by Jo Holloway
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“Cara, in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve sort of been dealing with a lot lately. We didn’t want to add to it. But if this could help keep you safe . . . I guess we just felt like we had to do something.” His smooth voice pierced her heart like a dagger. He had to reach out to steady her as her legs turned to jelly. “Are you hurt? Do you need to lie down?”
“No. No, I’m okay. I just didn’t realize how much I was missing while I focused on . . . other stuff.”
Other stuff like turning off your feelings. Remember that?
It felt impossible. Not these feelings.
She gulped. Her hand ran down the blankets. “Cotton. Smart.”
He nodded with a small smile. “Organic but not living. Right?”
“Who supplies the ash?”
“I haven’t asked, but after seeing them, I assume the guardians do the cremations.”
It made sense. “Your dad still doesn’t come in here?”
“No. I changed the outside lock, but he wouldn’t. This was my mom’s space.”
The dagger in her heart twisted. “Rhys . . . Your mom . . . Is she—”
“Not now. Sometime, okay? But we have more important stuff to deal with right now.” The sweet curve of his lips told her he didn’t mind that she’d asked, but he wasn’t going to talk about it.
She dropped her gaze and gave the side of the dirt cell a little kick. He probably talked to Emma about it enough. He didn’t need her butting into his business.
“I guess we better get her in here.”
“Are you feeling her? Is she waking up?”
Is that why bitter thoughts prickled through her mind? “Yeah, maybe.” She stepped around him to return to the van where Wes waited with Lydia.
“Ready?” Wes asked. “How does it look?”
“You haven’t seen it yet?”
“No. I couldn’t leave the school through the woods, so Rhys had to take care of it.”
Great. So Rhys had done it all himself. He’d been out here alone, working outside with no one to protect him, just to keep her safe. But all it had done so far was put him in danger. Who was to say these Pyx wouldn’t go after him?
“You shouldn’t have let him do that,” she snapped.
“He had Ryx and some of the other friendly Pyx watching the area. It was safe.”
“Then it was safe enough for you and me to come help.”
“There was no need. It was a good plan, Cara.”
“It wasn’t a plan. Did you stop to think that I wouldn’t want anyone risking themselves for me?” The voice in the back of her mind told her she wasn’t being fair, but her control was slipping. “As usual with you, it was easier to do whatever you wanted without talking to anyone else.”
Wes flinched like she’d slapped him. Then he turned to the van. “She’s coming around, isn’t she?”
“Yep,” Rhys said as he approached carrying a lawn chair. “We’d better hurry.”
Cara shook out her hands. “Sorry, Wes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. Now grab her legs for me.”
They tugged Lydia out of the van, and Rhys picked her up to place her in the chair. Using the chair made it much easier to carry her into the garage, and Rhys managed it on his own.
The opening between the peat moss walls would be barely large enough to slide the chair through and allow maybe one more person to fit inside with her.
“Pass me those ropes,” Rhys said.
He worked to tie her to the chair.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Lydia’s muffled voice spoke through the coats still wrapped around her head.
A shiver ran up Cara’s spine. At the same time, a cold voice had spoken the words in her mind. From the way Rhys and Wes both froze, they’d heard it too. The voice made her want to shed her own skin to escape the goosebumps crawling across it. The fact that they could hear it through the barrier of coats meant there wasn’t enough protection. The Pyx could escape anytime.
Cara waved her hand frantically to indicate they should get the chair into the cell immediately. It wasn’t fast enough to stop the bile from rising in her throat and the tension from squeezing her lungs. Rhys picked up the chair and thrust it inside, prisoner and all. He stepped in with her to finish tying her up, ducking under the makeshift roof and dropping the blankets over the space behind him. The effect was instant. Breathing came easier, and Cara’s pulse slowed. The world stopped hating her from the inside out.
“Damn, that thing works.” She gave Wes a smile and was relieved to see him return it.
At least her logical best friend knew enough not to take her outburst personally. He’d immediately guessed the real problem and moved on. Her hand rubbed across her sore ribs, and she tried not to feel guilty for lashing out. This had to stop. Finding out what these Pyx wanted and why they were making her feel this way was her top priority. There had to be some explanation.
Rhys backed out past the blankets. He was careful to make sure there was always a layer between Lydia and the opening.
“She—it—wants to talk to you,” he told her. “But I don’t think you should go in there.”
She shuddered. “Then what do we do now?”
“We could get Jenyx and Tomyx,” Wes replied.
“What are they going to do? They can’t assemble a council of eleven fast enough to deal with this. We don’t know how well this thing will work, although it’s doing a pretty good job right now.” She nodded toward the makeshift outer pyxis holding Lydia. “I don’t feel her out here, but she wasn’t alone in the woods these past few months. We know there’s more than one of them. Not to mention their leader, whoever he is. Others could come after her.”
Rhys’s lips pressed together, but Wes nodded his agreement.
“That’s true. And we can’t move her. No matter how strong the pyxis—like that black bear or whatever the guardians are—it only takes a second for her to jump to a new pyxis nearby and escape.”
“Yeah. This isn’t like the ones I took,” Rhys added. “She doesn’t care about Lydia. She won’t stay to try to protect her.”
“Ha.” Lydia’s human voice called out. “This body is fun to torture, but you’re right. You can’t hold me forever. And the guardians are a joke. We can’t protect species from you, and you can’t protect yourselves from us. Not if we choose to fight back.”
“We’re not at war with you,” Cara shouted back. “Who are you fighting? What did we do?”
Lydia fell silent.
Cara understood. She’d have to go in if she wanted her answers.
She sighed. “If these walls don’t hold, she’s gone. All it takes is a bird flying too close, or a mouse running by, or a bug underground. Not to mention all the trees surrounding us. We don’t have time. I need to talk to her, and for some reason, I think I’m the only one she’ll talk to. It’s me she wants.”
“Clever little Pyxsee,” Lydia’s voice taunted from behind the blankets.
The cold voice had stopped accompanying her human voice, blocked by the barrier of organic walls and remnants, but Cara’s skin crawled nonetheless.
After overruling all the objections from Rhys and Wes, Cara entered the small dark space with Lydia. She switched on the flashlight on her phone and set it on the floor beside her. Standing upright in the low space was impossible, so she knelt on the barely padded floor. Rhys had taken the coats off Lydia’s head, and glowing green eyes stared her down. The up lighting from her phone was straight out of a bad horror movie, the kind she never watched for exactly this reason.
Creepiness factor: Eleven.
As soon as she’d moved past the organic barrier, all her symptoms had flooded back. Her chest tightened, and her eyes narrowed. The tiny space was ripe with Lydia’s stench, and she was forced to breathe through her mouth. She struggled to push down the hatred foisted upon her and focus on what she needed. An
swers.
“Why are you doing this?” She forced the words past clenched teeth and willed her jaw to relax.
“Wrong question.”
The cold voice in her mind was back. She flinched. The Pyx wasn’t using Lydia’s voice anymore, so Rhys and Wes would only hear one side of the conversation from outside the barrier. Fine. She’d play by these rules. For now.
“What’s the right question, then?”
“The right question? Probably what can you do to stop me. To stop us. Pointless thing to ask, though, since the answer is nothing.”
“Then what is it you’re trying to do?”
“Nothing more than correct a terrible mistake and eliminate the worst threat this planet has ever seen.”
“Threat? You mean humans.”
“Name something worse.”
Her mind raced. The hostility radiating to her from the Pyx grew the longer she hesitated. “If that’s how you feel, why not work with us instead? I thought Pyx were observers. You don’t get involved unless the consequences are too dire, which maybe they are, but then you’re supposed to intervene to help. That’s how Jenyx has always explained it to me.”
The voice came back colder than ever, steely and sharp. “Idealism has no place in this world. Not anymore. Some of us have yet to accept the truth in front of us. There is only one solution remaining. Your precious Jenyx and the others who believe as he does can perish along with the scourge of humanity. The world will be better off. This is how we help.”
Even without a straight answer, she was starting to get a pretty clear picture of why they were taking over humans. It sank in like a stone through her soul.
“But how does taking over a handful of humans do anything? All you’re doing is ruining lives. Not enough to have a global effect.”
“It may look that way, but you have no idea. The past few decades have seen our number of supporters explode. We started small, and we may have suffered setbacks, but we’re at a turning point now. You’ll see. Or maybe you won’t be around long enough to see.”
At the mention of setbacks, Cara’s back stiffened and the anger she’d suppressed pushed to the surface.
“It’s personal, isn’t it? What happened? What does it have to do with me?”
A seething wave washed over her. She doubled over at the nauseating swirl of emotions. Gasping for air brought Lydia’s rank odor together with the sharp tang of the peat moss walls. She gagged. Her eyes stung and streamed in the foul air.
Don’t you dare throw up now. She couldn’t leave without answers.
“Did you think you were special, little Pyxsee? Did you think there had never been others with your unnatural eyes and fancy abilities?”
“What?” She’d known her eyes weren’t unique, but she knew almost nothing about her empathy or what other abilities golden Pyxsees like her possessed. Ever since the elder in the porcupine had mentioned others, it had been on her mind a lot. “No. But why is that relevant? What did I do?”
“Maybe if daddy dearest had stuck around, you’d have more of a clue.”
The silence that followed died beneath the rushing in Cara’s ears.
“What did you say?” she thundered. The blankets twitched, and she shouted again. “No. Don’t come in here.” This was between her and this Pyx, and whatever it had to do with her dad. She chose her next words carefully. “What do you know about . . . that?”
Ice replaced the fire in her veins, and she found the cold distance she’d been striving for. Her own loathing had a completely different feel to it than the one she got from the Pyx.
“Tell me. Now.” She glared into the glowing green of Lydia’s eyes.
“Hit a nerve, did I? I think this conversation is over. You won’t kill this unfortunate woman, and you can’t move me any other way. So I’ll simply wait for my supporters to come for me. No point telling you my plan when I’m about to escape to enact it, is there? That would be the height of foolishness.”
“What do you know? What did you do?” she hissed.
Silence slammed through her mind.
“Answer me. How is this related? How am I related to this?”
In response, Lydia closed her eyes and let her chin drop. Cara’s shoulders rose and fell with rapid breaths. She shook Lydia’s knee. “Hey.” There was no response. She nudged the woman’s broken arm, grimacing at the pain it would cause. Still nothing.
Her mind spun, going over her options until a plan formed. With her choice made, she backed out of the small space, careful to move through the blankets one layer at a time. Outside, the light did nothing to brighten her mood. Icy venom stuck with her, and her limbs trembled.
CHAPTER 12
“WHAT HAPPENED?” RHYS asked as she emerged from the cell.
Cara couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t bear to see those eyes while she felt like her world was caving in.
“I need a pyxis,” she said.
“Cara, we need to do this carefully.” Wes placed a hand on her arm.
She shrugged him off and moved around the room, ignoring their whispers behind her. Her sharp gold eyes took inventory. She picked up a clay pyxis. Wes must have made more, because there were several stocked along the tall bench. At one end, the glass terrarium that had once held a few frogs sat idle. The fresh greenery inside registered as odd.
“What’s this?” She glanced over her shoulder.
Rhys stepped over and lifted the lid. “I’ve been keeping a couple beetles. Just in case.”
“Perfect.”
“No, it isn’t,” Wes objected. “You can’t risk . . . whatever you’re planning.”
She didn’t bother responding. Instead, she found the other items she was looking for in one of the drawers. More leftovers from their bold plan to save Liv.
“Beetle, please.” She held out a hand toward Rhys.
“Cara. Let us help.” His tone almost made her look up, but those eyes would undo her resolve, and that wasn’t about to happen. He sighed and placed a wriggling black beetle in her palm. His hand closed around hers. “Please don’t do this.”
She nearly broke. The blind trust Rhys was showing her meant more than she could say, in spite of his clear objections. But Lydia was her mom’s friend. And this was somehow related to her dad. If she knew what the story was with Rhys’s mom, then maybe she could have explained it in a way he would understand. But she couldn’t. She only knew she had to do this.
This was personal. Her fight. That thing was leaving Lydia, and that was it. Then she’d figure out how to get answers.
Returning to the dark cell, the hostility in the small space fueled the cold detachment she’d found in her choice, and she approached Lydia with determination.
“You don’t think I’ll hurt Lydia?” she asked.
Lydia’s eyelids flicked open. Cara stared into the glowing green as her hand grasped the splinted and broken arm. She pulled.
Lydia didn’t react, but the cold voice spoke. “Nice try. You caught me off guard last time, but that won’t work again.”
Cara’s face stayed stony, but inside, she smiled. It was the response she’d been hoping for. Lydia was feeling nothing. She pulled the other two items from her pocket. When the needle had been fitted to the syringe, she unsheathed it. Drawing back the plunger to fill it with air, she pulled Lydia’s broken arm out to the side.
“You know what a huge air bubble injected into her bloodstream will do, don’t you?” she whispered so the boys wouldn’t hear. No matter how much trust they put in her, mention of cold-blooded murder would bring them through the walls to stop her.
“You wouldn’t dare. I know you think you’re a good person. Not a killer. You don’t have what it takes.”
“No?” She leaned over Lydia’s twisted arm, exposing tender skin and protruding veins. When she finished, she held up the syringe with its plunger fully depressed. She twisted Lydia’s arm to show her the drop of blood blooming from a fresh puncture mark in the crook of her elbow.
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Her mouth went dry at what she’d done. The wave of fear sweeping through her made her gulp. It lasted only a moment before it was replaced by fresh bitterness.
“Stupid child. I liked using this wretched creature.”
Cara held out the beetle between trembling hands. “Time for a new one.”
All the emotions from the past months coursed through her again. Isolation piled onto anger. Fear undermined hostility. And worry gnawed at her. She felt it all with a new intensity.
But mostly, the rage.
Cara’s world exploded in a blinding flash of pain and light. The clay vessel and the beetle fell from her hands, and she was vaguely aware of tumbling to the ground. Millions of images rampaged through her mind.
She swam. She ran. She flew.
She skipped through meadows of long grass. She swayed in a stiff wind. She was ravaged by a bitter snowstorm. Floodwaters rose all around her. Fire chased her through a smoky forest of enormous trees and prehistoric plants.
Her body was covered in fur, scales, slippery skin, and everything in between, each one chasing away the last. She felt pleasure and pride, and then sorrow and loss. She experienced hunger and sickness. She stood atop a mountain, soared high above a glistening ocean, and crawled in a dark cave below monolithic cliffs.
She fought. She cowered in fear. She loved. And she screamed in despair.
The anguished howl rang in her ears. Pain tore through her knees. When she sucked in a breath, the screaming stopped. With air in her lungs, it started again.
She struggled to regain control.
Stop.
Stop the screams. Stop the blinding images and savage sensations. Stop everything.
When the light began to fade and the sounds deadened inside her mind, she thought she was winning. Until she realized she was choking—drowning. She sank through murky, watery depths until all she knew was darkness.
“CARA. CARA.” HER NAME drifted to her from far away. “Cara.” Why was she so cold? “Cara.” Closer that time. Softer.
A hard surface under her right side spread a chill through her body until she drifted away from that too. Then cushioned warmth met her skin. She hadn’t drifted; she’d been carried. Her eyes fought their way open.