Winter Omens

by Trisha Leigh

Gratitude and something brighter shines in his blue eyes while he studies me from the floor. It takes him about a split second and another wracking shudder to realize my offer is a good one, and he lands on the bed at my side. His skin is chilled and the tiny, flimsy mattress vibrates until worry skitters around me like raindrops. Either of us getting ill could be the end of any plan at all. Without Healers or remedy tablets, we’ll die out here in the cold.

  “Lie down,” I command.

  Pax starts, as though my voice attacked him, but quickly recovers and shakes his head. “No, there’s only room for one of us. You should keep the bed.”

  The sleeping space is small, that’s true, but I’m willing to share. Just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean I want him to get sick. Our body heat will accomplish warmth faster than the blankets alone, so I ignore the weird sensation tickling my chest, the one that feels like betrayal as my heart conjures memories of snuggling with Lucas, and roll my eyes. “Pax, we’ve got to stay warm. We can’t afford to get sick. Lie down; there’s room.”

  The fact that he obeys without further protest gives me more reason for concern. He’s hardly done anything I’ve asked since interrupting my raccoon-skinning adventure yesterday evening in the cabin. The casual thought of the heat propelled by that stove brings about an unexpected longing for the place I called home for a short time.

  Pax pushes against the wall, leaving me as much space as possible. As a nod to my conflicted feelings, I settle in the opposite direction, my body tight and rigid, my head by Pax’s bare feet. With four blankets piled atop our bodies it only takes a few minutes before he stops quaking.

  When my leg bumps his, Pax flinches away. The bed is too narrow for us to relax and stay separated, but apparently he’s going to try. I probably should have been the one to put space between us, given my autumn with Lucas, but my body continues to betray my heart. A few weeks ago, Lucas and I were courting, and the way he smiled and kissed me took my breath away. But Lucas isn’t here, and even though Pax and I are a long way from even being friends, we are alike, connected. We are Dissidents, and the heat of him next to me, the sound of his breathing, spreads a comfort so complete I want to cry from the sense of belonging.

  “Did you meet Cadi?” His voice drags over the question, soft and unwilling.

  It’s Pax’s peace offering, this conversation. It gives me hope that he does believe some good could come from our existence.

  “Yes. She came to collect my Connecticut mother’s belongings after she…Broke.”

  After the Others disposed of her.

  “Your mother Broke? What happened?”

  The answer is too much all at once. I Broke her. With my mind. It’s better to avoid stories that could make Pax run away just as he’s taking steps my direction.

  “I’m not sure, really. It all happened really fast.” Not a lie. Technically. “How did you meet Cadi?”

  The pause is so long and complete I worry it might be forever.

  “I didn’t. Ko told us about her. He was there when…when the Wardens captured us.”

  “Us? I thought they only took Deshi?”

  Pax blows out a breath, as though it can expel the horrible truth from his body. “They took us both. It was the first week of Cell and I’d noticed Desh, but hadn’t decided if I was really seeing what I was seeing, you know?”

  I nod. He can’t see me since we’re both staring at the roof, but he continues anyway.

  “The Wardens appeared out of nowhere. There were ten of them, led by one they called Chief. He nabbed us outside Cell one day, told us to come along for questioning. I mean, I wanted to run, but where would I go? And for all I knew, they were questioning all of the students, and I had no idea about anything. I mean, I had the note and knew I was different, but not that I wasn’t human or that the Others would do something worse than Break me if they found out.”

  I struggle to keep my attention on the ceiling and my voice calm as he finally lets me in a little. “So then what?”

  “They drove me past the Portland boundary to this crazy tall black glass building. Deshi was there, and they left us locked up together for days and days. There were cameras and they kept coming in and out, taking blood, hooking us up to machines; they studied us the whole time. Anyway, Ko was there, too. He was different than the rest. Nice.” The next pause lasts longer than the previous, and when Pax does finish the thought, the words drip with regret. “He filled in a lot of gaps. When he could talk.”

  When he stops this time, it feels as though the story is over, at least for tonight. I wait, wondering if he’ll pick it up again if I stay silent. My patience is not rewarded.

  “I can’t tell you the rest right now. I will, though. Promise.”

  It’s enough for tonight. Instead of making him feel worse, I tell him what Cadi taught Lucas and me. About our parents, Other and human. About how she and Ko came from a planet called Sprita but are like us, half-breeds who want to help us try to save this planet. That they can make the world change with a snap of their fingers, create something out of nothing and make you believe it.

  I’m not sure how much of the information is new to Pax. He doesn’t interrupt but occasionally makes responsive noises. As my tale winds down, his leg rests against mine and the space under the blanket heats up even more.

  When our bodies touch he sucks in a sharp breath, then talks again as though he wants to cover it up. “Ko told us that, too, about how he wants us to save Earth from Sprita’s fate.” He pauses, his tangled thoughts almost tangible in the deepening dark. “It’s too big to make sense, though. Does that sound stupid?”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid at all.” It sounds exactly like what my own brain has been trying to articulate since Cadi told us about what happens to the Others’ host planets after they leave. That no one and nothing survives. But how can Pax and Lucas and I save an entire planet?

  “I don’t see how we can beat them, is all. When we try, people get hurt.”

  No matter how long I wait, he won’t elaborate. There’s no way he can know I hurt Mrs. Morgan, that Lucas screwed up Leah when he damaged the Others’ veil in her mind. About how our fooling around in chemistry resulted in Emmy’s and Reese’s disappearances.

  It sounds like he knows, though. If not about those things specifically, then about something else, something similar.

  Something bad.

  CHAPTER 8.

  The next morning comes early. The little lamp with the oily cloth sputtered out in the middle of the night, leaving us once more in the pitch dark of our underground hole. The last thing I want to do is get out from underneath the blankets, made warm by our shared heat. We made progress last night, I think, as far as building some kind of friendship. Instinct says trust rests outside our grasp, at least for now. Pax harbors secrets, as do I, and our paths seem determined to diverge. Mine heads toward Lucas, and hopefully a solution to the situation on Earth. Pax’s feet follow a road to Portland and an unknown task.

  Surprise wakes me all the way up as I realize how badly I want to be able to call Pax a friend. It’s not enough to be kindred.

  He sits up before I do, propping his back against the dirt wall and giving me a sleepy smile. The sight of it, along with his disheveled hair and rumpled shirt, drops my stomach into my toes. The physical intimacy of this moment, waking up together, outstrips anything I experienced with Lucas and pushes Pax and I into territory too familiar for a day-old friendship.

  Yet something about the magnetism between our bodies feels older than a day. Older than a lifetime, as though it existed even before we were here to experience it.

  Pax pulls his gaze from mine with what looks like effort, then crawls over my legs and off the bed. “Thanks for keeping me warm, you little furnace.”

  For some reason the statement heats my face to an unbearable temperature, even though being compared to a furnace isn’t exactly sweet. “No problem.”

  I run my fingers through my tangled hair, then jam i
t back into a ponytail, trying not to notice that Pax watches the whole process with an indefinable expression. When I’ve finished, nothing sounds better than finding my toothbrush. The Wardens pre-empted my daily hygiene when they showed up yesterday. Which wasn’t great, in the middle of nowhere, but I did bring toothpaste and a brush. “I think we should take some things when we go. I have another bag; it will hold some of the food and maybe another blanket.”

  “Yep, good idea. I’m going to use the wasteroom.” He pauses on the ladder, turning back with a serious expression. “Don’t pack the Spam. It’s not worth it.”

  Pax laughs from his belly at his own pride from the night before, infecting me with his ability to be amused by his own faults. I smile, too, our laughter tumbling together and making the dank hole briefly cheerful.

  While Pax hauls himself aboveground, I climb out from under the covers. A chill immediately infects my bones. Socks help, and a fresh sweatshirt and my coat almost thwart a new round of shivers. My cold toothbrush makes my teeth ache as I brush with some of the suspect bottled water in the corner, spitting into the empty soup can from last night. Since I’m as ready as I’ll ever be and Pax is taking his time outside, I open the extra bag and scour the shelves. The Spam can stay, but that soup was pretty tasty. I add the remaining cans, along with the vegetables and a couple containers of tuna. We need food other than vegetables until Wolf can catch us more animals.

  Pax clatters back down as I test the bag’s weight, trying to make sure we keep it as light as possible. He tosses his pack on top of the mussed covers, then strips off his hooded sweatshirt and the plain white T-shirt underneath. The sight of his skin, with its warm, olive tone and the way it stretches perfectly across his chest and shoulders, steals my breath. Muscles are stacked like blocks down his stomach and as he turns to grab a fresh shirt, more ripple across his back. My body feels like it’s melting as I watch, and heat spills downward, trickling into my knees and making them weak. It doesn’t seem to faze Pax, but I have trouble averting my eyes from the first naked skin I’ve ever seen. Besides my own, of course.

  I manage to look away before he catches me practically drooling, and dig through the wooden box at the foot of the bed where Pax found the extra blankets instead. There are a few sweaters that reek of dust and mildew, but underneath those are books. The covers are paper, like the book holding Pax’s note, and look as though they were designed for children. Three of them huddle inside the trunk, intact but musty. I set them down beside me and return to my search. It’s a good thing, too, because at the very bottom are four plastic containers holding a liquid that, when I lean in close, smells like the lamp. I’ve decided that’s what makes the cloth catch fire and keep burning. Now we can have light to carry with us without having to make a fire.

  Pax peers over my shoulder, the nearness of his body bringing back the mental image of his bare chest. I try to scoot forward, but there’s nowhere to go.

  “What’d you find?”

  I clear my throat and twist to the side so that we’re face-to-face and a few feet separate us. “Books and the fluid that makes the light work. So that’s good.”

  He crouches in front of me, still barefoot, and while he peruses the books, I scoot away and rummage through my bag. I find what I’m looking for and crawl back to Pax’s side, my feelings of embarrassment under control, at least for the moment.

  “Here. I have an extra couple of pairs.” I hold out my hand, and Pax looks as though I’m giving him the ability to take out the Others with a single blow instead of a pair of gray socks. A grin lights his face from the inside, eyes shining, as he dumps the books on the dirt floor, grabs the socks, and pulls me into a hug.

  “Gosh, they’re just socks,” I murmur into his shoulder, but I’m smiling, too.

  He pulls away, tugging my socks over his tanned, blistered toes. I rescue the books from where he dropped them, reading the titles before stowing them in my duffel: A Wrinkle in Time. Anne of Green Gables. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

  It will be nice to have something to help pass the time if we’re going to traipse over this entire planet to get to Portland, where apparently Pax has something quite important to take care of. At least I can read. On the second page of Anne of Green Gables, by a woman named Lucy Maud Montgomery, there’s a series of paragraphs basically saying that the pages are full of not-true things, and that they were written in 1908. That seems like too long ago to have existed at all. A lady filled these pages over one hundred and twenty-five years ago. The Others have been on Earth a bit less than twenty years now.

  The books reach out to me with promises of not only stories, but also a glimpse into the place Earth was before the Others invaded, before they reached into our minds and stole our autonomy, our feelings, our ability to fight.

  I keep thinking our, but that needs to stop. I’m not one of them. The Others stole those things from them—the humans. I wouldn’t even exist had the Others not committed those unthinkable acts. Plus, unlike the humans, I can overcome the Others’ mind control. My mind has always been my own.

  Pax boosts me up the ladder, and the sight of Wolf’s animal grin when he sees me pours what must be love straight into my heart. It feels like it will burst open, and even though it comes as a surprise to both me and my dog, I drop to my knees and hug him. He licks my face—not as though he’s trying to get a pre breakfast snack, but as though he’s happy to see me. Pax stares, shaking his head while I pour water out of a bottle and Wolf laps it up.

  “Oh, no. He’s certainly not your dog.”

  I shrug in response to his teasing tone and re-cap the bottle, stowing it in my bag. It pleases me that Wolf sticks close to my side as we head toward the road Pax found, though, and having him here does more than make me feel safer. It makes me feel wanted.

  Pax didn’t lie about the size of the street he found; it’s six lanes across and a mess, as though chunks flew apart in a million different directions. We stay several feet away, walking in ditches or among trees when they’re there. The road heads west and we follow it until the sun begins to disappear under the horizon.

  The night is horrible—freezing cold and windy. There’s nowhere to shelter, so Pax, Wolf, and I huddle together under four blankets, and I stay awake most of the night so I can keep us warm enough.

  It gives me the time to read the first of the books, Anne of Green Gables. I’ve never read a story before, not one with made-up characters with their own problems and friends. I suppose the book isn’t meant to instruct, not in the way our Other textbooks are, but Anne and her adventures teach me about the life that must have existed on this planet before the Others redesigned it to fit their needs.

  Anne, with her red hair and her tendency to say the wrong thing, wriggles her way into my insides and I doubt she’ll ever leave. It’s easy to see myself in her struggles, and she’s so real it’s almost like having a friend. The concept of adoption, that human beings before the Others would take in children that didn’t belong to them and love them like their own, comforts me. Perhaps all of my parents really did care about me deep inside, behind the Others’ control. Maybe in another world, they would have truly loved me.

  So many of the ideas in the story are foreign. I figure out that Cells used to be called schools, and that kids went away to learn even more after they completed Upper Cell. They got to choose what they wanted to do, and who they loved, or even if they wanted to Partner at all. Anne’s adoptive parents were a brother and sister that lived together.

  I must’ve dozed off, but when Pax shakes me awake it feels as though I haven’t gotten any sleep at all. No dreams invaded the night, which is a relief. It’s hard to get good rest while my mother, who might get me killed with her intrusions, pesters me with fruitless conversation.

  By the time the sun begins to set once again, Pax must wish he had left me behind no matter how warm I can keep us. In spite of how many times I tell myself to, I can’t stop blathering about Anne’s life in Gr
een Gables, about how it’s so different from the humans’ lives now, but somehow more like ours. He listens with a polite smile, and some of the details raise his eyebrows in interest, but it’s been hours since I started talking.

  In the end, it’s not my good sense that shuts me up, but the sight of a city. It’s not like a Sanctioned City—there’s no boundary and there aren’t even houses. Buildings stretch toward the sky like silent sentinels, reminding me of the night Mrs. Morgan Broke and they took us to an Other facility, even though these structures are neither black nor intact. The whole place is deserted, a fact I sense not because of any physical indicators, but more due to the air of complete abandonment.

  All of the glass has been blown out of the windows, and it litters the street like crunchy carpet. The majority of the buildings are at least half toppled, but there are a few that appear to remain at their full height. Businesses that sat closer to the street have been completely decimated, reduced to rubble like the house we stayed beside two nights ago. Empty windows make me feel watched, as though anything or anyone could be hiding within the darkness. The whole place makes me want to whisper, but it also inspires awe as I try to take it all in.

  A few miles later, the city disappears and we’re back in what was probably a residential area before the invasion. Structures that are recognizable as houses droop in various stages of collapse, but even so it’s clear they didn’t all look the same, and they weren’t made of brick, either. Unlike our neighborhoods, each house displays character; I wonder whether their exteriors might have reflected the personalities of the families who chose to live within their walls.

  It’s hard to study them as much as I’d like because not tripping over the rubble takes a significant amount of concentration, but my favorite house so far is a pretty yellow color, with a painted white porch and a matching swing that remains intact. It’s like a dream, and when I close my eyes for a brief moment, Lucas and I sit under a dusky, star-brushed sky as we swing back and forth on a summer night, the sound of those singing bugs—cicadas—filling my ears.