Intrepid (31 page)

But before our faces got close enough, reason found its way back to me. I put my hands up so they gripped the back of his, and I pulled the sturdy fingers from my hair. “We need to talk,” I whispered, and my voice shook him from whatever trance he was in.
 

I dropped his hands, stood up, and backed away, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I wanted to go back to the moment before I changed my mind. I wanted to feel the Multiverse collide into a kiss like it did in the dream I’d had just a few hours before. I wanted to lose myself to the warmth blooming around his body and the surge of Energy that felt so unnaturally natural. Without another word, he pulled himself up, grabbed a dishtowel, and filled up a bowl with water. His body was shaking, whether from pain or desire, I couldn’t tell.
 

“Liam,” I said. “I have to talk to you.”
 

“Oh, we’re gonna talk alright. But right now? Right now… Santiago’s hurt.”
 

“What? Where?” I’d only been gone less than an hour. How on earth could both of them get hurt in such a short amount of time?
 

Liam nodded towards the deck and I followed him out. Iago was passed out on a lounge chair, and blood was drying around several wounds.
 

I gulped back some air and asked, “What happened?”
 

All of the sudden Liam’s unreadable expression became very readable. His eyes narrowed into the anger I was expecting from the start. “
You
happened.”
 

“
Me
?”
 

“Don’t act indignant. Where the
hell
did you go? Better yet,
why
? Why did you go to the 620s of all places? Did you know about mammoth-bears before you hit that button? No.
Of course not
. You know absolutely nothing, but you act on every damn impulse as if you did.”
 

I kneeled down next to Santiago. “Whose fault is it that I don’t know anything? I’m sure as hell not cool with y’all’s
brilliant
plan to keep me in the dark with everything. Who the hell are you to keep what you are a secret from me… or do you not even know what you are?” I grabbed the bowl from his hands, set it on the ground next to me, and swished the towel through the water. As I squeezed the excess water out of it, I wanted the towel to be Liam’s neck. How dare he talk to me like that?
 

“What exactly do you think I am?” His voice nearly growled out the question, and I shivered.
 

“Don’t play stupid, Liam. It doesn’t look good on that pretty, little face of yours.”
 

“I don’t understand? What am I?” he asked in a way that was more resigned than inquisitive. Liam was such a know-it-all, and he kept talking like he knew better than me just because he was raised on this stupid boat. His reclusive lifestyle left him inadequate in the how-to-be-a-human-being department. I wondered how he could even care so much about Humanity when he didn’t even know how to interact with it. But maybe he didn’t know what he was. It was just as possible as him knowing. After all, they kept me in the dark my entire life.
 

I put the towel around Iago’s neck and moved it over the wounds, but the blood did not want to come off.
 

Liam took a deep breath. “What am I?”

I didn’t want to grace him with the answer. To admit exactly what I knew would be to admit exactly what I didn’t. If he was playing stupid, it’d be better if I played it safe. He assumed I knew something, that meant he might give up more information by accident that would help me piece it all together. Instead of answering him, I asked, “Why isn’t he healing?”
 

Liam’s face soured even more than before. “In trying to get away from the mammoth-bears, I think I nearly drained him of his Energy.”
 

I tried not to let the information surprise me. Since talking to Lindsay, I’d already figured out that it wasn’t me on my own who killed all those animals this morning. I thought Liam activated something within me, but the fact that he could drain Energy from his surroundings without me around could mean something else entirely.
 

As I scrubbed at the dried blood, I noticed what hadn’t yet dried was oozing backwards into the slice on his head, and the same thing was happening to the gash that traveled from his neck to his collarbone. I kept cleaning despite this, until the water in the bowl darkened and grew murky. I sent Liam for some more water, and I held Iago’s hand in mine while I placed my forehead on the part of his chest that didn’t hold a gash. The movement of his torso showed that his breath was growing stronger inside his ribs. “Come on, Iago,” I whispered. “This is nothing. Remember that time you lost control of that dirt bike and crashed into the fence? The way the barbed-wire tangled around your neck should have killed you, but you walked away with just a few scratches. And that was nothing compared to what your mom had in store for you as punishment.
This?
This is nothing.”
 

Nothing. It was a funny word to fling around at a time like this. I remembered the way his mouth wrapped around a similar sentence. “You. Are. Nothing.” I wished it were true, because had I not gone to the 620s, Iago would not be in this situation, and if he died, it was on me. I tried not to cry, but something had to be wrong if his body was refusing to patch up. I didn’t know much, but I knew that if Liam’s scars were already disappearing, then Iago’s shouldn’t have been this far behind. I thought about Papa and how Ringo Jumping him back to Geronimo messed with his brain. All these years I thought it was Alzheimer’s, and it may as well have been. Papa wasn’t Papa after it happened. What if the same thing happened to the boy I grew up with?
 

“Iago,” I whispered. “I can’t wait long for you to get better. Please, don’t do this.” It didn’t feel right to go with Iago in this condition. Even if he carried a death-syringe in his pocket, I cared about him. I knew it wasn’t personal, and I knew he wouldn’t do it unless deep in his heart he truly believed I was a danger to the Multiverse. Even then, I couldn’t see him doing it. He was my brother. I couldn’t bear the idea that if we left, we might be leaving Iago to insanity or a horribly slow death.
 

I couldn’t leave him like this. He was the last piece of home I had left.
 

But I had to let go of a lot of things… including home.
 

“Come on, Iago. Heal already.” I put my head back on his chest and let the sobs come out. I hadn’t given myself the room to feel this pain since Sully wrapped his fingers around my throat that night, but I felt it all right then and there. Every ounce of hurt and anger and loss pulled me into its own cutting pain and bled out of me in the form of snotty, hiccup-y tears.
 

As much as I wanted to be sure Iago was healed before we left, we couldn’t wait. For too long, I’d been living under the shackles of other people’s fear, and I had the Knowing on my side. I knew that I could do so much more if I started trusting in myself over the others.

I trusted that Papa had answers, but how did I get them? He was delusional most of the time. “Sometimes he’s not,” Lindsay had said. Suddenly, I understood what she meant. If I could just get to Papa during one of his lucid spells, he could tell me what I needed to know.
 

Iago’s breath was growing strong under my ear. He’d be okay. If we got him to a room before we left, he’d probably wake up healed but a little confused. Confused was better than addled. Maybe we could come back and check on him in a couple days, but getting to Papa couldn’t wait.
 

I sat there, with my head rising and falling with the ever-steadying breaths my friend was taking. This would be our goodbye, and a new resolve settled into my heart. Even if Iago was afraid of what I could do, I would leave him with a silent promise. I would love before I hated, understand before I believed, breathe before I spoke, and think before I acted. But most of all, I would be Intrepid, for him and for everyone else counting on me.
 

I didn’t hear Liam return until I saw the bowl he settled down next to where I knelt. Except the hand that set it there wasn’t Liam’s. It had a silver ring wrapped around a calloused thumb and a silver bracelet wrapped around the black hair on his wrists. I pulled my head up and saw a face that made me understand the real definition of missing. “Ringo?”

“Chin up. He’ll be fine.” He lifted me up by the elbows and smiled. “Just think how warm you’ll make Mrs. Ortiz feel when I tell her how much you decided to care about the boy.”
 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ringo showed me how to use the Planck Activation Bracelet to access Iago’s med-scan. A floating hologram rose above him, laying out his bones, then layering images of the rest of his inside with each scan it took.
 

“No internal bleeding, and his brain scans are functioning normally. He got lucky, kiddo,” Ringo said, before he and Liam carried Iago to his room.
 

I went into the galley and sat at the table to let the silence steady me. I needed a moment to breathe. Too much had happened in such a short time. Iago almost experienced death by mammoth-bear, Lindsay was a Saltador involved in some secret faction, Liam was another hybrid, and Ringo decided to drop in for a visit.
 

All in one day…

It
was
possible that all of it was a coincidence, right?
 

I could process everything if I really gave it a shot.
 

I could…

I couldn’t…

I slid into the cushioned bench that lined one side of a cafeteria table and put my head into my hands. The bite of wood on my elbows grounded me to where I sat, and I was thankful for the support to my heavy, heavy head. Ringo being back could mean anything, but something told me it wasn’t part of the plan. The hug he’d wrapped me in felt like a flannel shirt that had been washed too many times so that the fabric had become scratchy and uncomfortable rather than worn and safe. He’d told me in his stupid letter that I had to go through all of this without him. What had changed to make him suddenly appear? Did he have a failsafe-syringe too? Could I trust this man who pretended to be my father all of these years?
 

My skin felt warm to my hands. I turned some of my senses down so I could concentrate on how the boat rocked under my feet and how the sound of the wind rippled across smooth water. I didn’t necessarily mean to tune up my hearing and eavesdrop, but the moment I accidentally did it was the moment I kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner.
 

Ringo’s voice was familiar, connecting me to so many memories. I ached to hear his laugh, and I had a sick hope Liam would say something. But their conversation was all business, and Ringo said, “Iago sent me a message to say she’d left. Do we know where she went?”

“The 620s,” Liam answered.
 

There was a rustle of a blanket being drawn over Iago in his bed, and I could hear the way it wrapped around every curve of his body. Iago was going to be okay, and it made me focus on what needed to happen next. I couldn’t stay, but how could I leave now that Ringo was here?
 

“Did you figure out if she met anyone?” Ringo tried again.
 

“Our hands were a little full.” There were cracks in Liam’s words, like every one of them would crumble under the right amount of pressure.
 

I rubbed my fingers along my face so my skin stretched in and out. “What do I do?” I whispered. Should I leave right then? Should I go without Liam? I groaned and whispered, “Similar. Not the same.” All the rubbing I was doing to my cheeks was not rubbing in the answer. “He’s a hybrid, but what kind? He’s mutated, but how?”
 

I thought on how his fingertips raced lightning across my skin when he touched me. It wasn’t the kind of lightning that happened from the anticipation of a someone holding your hand for the first time or the bubble-bursting stomach hiccups at the beginning of Sully’s kiss. It was more chaotic than that. What would have happened if I let Liam kiss me? Why did he even want to in the first place? That was the question that made my stomach twitter. It melted me into the possibility of what if, and my heart raced as if he were in the room with me, trying to pull my lips onto his again.
 

There was no logical reason for wanting him, and I wondered if I craved him because I craved what his presence did with my Energy. It was almost as if he could control and redirect it, but to what purpose?
 

I ground my teeth together in frustration over how answers could rest at the tip of everything: tongues, thoughts, fingertips. They wait for a scale to shift this way or that so they can tumble down and into your brain, and finding this answer was like finding the hidden toy in the cereal box before everyone else did. There was no light bulb going off over my head. I just suddenly knew what he was—what he could do.
 

If I could activate a Splice, then Liam could Move it into existence using
any
type of Energy that existed—even if it wasn’t the Collective Energy of humanity. Back in Spain, I had access to millions of Movers, so when I Spliced, the others pushed the four universes into existence. But when I tried to do it on the boat, there was only a Primitive Energy. It was too sporadic and spread out because it had been converted back to sedimentary objects and instinct-driven animals. Here, on this planet, there were no connecting fibers to propel Collective Energy.
 

But Liam?
 

He could gather Energy even from the crevices of death, and he could un-Stagnant a universe by giving it his form of electric-shock treatment. While I could Splice, Liam could Move.
 

This answer only made me realize another.
 

I couldn’t leave without him.