Betrayals in Spring (6 page)

I stopped sleeping three nights ago. I just have a gut instinct my wall isn’t strong enough to keep me safe anymore.

Even though I try to hide my fatigue by taking hunting trips with Wolf and making excuses to stay up reading, both boys have noticed. I’ve even caught the two of them talking quietly when I’ve walked into the room, which is odd.

Although if I have to die from exhaustion to get them to try being friends, it might be worth it. The funny thing is, there’s no reason Pax and Lucas shouldn’t be friends. They’re different, that’s true, but they share important traits like intelligence and loyalty. At the very least, I’m hoping that spending time camped out here in the middle of nowhere will allow us all to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of our little band of oddballs.

Today they are together on the couch, heads bent, whispers skating across the hardwood floor like marbles while Wolf chomps on a bone by the fire. Itchy annoyance sneaks into my blood, and I drop an armload of firewood. The crash startles them both.

“Okay, out with it. You two have been thick as thieves the last couple of days and it’s freaking me out.”

“I thought you wanted us to be best friends.” Pax’s slow smile droops; he’s about as tired as I am even though he sleeps away half the day.

“I’m not saying I don’t, but I would like to be included in the chum bucket.”

“What does that even mean?” Pax chuckles.

I rub my stinging eyes, force them to focus. “I don’t know. I’m too tired to make sense of things before they come out of my mouth, never mind after.”

“That’s what we’ve been discussing, actually. Winter told me what you guys overheard in the hive. That they’re taking down your wall and waiting for you.” Pax pins me with an intense gaze.

Lucas’s matching one helps hold me in place. “We know you haven’t been sleeping. Is your wall totally gone?”

I sink onto the floor beside Wolf. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like I can trust it anymore, not enough to sleep. We need to go back and find a way to close it off for good. I can’t…” Words stick in my chest. Terror washes through me at the memories of the last time Zakej and the Prime caught me in the hive, but neither Pax or Lucas needs any more guilt as far as that’s concerned, so I skirt the issue. “I can’t be alone with them again. It’s too much to bear, that I might give away our secret.”

That’s true enough. The fact that we can undo the veils they place in human minds is the last weapon we possess.

But it’s also the fact that I’m just not sure I can handle the pain again.

I’ve given the boys few details about what it’s like to be at the Others’ mercy, but they’ve both tasted the pain for short periods of time. Pax said Deshi seemed near Breaking the last time he saw him in Other custody, and both Ko and Cadi looked more dead than alive after months of torture. Right now Lucas and Pax appear to share a concern over my sanity.

I take a shaky breath. If I have to play on their sympathies, so be it. “I want to go back in—the three of us, when Pax heals enough—and find a way to protect my mind. I’m so tired.”

Lucas starts shaking his head before the last half of the sentence forms in my sleep-deprived mind.

“No. It’s too dangerous. They’re guarding you, and who knows how many are there.” Lucas leans forward, his hands on his knees. “It won’t be like before, when they were surprised to see us. They’ll be waiting for you.”

My irritation spikes, shoving adrenaline through my weak limbs. A throbbing begins at the base of my skull, reaching clawed fingers deeper into my brain with every beat of my heart. “It only sounded like a couple. There are three of us. They can’t know exactly when I’ll fall asleep, so there’s still an element of surprise. We can disable them together, build the wall in less than a minute, and get out.”

Pax leans back into the cushions, flinching as he pulls his legs up onto the couch. “I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as all that, but we still need to try.”

Lucas shoots to his feet, running a hand through his curls. His gaze turns wild and angry as he turns away from me to face Pax. “Do you realize what you’re saying? What could happen? We’re protected, but she isn’t. If anything goes wrong, you and I will get out and she’ll be stuck there with them. Again.” When Pax doesn’t respond, refusing to pull his eyes from me, Lucas steps in between us. “Isn’t it bad enough that you left her alone with them once?”

“Lucas.” His name slips out, aghast on my tongue.

When he turns to me, the expression on his face backs me up a couple of steps. Anger mottles his pale cheeks a splotchy red, and a tremble besets his hands. “What, Althea? I can’t say what we’re all thinking? That he left you there to endure torture instead of letting you go and staying behind?”

“Pax did what he had to do. You weren’t there, you don’t know. There wasn’t time for us to switch places. And I’m fine. We all survived. We’re not going to get anywhere fighting with one another about what’s already happened.” My insides twist into knots, nerves making my head pound harder until the need to sit down overwhelms me. Closing my eyes for an hour would be the most blissful thing on the entire planet right now. “Besides, didn’t your father do the same thing?”

The accusation slips out, surprising me almost as much it seems to shock Lucas, and even Pax.

“It’s not the same thing. He didn’t know until after the whole thing was over.” Lucas stares at me hard, recovered from his surprise and impossible to reach.

I force my own heart to harden. Lucas is dangerous as long as he’s wavering. “Are you sure about that?”

We stare at each other for several moments, unwilling to budge. I want Lucas to say the words I need to hear—that he’s still on my side, that
at
my side is where he belongs, no matter where we are. He’s unwilling to admit his father might have had an agenda last winter other than simply bonding with his long-lost son.

Pax gets up from the sofa and limps to me. “You know, if you agree with Winter, I won’t blame you. I did leave you there, and I can only imagine what you thought, what you went through.” He grabs my hands, forcing me to face him. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was the only way to save us both. I knew you were strong enough to handle it.”

“I’m not angry with you. Maybe I was for a while, but as soon as you came back with Lucas, it all made sense.” I catch Lucas’s bitter gaze in my own, trying to tug loose my hand. Pax won’t give it up. “I
am
strong enough, Lucas. We’re a team, and we protect one another. But if I can’t find a way to get some sleep, I’m going to be worthless baggage.”

“Fine. If you want to risk everything by walking straight into the Others’ nest with some half-baked plan, just tell me when and where.” He stomps from the cabin, slamming the front door so hard the floor shakes.

I sink into the battered recliner, dropping my head into my hands and massaging my temples. Pax’s olive skin and bright blue eyes fill up my vision when I find the energy to look up, and for a moment we simply stare at each other.

“I should talk to Lucas.”

He puts a hand on my knee and squeezes. “Don’t. Leave him be; he’ll come around. He’s frustrated. We all are.”

The way he says we’ll convince
him
, as though Pax and I are on one team and Lucas another, rasps over my skin like an itchy blanket—something I’ve become familiar with over these long months of sleeping under borrowed bedding. Pax must mistake the look on my face for something other than annoyance and walks his hands up to mine, pulling me to my feet and toward him.

My whole body stiffens, even though he’s a nice temperature and not cold like Lucas. And even though it’s not the same as before, when some invisible force seemed intent on yanking us together, being able to lean on him relaxes me in his arms for a moment.

It doesn’t take long to find the willpower to push away from his hug, then look him straight in the eye while the scent of apples and smoke cling to my clothes.

He reads my face for a moment as though it’s a favorite book filled with worn pages, then Pax’s mouth pulls down into a frown. “I should have realized you and Winter would have time to get
reacquainted
while I was nearly dying.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been worried sick, and Lucas is angry about us not trying to find him sooner. Everything’s a mess, Pax. I can’t handle anything more than figuring out how I can get some sleep tonight. Everything else…I can’t even think about it.”

I’m lying, because during the long hours without sleep I
do
think about the two of them. But the bottom line is that we need one another, and so even if Lucas’s potential change of heart regarding our rightful place wasn’t stopping me, even if I could find the courage to believe in a future, I couldn’t be with him. I can’t afford to lose either of them. Not as far as this fight is concerned, and not as far as my heart is concerned, either.

Pax nods slowly, the intensity on his face making way for resignation. “It’s changed, hasn’t it? It’s kind of…gone.”

“What’s gone?” My heart trips. I know what he’s referring to but didn’t think it would be so obvious.

“The pull between us. At least, on your side.” Although I doubt he means for it to, the doorway where Lucas disappeared catches Pax’s interest.

I shake my head, bothered all over again by the idea that Lucas and I have changed too much to ever be more than we are now, tentative allies. More than that, I’m troubled that if Pax assumes Lucas and I are together and we don’t need him, he’ll run away again.

“Pax, stop. Everything has changed. It’s all different. And the world is going to end if we can’t find a way to stop it. So that’s it. We’re all friends. Especially now.”

“It could have been different, you know.”

Heat swells my heart, diffusing warmth through my limbs. It’s not like before—it doesn’t set my veins thrumming with need—but I do care for him. Not only because I need him to fight the Others, but because Pax gave me something last winter that I’ll never lose: my confidence. And for a while I thought maybe we could turn that attraction into something deeper, that my feelings for Pax could turn into more than desire. Until I saw Lucas again. “I know.”

Pax retreats, easing back onto the couch, resignation written across his face. After a moment his easy smile returns, and he jerks a thumb toward the front door. “When Winter gets back we’ll figure out what to do.”

His words leave me disoriented. Honestly, I never expected to love or be loved in my entire life. The whole idea of love is still new too me; it’s overwhelming and hurts my stomach at the same time that it warms my heart. Perhaps I’m being selfish, thinking they could both be mine in different ways.

My mind and body tangle into such a hopeless knot of emotions that I’d run straight into Kendaja’s crazy, spindly arms if it meant this would all sort itself out.

***

We come up with a course of action, and when Pax insists he can hold up his end of the deal two days later, we decide not to wait. Sleep insisted last night, but I don’t remember anything so it must have been deep and dreamless enough to keep me protected. Or maybe my wall remains solid enough to hold out Zakej and his terrible sister. I’d guess the former. It’s been a week now and the Others are nothing if not efficient.

“So, we go straight to Summer’s and use our powers to disable whoever is there and erect her a good barrier using our three elements, then we run like Wolf after a squirrel.” Pax stops, waiting for Lucas and my assent.

He gets a nod from me but nothing from Lucas, who grudgingly agreed that the three of us together with our powers could probably handle three or four Others. If there are more than that, we’re simply going to get out. Pax rolls his eyes at Lucas’s silent dissent. I step in between them, grasping their hands and linking the three of us together.

We go still. Lucas’s cold right hand grips my left tighter than necessary, and after a moment a feeling like freezing water flows up my arm and pools in my chest. Pax’s fingers lace with mine, warmth like sweet sunshine coursing from him and mixing in my center. I can feel the now familiar sensation of my own heat licking outward into the boys, but I’m not weakened by its loss. Instead, the combination of our three powers increases my own strength. With my eyes closed, I focus all of that energy on my sinum, and when I open them, we’re all inside.

It’s empty except for the battered but still locked trunk in the corner. Boot prints mark the dirt floor, dozens of pairs, proof that my instinct about my sinum being unsafe was correct. The wall I constructed from bricks and gray goop has disappeared as though it never existed.

The sound of voices and scuffling shoes draw my attention, and an instant later a Warden peers into my sinum.

Another jumps to his side after a shout, but we’re too fast. We were expecting them to be here, and they’re surprised. It gives us the advantage we’d hoped for.

Pax reaches out a hand, shooting a gust of air so strong it lifts the Other off his feet and slams him into the wall with a sickening crunch. When Pax lowers his arm, the Other’s body slumps to the ground. Pax stumbles a little, as though the blast of power took too much out of his barely recovered body.

The three of us turn to the second Other, who hasn’t moved. He puts his hands up and slides to the floor, propping his back against the dirt in the hallway, then glances expectantly between Pax and me. “I surrender. Don’t melt me or anything. Please.”

It’s hard to tell them apart, or to believe they are different from one another in any significant way, but this is an Other I’ve met before. I step lightly out of my sinum, peeking around the corner to see if it’s a trap, but the corridors are empty. A few more paces toward the second Warden confirm my suspicions.

It’s Natej, the Other that Pax and Griffin captured in the woods. The one Greer loves enough to stay locked, forgotten, in a cell.

He must see the recognition on my face, because he smiles. “We meet again, daughter of Fire. I suspected we might.”

“Shut up.” Whether Greer loves him or not, I certainly don’t trust him.