by Trisha Leigh
My feet and legs are completely numb by the time Pax stops at the edge of a park. Weeds crawl over the space like a tangle of snakes; it’s nothing like the manicured parks inside our boundaries. He hasn’t asked if I need a break, and I’m determined not to be the first to suggest one. We’ve passed a crumbled structure here and there the last couple of miles, as though this was once a town where humans lived. Before the Others.
A thin yellow-striped cat with violet eyes studies us from a low tree branch, bushy tail twitching back and forth and knocking snow onto the ground. I expect Wolf to give chase after spotting the thing, but he doesn’t. In fact, if anything, he acts wary of the emaciated creature, even though it’s smaller than the raccoon he caught for dinner. Its grape-colored eyes follow our every move, disturbingly human in the way they don’t look away.
Pax’s hoarse voice distracts me from watching the creature. “We need to find shelter. Once the sun’s gone we won’t be able to navigate so easily.”
All day, I waited for the Others to come up behind us, to take us away. Pax must have given us a decent head start. “We could travel. I could show you how Lucas and I did it. We could make sure they can’t follow.”
Pax’s teeth clamp together. “No. We lost them. They were about half a mile away when I spotted them, and your dog doesn’t hear anything. We’re good.”
“But they’re going to know we were there. We didn’t have a chance to get rid of any of the cans or the fire—”
The determined flash in his eyes silences me.
“Look, Summer, I told you I have no interest in searching for Winter Boy Wonder, so don’t think you’re going to trick me into traveling to find him. I’m going back to Portland because there’s something I need to do. You can come or not, but it’s going to be a long trip with you being disappointed every time we have this conversation.”
He’s right. Not to mention I’m too tired to fight right now. “Fine. So, where are we going to stay tonight?”
“Just keep those pretty blue eyes peeled.”
I’ve started to think we’re never going to find a place to sit down when we finally run across potential shelter. There are two wooden doors, slightly slanted up, built right into yet another wide expanse of barren land. Several paces away are piles of exploded timber, perhaps once a house or outbuilding, but now reduced to firewood.
The doors into the earth stop us both in our tracks and we stare for several moments. The baffled look on Pax’s face makes me smile. No one’s going to explain it to us, so I stride up and grab one of the metal handles on top. The right door, then the left, pulls upward easily, belching a cloud of wet-smelling dust into my face. It forces a series of sneezes, and when they finally dissipate and I blink away the tears, Pax is grinning at me.
“You sound like a squirrel when you sneeze.”
“Um, thanks?”
He strides to my side and peers into the hole in the ground. There’s a wooden ladder leading into the dark interior that looks too fragile to hold our weight. Wolf whines, and to me it sounds like he’s not keen on the idea of being underground. I turn my back to the doors and reach out a leg, feeling for the first rung.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“Going to check it out. What, you think you should go first because you’re a guy?”
“No, by all means, go right ahead.” He runs a hand through his brown hair, but it’s too fine to tousle. The wind rearranges it in the next second anyway, and makes me shiver.
My bones suddenly ache all the way through, and nothing is scarier than having to stay on my shaking feet while we continue to search for a place to crash for the night. Without waiting for him to stop me, I keep backing down the makeshift stairs. They creak under my weight but don’t snap, and after only twelve steps I feel solid earth under my feet. It doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust from the gray day to this dark space, and when the image of a bed melts out of the darkness, happiness makes me want to cry.
“It’s like a little bedroom! Come on down!”
Pax grunts in response, which I assume means he’s going to acquiesce.
Shelves line the walls, stacked with cans of what appear to be food, although the labels are faded and dirty. There are bottles of water stacked in a corner. Those are labeled as well, and it’s not the water the Others deliver. The bed is covered in a patchwork quilt made of browns, reds, and oranges—it reminds me a bit of something Mrs. Morgan would buy—and little tassels pop up in the center of each square. The errant thought of the mother I Broke in Danbury last autumn punches the air out through my stomach, dampening my elation. Lucas’s earnest face, urging me to believe that it wasn’t my fault, hovers in my mind, bringing the smallest bit of comfort along with it.
I sit on the edge of the bed and run my fingers over the colored pattern. The repetitive motion slows my heartbeat and shoves tears back into my head where they belong before Pax sees them and I have to explain.
He’s not ready to talk about what happened last season and neither am I.
A loud crack interrupts my sorrow, jerking my head the direction of the stairs. Pax flails the last couple of feet to the ground, landing on his rear in a cloud of dust with a loud groan.
“Are you—” Giggles overtake me, refusing to be swallowed. Eventually I manage to gasp out the rest of my question. “—hurt?”
Pax is already on his feet, glaring at me while he brushes debris off his backside. My giggles continue, and after a moment Pax’s mouth twitches into a smile. He laughs, too, and the tension from the day melts off of us. Every muscle in my body throbs with fatigue, aching as I thaw from the cold hours and hours of traipsing across the hard earth.
“What is this place, do you think?” Pax studies the shelves, squinting through the darkness at the provisions lining the walls.
“Good luck, if you ask me. We’ll have some food tonight, even if Wolf doesn’t catch anything.”
“True. I wonder why it’s underground like this, though.”
I push my legs out, pointing my toes and stretching out the stiffness. Wolf whines from the top of the hideout, but there’s no way to get him down here. He’ll have to fend for himself, at least for tonight.
“So, how do you know we’re going the right direction? Can we really walk to Portland from Iowa? Is it close?”
The thought of walking more makes me want to shut my eyes and sleep for a week.
“We have to walk the direction the sun goes over the sky. East to west. Portland is all the way on the west side.”
“How do you know that?”
In Cell, we’re taught about the universe, about planets and stars, but never about the specific makeup of our planet. I have no idea where Connecticut is in relation to Iowa, or Portland.
Pax slides a suspicious glance my direction. “Everyone knows where the Sanctioned Cities are, and where the Other Core is—otherwise how would we all get to the Summer Celebration?” He seems to realize the answer to his own question. “Oh.”
I’ve never known the layout of Earth because I’ve never traveled—not in the human sense. Unless they’re relocating for their Careers, humans only travel in the summer. And I don’t have any summers. It’s stupid to feel sad about it. I know now the Summer Celebration is nothing more than an excuse for the Others to gather people together, to reinforce the veils keeping them content, keeping their emotions in check like well-behaved children, but there’s still a longing to truly be connected to these people who raised me. Lucas, Pax, Deshi, and I—we don’t belong anywhere.
“I’m sorry, Summer.” The words are gruff, like he resents having to spit them out, yet they’re also sincere. Somewhere, wrapped inside layers of deflection and lazy smiles and charm, lurks a nice boy.
“You know, you promised no nicknames.”
“Not true. I promised I wouldn’t call you Allie.”
Then again, maybe there’s nothing inside Pax’s charm except an obstinate boy who lives to irritate me to death. “I ha
te nicknames.”
“Why do you think it’s so much fun to use them?”
He winks, and my infuriating body can’t decide whether to stop breathing or kick him in the face. Instead of doing either, I ignore him. Maybe if I act like it doesn’t bother me he’ll give up the game. I’m suddenly sure it’s a game to him, charming people into liking him, and wonder if he’s had success connecting with humans over the years. His personality is much more conducive to making friends than mine, or even Lucas’s. Lucas and I played it safe, and that meant being alone.
“I’m going to go out for a while, maybe scout around. I’ll take the dog with me, if he’ll come, okay?”
The idea of being down here alone swings a pendulum of conflicted emotions inside me. On one hand, separating is probably the worst thing we can do. Lucas and I learned last autumn that we’re more powerful together, and if the Wardens show up again, we’ll have a better chance if we’re both in the same place. But being around Pax isn’t as easy as being around Lucas. I could use the time alone to sort out my feelings and figure out how to convince Pax to help me find a way out of this mess.
Pax doesn’t wait for me to approve. He simply hauls himself up, past the broken ladder rungs, and disappears from sight.
CHAPTER 7.
The sound of Pax grunting as he lands at the bottom of the broken ladder jars me out of a disturbing, looped dream. It takes a little longer than usual for the present to solidify, for me to recall exactly where and when I am. I must have fallen asleep after Pax went out.
In my dream, my mother came to find me. She wanted to talk, maybe even to tell me her secrets, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out. Frustration wrinkled her pretty forehead, but no matter how many times she started that sentence, I couldn’t hear her.
Pax’s indolent smile helps anchor me, flooding me with such gratitude it catches me off guard. It’s not that I don’t like him—I think I do, actually. He’s different from Lucas, more willing to just tell it like it is, less inclined to protect me. But that’s an okay thing to be, really, especially in our situation, and I don’t need to be protected. It’s not knowing his plan, his intention and agenda, that sends nerves hopping like a circus of fleas in my belly. Part of me wondered if he would come back at all, but now that he has, I realize that I wanted him to. Badly.
“Your dog wouldn’t go with me. I found a pile of bricks around the back of what used to be the house and built him a little wall to keep out the wind. He seems to like it. He’ll be okay up there tonight.”
“Wolf.”
“Look, he’s not a wolf. He has a blue eye, and—”
“No. His name is Wolf.” Lucas named his fish; I can name the dog. If it is a dog.
My smile catches him by surprise, and he blinks a couple of times before returning it. “Oh. Sure, whatever.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yes, actually. There’s a road—a big one—less than a mile away. The asphalt is cracked with vegetation and big holes sink in lots of places, but it heads the direction we need to go. With any luck, we’ll be able to follow it a long way.”
“Do you think it’s safe, walking out in the open like that?” Iowa is the worst place to be right now. There’s no place to hide in the endless flat landscape.
He plops down on a collapsible cloth chair that sits near the packages of bottled water and unlaces his tennis shoes. The sight of his bare feet, chewed up and red from our hike, catch my breath.
“You don’t have any socks?”
“Nope. It was summer, remember? I’m lucky I had shoes on when I traveled.”
“But your blisters—”
Pax waves a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, we can probably find at least a little cover and just keep the road in sight. That should be good enough. There’s a few destroyed buildings closer to the road, but nothing better than here. We should spend the night and then get moving again in the morning.”
“Okay.” The mention of the destruction brings the Others instantly to mind. Not only have they left parts of this planet to fend for themselves, but they’ve destroyed the lives of every inhabitant in those areas. Even in the Sanctioned Cities they’ve stolen the humans’ lives. People live with veils in their brains, separating them from strong emotions. They take humans who Break—whether they are injured or their minds can no longer handle the invasion—and no one ever hears from them again.
The Others tortured Ko until blood poured from his face, and a single look from the Prime’s son seized Lucas with horrible pain. I want to forget those things happened, imagine we’re not up against a force greater than we can hope to defeat. It might not even be possible, but for the moment we have to focus on something semi achievable. “Let’s see about dinner, then, shall we?”
Our shelter gets darker by the minute as night falls. We’re not going to be able to see our faces in about half an hour, so getting settled for the night is a priority. Pax and I peruse the containers on the shelves, each pulling a few down, then comparing. I grab familiar items that would be safe if they came from a kitchen inside a Sanctioned City but are more risky out here in the Wilds.
Pax holds out his hands, showing me cans of tuna and something called Spam, which I’ve never seen before and have zero intention of putting in my mouth. He grins as though he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
Some of the cans don’t have a pull tab on top, so in the end we’re relegated to the food inside the containers we can open. Some corn, two cans of a soup called Mexican tortilla, whatever that is, and the Spam.
“You’re really not even going to try it?” Pax holds out the dented blue can full of some kind of pink mush.
“There is nothing you could do to make me eat that.”
He hasn’t tried it either, I notice, but a thoughtful look ghosts over his features at my emphatic statement. It turns mischievous in an instant. “Really? Nothing?”
Something inside me snaps at his attitude. It’s exhausting babying his feelings, not addressing my wants, and never really talking about anything important. So I refuse. “You could say you’ll help me find Lucas.”
A thick, writhing silence invades the distance between us, a corporeal entity that displaces the once empty space. Pax doesn’t answer, digging into the Spam with a plastic fork. His immediate grimace says my decision to stay away is the right one, but he eats the entire can anyway. If he gets sick later, I’m making him sleep outside with Wolf.
It would be nice to bail him out, to take it back, to change the subject, but now isn’t the time to be nice. All four of our fates are on the line—not to mention that of the entire planet, according to Cadi—and Pax wants to ignore that fact, as though it will go away if we pretend we’re not who—no, what—we are. The Others aren’t going to forget about us. Chief’s face looms in my mind: leering, bent on killing Lucas or me before we could escape Connecticut last autumn. The way he called us abominations, the hatred dripping from his voice when he said we should all die…I know they’ll never stop looking.
Pax needs to understand that, too. Because with Lucas away and the real Deshi captured, Pax is my only ally in this fight.
Tears fill my eyes at the hopelessness of it all. Who’s to say Pax’s way won’t let us live longer than mine? Whether we run or fight, the outcome is likely the same, at least the way the odds are stacked at the moment.
To hide my emotions, I pick up my empty soup and vegetable cans, stacking them in a corner. The toe of my shoe clinks against glass, and when I bend down to explore, the fragile object snags my interest. I hold it under the last streams of late evening light where the ladder comes down, puzzling over what it could be. It has a brass handle and bottom, but the middle is a globe of glass. There’s a piece of cloth standing up from the base, and the sound of sloshing liquid is loud in the uncomfortable silence.
It looks like the porch lights on our houses inside the boundary, only instead of a twisty bulb, it has the cloth.
/> Light the cloth.
“Stay away from me,” I growl at my mother’s voice. Even to my own ears, the command is weaker than it should be, making it clear I no longer know if her going away is what I want. During my nap, I would have given anything to hear the words Fire wanted so desperately to communicate.
“You’re stuck with me tonight, but if you want me to stay away, tomorrow morning we’ll go our separate ways.” Pax’s voice makes me realize I spoke aloud, nearly causing me to drop the brass and glass contraption to the ground.
The piece of cloth lights behind the glass, heated easily by my embarrassment and confusion. It burns steadily, casting flickering shadows on the dirt-packed walls of our little hideaway. After I settle it in a safe place, on the trunk at the foot of the bed, I give Pax an answer. “I don’t want you to stay away. I was talking to…I don’t know. Myself, I guess. I just want to understand why you’re so sure figuring out more about ourselves and our abilities won’t do any good.”
The word talents sticks in the back of my throat. Lucas called our abilities talents, but it’s hard for me to see them that way. They destroyed Mrs. Morgan and almost Leah, too, not to mention Emmy and Reese and who knows how many more. Even though they helped us escape the Wardens, our powers can hurt people.
I push those memories away and sink down onto the bed, slipping off my shoes and tucking my cold toes under my knees. Pax clings to his silence like a shield, grabbing a bottle of water and unscrewing the cap. The instinct to tell him not to trust water that didn’t come from the Others leaps to the tip of my tongue, but there’s no point in giving it voice. We’re no longer part of the world where the Others make things safe. If they ever did.
From across the room, even in the dim light, Pax’s violent shivers are easy to see. His whole body trembles, and it shakes pity loose from my frustration.
I sigh and pat the bed. “Come on, Pax. You’re going to freeze to death down there.”