Building Harlequin’s Moon (48 page)

“Jacob is dead.” Rachel hated the words, spitting them out.

“What happened?” Ali repeated.

Rachel took a step back. Beth was still in Gloria’s arms, but had turned, and her eyes bored into Rachel’s. Everything looked crystal clear, as if the world had shifted into some new place. Sunlight touched the crowd, and a soft breeze brushed Beth’s hair from her eyes. Rachel cleared her throat and wiped the tears from her face. “Paul killed
him. He shot Jacob, and Jacob fell onto a piece of glass, and he bled to death. No one helped him, no one but me and Beth.”

Beth stepped forward to stand by Rachel.

“Why did Paul shoot him?” Ali asked. “I need to know. Star called me; they’re sending me back to
John Glenn
with Paul. I need to know what happened.” Ali brushed hair from her face impatiently. “It’s important, Rachel.”

“He fell. They dropped one of the glass air tubes, and Jacob fell off a cart, and he landed on Terry.” Rachel took another deep breath, struggling for the details. “Jacob had a piece of glass in his hand. It cut Terry, but not badly. Jacob was trying to stand up, and Paul shot him, and Jacob fell onto the glass, and cut himself.” Rachel held up her bloody hands. “Cut his throat. He bled to death, Ali, and no one stopped it. I tried to stop it, but all I had was my hands.”

Ali took Rachel’s hands and looked at them, turning them over, a frown creasing her brow. “He must have bled out quickly.”

She swallowed, seeing the scene in her mind. “But Ali, they went to Terry first, Star went to Terry first, and he was barely hurt.”

Ali’s voice was low. “Did Star know that?” Her mouth was a tight line, and her eyes bored directly into Rachel’s, demanding answers.

“Terry was standing up. Jacob wasn’t.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“No, I have to go tell Daddy. I have to be the one who tells him.”

“Okay.” Ali dropped Rachel’s hands and gave her a quick, hard hug. “I’d stay with you, but they want me now, and I. . . . I have to go. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Rachel swallowed, her voice catching in her throat. “I understand you leaving. They’re making you go.”

Ali returned Rachel’s glance evenly. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.” Her voice shook as she reached for her wings.

Rachel turned. Gloria and Harry stood together. Bruce was near them. Andrew, Rudy, and Sam watched her closely. Andrew caught her eyes, a mixture of anger and pain in his gaze. Surely he wouldn’t act out now, not with Ali here.

“Stay outside, please,” she said loudly, to them all. “I need to talk to my dad.” Harry would make sure people stayed outside. Rachel opened the door, went in.

Her father had pushed himself into a sitting position on the couch, and he gasped as she walked in. She stood near him. “Daddy?”

“What’s all over your hands?”

“Blood. Sit still, Dad, I’m going to wash my hands, and then I’m going to tell you about it. Please? I need to get clean.” Her voice was catching in her throat.

“There are people outside,” he said. “I heard Ali, and I heard crying, and I heard some of what you said.”

“Yes.” How much had he heard? She stepped to the sink and ran water over her hands. It fell through her fingers, tinged with red, hardly changing the color of her hands. She reached for soap and started scrubbing. How was she going to tell her dad? He loved the twins so much.

There was still blood under her nails. She scrubbed harder, faster, shaking. She saw her family’s faces. Sarah. Justin. Jacob’s face as she had last seen it, empty and white. She no longer wanted to cry. She was just . . . empty.

Rachel toweled her hands dry. Her clothes were still covered with blood. She swiped at the blood with her towel, needing it gone, but it only smeared.

Her dad was shaking. “Now, Rachel. Tell me now.” He looked more alert than he had in days, and very afraid.

She sat by him on the couch, taking his broken hand in hers. He was stiff, unyielding. “Something terrible happened.”

“To Jacob?” There was no question in his eyes.

“Jacob’s dead, Daddy.”

He stared, white-faced, his lips shaping Jacob’s name. He reached out and held her close to him, whispering, “How?”

“He fell, Daddy. When he fell, he cut himself on glass.”

“I heard what you told Ali outside,” he whispered. “That he was killed. Don’t protect me.”

“I don’t know what to do, Dad.”

“You will.” His hand shook in Rachel’s, as if hearing the news from her released the tension and now he could feel. Tears started spilling down his face and he rocked back and forth like a child. “Where did they take my son?” His voice cracked. “I want to see his body.”

“I don’t know. I’ll try to find out.”

The door banged open and Sarah flew into the room. “They killed him.” Her face was streaked with tears. “Council has started killing us. Jacob always said they would,” she sobbed. “He knew it. Jacob’s dead.”

Sarah threw herself at Rachel, and Rachel folded her arms around Sarah’s thin back and held her tightly. The door was open now, and Harry and Gloria and Beth piled in, followed by Dylan. Dylan took in the scene, the sobbing young woman on Rachel’s lap, the blood still covering Rachel’s clothes. Rachel’s father wiping tears from his face with the back of his hand. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“How could I be?” She held Sarah more tightly. “Can you go see about Justin? And Kyle? They took them—Star took them. They have Jacob’s body too, and Dad wants to see him.”

“Are you physically okay? Are any of you hurt?” Dylan asked.

Rachel shook her head. “No one but Jacob.”

Sarah sobbed even louder, and Rachel bent her head over her little sister, placing her cheek on the fourteen-year-old’s head. She could see Dylan from the corner of
her eye. He resembled Andrew in that moment: anger was filling him, trying to burst out of him.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go find Justin.”

“Keep him safe. Bring him home.”

Dylan nodded, then ran from the room. Gloria closed the door behind him. “The others left too,” she said. “I sent them away.”

H
OURS LATER
, Gloria and Rachel sat at the kitchen table. Dark circles hung under Gloria’s eyes, and her skin was ashen white. Rachel put her hand in the middle of the table and Gloria took it. Gloria’s hand was rough from work, but a smile touched her face for just a moment.

Rachel glanced over at Sarah, who had fallen asleep nestled in her father’s arms. Sarah’s long legs hung awkwardly off the couch, one foot touching the floor, and her head was on Frank’s shoulder. Frank was looking up at the ceiling, not moving. Rachel didn’t think he was asleep. Neither Dylan nor Justin had returned.

Rachel needed to talk to Vassal. “Gloria, I have to go. I have to find out what’s happened. Can you stay with them?”

Gloria nodded, swallowing.

“And thank you. Thank you for being here.”

“You’ve always been here for me,” Gloria said. “It’s nothing. We would all do more for you if you’d let us.”

“Thanks.” Rachel took her cup to the sink. Gloria had washed away all the blood. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll take care of your father. We’ll come find you if Dylan comes back, or Justin.” Their wrist pads had stopped working sometime during the late afternoon. “Do you know where you’ll be?”

“No. I don’t know how long I’ll be out either. I can’t sit here anymore, just waiting. I have to think, I have to find people, I have to decide what to do next.”

“Take care of yourself,” Gloria said.

Her dad had used the same words when she left before the accident. Rachel shivered. “Okay.”

Rachel closed the door behind her, and realized she truly didn’t know where she wanted to go. It had grown dark, and no one waited outside the door for her. “Vassal,” she whispered into the night air.

“Yes.”

“What’s happened?”

“Paul and Ali left for
John Glenn
an hour ago.”

“Who did they blame?”

“They?”

“Council.” She needed to be more specific with the AI. “I don’t know. Star? What did Star say?”

The voice was smooth in her ear, as if Vassal was summarizing a long set of conversations. “Council decided it was all a sequence of accidents. Paul has not been accused. Star worries about what might happen here, about how you Moon Children will react. She is watching Clarke Base, and has set out extra guards. She decided to try to keep things normal, to see if all becomes calm. There are extra watchers.”

Rachel walked toward the greenhouses, and the plots. Avoiding the watchers. They would be in town. Perhaps other Moon Born would go to the greenhouses. “Are you in danger of being caught?”

“It is not data they watch.”

“Has High Council reacted?”

“No, they are still silent. I did hear Star tell them, ‘At least we only lost one of the Moon Born. It could have been worse.’ ”

Rachel stopped and stood very still. Vassal’s silky voice still droned in her ears, but she no longer heard it. She closed her eyes, and it seemed like the weight of everything she worried about grew even heavier. Council leaving. Council staying, and tension remaining high; she and her friends and family watched and discounted. Antimatter.
The words played in her head, “We only lost one of the Moon Born. Only a Moon Born. Only a Moon Born.”

Rachel found herself at the edges of a plot of carrots. She could smell the fresh green tops, the rich scents of the earth. She collapsed in the darkness, and watched the bright lights of a meteor shower burning overhead. Rachel thought of Ursula, and whispered to the memory of her friend, “You were right, little one, right not to trust Council as much as I have.” Then Rachel put her head down between her drawn-up knees, making as small a ball of herself as she could, and shook.
They killed my brother
, she thought,
and they don’t even care!

A hand touched her arm, and she looked up, expecting Dylan. Andrew stood behind her. He said, “I’m sorry about Jacob.” His voice was gruff.

Rachel took his hand and squeezed it. They stayed that way for a long time, Andrew standing behind her; Rachel curled at his feet, saying nothing. Ursula hadn’t trusted Council. She’d done as Rachel asked all those years ago, and tried her best to be a good student, to work hard. And she died. Andrew didn’t trust Council either. She heard it in her head again, “Only a Moon Born.” She struggled up and flung herself into Andrew’s arms, sobbing again, angry tears. They had no right!

Andrew smelled of pipe grease and sweat, good smells, smells that were work and not death or sickness. Rachel wanted to scream into his shoulder. Instead, she stepped away from him. “They’re building something that might kill us all,” she said.

Andrew looked down at her, his eyes mirroring her anger. She asked, “What do you know about the collider?” stepping back a step from him, watching his face.

“Tell me?”

Explaining was difficult. Andrew had no fine grasp of math, no sense of proportion. Even so, she was working it out for herself, putting it into words.

Matter plus antimatter equals fire.

Drop an antiwatermelon, destroy Selene.

Twelve hundred kilograms to reach Ymir.

She didn’t speak of Vassal, or Treesa or Ali, but Andrew was used to her knowing things by now. He didn’t ask where she got her information, but he did ask a series of questions about antimatter, about the project, about the timeline. Then he took her hand and said, “Rachel, we have to act now. Surely you’re with me now.”

“How?” She shook out of her pain a bit, sensing how much of a mistake she might have made. She hated Council right now, hated them all. Hated what they had done to her. But they were too powerful. She needed to think—to plan.

“I don’t know. Are you with me?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “There is nothing you can do right now that won’t kill people. Kill you. Kill anyone you take with you. Jacob’s death was a startled reaction—almost, almost an accident. It makes me very, very angry. But this isn’t the time. They’ll kill you, and it will be bad for us all. I’ll help you plan something now, I will. But not an immediate reaction.” She took a deep trembling yoga breath, working her belly muscles as Gabriel had taught her, and it helped calm her flying emotions, at least a little. “Remember, under the
Water Bearer
, you promised you wouldn’t act violently without me knowing about it?”

“But I didn’t know
this
when I made that promise. I’m tired of hiding and now there’s no time. They’re already building the collider.”

“Andrew—we’ll talk about it.” She reached for his hand, holding it tightly. “There is time. Some time.”

“Will you wait until more people die? Right now, everyone feels as angry as I do.” He looked down at her, his eyes oddly soft. “You feel it too.”

Rachel wanted to agree with him. Even her anger violated all the things she believed in. Joining Andrew would make it worse; it would be accepting a fight she knew they
could not win, fighting when maybe she could still negotiate something better. She had Gabriel, and Ali, and Treesa, and John with her. And Bruce. And more, her students, some of them anyway. Harry and Gloria . . . maybe it was enough. She had to stop Andrew first. Slow him down. Why had she told him? Given him more to be angry about? “Give it at least a few days. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Please, Andrew?”

“A lot of people follow you, Rachel. Lead them the right way. Surely now you know what that is?” He squeezed her hand tightly, and then pulled her to him.

She leaned into his arms, afraid of him, wanting the connection. If she let him go, if he left like this, something bad was bound to happen. “Andrew, don’t do anything. Not yet. Wait.”

“It’s not time to wait anymore.” He was tense in her arms, as if he wanted to run, as if he wanted to do something right now, right this minute.

“Wait until tomorrow. They’re watching us closely now. We have to plan.”

“I can’t promise that. I’m tired of waiting.” He leaned down and kissed her, his mouth hard and hungry against hers, and to Rachel’s surprise, she responded, pushing her tongue against his teeth, accepting him into her mouth, clutching at the back of his head, curling her fingers into his hair, holding him to this moment, this safe moment.