Whispers in Autumn (32 page)

Weariness settles in, joining a bone-deep resistance to using my powers to deal with the Crawfords. But time is precious. Deshi could already be awake but still trapped, using his brain tunnels to contact help. The longer I stay hidden the better. I drag myself off the carpet and frown. “Get in the closet.”

Their faces morph into masks of stunned bewilderment, almost making me laugh. Mr. Crawford recovers first, putting out a hand to stop his Partner as she steps forward to obey. “No. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

I step toward the bed, pulling a pillow from under the comforter, and stop beside Mrs. Crawford. Nausea bubbles up as I press the cotton between my hands and push the heat. Acrid smoke rises up, filling my nostrils. I thrust the smoldering pillow toward Mrs. Crawford’s chest as flames sprout and flicker from under my palms. It’s so hard to say the words around the vomit in my throat. A picture of Lucas at Deshi’s mercy flashes in my mind and makes it easier.

“If you don’t want me to light her on fire, get in the closet.”

It’s the weirdest thing, watching them try to process fear without any knowledge of how to be afraid. Their empty eyes flash with emotion, but it quickly disappears. Then Mr. Crawford grabs his Partner’s hand and drags her with him into Lucas’s closet. They huddle together along the back wall, clothes falling around them like the snowflakes outside.

Tears burn my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Before the sight of their blank faces changes my mind I slam the door shut. I press my hand to the brass doorknob, heating it until it melts and spreads from the door to the jamb, effectively trapping them inside. I tell myself they’ll be fine; when they don’t report for work in a couple hours, someone will look for them. It was good practice at trying to use only the right amount of heat, I suppose, though thinking of scaring them—even if they didn’t realize they were scared—as practice makes me sick.

The morning is cloudy and cold. Small lacy flakes continue to waft down from the iron gray sky. My watch says it’s just past five, still two hours before the rest of the world will wake up and greet the day.

I grab my bag where I dropped it in the backyard and run for the park. I can’t go to Cell right now. I can’t go to the Morgans’. Deshi, screaming and on fire, skitters through my overwrought brain. There’s only one place I can go to wait out the hours until I can try to save Lucas, and although I want to go get him now, at least I’ll have time to strengthen my plan.

And time to come to grips with what I’m going to have to do.

The houses drop from sight and my feet break into a sprint. They don’t stop until I’ve reached the dead section of the boundary, thrown my duffel bag into the Wilds, and scrambled over the top. I pick my way through the underbrush, stopping at a tree with a funny-shaped trunk. Instead of being a perfect circle it has an indentation in one side, about three feet across and two feet deep. I curl into the tree’s roots and close my eyes against this impossible situation as hopelessness tightens my chest.

My tension starts to unwind as a plan begins to form. It’s not very good; in fact, it’s reckless and will most likely get me locked up right along with Lucas, but it’s all I’ve got. It’ll probably end up with me captured right along with him, but that’s better than being alone again.

I spend some time scanning my chemistry and physics books, researching the melting point of glass and similar materials. Practice would be beneficial, but my emotions flounder around so violently it frightens me that the animals in the Wilds could suffer if the fire gets out of hand. Out here, with nothing but flammable trees and brush as far as the eye can see, flames would be disastrous. Not to mention they would give me away. I’ll have to hope that my fire hands, as Lucas termed them, don’t let me down when I actually need them.

Exhausted, I unzip my bag, pull out one of the blankets, and wrap it around me. Snuggled inside, aching and raw from both the cold and grief, worry tramples my tenuous hope. My blood carries it from my head to my heart and down to my stomach until my entire body trembles from holding it all in.

Thoughts of Lucas, of what the Others might already have done to him, make me feel ill. I hope the Healer fixed his leg, but if I ever see Lucas again, I am going to punch him right in the face for not telling me how bad it had gotten.

***

Night falls on the forest. Deshi is free of our makeshift imprisonment. Three Wardens opened the gate and rescued him several hours ago. They passed within twenty yards of me, never guessing, never looking.

It’s too late to turn back. Alarms have been raised. I didn’t go home or to Cell, and the Wardens return and sweep the park. It’s after curfew now and they call my name, loud enough for me to hear from this side of the boundary. The fence rattles and I stop breathing.

A laughing, melodious Other voice shatters the still night. “What are you doing, idiot? He said not to bother checking out there.”

“I know, but she’s not human. How do Chief and the Prime know what she’ll do?”

The first one snorts. “She was raised human, though, right? If Chief says she’ll walk right into our hands, then she will.”

Heavy feet thud into the earth. The second voice, deeper but no less pleasant, sounds sheepish. “I’m not questioning the Prime or the Chief. Just wanted an excuse to get out of this town.”

They walk away and my lungs release a shaky breath.

Weeks ago, back when only my life depended on me, I would have given up. Now Lucas’s life is in my hands. He’s made life tolerable, been my friend and confidant. I can’t let him go. Besides, he would do the same for me. There’s not a doubt in my mind.

The moon rises as the sun scoots into tomorrow, casting a haunting, silvery glow over the trees and underbrush. The peculiar silence full of sounds that only exists in the Wilds drapes the night. Stars twinkle all around and for a moment I ponder Cadi’s stories. I wish I could see Sprita from here; Deasupra was light years away, when it still existed.

Sounds materialize, hoots and scratches that bring back the memories of our mishaps with the animals. A howl echoes in the distance, haunting and free. It sends shivers along my spine and up my neck. The serenity this freedom offers is a lifeline; I clutch it and hang on. I’m free now, like the animals. If I get Lucas out, I’m never going back in there again.

A rustling comes closer and a scraping sounds above me. My muscles don’t even twitch, trusting the natural world to behave as it should. Lucas might laugh at my calmness after what happened to his leg. My smile fades as I wonder if I’ll ever hear his playful voice again.

I keep waiting, knowing that the longer I hold out, the fewer possibilities there will be for disaster to strike. The humans need to be tucked safe in their homes before I march into town and stir up trouble. I sense someone—something—watching me. It could be an animal, or perhaps Deshi is out here searching for me after all. Like a small child afraid of the dark spaces under my bed, I draw the blanket up around me and bury my face. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.

When it’s time to go, the moon is high in the sky. Dark, wispy clouds pass in front of it, not dense enough to staunch the light. I tear my eyes away from the void and make my way cautiously back to the fence.

Shadows hide me on the way into town. My heart whispers one last wish for help. If Cadi is listening, maybe she’ll throw a bit of luck our way. I’d feel better just knowing she lives.

Four Wardens loiter on the sidewalk, talking. I jerk farther back into the shadows and slip behind a tree trunk large enough to obscure me. I’m afraid they’ll hear my gasping breath from where they stand, even though their conversation is far away, barely audible over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

“This is dumb. Why didn’t we bring them in weeks ago, when Chief found the fish?”

“The Prime wanted to find out who was helping them. Plus, you know how they like to play with the humans.”

“He better be right about her taking the bait at the Cell. The Prime isn’t going to be happy if he loses the girl.”

The Wardens split up and wander down the block, voices fading as they head toward the park. Disgust heats my face and hands. The reminder that Deshi and the Prime Other have known about us for weeks feels cold and slimy inside my mind, an unwelcome invasion. A hot flash of anger follows, spurring me forward with new determination. I know now the idea to keep Lucas at Cell is a trap set for me, but if Deshi thinks they’re getting Lucas or me without a fight, he’s got another think coming.

I’d worried before about the front doors of the Cell being locked, but now that I know Deshi is counting on my stupidity—or loyalty, depending on how you look at it—I feel sure they’ll be open. He wouldn’t want to lock me out of his baited snare.

The door pulls open easily in my left hand, confirming the trap. My right palm stretches toward the camera watching my every move. Wild, thrashing emotion travels down my arm into my hand. When my palm feels as though it will explode from the heat bubbling under the skin, I push the heat out of me. It hits the camera, melting it in an instant. An acrid smell hangs in the air as the charred, gooey lump falls off its mount.

Maybe that was a bit much.

Ignoring the dead camera, I head into the building and straight to the Administrator’s office. No point in trying to be sneaky. Deshi is expecting me; I don’t want to keep him waiting. Chances are, as soon as that camera melted someone alerted him and the Wardens to my presence. Dread pulses and burrows, but the prolonged adrenaline rush deadens the sensation.

The hallways are dark and strangely eerie with the lack of voices and banging lockers. The cameras I pass along the way melt with a flick of my wrist now. A sense of strong, heady power buzzes in my fingertips. Along the way I experiment with pressure, and by the time I pass through the last doorway just the lens melts, the rest of the camera staying mounted on the wall.

When a Warden steps around the corner we both startle.

I avoid his gaze, having no desire to experience the pain of their brain invasion, and scramble backward. My own feet trip me and I land in a heap.

Panic tingles through my limbs and mixes with adrenaline. Massive knots of tension wind tight inside my every muscle. Instinct I didn’t even know existed until this moment takes over when he bends and grabs me. Before he gets a good grip I plant both feet into his chest and push with all my might.

He flies backward into a row of lockers, taking strands of my hair with him. He hits hard but stays conscious. I shoot to my feet and take three steps over to where he lies.

His arm lashes out at me. I grab his wrist and the world goes black. I see Lucas. His face is bloody and lumpy. His eyes are purple and closed. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. Someone laughs. It sounds like Deshi.

The Warden jerks his arm out of my grasp and the world comes back.

There’s no time to think about what just happened. Surprise colors the Warden’s face; he must have noticed my little foray into his mind. Or into all the Others’ minds, their tunnels. Before he recovers I pick up one foot and smash it into his face.

His head snaps back, cracks against the white linoleum. The crunch of bone and flesh tear through my stomach as he goes still. I should tie him up so he doesn’t come after me, but there’s nothing to bind him with or to.

A kind of trance befalls me, and staring at the flecks of blood and mucus on my dirty tennis shoe fascinates me for several seconds. I shake it off and move again toward the center of the Cell.

No Wardens hang around the outside of the office. They must at least be watching. After all, there’s only one way into that office and it’s through the front door.

This must be the part where I get caught.

CHAPTER 28.

I run the back of my sleeve across my forehead and it comes away soaked through with sweat. Outward calm masks nothing but foreboding. Pure and powerful, it courses through me but doesn’t slow me down as I draw up to the doors.

The cameras on either side of the entrance melt in tandem and I confront the problem of the locks. The door won’t open unless someone inside hits a button. My chemistry book confirmed that glass melts, but only at an extremely hot temperature. I’m afraid to try and push that much heat out through my hands, so I press my entire body against the crack between the doors. With every emotion simmering so close to my surface, it’s never been easier to summon the blinding heat. Fiery warmth oozes out from under my clothes. At first nothing happens.

Then the glass starts to give.

I pull my face away from the superheated doors, afraid they’ll burn me. They don’t. The fact that the heat is generated within me somehow protects my skin and keeps it from melting.

The glass in front of me bends and begins to liquefy. It gives the rest of the way under a firm kick delivered by my bloody shoe. No one appears to stop me when I step through the hole I made, and Lucas is nowhere to be seen. The clear path should relieve me, but instead it has the opposite effect, turning the entire office into an elaborate ambush. Once I go into the back office, there’s only one way out.