Winter Omens

by Trisha Leigh

  “Summer! Althea, wake up!” Weariness and concern, a strange combination, infuse Pax’s urgent request.

  It’s no wonder, given that he’s woken me like this at least three times in the past couple of weeks, and I always say it’s nothing but a bad dream. This time, terror throws my soaking wet body into his arms. My scalp burns where Chief ripped out my hair, but it must not be missing in reality because Pax doesn’t exclaim that I’m suddenly half bald.

  After a moment, his arms lift and wrap tentatively around me.

  The heat between us catches me off guard; it’s stronger than even I suspected. Like we’re melded together, tied to each other deep inside, and before I know what’s happened, our mouths press roughly together.

  The sweet taste of apples tickles my tongue as his lips part, mingling with the swell of jasmine and cinnamon tangling in the air. My recent fright melts away, replaced by the intense desire yanking my heart into stutters and turning every slide of his hands, every slip of his tongue against mine into bursts of pleasure.

  It feels so good to let him hold me, for us to finally connect, but at the same time it’s frightening—the desire to be even closer, that there’s still too much between us even though I’m sitting in his lap—so strong it makes me want to rip at his clothes. I lose myself further in the smell and taste of him, and Pax groans into my lips as his hands tangle in my hair. My hands roam under the hem of his thin shirt, and I gasp against his mouth at the feel of his taut skin against my hot palm.

  When I do think about something besides touching every square, hard inch of this intoxicating boy, Lucas’s face pops into my mind. His sweet dimpled smile, the way the wind tosses his blond curls, how he wants so badly to figure out how we can help the humans find a way to survive.

  We break apart at the same time, not gently but as though someone turned the magnet between us around, repelling our bodies back with a shove. Pax’s face twists, a mask of horror and something else I can’t quite read. My heart pounds and tears fill my eyes at what I’ve done, what I’ve allowed to happen here with Pax while Lucas waits somewhere else, probably scared and alone. The hem of Pax’s shirt smolders where I had hold of it; he notices and dampens the smoking fabric before it burns him.

  Confusion sweeps through me in a mad swirl, caused by the frantic kiss and my lack of immediate regret. Guilt, yes. Regret, no. I’d been sure I was falling for Lucas last autumn—only a short number of weeks ago—and together we had a plan, we supported each other. Now Pax is here, and despite the fact that he doesn’t seem interested in a future and hasn’t even told me what we’re on this quest to find, a piece deep inside of me wants him, without question.

  It’s more than the insane, instant attraction, though. Pax doesn’t baby me. He pushes me, questions me, and forces me to figure out why I believe the things I do. These past weeks I’ve felt stronger than ever; even if he does decide to go away and leave me alone, I’ll be able to survive.

  “That can’t happen again.” Pax’s words cut the silence and pummel my pride, even though I’d been thinking the exact same thing. He grimaces at my expression. “I have a plan, Summer. You have a different one, and yours obviously includes Winter. Nothing is more important to me than getting to Portland and finishing my business there. So, you and I? We’re both Dissidents. We can help each other, but nothing more. I need you to tell me right now what you’re hiding. Your dreams scare me—you never sleep, you look like hell. We have a long way to go, and as strong as you are, you’ll never get there like this.”

  “Leave me behind, then.” I bite off the words, heat pooling in my palms as I try to control the burning humiliation. “You’ve just made it quite obvious you’re not interested in being my friend or in what happens to me. Go to Portland and let me to deal with my own problems.”

  A sigh winds out of him and into the space between us, now a widening gulf. “Of course I care about what happens to you. We’ve been kicking against the current dragging us together since the first moment we met, and just because I’m not going to drown in it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I promised I’d think more about you and Winter’s idea about saving Earth, and I am. But you and I…I’m not sure just friendship is an option. I’m not leaving you, though. We’re in this together, as long as you’re still coming to Portland, so please let me help you.”

  The words press a cooling salve into my assumption that I just threw myself at an unwilling body, even though the heat of the moment proved otherwise. A few deep breaths calm my pounding heart as Pax waits, maybe for me to realize I can trust him to stay beside me even after he knows everything.

  In some ways, the breaking of the tension between us makes things easier. He’s said he’s not leaving. So it’s time to tell him everything and let him make an informed decision about whether to hide his head in the sand or to help Lucas and me come up with a plan.

  Wolf whines, agitated by the emotions flying around the room like a storm of birds. Pax and I take turns patting him until he settles between us. I relight the lantern, taking the time to organize my thoughts and figure out the best way to explain the hive mind, if he doesn’t know about it already.

  Pax takes a deep breath, blows it out, and then surprises the snot out of me.

  “I have to go back to Portland because the last thing I did when I was there was get my summer parents killed.”

  CHAPTER 11.

  The confession makes the world go black for the briefest of moments, but not for the reason he might assume. The memory of Mrs. Morgan, of her easy smile and graying hair, assaults my battered heart. I don’t say anything because nothing can make it better, but don’t drop his gaze so he knows I’m not scared to hear what’s coming next.

  “It all happened like I told you before—the capture, the torture, Ko. He showed up late one night, after they’d gone after Deshi’s mind so hard I thought he’d turn into a puddle of himself before morning. He hadn’t moved since they brought him back, just stared at the walls and leaked water. I had the chance to escape, but Deshi wouldn’t move so I left without him.”

  Pain squeezes his eyes closed and he pinches the bridge of his nose as though he can push himself back together. “I just left without him,” Pax mutters again, almost to himself. “By the time I got back to the Sullivans’, I was out of control. All I could think about was telling them—and then everyone—what the Others were doing to our minds. Mr. Sullivan saw me, I mean, really saw me, as though he heard the frantic thoughts racing through my mind. He went insane, his eyes rolling around in a panic, and nothing I said after that even registered. He tried getting his Partner to shed her veil, and finally I tried just thinking at him. That’s weird, right? But I thought that he should calm down, and that it was me who was wrong, not him. Not the Others. He stopped screaming nonsense, but he wasn’t…he wasn’t right. I traveled that night to winter in Georgia, but right after I got there we saw a report on the news. It was the Sullivans’ house, and he’d murdered his Partner.” Pax’s eyes flutter to mine, despondent and wrecked. “It’s because of what I did to him. His mind couldn’t make sense of it, and he Broke.”

  The bloodstained sheets covering the dead bodies on the news, the Warden’s baffled face, the human journalist’s cheerful reporting of the incident had chilled Lucas’s and my blood and led to our questioning the goodness of humanity. And Pax had made it happen.

  “I’m so sorry, Pax.” There is one thing I can say. I can tell him I understand, because I do. But this is Pax’s moment, and the fact that he’s finally sharing it with me proves that he meant what he said about the two of us sticking together. Maybe it even means he’s reconsidering his position on our purpose here on Earth.

  “Me, too. Their deaths are horrible, but nothing is worse than the fact that I left Tommy, their son, alone. Without parents. They were all he had, and the news report didn’t say what happened to him. I shouldn’t have left him, and I shouldn’t have left Deshi, but I did…I left them both.”

  T
he guilt soaking his confession hurts my chest. I want to plug my ears so I don’t have to hear it. Pain vibrates through the inside of the tepee, pouring from Pax and swirling toward me until we share it, although I know the brunt of the agony isn’t something I can take away from him. Instead, I get to my knees and inch toward him, careful to leave distance. “That’s why you want to go back to Portland?”

  He nods, wiping at cheeks stained pink with embarrassment. “I want to make sure Tommy is okay. He’s not my real brother or anything, I know, but he doesn’t have anyone now because of me. And I don’t know, I thought maybe together you and I would be strong enough to help Desh.”

  “We are stronger together. It’s how Lucas and I traveled.” I try to distract him. Tommy is probably Broken, maybe disposed of, but that’s not a truth Pax needs to hear right now. And maybe he isn’t. There could be a nice, childless couple in Portland who took him in. The situation falls too far outside the norm to guess how the Others would handle it, but with his parents Breaking under such suspicious circumstances, it’s hard to believe they simply let the boy be. Even on the news report, he hadn’t seemed okay.

  “How?”

  “Remember how I told you about my Connecticut mother Breaking? That was my fault, too…I didn’t know about the veils at the time, and we had only guessed about the mind control. No idea we could undo it, or even mess with it. I snapped and accidentally decimated her veil.…The Others came and they took us all to a facility—it looked like the one you described, where they held you and Deshi—and they refreshed my dad and the Healer who attended. Just gave them new memories, like the whole night never happened. They tried to do it to me, too, but it didn’t work. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and then continue. “The Others disposed of Mrs. Morgan. Disposed, that’s how they put it. She never came back. The kids at school had all heard that she Broke.”

  “That’s terrible.” Shared regret shines in Pax’s eyes.

  “It is. It is terrible, Pax, and the Others are going to keep doing it unless someone stops them. You know about the veils, you know that we can undo it. But you also know human brains can’t cope with the loss of the Others’ control, at least not immediately.” Understanding dawns, and I hold his gaze. “That’s why you don’t want to fight. You’re worried we’ll be the cause of everyone’s death, instead of giving them back their lives.”

  His eyes glint with hard determination. “Why are you so sure I’m wrong?”

  Leah’s black curls and pleading eyes spring to the forefront of my mind. The fact that she survived after the Others had her, after Lucas poked holes in her veil, after I took it all the way down and left her in Danbury. “Maybe I’ve seen enough to believe it’s worth trying.”

  A sigh so deep and thick it sounds like the entire world settling on Pax’s shoulders envelops the tepee. Maybe it is, but if the world rests on him, it rests on all the Dissidents. A fourth of it is mine to bear.

  “You don’t have to do this alone. There are four of us, and Lucas and I doubled our power by pooling it. Cadi said our—the Elements together are stronger than all the rest of the Others.”

  He doesn’t respond, but interest lights his face and a little bit of hope springs up, like the first plants to push through spring soil. Traveling to find Lucas will have to wait, even though I’d feel better about our chances with three instead of two, because I see now why Pax wants to get back to Portland. The longer we wait to return, or if we travel and end up skipping another season or two, it will be harder to learn what might have happened to Tommy, or to stop what might still be happening to Deshi. Every hour we leave them in the hands of the Others means a smaller chance they’ll be okay when—if—we manage to free them.

  I’ll have to trust Lucas to be the smart, self-reliant boy I knew, and to take care of himself for a little bit longer. A throbbing piece of me misses him so much in this moment, forlorn over not knowing where he is, if he’s safe. If he’s sweating to death in summer or hiding in a spring Wilds full of flowers. Or if he’s been caught and is rotting in a prison alongside Deshi.

  Lucas would know what to say, how to convince Pax that we should have hope, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Or maybe he would talk Pax out of the crazy idea of going anywhere near the Others until we have a solid plan of action. Lucas would know, and I don’t, so all I can do is follow my gut.

  “I said I’d go with you to Portland, Pax, and I will. Please promise me we’ll be quiet about it, though, and not make any hasty moves. If we find Deshi or Tommy, and the Others have them, we’ll need a plan. I know you think I only want to find Lucas because of our…friendship, but he could help us get them back.”

  “It’s not that I’m against finding Winter. If he can help, then that’s what we’ll do. But I need to see for myself what’s happened to them first. Before the Others find us.”

  Those last five words bring the whole reason for this conversation crashing back down around me, and it steals the hope that’s sprouted between us in this place full of pain. Pax confessed his secret, that he’s responsible for two human deaths, that he knows our ability to unveil the humans leads to little more than their quick disposal by the Others. It’s time to tell him about my dreams, about my mother’s voice, and what Cadi said about our private niches inside the Other hive. Our sinum.

  About how earlier tonight, Chief was waiting for me when I closed my eyes.

  In the silence, I find some scraps of courage still inside me and wish for them to tide me through the coming confession.

  It scares me that Pax might see the same thing I do—that the Others can find us wherever we go. That sooner or later, there won’t be anywhere we can hide.

  CHAPTER 12.

  “Have you ever touched an Other?” The question emerges as a whisper, even though I meant it to have more confidence.

  “No. Even when they locked us up and tortured us, they never touched us. Why?”

  “Cadi explained something to us about the Others, about how they communicate. They don’t have to talk; all of their minds are connected like tunnels in a sort of hive, they call it, and every Other has their own alcove or cave thing in their mind called a sinum that lets them in and out.” I take a deep breath, then lock my eyes with Pax’s to make sure he’s keeping up. A nod encourages me to continue, even though I’d rather not. “We each have a sinum, too.”

  “I don’t understand. We have what? A place in their tunnels? What does that even mean?” He doesn’t sound as upset as he does confused.

  Then again, he hasn’t heard the worst part. “It means our minds are connected to theirs, but since they weren’t aware of us until last season, they never thought to look for us within the hive. Except Fire found my alcove years ago…she’s been talking in my mind, only I didn’t realize it was her until Cadi showed a memory of the Elements to us and I heard her speak.”

  “Your mother talks to you in your mind.” The repeated fact stumbles from Pax’s lips, as though he’s waiting to believe it before he finishes talking.

  “Yes. Usually only when my guard is down, like when I’m losing control or I’m sad. The last couple of weeks, though, she’s been visiting while I sleep.”

  “That’s why you stopped sleeping? Because you don’t want to talk to your mom?” Pax’s trademark skepticism is back, knitting his dark eyebrows together.

  “It’s not only my feelings about Fire. It’s that Cadi thought if the Others suspected they could find us this way, they would look. Fire’s knowing where to find me scared me, and the last time I went there, she told me to stay away. That they were looking for me, for us.” It takes a minute to find the bravery to continue, but the encouraging expression on Pax’s face helps. “And tonight, he found me. The one who looked like Deshi. The one they call Chief. He knows he can get into our heads.”

  “You saw him? He saw you?” Pax pauses for a moment, opening and closing his mouth like he can’t figure out which question to ask first. “If
he knows where to find you, why can’t he talk in your head all the time like Fire can, then?”

  “Maybe we have some kind of built-in defense when we’re awake and in control that blocks them? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m terrified that the next time I fall asleep and the part of me that’s connected to them goes to the alcove, that horrible Other is going to be waiting. And he’s going to make me tell him where we are. How can we hide if they can simply read our minds?” My voice rises, panic and desperation fighting for dominance.

  “Maybe they can read our minds, Althea. But they can’t control our minds. We know that. It’s the most important thing that makes us different. Which means we can find a way to stop this.”

  Confidence snags thin fingers in my desolation over betraying us to the creatures we’re trying to defeat. Maybe Pax can help me sever the connection. The thing he said about them not being able to control us, about it making us different, lights a flame of relief in my exhausted mind.

  “That’s true. Cadi said the Others even control their own race. That the part of their minds that knows what they need to survive is cut off from their ability to communicate, so they can’t give away the secret. So, we’re not just different from the humans; we’re different from the Others, too.”

  “Summer, please tell me you already knew that in your big, stubborn heart. We are different from everyone. We are Dissident. Something Else. Being half Other doesn’t make us like them…not unless we want to be.” Pax’s eyes have never been less conflicted, and his words might be the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.

  “We’re not like them.”

  “No, we’re not. Now, why do you think you dream yourself into the lion’s den but I don’t? Did Winter?”

  “No. I think it’s because she found me. Since Fire communicates with me, and I’ve spent time there, I leave some kind of trace behind or something.” The last bit is the hardest to say. “I’m not sure if she betrayed us, or if they followed her, but she was there, too, tonight. With him.”