Betrayals in Spring (The Last Year, #3)

by Trisha Leigh

  Natej glances at me again but doesn’t reveal what the two of us heard. I appreciate his discretion, even though the ability to trust him remains as hard to grasp as a handful of water. He may have been on our side today, but history says the next time we run into him it could be a different story.

  It occurs to me that it might not even be his decision.

  Even though I can come here, infiltrate their minds in a way, how the Others’ brains work remains mostly a mystery. Will they be able to find out that Natej didn’t try to stop us today? If he’s not alone the next time, will he not have the strength to resist?

  “Let’s go. I’ll tell you later.” I’m exhausted now, ready to collapse and deal with the problems of the world tomorrow.

  Pax doesn’t hesitate, just slides his hand into mine. Lucas joins us, and as Natej drags the Other guard into a sitting position against the wall, we return to the cabin.

  The boys ask me what happened when I touched Natej, where I went and what I saw, but I can’t answer them. It’s insane that Apa would think Lucas could—would—take his place among the Others, suck the Earth dry of whatever it is they’re taking from this Harvest Site, and then leave the entire planet full of humans to perish, move on to destroy another world.

  Isn’t it?

  The way Lucas seems less sure about choosing humanity over the Others, how he’s been spending time with his father, churns uncertainty. Part of me knows it’s not my decision to make, that he’s going to be angry with me for not telling him what’s going on with his father this instant, but I just need more time to sort it all out.

  What it means. What it might mean.

  They back off when I burst into tears quite by accident, although it’s true enough that I’m beyond tired. I flop on the couch, pull a scratchy, woolen blanket up to my chin, and pat the sliver of space at my side. With Wolf curled over my feet, I close my eyes without fear for the first time in days, letting the knowledge from the last couple of hours slide off me and onto the floor. It feels a little like dropping heavy bags after a long trip. Even though I know I’ll have to pick them up first thing in the morning, for now I can rest.

  CHAPTER 6.

  The next morning, the three of us revisit plans to get Deshi after I tell them he’s being held in a place called Rapid City. Cadi said only the four of us together can make a difference, and I’m clinging to the idea that if we can get Deshi in the next couple of hours, I won’t have to tell them the rest of what I heard in the hive.

  It’s been on the tip of my tongue to tell Lucas about his father, but it feels too private a thing to say in front of Pax. Lucas should get to deal with it first on his own.

  “He could already be insane from the torture.” Guilt deepens Pax’s voice, as though the words have to climb around a pile of trapped sentiment before they exit his lips. He doesn’t look up from the map he’s scanning. “I mean, he looked pretty bad the last time I saw him.”

  “Cadi and Greer didn’t say anything like that when they talked about Deshi,” I remind him, trying to offer a little comfort.

  “Greer is related to Griffin, so that makes her testimony automatically suspect.” Lucas wasn’t impressed by my description of Greer’s kindnesses, or my insistence that she seems to exhibit slightly more of a conscience than her twin brother.

  “Fine, but Cadi said we need Deshi. She didn’t say anything about his being too out of it to be any help. There’s something going on with the Others, and we need to take advantage of that and get Deshi. Now. Not later.” The Prime’s words echo in my mind, that a mere seven days remain to revive Apa or they’ll be forced to abandon Earth.

  It’s crossed my mind that even if Apa dies and they do leave Earth, they’ll want to take Lucas with them. That’s what Kendaja meant, why she wants to get Lucas. Without Water, they won’t be able to survive anywhere. I’m not sure what scares me more—that they would take Lucas or that he might willingly go.

  “We could go back to the hive. Try to find Deshi’s sinum.” The idea doesn’t even sound good to me, and I’m the one who says it. But trying to find Deshi in the hive doesn’t seem as impossible as trying to find him on Earth, now that I have an idea of how large of a planet we live on. I’m desperate to find a solution that doesn’t involve the Others needing Lucas.

  Pax sits back against the couch, resting his eyes. “Even if we found him, it wouldn’t do any good. We can’t physically bring him here through the hive.”

  Frustration crawls into the corners of the cabin. The only sound for several minutes is the clicking of Wolf’s nails on the hardwood floor and the faint squeaking of the wheels turning in our brains. Instead of brainstorming about how to find and rescue Deshi, guilt over not telling Lucas about his father squeezes my stomach, tries to catapult the confession off the end of my tongue.

  Now that I’m better rested, I’ve realized a larger issue makes my silence a huge treason. If Apa is truly out of commission, my reticence could destroy the planet.

  The silence, the guilt, the horrible weight of responsibility push me to my feet. “I’m going for a walk. Maybe hunt some dinner with Wolf.”

  Before Pax or Lucas can offer to come along I grab a coat from the hook beside the door, call Wolf to my side, and step out into the blustery spring. It is spring, even though light frost still crusts the blades of grass so that they crunch under my feet. The sky stretches forever, a huge expanse of blue uninterrupted by a single cloud. A forest of towering fir trees stretches behind the cabin, the sticky scent recalling Lucas’s permanent cologne. Before Wolf and I get twenty steps into the woods, the sound of running feet traipsing over brittle pine needles slumps my shoulders.

  “Althea, wait up.” Lucas’s cheeks glow pinker than I’ve seen them lately, his eyes searching mine for answers.

  “Hey.”

  “Can I come along? I haven’t seen how you guys hunt yet.”

  “Sure.”

  He seems to sense my desire to be alone, and although we walk side by side, it’s comfortable to not speak. Even though I used the hunting excuse to get outside, I’m not really in the mood and don’t follow Wolf when he stops and presses his nose to the ground, then bounds off into the underbrush.

  “It’s nice here. Feels a little bit like I imagine winter to be still, even if it’s actually spring.”

  If we hadn’t kept track of the passing weeks through the winter, I might not believe it’s spring at all. But it’s March here, wherever we are, which means the seasons are changing even if it doesn’t quite feel that way yet.

  “Yeah. I’d say we’re probably somewhere close to Iowa. This looks like the terrain Pax and I hiked through on our way to Portland last winter.” We never made it. At least not by walking.

  “He’s not a bad guy, you know. Pax. He just pushes my buttons.”

  The assessment brings a small smile to my lips. It’s true. “Try not to let him see that it bothers you and he’ll be more likely to give up.”

  “Maybe.” After a short pause, Lucas takes a deep breath and I know he’s going to let loose whatever it is he followed me out here to say. “Althea, what aren’t you telling us?”

  “What?” My heart jumps with the reminder of how he can still read me, even after our time apart.

  “We’ve been separated for a while, but I know you, Althea. You saw something or heard something that scared you, when you grabbed Natej in the hive. Please tell me what it is. We have to work together, trust one another—you, me, and Pax—that’s what you said.”

  Lucas reaches out and takes my hand. It doesn’t feel romantic, more like friendship and support—things he’s always been able to offer me without a word—and I cling to both his touch and the intangible qualities of his presence.

  After everything he’s done for me, all we’ve been through, it’s not fair to keep the news of his father from him. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes to gather my courage. My withholding the secret from him might convince him once and for all that I’m not wort
h caring about, not when I don’t return the favor with as much trust and ease as he’s always displayed. “Lucas, I did overhear something. It’s about your father.”

  “What? What did you hear?” He drops my hand and takes a few steps back, his gaze already dimming with betrayal.

  I swallow hard. “He tried to kill himself. The Prime said he figured if he were gone, the Others couldn’t kill you—because they would need you.”

  Lucas shifts farther away, the weight of his gaze bathing me with guilt. I can’t find the courage to meet his eyes.

  “How could you not tell me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A muscle bulges in his jaw, potent evidence of his upset, and I know better than to try to touch him. It’s as though my voice unleashes his fury. He looks at me, blue eyes like blocks of frigid ice that crawl into my heart and freeze it solid.

  I don’t have the courage to tell him the real reason I waited until now—that the way he’s been talking about Apa and the Others since returning to my life pressed the confession into the back of my throat. He’s right, though. I have to tell him everything. If I trick him into staying with me, he’ll never really be mine.

  “There’s more. The Prime said that without Apa at the Harvest Site—I don’t know where that is, but I’m guessing it’s where they’re harvesting whatever substance they need from Earth—that the planet would destabilize enough for them to have to leave within a week.”

  There’s no need for me to expound on the implications of those facts. Understanding is all over Lucas’s face that he’s the only one who can help. Does he realize it means leaving me—us—again, and that he might never come back? Does he care?

  “How could you, Althea? You knew about this since last night in the hive—were they talking about it when you eavesdropped through Natej? And you said nothing?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you in front of Pax, and I thought I could—”

  “You thought you could what? Figure everything out on your own? Doom an entire planet by keeping your mouth shut? Make all of my decisions for me?” His words drip with an anger I’m still unused to being directed toward me. “In case you forgot, I managed to survive on my own. So did you, and you ask me to remember that you can take care of yourself. Take your own advice. You don’t have the right to keep things from me, either.”

  As I struggle with a response, all of the rigid anger drains from Lucas’s body. It bleeds out of his face, then slumps his shoulders, and I swear I can see it drip out of the bottom of his boots. In its place slides resignation, and the thing that frightens me more than that—anticipation.

  Fear clenches my heart, squeezes until it can hardly beat. He’ll never tell me what he’s thinking, but I need to know, anyway. “We need to talk to Pax about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Althea. I’m going to help them in my father’s place, until he’s well enough to resume the duty on his own.”

  “What if he dies, Lucas? What will you do then?”

  “I don’t know, Althea. But we both know there’s not much of a choice here.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Tell me the options,” he asks softly, his words guarded but no longer lashing out at me.

  “You can do nothing, and the planet will die as it’s been going to since the Others arrived. You can go help, maybe never come back, and when you leave with the Others the planet will cease to exist, anyway. Same outcome.” I jut out my chin, aware I’m being argumentative and refusing to see the truth because it’s not what I want.

  Lucas shakes his head. “You’re not that blind, Althea. The second option gives us what we need—time to figure the rest of it out. It’s the only option right now.”

  He takes off for the cabin at a brisk jog, Wolf prancing around his feet, happy to be running free outdoors. Inside, Pax’s head snaps up from a book he found next to the bed called Dracula. It doesn’t seem like my kind of thing, but he seems to be enjoying it. Interest sparks in his eyes as he takes in the tension crackling between Lucas and me.

  Pax folds down a corner of the page he’s on, a habit I detest, and closes the book before raising an eyebrow. “Trouble in paradise?”

  Lucas grunts. “Tell him. Now.”

  The command rankles. After spending every waking moment of the last sixteen years walking though a prescribed life, being told what to do gets my hackles up these days. Even though it’s Lucas, and even though he has every right to be mad, the fact that he thinks he can order me around makes me want to punch him.

  He ignores the glare I shoot his way, and Pax throws up his hands. “I understand that he’s pissing you off with the attitude, but one of you had better tell me what’s going on.”

  “Fine. When I grabbed Natej’s arm in the caverns, I heard something. There was a meeting, and the Prime announced that Apa tried to kill himself. Without him to help maintain the seasonal balance on Earth, the planet will become inhospitable within the week.”

  “Summer, how could you not tell us that? We could have only days left to figure out what to do!” Pax’s voice doesn’t convey anger like Lucas’s did; he sounds more shocked at my keeping secrets.

  “Not to mention I might like to know that my father is dying.”

  “Who cares about that?” Pax stands up, pacing in front of the fire.

  Wolf follows his steady footsteps in a parade that would seem almost comical in a different situation. Thunderclouds descend into Lucas’s face at the dismissal, but even after the time I’ve spent with my mother and the confusion I feel over her place in my life, I have to side with Pax. What’s happening to Apa concerns me only because of how it affects Lucas and the time limit it places on our mission.

  “It’s been less than twelve hours. I’m sorry. I was too tired to think clearly last night, and I guess I was hoping to find a second option.” I suck in a breath, and Pax stops pacing. “And Lucas says he’s going to help them.”

  “Of course he’s going to help them, Althea. What’s the alternative? That we allow them to leave and sit here while the planet crumbles around us and we all die?”

  “There has to be another way. If Lucas goes to them, they’ll never let him go. Once they have him we’ll never see him again.” Tears spring into my eyes but I blink them back. Feeling weak right now will accomplish nothing.

  “He is right here, you know, and he is capable of making his own decisions. Without my help, it’s all over anyway.” Lucas doesn’t look at me, choosing instead to seek an ally in Pax.

  “He’s right. Without Apa, there’s no one else who can keep up the winter side of a seasonal cycle, and it sounds like he’s particularly crucial at this Harvest Site. Plus, even if we found Deshi in the next five minutes, we don’t know how to do what the Elements do. It’s going to take time to figure it out, and Lucas helping until Apa gets better will buy us the time we need.”

  “Even if it means we lose you, too?” This time Lucas can’t escape my desperate gaze, since I move closer to him until our noses nearly touch. Impotence surges through my blood, masking itself as hot anger. I fist my hands, closer to losing control of the heat than I have been in weeks. “What if they leave and take you with them? What happens to us then, to Earth? You don’t know what it’s like, to be at their mercy.”

  Hopelessness snags my voice and Lucas softens, reaching up to smooth loose strands of hair behind my ear. His hand trails down my cheek, the familiar play of hot and cold trapping sobs in my chest as I clutch his hand there, pushing into it.

  “We’re already at their mercy, Althea. We don’t know what to do next, we don’t know how to beat them or where to find Deshi. This might be a great opportunity to learn, and to do the right thing in the meantime.” He drops his hand with a sad smile. “If Apa really did this to try to save me, then I owe it to him.”

  Lucas looks as though the implications of his father’s sacrifice are just now hitting him. It does strike me as noble, what Apa tried to do. He wanted t
o find a way to save his son, and this was his best idea. That said, the Others can’t have Lucas. No matter what’s going on with the two of us, I’ve had enough of being separated from Lucas to last me a lifetime. Maybe more than one.

  It’s my turn to reach out, to touch him and anchor him in this cabin, to remind him what’s important. His fingers wrap around mine, responding to a squeeze.

  “Lucas, it’s not your fault. He made this decision, and it was rash. We don’t need him to make that choice for us—we’re going to figure out how to win this war on our own, you got it?”

  The reality of what’s about to happen crashes around me, spinning my head around until holding in my emotions is going to be impossible. Even though I’m happy to be different now, pleased that being a Dissident means my emotions are normal after sixteen years of being told they’re wrong, it’s still hard to remember they don’t mean I’m weak. Especially right now, when the boys are as stoic and accepting as emotionless statues, and I’m about to explode from the torrent of feelings swirling like a spring tornado.

  “I’m going outside. Not far. Don’t leave. I just need a minute alone.”

  Blustery air stings my cheeks and I gulp it down, using the pain in my lungs to distract me. The thought of letting Lucas go again feels like Zakej punching me in the gut.

  I sit on the porch even though the cold bites through the butt of my jeans. The woods are silent from here, even the sounds of the birds too far away to brighten the evening. It should start to steadily warm up soon, depending on how far north we are.

  If we can find Deshi, it will all be different. We’ll have a real chance.

  I hug the idea tight to my chest until my body aches. It has to be true. Cadi said we could win him back, and that he will change everything. But now we’re going to lose Lucas. Pax and I will be back to two instead of finding a way to become four.

  At the edge of the lake where we arrived here, a giant fir tree stands sentry against the world. It smells like Lucas, and its trunk bulges so wide it must be older than the Others, which are two reasons I love it. Sometimes I imagine the history it has seen, the stories it might tell if it had a mouth. The first days here, when the distance between Lucas and I made me want to cry every time I looked at him, I spent hours with my cheek pressed against its rough bark, letting the cool scent and imagined sympathy of its ancient heart soothe my sorrow.