Summer Ruins (34 page)

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“It’s a soccer ball.” She looks past me at Leah. “That’s a football. They’re for different games. Are we playing?”

I shrug. “Bad idea? I thought it would be nice for everyone to take a little break tonight. If you’ll explain the rules before you go.”

She tries a smile and she bumps my shoulder. “It’s a good idea. Everyone’s pretty ragged. Especially your lab rats.”

I give her a questioning look, but Leah clarifies. “She means Brittany and Mark, mostly. You don’t want to know why they’re called lab rats, trust me.”

Leah and I listen as Greer explains soccer, since she thinks it’ll be better than football. It’s pretty simple, with the group split into two teams and a couple of scoring areas called goals on either end of a field.

Lucas, Pax, Deshi, and Phil return a little while later, and I can’t help getting caught up in Lucas’s arms even as my heart aches for Greer. He seems to sense her instability, too, and merely squeezes me gently and swipes a fast kiss on the end of my nose before setting me down.

His eyes shine with pleasure and relief, though, I’m guessing both because I’m out of bed and because it doesn’t hurt when he touches me anymore.

“What’s going on?” Deshi asks, eyes alight with curiosity.

We fill him in, then say good-bye to Greer when Griffin pops up and tells her they’ve got to get going. Five hours is the most they’re spending anywhere. They’re trying to return to the same places on a changing rotation so it won’t raise any flags that they also stop here on a regular basis.

The six of us head back to Perkins, where we find Wolf and several of the kids outside, surrounding another deer carcass. I leave the boys to make it edible, and head inside to spread the word about our impromptu night off.

An hour later the deer meat is roasting on a couple of spits above the biggest fire I’ve dared to build. We keep it toward the center of the buildings, where the heat and light will be muffled, if not the smoke. Dinner smells amazing, and everyone’s spirits are high on this summer evening outdoors. They look tired, but right now it’s a good tired, and no one seems inclined to go to bed or to sneak away to do more work.

We spread out on an expanse of grass as the sun sinks closer to the horizon, and I explain the rules of soccer. Jordan and Kerstin pick teams, and we spend the next hour sweating and laughing as we try to get the infuriating ball through a goal made of tree limbs at one end of the field or the other. It’s fun watching people’s personalities emerge. Some of them are competitive and natural, while others are hopelessly uncoordinated and get the ball stolen every time they touch it.

I’m worn out after twenty minutes or so while most of them are still going strong, reminding me that even though I might feel normal, my body’s still recovering from the incident a week ago. I head to the sidelines, waving at Lucas to let him know nothing’s wrong.

Deshi’s sitting out, too, watching the game with a bemused smile. “This was a good idea.”

“Thanks,” I reply, dropping next to him after checking the deer. It should be ready soon. “Why aren’t you playing?”

“I was. It’s more fun to watch, I think.”

We take in the fun together for several minutes. Katie’s willowy frame doesn’t stop her from being as aggressive on the field as she is everywhere else, shoving other people out of the way with her hips as she steals the ball, laughing and apologizing the whole time. Laura gives her a run for her money; the two of them, and Kerstin, are by far the most athletic of the girls.

Brittany kicks the ball up the field to Pax, but he runs into Leah when he turns toward the goal. She trips him, and he splays out on his face. For a moment she tries to look horrified, but then dissolves into laughter and takes the ball, pushing it toward the opposite goal with one foot.

Pax catches up with her a moment later, grinning as he picks her up and tosses her over his shoulder. She shrieks and beats at his back, but he ignores her and runs the other way. He almost scores but Kerstin catches up, knocking him off balance when she grabs Leah’s hands and pulls. All three of them tumble to the ground laughing hysterically.

Leah pins Pax to the grass, straddling him as she leans down and kisses him full on the mouth in front of everyone. He kisses her back for a few seconds before using her distraction to his advantage, flipping her onto her back and fleeing. He scores and his team erupts into cheers.

Deshi and I are laughing, too, and Lucas’s happy expression meets my eyes. This is the way things ought to be. We should be able to play games in the warm twilight, laughing with our friends, kissing the people we love, and not worrying about saving the world.

It’s that very moment when Greer appears in the center of the field, a Goblert in tow. She ignores the game, which halts around her, and walks quickly to Deshi and me. Lucas and Pax stop what they’re doing and follow her, and by the time she speaks, pretty much everyone has gathered.

“The Prime has them. Your friends. Your fake families. Anyone he thinks you care about,” she relays, her voice devoid of emotion.

“You told me already that he has Emmy, Reece, and Wes. He’s found more?”

She nods. “And he has a message for you. The Goblert was supposed to bring it to you, but he came to me instead since he feared the four of you wouldn’t figure out what he was trying to say.”

“Greer. What’s the message?” Deshi demands, the words squeezed tight in his throat.

“He’s going to kill them. Four a day—one for each of you—until you surrender.”

Chapter 32.

Our friends, who five minutes ago had managed to put aside the cares of the world, erupt into panicked shouting. It’s a dull roar in my ears, hardly registering as my mind inventories all of my fake parents. Mr. Morgan’s face is the one that keeps shoving its way forward; he’s already been through so much, has lost his Partner on account of me… now he could lose his own life, too.

Everyone quiets a moment later, and all thirty-plus eyes turn to the four of us. As they always do, and they should, I guess, but at this moment the weight of their stares makes me want to scream.

Hands press into my shoulders, snap me out of the trance. “Althea, get it together. I can’t stay; the Goblert can’t tell where you are but he can say he saw me.”

Greer tears open a portal and disappears before I can demand she explain the Goblert’s tracking. She turns at the last moment before the shimmering hole closes, and I try to read the expression hanging on her face. It’s set and determined, and in her eyes I see nothing but all of the hard decisions that have led us here.

When I turn back to the group, the Goblert is gone, too.

“What are we going to do?” Lucas asks, sliding his gaze over the rest of us, the other three born Dissidents.

After what Greer told me about the revolutionary from Ireland, Michael Collins, I’ve come to think of each and every one of my friends as dissidents. I don’t think Ko meant it as a title at all, or that we’re Dissidents because of the circumstances surrounding our births. We are dissidents for the same reasons every kid here is one—because we have chosen to fight.

And like Michael Collins, we will suffer losses. Make sacrifices.

The look on Greer’s face makes sense. “We aren’t going to do anything. We keep pushing forward with the plan we have. We keep fighting.”

At first, no one responds to me. The silence unnerves me, but as it lengthens, I realize no one is going to argue. Tears fill my eyes at the knowledge that people we care about are going to die, and we’re going to let them. The tears spill over as I choke out a last-ditch question. “Unless anyone can think of a way to get them back without sacrificing ourselves or our position here?”

I want someone to speak up, to think of an option that’s hidden from me.

When Leah speaks, though, it’s not with an idea. “It sucks, but no. They’re desperate, and that’s good. If you try to save those people, you’ll only get caught. And then what will happen?”

“It sounds bad,” Phil says quietly, rubbing a hand slowly over his close-cropped blond hair. His typically sweet air has turned sad. “But how many people do you think they have? The three she mentioned, and twenty, maybe twenty-four more? If we win, we save thousands.”

He’s right. In a mere numbers game, there’s no question. As far as my heart is concerned, the humans who will pay for our rebellion with their lives are worth thousands of people.

That’s what he’s counting on, though. That we’ll let these emotions they don’t respect cloud our judgment and allow him to end us once and for all. What he doesn’t understand is that he’s fueling our anger, our hatred, our ability to go the extra mile, and our lack of hesitation when his people’s lives hang in the balance.

Because knowing Emmy and Reese, Mr. Morgan, the Clarks, and everyone else are dying so that we can continue will go a long way toward erasing any remaining qualms over eliminating the Others once and for all.

Except the small issue that maybe some Wardens are more benevolent, such as Nat or even Carrej, and they shouldn’t have to pay for the transgressions of the rest. If it comes down to eliminating them all or letting humanity go extinct, which will we choose?

No one should have to make that choice. The rage boiling inside me flushes my skin, pops sweat out on my forehead. Lucas’s cold hand presses against my arm, a warning look in his eye. “Cool it.”

“It’s not fair, Lucas. None of this is. Not to us, not to the Others who might be more like Nat was. Not to everyone else caught in the middle.” In spite of my anger, my tears start to fall again. I don’t know whether I’m mad, or grieving, or plain confused.

We’re just kids. We might have the ability to control the elements, and we can help people climb out from under the Others’ mind-control, but we aren’t equipped for the responsibility of all of these lives. We picked it up because there wasn’t anyone else, not because we wanted it. Not because we can handle it.

“Althea, look at me.”

I pull my mind from my swirling vortex of despair, clawing my way to the surface and clinging to Lucas’s cold hands. They’re slippery against my sweaty palms, and the ragged breathing in the air belongs to me. My eyes find his and hold on tight.

He drops one of my hands and brushes my hair off my sticky forehead. “It may not be fair, but we never thought it would be. It’s our job to protect the humans and Earth. That’s what we decided. We made a choice, and it was the right one.”

“It’s not fair we have to pick a side, Althea. No one should have to choose between their parents, between their families.” Deshi’s quiet voice settles my pounding heart further. I find his bright gaze and see resignation there. He gives me a sad smile, anyway. “We still have to pick. Like in Pax’s book. This is war. You can’t stand in the middle—it will only get you killed.”

My breathing slows, my typical calm returned by the reassurance of my friends. But deep inside I struggle to drop my feeling of injustice. We’ve spent so much time worrying about everyone else, and all this time I thought I was fighting for me, too. For the right to live the way I wanted, to be free of the Others. But now I’m not sure that the cost of the battle isn’t something deeper in me. I feel its loss, even though I can’t name it, but know inherently that even if we beat the Others—a big if, at the moment—I’ll never have a life that’s really my own.

Nothing will be the same, regardless.

The levity of the game and the night has evaporated. Everyone picks at the deer meat, charred during Greer’s appearance and the subsequent discussion. We file back into Perkins Hall in silence, getting ready for bed and slipping behind closed doors with a resigned, melancholy air hovering over us all. We’re all feeding it, sharing it, and by the time I sink into Lucas’s chilly embrace I can hardly breathe.

Deshi, Pax, and Leah are silent. I turn toward Lucas, our heads sharing a pillow, eyes locked together. In his I see a reflection of the conflict and sorrow bogging down my insides, along with the spark of anger that’s keeping me from breaking down, that’s keeping my mouth shut about saving our friends and pseudo-families when I know we can’t.

“I am so angry with you, Althea,” he whispers.

In spite of his words and the truth in them, his hand slips under the bottom of my tank top and settles on my hip.

A shiver goes through me and I bite my lip. “We can’t save them, Lucas. He’s either got them at the Underground Core or the Harvest Site, and there’s no way we could ever travel with so many humans, and—”

He squeezes my hip, causing me to fall silent. “Not that. I’m still mad at you for taking that dymium without letting Deshi and me know. I wouldn’t have stopped you, but if Desh and I had been there from the beginning, the risks would have been minimized.”

“Oh.”

“We’re in this together, the four of us, and we don’t go anywhere or do anything important without checking in first, you got it?” He furrows his brow when I don’t respond right away. “This isn’t about me being protective anymore, Althea. We all agreed.”