Betrayals in Spring (15 page)

“Here, Wolf. C’mon, buddy, want to go for a walk?”

Wolf’s ears perk up at the invitation and he trots to Pax’s side. Pax finds my gaze, his eyes a little hesitant. I wonder if he wants to be alone.

“Want to come?” A strangled note in his voice convinces me the invitation surprises him as much as it does me.

“Sure.” I shoot to my feet and stride toward the bedroom. “Wait a minute for me to change clothes?”

He nods, his face closed off from expression.

Anything sounds better than climbing the walls inside all day. Over the winter, when Pax and I had a destination, if not a plan, I enjoyed the time to read the books we found along the way, then reread them searching for clues about this planet, about the human side of our past. Now, the inaction and Cadi’s words—
time is running out
—throb inside me like an extra heartbeat.

The time for reflection is through, and now we need to act. We need to find Deshi, figure out who’s on our side and how they can help us, and then the four of us need to save this planet.

The question of whether or not Lucas will still be on our side if he returns, or if he even was when he left, scrapes the back of my mind. There seems to be a very real chance that he’ll decide he wants to stand with the Others. Or maybe he won’t come back at all.

If that happens, according to Cadi, we might as well give up.

Ignoring the thought as best as I can, I yank on a pair of jeans, slip a thick hooded sweatshirt over my head, and pull my hair into a ponytail. Lucas can make his own decision, true enough, but I’m not letting the Others have him without a fight. The memory of his face as he held mine in the kitchen, promising that he wasn’t giving up on us, flashes behind my eyes. If he still has feelings for me, he can’t be planning on leaving Pax and me alone.

Unless he thinks he can convince me to change my mind about the Others.

The chain reaction that thought sets off occupies my mind for the first thirty minutes of our early morning stroll. Wolf brings back a fox, and Pax and I absently work together to nab a few squirrels. With the ingredients in the cabin’s pantry, we might be able to make a stew. Not as tasty as one Mrs. Morgan would have made, but it’ll do. I wonder if Fire used to cook me dinner…it’s hard to picture her in front of a stove.

Then again, she probably wouldn’t need one.

The thought of my mother turns my mind that direction, and how all of her actions since last autumn still baffle me. She’s been a source of encouragement, has seen me through some of the most stressful moments I can remember—maybe saved my life with her calming influence a time or three. But she also betrayed me to the Prime’s son, whether she intended to or not.

Then Flacara worked with Air and Water to help us escape.

It’s too confusing. Again, I wish I could fit her into a neat box of good or bad, place her on the right shelf. That would make the coming decisions easier, although I think even if I knew 100 percent that she loved me and was on my side, I wouldn’t choose the life she’s led. Hopping from planet to planet, killing everyone and everything in the way, doesn’t appeal to me, whether it means I could be with Lucas or not.

“What are you thinking about? Winter?” The hesitance in the question makes it sound as though he both does and doesn’t want to know the answer.

“A little. But not the way you’re thinking.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

I quirk a weak smile at him and he returns it with something just as halfhearted. What happened this morning with Leah and her mother tugs on my faith that we’re doing the right thing, that we’re moving in the right direction when we’re stuck not moving at all. “True. But I was thinking about what we’ll do if Lucas decides to stay with the Others, or if Deshi is too hurt to be able to help us. Will we just give up? Or beg the Prime to take us with him?”

Pax stops in a meadow, tossing a stick for Wolf. “You have a tendency to worry about things we can’t control, Summer. Right now, there are two things I know. First, Winter’s coming back. He’s just all sappy and mixed up right now because his daddy has been filling his brain with all kind of loony fantasies about how great life would be if the Others took us away with them. But he’s going to realize soon enough that’s a bunch of baloney, because our own parents are
prisoners
. Why would they treat us any better, especially when we know they think we never should have been born?”

He waits, as though expecting a reaction. It makes a lot of sense, what he’s saying, and Lucas analyzes before deciding what he thinks about any subject. It’s possible he
is
confused, like Pax says, and right now his emotions are getting the better of him.

It’s funny that the aspect of life we can give back to the humans is the very thing causing the three of us so much trouble at the moment. Finally I nod, tossing what’s left of the stick when Wolf drops it at my feet, panting. “Okay. I’ll go along with most of that. What’s the second thing you know?”

“I know Deshi—he’s as tough as we are. And the Others aren’t going to do any permanent damage to him, not while they don’t know if their precious Elements are going to provide a second set of heirs, right? We’re going to find him. He might be messed up, but we can fix him.” He reaches out, wrapping his hands around mine, rough like they were two nights ago. “I don’t know what will happen after that, or if the fact that we can unveil the humans is enough to make a difference, but we’ll get close enough to find out.”

He drops my hands and continues to play with Wolf. A power starts in my toes and crawls upward, the certainty that even though we can’t control everything, the pieces we can control may be enough to give us an advantage. If Lucas is confused, we’ll straighten him out. If Deshi is hurt, we’ll help him heal. Those are the parts of this equation Pax presented, and with his confidence wrapping around me in this meadow, I feel stronger, more sure that we’ll get at least that far. It heats my heart in a different way this time. Instead of Pax’s mere presence igniting a fireball of what can only be desire in me that grows and grows, his unwavering faith in me crawls through my blood, infusing it with strength and leaving warm affection in its wake.

Wolf barks and bounds into the trees, and I hear him whining a moment later. Immediate worry dampens my previous surge in confidence. When he doesn’t come back in response to Pax’s whistle, my hands grow cold. I move toward the tree line where he disappeared, barely able to feel my dead-filled limbs as they slide across the grass. Pax’s steps are firm but somehow hesitant beside mine, as though he’s not balking about moving across the meadow but is wary of what we’re going to find beyond our line of sight.

What we find is a graveyard.

The Others did away with burying people in cemeteries upon their arrival on Earth—our dead are burned on funeral pyres. We’ve only been advised of the existence of such idea such as burial so the Others can inform us of all the ways their handling of death are better. I’ve certainly never glimpsed a graveyard, but the neatly spaced rows filled with cement markers are exactly as the Monitors taught us.

My amazement at the sight evaporates when I spot Greer sitting on top of a particularly worn-down headstone, scratching my dog between the ears and cooing. At the sound of our footsteps she looks up, a gorgeous smile lighting her face.

It doesn’t look quite right below the black bruise blooming across her cheek.

CHAPTER 12.

“What happened?” I race to her side, biting my lip and resisting the urge to reach out and touch her as easily as she’s always touched me.

This sensation of female friendship still largely escapes me as far as appropriate behavior, but it doesn’t stop my heart from climbing into my throat at the sight of her marred face.

Greer brushes her fingertips against her cheek and winces. “Oh, this? It’s nothing.”

“Who did that to you?” Pax asks in a low growl, as menacing as anything that’s ever passed Wolf’s lips.

She waves a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have the morning to spend with you two lovelies.”

A chill descends from Pax like I’ve never felt, pumping waves of apples and cinnamon into the air, and he takes a step in front of her, peering up directly into Greer’s face as she stays still on top of the headstone. “Was it that Warden? Natej?”

“Good boy, Hard Place. So willing to fight for a girl’s honor.” She gives him a sad smile and reaches out, patting the top of his head. “But no. You might find it hard to believe, but Nat has a gentle soul.”

I don’t know what a soul is, but the word
gentle
doesn’t apply to the knowledge of Wardens rattling around my head. Still, I don’t think that Greer would lie, and I also don’t think she would love someone who physically hurt her.

She drops her hand from Pax’s hair, then hops to the ground and falls into a crouch in front of the faded stone, running her fingers through the grooves that once must have proclaimed the deceased’s name. It looks like one of the years begins with a one and an eight, but that can’t be right. “Her name was Jane. They called her Calamity Jane. Quite a character.”

“How do you know that?”

“I told you—Griffin and I spent time in these hills as children, and what’s more fascinating to children than dead people?” When we don’t answer, she continues. “Jane was famous for a number of things, mainly being a pretty badass woman who did things women didn’t normally do. She’s buried here because of him, though.”

Greer jerks her head to the right, and I follow her direction.

“Who? That grave inside the fence?” A dilapidated wrought-iron fence has mostly collapsed around what I would guess is an important person’s grave.

“Yes. Wild Bill Hickok.” She snorts. “Wild Bill. She loved him, but according to legend, he didn’t feel the same and they buried her here as a joke on him. A
joke
.” An ugly smile twists her lips. “I’ve always hated that story.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Greer?” Her rambling makes me nervous, and the edge that’s chased the wistful hope from her eyes spears irrational fear through me.

“History, daft girl. The kind they don’t teach you because it shows you how to survive. And they don’t care about that.” She pinches my nose. “But you should.”

“History.” The word, applied to Earth instead of the Others for the first time, feels new in my mouth, like a whispered secret disappearing before I can make it out. “You’re avoiding the question about what happened to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Come on, I want to show you something.”

Pax and I exchange a glance, but as always, we can’t talk adequately without words. The anger brewing in his gaze says he’s not giving up on finding out who hurt her, and I’m not, either, but if she doesn’t want to talk about it, there’s not much we can do. Finally I shrug and we follow her through the trees, skirting the steepest hills that rise around us like thick, broken hands reaching for the stars.

Our trio stays silent, even though we have much to discuss. Regardless of whether Greer tells us what happened to her, I need her to tell me again where we are and how close we are to Rapid City so that Pax and I can make plans.

As usual, the Sidhe girl is way ahead of me. We stumble out of the underbrush onto a big road, though not as large as the I-80 Pax and I followed west from Des Moines.

“You follow this road down that way, not far, a little less than two miles.” She points, not meeting our eyes. “Then you’ll see a bigger highway, and you’ll want to go south. That’s left. I can’t tell you what to look for, or where the Others’ Underground Core is, but walk that way. You can’t miss it.”

“Why don’t you take us there?”

“Althea, you know I can’t stay. The only reason I can be here now is because of the crisis, but even that is not diverting everyone’s attention.” She unconsciously touches the bruise darkening on her face. “Do you two have a plan? For after you get Deshi?”

“Not really,” Pax grunts, kicking a rock onto the road.

I think for a moment about telling Greer everything, about what we can do to the human minds, that somehow bringing them all back so they can help us fight might be the only way to win. A glance from Pax stops me, as though he knows what I’m thinking and doesn’t agree.

Greer can’t protect her alcove, her secret knowledge, the way we can. Griffin’s face as he studied my wall made of air and ice and fire, filled with a strange longing that didn’t seem to fit him, reminds me of that fact.

“Cadi said only the Elements—and I guess us—can totally block ourselves from the Others’ brain invasion. Is that true? You and your brother can’t?”

Greer winces in response to my question, but she forces a smile. “It’s true. If Nat and I could do what you do, we could run away together. Our lives might only last as long as Earth, but at least they’d be our own.”

I watch her carefully, unsure what to do with this new melancholy Greer. “So, how do the Others not know we’ve been talking, or that Griffin helped us last winter?”