Ashes of the Stars (14 page)

“No,” I said.

“Aili, stop, please,” He begged me. I stopped walking and turned to face him. He didn’t say anything, just put his arms around me and hugged me. I hugged him back carefully so as to avoid hurting his feelings. When he stepped back, I could tell that I hadn’t fooled him one bit. He kissed my forehead and then he headed back to the hut to get breakfast, hopefully just for himself.

I kept walking on. There was a stone wall built into a circle at the midway point of the meadow. I knew inside of it there were just ashes but I was still curious anyway. I walked over to it and sat down on the edge, peering into the blackened earth. They must’ve had huge bonfires here.

I was fortunate that, when people started filing into the meadow, my group left me alone or they didn’t see me. Someone did see me, though. Someone with wild, frizzy brown hair and plain blue eyes. Someone with dirt-stained skin and tight, skimpy clothes that looked like they were about to reveal her ample chest. She sat down on the wall beside me.

“I heard you were a changed woman, Reaper,” The Zealot said in a rough voice. It sounded like she smoked a lot.

“Well, I’m not afraid of you, so I guess I haven’t changed
that
much,” I said, leveling my gaze on hers.

She cracked a smile that revealed black and broken teeth, and said, “So if someone was mounting an attack on your precious city, you’d just sit back and watch it burn?”

“No,” I told her honestly. “That would imply I would be there to see it. I don’t care what you do but I will warn you, an attack on that city would be a death wish. They’ve been standing this whole time, do you think they haven’t been attacked before?”

“Huh,” The woman said. “So you really must be different than you were before. Reaper I heard of would’ve killed me on the spot.”

“My name is not Reaper, it’s Aili. And you’re right, she would have.”

“We’re not stupid. Not interested in attacking the city. Just wanted to see what you’d say. Guess I don’t have to kill you after all,” The woman said.

“You could try. Maybe I’d let you,” I winked at her.

She laughed. “I’m Karina.”

I nodded at her and then she got up and walked away. I didn’t know what that was all about. Obviously they’d been waiting for a time to get me alone. I watched her walking away and then I looked over at my group. They were all watching me, every single one of them staring me down. I couldn’t take the stares so I got up and walked away from the meadow. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be feeling, what a normal person would feel, but I didn’t think it was supposed to feel like it was raining in my heart.

Chapter Fourteen

A few days went by without any incident. The Zealots took off again and everything went back to normal, for the most part. Kai still slept in my tree house with me. Well, he slept and I stayed awake as much as possible.

I had made a decision the day before, had talked to Tali about it, and today we were going through with it. I was, hopefully, going to regain my memory.

Apparently the Legion specialized in a sort of chemical injection that blocked certain kinds of memory receptors and that was how they took memories away. Tali had told me that it was old, secret medical technology and that no one was really sure where it had come from because no one had even known about it. The cure was an antidote that removed the first chemical. Kai was still against it, afraid that I would become worse but I thought that part of the reason I struggled so much was because I didn’t
know
anything from before the Legion.

“Are you nervous?” Kai mumbled into his pillow. It sounded a little like he was still sleeping and I hadn’t even seen him open his eyes.

“Not really,” I whispered. I rolled onto my side and covered his hand with mine. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t with all your thinking,” He said. When I chuckled, he sighed and cracked open his eyes. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

“Come on, tell me,” He nudged me with his elbow.

“If you go back to sleep, I’ll tell you when you wake up,” I tried bargaining.

“Okay, counter offer. If you don’t tell me, I’ll roll you,” He threatened.

“You’ll what?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I’ll roll you. You know… roll…” He said. I wasn’t getting it so he groaned and then he quickly rolled over his side and barrel rolled over top of me until he was on the other side of the bed. I had groaned under his weight. Now he was looking at me with laughter in his eyes. “Roll you. So tell me.”

“I don’t think your threat means anything anymore since you’ve already done it,” I wrinkled my nose at him. “Too bad, so sad.”

“Fine,” He said. He’d started to roll back to his original side when I yelled, “Okay! Stop!”

He stopped, his body over mine, looking down at me. The laughter fell away and our smiles slowly faded. He brushed my hair back from my face and looked down at me as if I were a gift for him and only him. I guess I sort of was.

“Tell me,” He whispered. He brought the tip of his nose down to mine and left it there. Looking at him that way was awkward so I closed my eyes.

“I think it might upset you very much if I told you so I’d really rather not,” I sighed.

“I’d rather be upset than for you to feel like you can’t tell me something,” He persisted.

“Fine,” I groaned. “I was just thinking, wondering really, if I can keep living in such a crazy, fucked up head. I was just wondering if it might be better for everyone else if I just end things.”

“Ends things, you don’t mean…?” He trailed off. He pulled his face back and gaped at me.

“That is what I meant,” I sadly confirmed.

“Aili,
no
. Please. Please, don’t even think that,” He pleaded. He was shaking now, I suspected from fear but it could’ve easily been anger too.

“I’m not going to,” I said, putting a hand to the back of his head and pulling it down until his forehead was pressed against mine. “Calm down. This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“I’m just
scared.
I don’t want to lose you. You have these dreams and I try to put on a brave face because you need me to, but I’m terrified.” He trembled against me.

“So am I,” I whispered.

“It will get better, I promise. You just have to keep trying and let us help however we can,” He told me.

“I am.”

He pressed his lips hard against mine, the kiss of someone desperate. There was no doubting the sincerity of his fear or his love for me. I hoped that mine was as painfully obvious as his was. It was a consuming thing. I felt like, if anything, my love for him would even consume the parts of me that were bad and just leave me as this.

When I went to the medical hut after breakfast, Kai walked with me, his hand tight in mine. He was nervous, he didn’t want me to fall apart again. He wanted to stay with me the whole time and I couldn’t complain. I wanted him there with me.

Of course, before we could even get inside the hut, Kieran came running up the path, his face red. “Kai, we’ve got visitors.”

“How? We
just
left the meadow,” He asked in an exasperated tone. “How did we not see anyone coming?” I tightened my fingers with his, feeling a pang of loss.

“They just showed up,” Kieran shrugged. “So come on, let’s go.”

“It’s…” Kai sighed heavily, like the world was pushing him down. He looked down at me and then back at Kieran. “It’s going to have to wait.”

“They’re not going to
wait.
What’s wrong with you?” Kieran asked, mildly annoyed.

“Well then you can fucking do it without me. Aili needs me,” Kai snapped.

“Does she?” Kieran looked at me.

“I’ll be fine. You’ll be there when I wake up,” I smiled softly at Kai, hoping that my eyes were reassuring but knowing they weren’t.

“Dude, it’s
vital.
They’re wanderers,” Kieran said, excited. Wanderers were what they called people who had left either the Legion or the Clash or both and were unsatisfied with either side so they kept to themselves. Kieran saw wanderers as an opportunity to build the camp up even more. Always a leader first.

“And they’ll wait until she’s asleep, at least,” Kai said gruffly.

“Okay,” Kieran agreed to the compromise. My brother looked down at me with a soft smile but I could see the worry in his eyes. Maybe he was nervous over the same things Kai was, but I wasn’t. I was ready. I wanted to know all of the parts of me, even the ones that seemed lost forever.

“Come on,” Kai tugged me inside the medical hut. Tali already had everything ready and was just waiting for us. She’d heard us outside talking with Kieran so she was sitting at the table reading. When we walked in she put her book down on the table gently and stood up, smoothing out the long skirt that she was wearing today.

“You ready?” Even Tali seemed a little nervous about this. I wondered if maybe my craziness was preventing me from being nervous. Maybe it wasn’t normal. I knew I certainly wasn’t normal anyway.

“Sure am,” I said with confidence.

I lay down on the bed and Kai sat down in the chair beside it, holding my hand firmly in his. I squeezed his hand gently but I didn’t look at him. I watched Tali as she stuck a needle into a vial of white, smoky looking liquid and drew back on the plunger.

“How long is she going to be asleep for?” Kai asked. Neither of us had bothered asking before. Before anything came up time wasn’t really a concern.

Tali glanced at him as she swiped at my arm with some cleaning agent. “Hard to say. It depends on whether it works. It also depends on how much work the medicine needs to do.”

“So what you’re saying is she could be asleep for five minutes or for five days,” Kai said grudgingly.

“Not as short as five minutes, but yes. A wide range of time,” Tali answered. She looked at me, her eyes sad. “Are you ready?”

“I told you I was,” I responded coolly.

“We’ll see you on the other side.” Tali nodded at me. I nodded back at her and straightened my head so that I was looking at the ceiling. Kai’s head dropped into my line of sight and then his lips were against mine, his thumb sweeping across my cheekbone. When he pulled back, he looked a little green. I tried smiling at him as reassuringly as I could but the needle was coming out of my arm and I was already feeling a little hazy. The world looked less sharp around the edges. The ceiling seemed to be shimmering. I stared at it wonderingly, waiting for my eyelids to get heavy enough to drop closed.

I heard Kai exhale a heavy sigh beside me and I looked over at him. He was shimmering too, as if he were just out of focus. He looked away from me at Tali. She looked back at him as if to say it was too late now.

“I didn’t expect that to be so fast,” Kai said. His voice sounded like it was coming from down a tunnel. It echoed faintly in the small room. It hadn’t done that before.

“It happens like that every time,” Tali told him, capping the needle and tossing it away. Why were they talking like it was working? I was still awake, wasn’t I?

I sat up slowly but I felt light. It took no effort, my breathing came out as easily as if I were laying on the bed flat. I looked back down at the bed and saw a head resting against the pillow. Her skin wasn’t quite as pale as it had been, though it still had a powdery complexion. Her dark red hair was flat underneath her; it almost looked brown with a fiery halo in this light. Her eyelids were almost a purple color, too thin. She was tiny on the bed, like a little girl’s doll. I stood up and marveled at being outside of my body. Was this supposed to happen?

Kai squeezed my hand gently. Not
my
hand, my body’s hand. I could feel it like an echo against my surreal body. He watched me with the sadness that he never showed when I was awake and looking at him.

“She’s going to be okay, Kai,” Tali told him. She didn’t sound completely certain but he looked up at her anyway with a nod.

I watched as Tali took a chair from the table and moved it to the other side of my bed. She took my other hand carefully and looked down at me.

“I don’t see how she can’t see herself clearly,” Kai chuckled, there was a manic edge to it.

“What do you mean?” Tali asked.

“Look at her,” He nodded down to me. “She’s beautiful. She’s smart. When she feels something, she lets the world around her feel it too. She makes our lives better, she makes us
try
harder. She doesn’t see how many people love her, but I see it. When you look at her, I see it. You love her, too.”

Tali smiled as a tear slipped silently down her cheek. “She wouldn’t believe it if we told her, though, would she?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Kai laughed.

They lapsed into silence and I walked out of the hut. When I stepped through the door I wasn’t in the camp. I was in a different part of the world entirely. I looked around in a daze and then a child rushed past me, barely missing me. I jumped back in surprise, expecting to knock into the hut, but it was gone. I spun around, looking at the new, small town around me.

The houses were made of knotty wood, but it was a lighter color wood than the jungle wood. The trees weren’t as tall here, and they looked old. They were pines. The houses looked like cabins. There, at the center of the small town, stood a rock circle that was smaller and less sturdy than the one in the jungle. Piles of fresh wood sat at the center, all leaning together at the top to form a tower. They were unburned, just waiting and ready.

Around me children ran and played, screaming and laughing with joy. The parents were standing or sitting around. They looked like they were overcome with happiness. They all looked clean and they wore no uniforms. And then I saw her, my mom. She was just as she had been in the picture; the same hair as mine, although hers was a few inches shorter. Her skin was so smooth it looked like silk, creamy and still a faint trace of paleness even though she was tanned. Her eyes were a piercing, ice blue. She walked with a huge smile on her face, her hand swinging back and forth with a small child’s. Mine.

I looked at myself with shock. I had never seen this child in the mirror when I was younger. She was clumsy at walking, her legs fat and chubby. Her face was a puff ball, her hair a dark red shock barely touching her ears. Her eyes were a little darker than her mother’s but still the same scary, ice cold color.

“Dada!” The child ‘me’ shrieked. She pulled away from her mom and took off running towards the fire pit. The man bent down at the knees, laughter rolling off his lips easily. His arms were opened wide as the little girl tumbled into his chest. He hugged her close as if he hadn’t seen her in years.

“Sorry about that,” My mom told my dad. “We had a little accident.”

“Oh, it’s okay. It happens, right, kiddo?” He smiled at me. I grinned a tiny-toothed smile back at him and bobbed my head like an apple in the water.

My father shocked me. He looked more like Kieran now than he had in the picture. His hair was the same
golden color. His face remained longer looking than Kieran’s, his skin was tanned. He wasn’t pudgy yet but I knew he would be.

I felt a faint echo, a knocking against my chest that rattled me. I closed my eyes. It didn’t feel painful, more like the ghost of pain living inside of me. I felt like I was spinning, I was dizzy. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I crouched down low to the ground, my head in my hands, and I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth.

I could hear echoing voices around me but I couldn’t make out their words. They were loud, booming my head. And suddenly, like the snapping of fingers, everything went silent and the pain went away. I was crouched down in the rain, I could feel the cold of the fat water droplets but it didn’t make me cold. I slowly lifted my head and looked around myself.