The Star Dwellers (5 page)

Tawni shakes her head. “Just the headache,
but it’s getting worse.”

“I’ve got one, too,” I admit. “But it’s not
bad yet.”

“We need water.”

I close my eyes, wish with all my might that
water will appear out of thin air. When I open my eyes we still
don’t have any water. “Damn, didn’t work,” I say.

Tawni manages a wry grin, but I can tell even
that’s a struggle.

“Let’s walk fast again. Every step forward
gets us closer. We might still make it.” I’m trying to be
optimistic, which is hard for me. Secretly I’m praying we stumble
upon someone—I’d take anyone at this point, perhaps even some
bloodthirsty star dweller soldiers.

We start up again and the thuds in my head
sync with my footsteps.
Thud, thud. Thud, thud. Thud!
With
each step I feel like my headache reaches its maximum point of
pain, but then the next step hurts even more, pounds a little
harder. It feels like my skull is trying to break free from my
skin. Tawni’s headache started earlier, so she must be hurting even
more, but I don’t look at her because I have to concentrate on my
own steps.

After three hours we have to stop to rest. I
sling my pack in the corner between the wall and the floor, sit
down next to it, lean my back against the rough stone. Tawni slumps
next to me, huddling close.

Not for the first time since we parted ways,
and surely not for the last time, my thoughts turn to Tristan. Our
lost kiss.

I wonder where he is, whether he’s getting on
okay with my dad, whether they’re in a better state than we are. I
hope my dad’s not giving him a hard time. I’m not sure what to
expect, as I’ve never really had a guy interested in me before. For
all I know, my dad might put on a tough guy act, even though he’s
really a softy. The weird thing is, soon my dad will probably know
Tristan better than I do.

The other odd thing is that ever since my
final hug with Tristan, the tingles on my scalp and the buzzing
along my spine have lessened with each step, until finally, an hour
or so ago, they vanished completely, as if our physical connection
is dependent on our closeness somehow. Or it could just be related
to the Bat Flu.

Although we’ve been walking for two days
solid, Tawni and I, trudging down an endless inter-Realm tunnel,
making our way slowly to the Star Realm, the last two hours have
been by far the worst. Although I know we are, I don’t feel like
we’re getting anywhere. Every step forward feels like two backward.
It’s like wading through water, as if the air has substance, its
viscosity slowing our every move.

It’s not just the act of walking that
frustrates me. It’s the monotony of the tunnel. The tunnel is wide
enough for half a dozen people to walk side by side, and tall
enough for me to give Tawni a piggyback ride, although given she’s
about six inches taller than me, the physics might not work so
well. The tunnel floor is smooth, packed hard by thousands of
tramping feet, but the walls and ceiling are rough and jagged, as
if it was excavated haphazardly by a century-old tunneling machine.
Modern-day tunnelers create perfectly arched passages, with smooth
edges and glassy sides, at a rate of five miles per hour. This
tunnel looks more like three guys with shovels and pickaxes carved
their way through at about five feet per hour.

Huge pipes run along the ceiling: air pipes,
carrying fresh, filtered oxygen to the star dwellers. It’s scary to
think about the fact that we’d all be dead if not for these kinds
of pipes, our air used up, leaving nothing for our thirsty lungs.
I’ve always taken it for granted that my subchapter had fresh air
pumped in through the roof, while the old air is sucked out and
back to the barren surface of the earth. I remember learning in
school how the air on earth contains noxious fumes—as a result of
what happened in Year Zero—which required the scientists to come up
with an advanced air filtration system to ensure there was enough
clean air for everyone. Well, the pipes I’ve been staring at as we
trudge along are part of the system.

For two days, the tunnel has sloped gently
downwards, which should make the hike easy, but since we’ve
contracted the Flu, it’s as if gravity has reversed itself, pitting
even the laws of nature against us, making the downhills feel like
uphills. It’s getting warmer as we go deeper into the earth, which
was another thing I learned in school, but could never really
believe until experiencing it firsthand. Or it’s the fever setting
in, I’m not entirely sure.

My thoughts turn to my mom. Is she okay?
Although I rescued my sister, Elsey, and my dad, I don’t dare to
hope that my mom is still alive. How could she be? There are no
happy endings in my world. Not even happy beginnings. And the
middle parts, they are the saddest of all.

“Are you okay?” Tawni manages to ask,
snapping me out of my grim mood. I’m not sure how long we’ve been
resting.

I nod, lick my dry, chapped lips, try to
swallow.

“Why haven’t we seen anyone since the sun
dwellers?” I ask.

“I don’t think the star dweller troops are
going home anytime soon,” she says. “Not until they get what they
want, anyway.”

Just before we entered the tunnel we are in,
two days earlier, we saw thousands of star dweller troops pass by.
They looked rough and weary, but determined. Determined to get the
moon dwellers to join their rebellion…or die trying.

“So many people will die,” I say.

“Not if your dad and Tristan can get the moon
dweller leaders to listen. I mean, they
will
get them to
listen. I know they will.” Tawni is just being herself. Optimistic
by nature. Despite all she’s been through, still optimistic. I
marvel at her character.

“I’ll agree with you the second the sun
dwellers invite us all up for a big Tri-Realms unity party,” I
say.

Tawni smirks, but tries to hide it.

“I meant never.”

“I know,” Tawni says, laughing at first and
then coughing.

It’s the most we’ve talked in a long time and
I’m glad we can still joke. I doubt we’ll be able to in a few
hours. Tawni looks at me curiously.

“What?” I say.

“I’ve been thinking—”

“Always dangerous,” I comment.

“And…” Tawni says, ignoring me, “I think
Tristan and Roc were hiding something from us.”

“Like you think one of them might be a
woman?”

Tawni cracks up and doesn’t even cough this
time. It’s like the laughter is healing us. I might believe that if
not for the throbbing in my forehead. “Not what I was thinking, but
good guess. I’m thinking something more important, like about the
meaning of life.”

“You don’t think Tristan being a woman is
important?” I say, attempting a smile of my own which ends in more
of a grimace.

Tawni laughs hard, which results in another
coughing fit. So much for the laughter-healing theory.

“I guess that would be pretty important to
you.”

“You guess?”

“Okay, yes, that would be important. But I’m
talking important on a world scale, not just a personal level.”

I’m giving Tawni a hard time, but I know
exactly what she means. I felt it, too. A couple of times I thought
Tristan was about to tell me something big, but then he would make
an offhanded comment, a joke usually. It’s as if he was waiting for
the perfect time to tell me something, but that time never came. Or
maybe he was debating whether he could trust me with some secret. I
guess if I were him, I wouldn’t trust me either, not after having
only just met me. It’s not like I completely trust him yet either.
I mean, I want to, especially because the fate of the world seems
to be resting precariously on his shoulders. Oh yeah, and because
we held hands for like two hours one night. Which was a big deal
for me, who doesn’t know a slide into first base from a
base-clearing homerun.

“I think so, too,” I say.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Remind me to ask him about it on our
next date.”

Tawni laughs again, her face lighting up, the
laugh reaching her pale blue eyes. I’m happy I can make her laugh
even in our current condition. She deserves some measure of
happiness. I know I complain a lot about the hand life has dealt
me, but Tawni has it bad, too. At least I know my parents are good
people, even if I may never see them again. At least I want to see
them again. Tawni, on the other hand, has told me numerous times
that seeing her parents in a million years would be too soon.

And then…Cole.

He was the only family she really had left. I
mean, maybe he wasn’t tied to her by blood, and certainly no one
would mistake him for her brother, what with his dark skin against
her white. But he was her family—there is no doubt about that. But
now he’s gone. Laid low, like the dust on our shoes. Torn from this
world with the same ferocity that his entire family was taken from
him by the Enforcers.

I realize I’m gritting my teeth and Tawni has
stopped laughing. Nothing like my dark thoughts to bring down the
mood.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I lie.

“Cole.”

“Maybe.”

“Yes.” We haven’t talked about Cole since we
tearfully entered the tunnels. I’ve heard Tawni’s muffled sobs both
nights, but when I whispered to her they stopped, and she didn’t
respond. Maybe she was embarrassed or something. She shouldn’t be.
Her tears are only showing what we’re both feeling.

“Yes,” I admit.

“I’m not sure I can cope.” Her face is blank,
unreadable. Her laugh lines have disappeared, her cheeks and
forehead smooth once more. One of her hands is unconsciously
tugging on her single lock of blue hair, tinged with white near her
scalp, where her regrowth is pushing it away.

“You will. We both will,” I say, trying to
imbue confidence in my shaky voice. It’s a lie. Maybe we will find
a way to cope, but I don’t know for certain.

Tawni looks at me, shivers because of the
oncoming fever, but I can’t tell if she believes the lie. Her words
don’t give me any clue either. “It’s weird,” she says.

“What is?”

“Death.”

I just look at her, wondering where she’s
going with this, wondering if we’re both headed for a
breakdown.

“It’s like, one moment a person you know and
love is there, right next to you, and the next they’re gone, taken.
Their body is still there, but you know that
they’re
not.”

I don’t know how to respond. Her words seem
so calm, so rational, so precise. Free of emotion.
Almost
.

“He’s gone forever,” she says, her voice
quivering slightly.

“Deep breaths,” I say, stopping to heave in
and out a few times, taking my own advice. It’s what my mom used to
say when I got upset about something that went wrong at school. She
was always a master of controlling her emotions. I never saw her
lose her temper, or even cry, not once.

Tawni follows suit, crosses her arms, closes
her eyes, breathes in deeply, holds it for a second, and then
releases it. When she opens her eyes, the tightness in her lips is
gone.

“Thanks,” she says.

I try to find the right words to say. One
thing springs to mind. “My grandmother was my best friend,” I say
slowly, trying to get my words right, make them perfect. Tawni is
watching me closely, her head leaned back against the wall. “She
used to tell me stories, read me books, treat me like an adult and
a child at the same time. She was…she was…” My voice catches in my
dry throat.

“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Tawni
says, coming to my rescue.

I force down a swallow, nod my head once.
“Yes, she was. Amazing. She died when I was six.”

“I’m sorry,” Tawni says.

“It’s okay. At the time I was a wreck. I
wouldn’t leave my room, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t speak. I didn’t even
want my dad to teach me how to fight anymore.”

“Your dad was teaching you how to fight when
you were six?” Tawni asks, her eyebrows raised, her lips curling
slightly.

“He started when I was three,” I admit.

“That explains a lot.”

I laugh, and Tawni does, too. Now she is
helping me.

“My dad told me to celebrate my grandmother’s
life, not mourn her death. We spent a whole day just sitting on the
floor across from each other, telling stories about her. How she
made us laugh, how much we loved her smile, all the happy memories
we had of her. When we were finished I was still sad, but it felt
different somehow. Like she was still with me—not gone
forever.”

“I don’t know if I can handle that,” Tawni
says.

“Well, if you ever want to try, just let me
know.”

Tawni stares into space for a minute. I just
sit there, too, hoping she’ll open up to me.

Finally, she says, “Okay, I’ll try, but I
might have to stop.”

“Okay. Do you want me to go first?”

“Please.”

I didn’t know Cole for long, but the time I
had with him is precious to me. I close my eyes and try to remember
something special about him, but the first thing that pops into my
head is a horrifying vision: Rivet wrapping his arms around Cole’s
neck, wrenching his skull to the side, snapping his neck; my
screams; the blood on my hands as I stab Rivet in the chest; the
pain of losing Cole replacing my lust for revenge; Tawni’s shaking,
sobbing breakdown later that night.
No!

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, hoping I can
regain control of my thoughts. This was my idea, after all, and if
I can’t control my memories of Cole, how can I expect Tawni to?

Suddenly I remember something good. “Remember
when Cole took that punch for me, during the prison riot?”

“I didn’t see it, but I remember how his eye
looked afterwards.”

“Like he’d run headfirst into a wall,” I
say.

“And he had a hard skull. Imagine what your
face would’ve looked like if the guy had punched you.”