Beyond the Red

by Ava Jae

  Despite my discomfort, I’m more concerned about Iro. He ran nonstop for hours and now his steps are uncertain. He’s exhausted.

  I pat the side of his neck. “It’s okay. We can stop now, Iro.”

  A sound like a groan rolls through him and I smile weakly as he slows to a stop. I slide off him and wrap my arms around his neck. He nuzzles against me, then drops to the sand. I almost laugh—I’m so tired I’m tempted to nap in the sand beside him, but—wait—there’s blood on my leg. Have I been injured? Naï, the blood is the wrong color—not purple, but red.

  My gaze flashes to Iro and finds a patch of matted, bloody fur on his side. I drop beside him and my stomach twists and sinks. The wound is deep and has penetrated his rib cage—maybe even his lung—and a swath of fur as long as my arm is drenched in blood. This isn’t the burn wound of a phaser; Iro was stabbed, probably as we were trying to escape from my room. And I ran him for half the night and much of the morning as he lost blood and exacerbated the wound. Now, alone in the middle of the desert, there’s nothing I can do to help him. I can’t even ease his pain.

  The sobs come suddenly as I cling to his neck and weep into his fur. He looks up and licks my cheek a couple times before resting his head in the sand.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper into his neck. “I love you, my friend. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for everything.”

  I run my fingers through his fur, scratch behind his ears, and pet under his chin as his eyes droop closed. I listen to his slowing heart and run my fingers through his fur, matting his coat with my tears. And I hold him, whispering the gentlest lies and singing to him softly until his breaths come slowly, then not at all.

  I stay like that with Iro long after his spirit has faded and crossed the veil, until I manage to push onto my shaking legs and rub the tears from my eyes. If I’m going to survive, I have to orient myself, then keep moving. Alone. As much as I want to stay with my only remaining friend, lying here with Iro will make me prey for vicious scavengers.

  I spin in a slow circle, and something hot gnaws at the back of my throat. I am surrounded on all sides by waves of beautiful red sand. By a cloudless violet sky, and blazing orange and red suns, four ghostly moons, and not a single differentiating marker in any direction—not even a patch of rocks or a group of plants. I have no idea where I am, or how far I rode, or where the nearest city is. How far from Vejla did we travel? In which direction was I even riding?

  I panicked and rode without thinking and now I’m lost.

  Kala help me, I don’t have anything on hand. With the surge of adrenaline gone, the emptiness in my stomach and dryness of my tongue has never been more apparent. The average Sepharon can last nearly a term and a half without food—or about eighty sunsets—but we won’t live to see eight sunrises without water.

  I don’t have water. I don’t have anything but my ripped dress and the pins barely holding up my hair.

  I close my eyes. I need to clear my head and think. I can’t panic; I can’t make careless decisions, not when any decision could be my last. Not when I’m alone, with only the company of my twin shadows, in a desert I don’t know. But something Eros said before I ran echoes in my mind: Run toward the setting suns. They’ll find you.

  The suns set in the west. We rode for half the set at maximum speed, so we must have covered well over a thousand leagues. The suns are directly above my head, but they were rising behind me, so I suppose all this time I’ve been running where he told me to. But there’s nothing here, not even the smallest of settlements, and certainly no one ready to find me. Where am I supposed to be running to?

  I’m going to die. And I don’t even have a knife to ease my passage.

  So I do the only thing I can—I walk true west. I take step after step, and my toes sink into the sand, and I try not to think about my chances of survival. I try not to think about Eros, or Serek, or Iro, or about the untamed kazim and poisonous creatures that wander these lands, or how I’ll likely be dead in eight sunsets.

  I walk through the scarlet sands with my head held high and my eyes facing west.

  Ice-cold water.

  My body starts and I jerk against the restraints that bind me to the cold metal wall in this blinding white bare bones room. My eyelids flutter open, then close. I just need some rest. I just need to close my eyes and—

  The wall is burning. My eyes wrench open and I arch off the searing metal, but my wrists, my ankles—something is burning and it’s my skin and I’m gasping for air—

  Cold water drips off my eyelashes. Down my cheeks. Frozen air blasts over me and my teeth chatter and my whole body shudders uncontrollably. I’m staring into horrible white lights. Not a sound interrupts the silence—I cough just to break the quiet. Stare into the lights. As long as I keep my eyes open, as long as I don’t sleep, I am safe.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been down here. No one has visited me since they stripped off my clothes, bound me to this wall, and slammed the door shut.

  At first I thought myself lucky. I’d expected some kinduv torture, questions, demands. I’d expected knives and blood and something horrific, something out of the stories we heard as kids about the bloodthirsty Sepharon. I was ready for that. I was ready to sew my mouth shut and take whatever they put me through.

  But nothing happened. I stood naked against this metal wall with my arms outstretched and stared into the cold white lights and waited. Sure, I was freezing, but I could manage that. I could withstand cold air. I counted the seconds, the strips of light on the ceiling. I counted the polished stone tiles of the floor—sixteen long by fourteen across. I searched for cracks in the walls and floor, and I tapped my fingers against the wall, and I thought if they intended to kill me with boredom, they may very well succeed. Then my eyes drifted closed and pain shot through my wrists and ankles so quickly, for a split second I thought they were broken. Burning energy raced through my arms, slamming into my chest and jolting my entire body. My eyes raced open—it stopped.

  The second time I closed my eyes, a scream shattered my eardrums and slammed my heart against my ribcage.

  Their intent is clear: I can’t sleep. I’m not sure what the end purpose is, to break me I guess, and I wish I could say it’s not working. My legs ache with a dull fire, my shoulders and wrists burn, and a persistent throb has spread behind my eyes, wrapping around my skull with vice-like fingers. Every second that passes feels like ages. I keep my eyes moving and try to keep my mind alert—try to distract myself with meaningless trivia, with stupid stories I remember from childhood about disobedient children and bloodthirsty kazim, with facts about bikes and how much pressure it takes to crack Sepharon bone—something I can do that no one else at camp ever could. Half-blood.

  I don’t allow myself to think about Kora. I won’t fill my mind with statistics about how long you can survive in the desert without food or water, or think about the poisonous animals that can kill you with a single bite, or the scavengers that travel in packs to rip you apart, and criminals that search the sands for lost travelers to take advantage of. Not her, not her, I won’t think of her.

  I shift my weight from left to right and push onto my toes to try to take the pressure off my shoulders. I whisper songs and hum tunes I don’t even like and bounce on my toes when I can manage it.

  Anything to keep my eyes open. Anything to stay awake.

  The scream sounds like my mother: Open your eyes. I don’t remember closing them, but my ears are ringing and the following vacuum of silence weighs on my shoulders like a blanket: Keep your eyes open. Small commands are easy to follow. Stare at the floor. Count your toes. Wiggle your fingers until you can feel them again. Stare at the ceiling, into the lights until tears blur your vision. My stomach aches, my mouth is sand.

  Keep your eyes open.

  How long have I stood here?

  I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my arms either, or my fingers or my toes. I can’t feel anything, which is good, probably. Feelin
g hurts. Feeling rages through my body and makes me want to sleep. Feeling rips me in two when Kora and Serek kiss and Day and Nol and Esta die, over and over, and Day’s eyes are leaking blood and Aren asks me where his father is.

  Numb. Numb is good. Empty is good.

  Darkness is good—ice water jerks me to white and I lick my lips. Try to lick the water off my shoulder, but I can’t reach. Next will be the heat. The burning skin. Then the screaming, then the pain. Or maybe the pain, then the screaming? I don’t remember. I don’t remember.

  Where am I? Why am I here? Why am I fucken naked and why is it so blazing cold? My eyes start drifting closed, but I force them open. Not sure why. What’s so wrong with sleep? Stars, sleep sounds wonderful. I’m so heavy. My brain is a boulder and my neck is too tired to support it. Just a quick nap. Just a second, less than a second, just a mo to close my eyes—

  The door slams open. I jerk up and blink and blink. Two guys are stepping toward me. One of them I know. Maybe. They’re very tall, very muscular, very dressed in white and red and they don’t seem happy to see me. I’m not sure if I’m happy to see them, either. But I haven’t seen anyone in a very long time, I think, so maybe this is good.

  Or maybe this is very bad.

  A third guy enters the room and I should recognize him. It’s his eyes, maybe, that part of me remembers—the endlessly dark centers and piercing cold edges. I know him. I know him.

  I don’t know how I know him.

  “I’m going to make this very easy, half-blood,” the guy with the strange eyes says. He calls me half-blood, but I don’t think that’s my name. Eros. Eros is my name. I have more than half of my blood, but people call me half-blood, I remember that. I remember people.

  The guy pulls out a knife. Its edge is sharp and uneven, like metal teeth. There’s a name for that kinduv edge and I know it, but I can’t think of it right now. I can’t think of anything right now.

  I think I’m tired. I think if I had some sleep, I would remember more.

  “You’re going to tell me where my sister fled, or I’m going to make this even more uncomfortable for you. Then these men will make sure you don’t bleed to death, and we will inject you with accelerated healing nanites and start over. And you will not sleep. And you will not eat. And I will keep you down here and cause you a great deal of pain until you tell me what I want to know. Do you understand?”

  I blink. He expects an answer. I’m supposed to tell him yes or no or maybe something else, maybe something he wants to hear. That would be good, because he has a knife. But I’m not sure what he wants to hear. Maybe I would know what he wanted after some rest. Maybe if I just close my eyes….

  “I need to sleep,” I breathe.

  He smiles. Pats my cheek. “Tell me what I want, and you will sleep for a very long time. Forever, in fact. How does that sound?”

  Amazing. That sounds fucken amazing. I think I say, “Sha.” Because he’s Sepharon and they don’t speak English. He smiles and says he knew I’d be cooperative, but he doesn’t put the knife away.

  “Now tell me,” he says. “Where is my sister?”

  I blink hard. Stare at the knife. It’s strange, because a mo ago there was just one knife, but now there are three. Or two. They fade in and out and merge into each other and split again.

  The man takes my chin and lifts my head. Bores into me with his strangely colored eyes. “My sister, half-blood. Where is the traitorous Avra, hmm?”

  Sister. He has a sister. I know his sister. At least, he seems to think I do, so I must, but my head is swimming and my body is numb and burning and painless and agony.

  “Sister …” I say.

  He scowls. Squeezes my chin. Maybe it should hurt, but it doesn’t, not really. That’s good, probably. “Sha, you brainless idiot. My sister. Kora. The former Avra d’Elja, remember?”

  “It may be the sleep deprivation,” the familiar-looking white and red man says. “It’s been known to cause short-term memory loss.”

  “I know that, Jarek,” the brother snaps. His breath smells like salt and some kinduv spiced meat. He slaps my cheek and brings the tip of the knife to my cheek. “Think. You remember Kora, don’t you? You were her personal servant until she attempted to kill ken Sira-kaï. You attacked my men. Do you remember this?”

  Kora. Her name fills me with something hot that eats away at the numbness and I try to shove it back, but it opens like a flood within me. It breaks over my chest and seeps into my arms and legs and I’m shivering again and my teeth are clattering and there’s an ache inside me I can’t place. A pain I don’t recognize sits between my lungs and drips into my stomach.

  Kora.

  I’m drowning in images, memories I don’t want to see. Kora and Serek, twisted in each other’s arms in the crowd of dancers. Screaming and the prince convulsing on the floor and Kora crying. I think I pulled her away. I think I brought her to her room. I think I was holding her and we were so close and there were things I wanted to do. Things I couldn’t do.

  Waiting. The guards. Running.

  Here.

  I take a shaky breath. “I remember …” I whisper, but my mouth is so dry all I can manage is a hoarse wheeze.

  “Sha?” Dima steps toward me, his nose just inches from mine. “Tell me. Where is she?”

  I switch to English and whisper nonsense words, blending vowels together until he leans closer to try to pull out my words.

  “El Avra—” Jarek begins, but Dima holds his hand up to silence him.

  I switch back to Sephari. “Kora …” I say softly. “She …”

  He tilts his head closer. Closer.

  “Ve, I truly don’t—”

  I chomp down on his ear. My teeth rip through skin and cartilage easier than I thought they would, and a horrible scream explodes from Dima’s lips. Blood and saliva floods my mouth and something breaks off in my teeth. I gag and spit the long chunk of pointed and notched flesh onto the floor. Dima is doubled over cradling his ear and purple blood coats his fingers and I’m going to vomit, but at least my mouth isn’t dry anymore. Jarek and the other guard raise their phasers to my skull, but Dima throws his free hand out and shouts, “Don’t kill him!” My lips and chin are warm and wet. I spit at Jarek and his friend flinches half a step back.

  Dima slowly straightens, his body shaking as he presses his slick hand over what’s left of his ear. “Leave him,” he hisses, breathing hard through his nose. “We’ll see what a few more sets on the wall does to his resolve.”

  Someone is poking my cheek.

  “I think she’s dead,” a child’s voice says.

  “You think? Someone should tell Gray.”

  “Tell him what? There’s a dead alien lady lying here in a dress?”

  “It’s a pretty dress,” a girl says quietly.

  “Naï it’s not—it’s all ripped and sandy.”

  “Sha, but it was pretty. You can tell because it’s sparkly, see?”

  “Lucky she didn’t get eated.”

  My eyes flutter open. There are three fuzzy figures standing over me, but they must not be looking at me because they haven’t noticed my eyes are half open. My lips feel like they’re glued together and my entire body aches down to my bones. I try to clear my throat, but all I manage is a slight hiss through my nose, followed by a gravelly groan.

  The blobs jump back and I blink hard. They come into focus as the tallest of the three—a young boy with light brown skin and strange orangey hair standing straight up on his head—leans toward me. He has a long stick in his hand and he wears loose, layered clothing, like scraps of fabric sewn together like a quilt. Not unlike the little girl Eros and I saw in Vejla—Uljia.

  Rebel children. Clothed like people from my own city. Speaking Sephari.

  “She’s alive!” the smallest exclaims. His hair is pale, and he seems too small for his age, but then again, I haven’t seen many rebel children before. He jumps beside me and red sand flies into the air. I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my
face with my arms—the quick movement sends hot pain across my shoulders and into my fingers.

  “Aren!” the girl exclaims. “Stop it! You’re going to hurt her!”

  “Naï, look! She’s awake, see?”

  “Sha, I think we got that,” the oldest says. I open my eyes again and slowly sit up. Sand slips off my face; I’m coated in the stuff—dusted red from head to toe. The boy with the strange hair squints at me and points the stick at my chest. “Who are you?”

  I open my mouth to answer and my lips crack. Pain and warmth blossoms over my lips and slides onto my tongue.

  The girl wrinkles her nose. “Ew. I think she needs water, Mal.”

  “We can’t just give a stranger—”

  “Her lips are all bloody! She can’t talk like that, stupid!” The girl snatches a leather flask from the boy’s hip and offers it to me. I take it without hesitation, washing my lips off first, then drinking deeply. Warm water has never tasted so sweet, so perfectly wonderful. I drink until my pull comes empty and lick my lips when I’m done.

  The children are staring at me with a sort of wide-eyed horror. I must seem like an animal to them, covered in sand, barely able to speak, and drinking their water like … well, like someone lost in the desert without water.

  I sigh and offer the flask back. “Thank you.”

  The red-headed boy frowns. “You’re not supposed to do that. Mamae says if we get really thirsty, we have to drink slowly or it’ll make us sick.” I glance at the flask. Back at them. I try to return it, but they step back and the tallest boy shakes his head. “Keep it. I don’t want it anymore.”

  I stand, slowly, carefully. For a moment, I’m sure my legs won’t hold, but then the shaking in my knees subsides. These children are smaller than I anticipated. The tallest of them barely reaches my chest, but he doesn’t seem intimidated by my height. He holds the stick out like a sword, keeping his distance, his free hand held out in front of the younger children.