

  “What do I do?” Lir’s voice pounds in my ears, his tone frantic.

  “Let it bleed,” I say. “And get my knife.”

  Lir pulls my knife from his boot and wipes it on his shirt before handing it to me. The steel is cold against my leg as I run it up the seam of my jeans, parting the leg up to my mid thigh. I hack off the now loose jean leg and cut a strip from it. The strip I tie around my calf, just above the bite, not too tight, just enough to get my finger underneath. The blood is slowing, so I wipe the wound with the wet cloth.

  We’re out in the open and that just won’t do. Even though rattlers don’t always inject venom when they bite, the burning sensation traveling up my leg and the slight swelling already forming around the wound leave no doubt. There was venom in that bite and it’s bad.

  “Help me up. We have to find shelter. Now.”

  He pulls me to my feet and I sling an arm over his shoulder. With a slow hopping movement, avoiding putting much weight on the bitten leg, we struggle through the forest. My eyes scan constantly for someplace, anyplace that might be safe for the next day, maybe two.

  Dad was bitten by a rattler once, when I was ten. He was alone hunting in the forest and stumbled back to the cabin and fell into bed. The brief instructions he was able to get out before he went completely delirious weren’t very comforting. I did the best I could, but his leg still swelled and he tossed and turned for two days before coming back to himself. He was strong enough to fight off the venom, now I have to be too.

  Each step sends a shot of agony throughout my body. I cannot keep going. The exertion is just going to make the venom spread faster and it needs to be contained as much as possible.

  “Put me down. Find a cave. Someplace safe and then come back.” I grit my teeth as another blaze of pain shoots up my leg.

  Lir’s receding back wavers in my vision, joining the tree trunks in a dizzying dance. Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Colors blaze behind them, pulsing with the pain in my leg. The waist band of my jeans grows tighter, pressing into my flesh. My leg is swelling worse and I need to get the pants off while I can. My hands shake as I use the knife to cut the pant leg the rest of the way. Chills wrack my body and my limbs jerk against the ground. There’s no way I can hold the knife steady enough to cut them the rest of the way. I clench my teeth to keep my yells in. No point in alerting anyone who may be around that I’m here. That I’m injured. That I’m helpless.

  Fear follows the chills, seeping into my bones slowly. Is it real fear or the start of delirium? Helpless. Helpless. The word chokes me and leaves me gasping for breath. My racing heart beats a steady cadence of terror and pain.

  Minutes… or hours?… later, a tall form separates from the trees and approaches me. The sunset behind it shines on reddish hair and my heart jumps. “Jace?”

  No. The colors change again and it’s just green with golden sunlight pouring around it. Lir. When he gets closer, the gold in his hair shines and for a moment I just watch the sunbeams coming from him. Then my heart beats again and another searing pain travels up my leg.

  The pain coils in my stomach and I lean over and vomit into the bushes until my stomach can’t push anything else out. My back continues to heave and Lir leans toward me. At first, I flinch away, not sure I want the golden light to touch me, but it’s okay. His hand rubs my back until I’m shaking with the exertion of dry heaving and collapsing back to the ground.

  “Jax,” he says. “There’s a cabin ahead. Can you make it?”

  I nod, not trusting my mouth to form the right words. He helps me to my feet. If my body wasn’t a constant throbbing pain right now, all the wavy colors would be pretty.

  “Where’d Jace go?”

  “Huh?”

  He is playing dumb, but I know I saw Jace. “Where’d you hide him?”

  “You aren’t making any sense,” says Lir.

  I stop walking, swaying on my feet a little. “He was here.”

  “No,” he says. “He wasn’t. Remember…uh, they took him.” He pulls my arm over his shoulder. “Come on.”

  Just like that the cold heat of fear is back, turning my stomach to mush and speeding up my heart. “They… aliens…. You, you’re an alien… you took him!”

  “No I didn’t.”

  I pound on his chest with my fist. “Give him back!” The tears come now, the wet soldiers of fear and pain. Heat radiates up my leg and I stumble forward. Lir catches me and presses me against his chest. I continue to beat ineffectually at him with my fists.

  “It’s not much further, come on.” My arm follows him, but the rest of me stills. My wobbly feet won’t hold me. The ground is shifting and I can’t find a place to walk.

  Lir is too far away. He’s leaving me behind. Alone. “No! Don’t leave me here alone,” I yell. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  He’s in front of me again. Pulling my chin up to look at him. Green seas float on his face and I lose myself in them, drifting away from my throbbing body. Can I lie down now? Good idea. But I can’t. Lir scoops up my legs and cradles my body in front of him and then he’s moving through the forest and the trees are blurring around me.

  Seconds later I’m in a bed, the musty sheets cool against my skin. No, that’s not right. They’re hot. I kick them off. My skin is too tight and it’s going to pop. I’m alone and I have no pants. No, not alone… Screaming. Is that me? Shaking. That is me. Crying. That’s me too.

  Strong hands grab my wrists and pull me back against a rock hard chest with my arms crossed. I’m bucking and kicking, but nothing breaks his hold. A quiet breeze carries into the room, against my neck, against my ear.

  “Jax…please…” Not wind. Words. Lir. Safety. I still and a peaceful blackness takes over my vision.

  FIFTEEN

  Sound returns. Brightly bouncing in my head. Jumping on my achy joints.

  Snippets of sentences wander my brain. Not from my mouth. That doesn’t work.

  Shaking again. So. Damn. Hot. Not flames in my veins now. Just a glowing ember that flares with each movement, each brush of something against my stretched tight skin. Somebody should put me out already.

  “Does she know?” No. I don’t. Who said that?

  “…about her?” Same strange voice.

  “…be okay?” A familiar timbre made of green gold light.

  Cool, cold, wet against my face, my forehead. Gentle strokes down my cheek.

  “So sorry.” Green words again.

  A lick of flame, smaller but growing, shoots up my leg and out my mouth in a scream.

  * * * * * * *

  Next is sight, but it’s not right. Oh goodness, now I’m rhyming.

  Things are too fuzzy, too vague. Solid shapes move and moving shapes stay still. Blinking doesn’t help, so just close my eyes again.

  Ah, that’s better. Closed eyes work better than open ones.

  The familiar barrage of metal and buildings resolves into one simple room. White walls. White floor. White. White. White…and red.

  Red hair, tousled, too long and limp. Jace. Thin and pale, but there. Or here? Then he’s gone again.

  Open eyes and all I see is soft and safety green. Warm lips press against my forehead, followed by the cold wet over my face, down my arms. Relief until the fire flares up again.

  * * * * * * *

  Floating. Shooting. Sobbing. Cool cloth on my forehead, my arms, my legs. Concerned green eyes hovering over me. Water trickles down my throat, driven there by the force of his words.

  “You have to drink.” So I do.

  Shivers rack my body, but I’m quickly wrapped in warmth and held tightly there. When my eyes open, the emerald eyes are inches from me and I smile. It will be okay. Is that me or him?

  Someone else breaks into my head and I’m treated to a wonderful slide slow of bright color
s and shiny ships. My warmth pulls away, but not far.

  “You have to fight this.” So I do.

  “You have to come back to me.” So I do.

  * * * * * * *

  Sand scrapes the roof of my mouth. No, that’s my tongue. My eyes open into slits and I immediately shut them against the searing brightness. A breath and then another. Heartbeats without pain. My mind’s turning back on. I’m still floating for a while, drifting right on the edge of full consciousness.

  I wake up in a strange bed and almost wish I hadn’t. Every part of my body aches, even my fingernails and eyeballs. I shift with a groan and sit up. The effort nearly makes me pass out. Once the stars have cleared from my sight, I look around the room. Where the hell am I?

  The memories come back in waves, starting with the rattle and ending with Lir’s plaintive begging in my ear. How long have I been out? Light shines in the room even through the closed curtains, so it’s not nighttime. It’s a low light. Afternoon? Early evening? I’ve been out of it at least overnight, but somehow I think it’s been longer.

  I’m alone in the room and a small prick of concern pokes at me. Where is he? There’s no way I can get up, but I’m dying for a drink.

  “Lir?” My voice is hoarse, scraping past my dry throat and coming out as barely a whisper. I clear my throat and call for him again.

  The door flies open and I jolt. “Jax?” A variety of emotions cross Lir’s face, settling on relief. “You’re alright?”

  “Is that what this is called?” My voice cracks and Lir hands me a cup. “Thanks.” I guzzle the water and then push my back against the headboard. “Where are we?”

  “Some cabin in the woods.”

  “How long?” My fingers clench around the glass. Every minute I’ve been out is another minute that they’ve had with Jace.

  “Two days,” he says. He runs one hand over his face, exhaustion showing clearly on his pale skin, and slumps down on the bed beside me. “I thought you were going to die.”