Fates

14

By the time Lucas and Corinthe reached the mountain pass, the suns had sunk low in the sky.

Luc was having trouble judging how long they’d been walking and how much time had elapsed since he had woken on the beach. His phone was still no help. Not that he was expecting reception here … wherever here was.

The intense heat of the two suns morphed rapidly into a profound chill as both suns began to set, one just ahead of the other. Rocks quickly became dark shapes against the blazing sky above them, and the narrow mountain trail grew dimmer and harder to follow with each passing minute.

Overhead, the stars began to glimmer out of the deep darkness. Luc searched for constellations he knew—searched for Andromeda, Jas’s favorite constellation. When he picked out the cluster of stars in the inky sky above them, a deep comfort settled into his bones and he somehow felt closer to his sister.

Luc understood now why Corinthe had said she needed him. She was obviously weak, though she was trying to conceal it. For the past hour, she had stumbled often, leaning on him frequently.

His own strength was rapidly waning. He hadn’t eaten or slept since the night before, and he had taken only a few sips of water, from the canteen Rhys had packed for them. His feet were so heavy, it took a huge effort to keep lifting them.

He didn’t want to stop, but stumbling over unfamiliar paths in the pitch-black would be crazy. So far, they hadn’t seen any signs of animals, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any; and the path was so steep, one misstep could send him hurtling down a rock cliff to a broken neck.

“Let’s stop here for the night,” Luc said. There was a small copse just off the path, in an area relatively flat and sheltered from the wind by a series of overhanging rocks. They could start a fire and stay warm.

Rocks.

Sticks.

Firewood.

He mentally checked off what he needed to gather. Back before, Dad used to take him camping at Big Sur, just the two of them. Luc loved those weekends. No Jas. No Mom. Just the guys. They’d set up the tent, roast hot dogs over an open fire, and finish the night with hot chocolate. Luc had only been a little kid at the time, but his dad had shown him what to do—taught him how to survive if he ever got lost. It had just seemed like a game to Luc.

Luc felt a twist in his stomach. He wondered whether he’d ever see his dad again. He wondered whether his dad knew how much he’d enjoyed those weekends.

Luc shivered. The temperature had plummeted. “Wait here, okay? I’m going to gather some firewood.”

Corinthe nodded. She dropped the pack Rhys had given them and sat down obediently, pulling her knees to her chest. Her long blond hair was a tangled mess, hanging down her back, and her jeans were splattered with red mud. But there was still color in her cheeks, and her eyes were alert.

There were still moments when he hoped—when he prayed—that this was all part of some long, screwed-up dream. He’d wake up in his warm bed, with the sun coming through his window and landing on the piles of crap all over his desk, creeping up the walls and making his old soccer posters glow. Jasmine would be sleeping soundly in her room, one arm flung across her eyes.

But that was the problem: he wasn’t waking up.

He pulled on his sweatshirt to fight the chill, wishing he hadn’t lost his Giants cap on the rooftop back in San Francisco. Rhys said it would be cold, but Luc had a feeling that frigid was more accurate. Every time he exhaled, his breath crystallized. He knew Corinthe must be freezing, not that he should care.

“I’ll be back.” Luc knew he didn’t have much time. The two suns were sitting perilously close to the horizon, like overripe peaches ready to fall from some invisible branch.

They needed to get a fire started or they would literally freeze to death overnight.

He cut through the trees and quickly lost sight of Corinthe. He didn’t want to go too far, since the light was fading fast. He gathered whatever he could find on the ground—some twigs and what looked like dry pine needles, except a silvery-gray color and much longer—and managed to break off a few low-hanging branches. Even so, by the time he was done, the suns were completely gone.

Now he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He could only barely make out the white glow of his sneakers.

He spun in a tight circle, completely disoriented. Which way was it? He hadn’t gone too far. He must be close.

“Corinthe?” he called out. No answer except a distant howl that drifted through the darkness.

Shit. Howls meant wolves and coyotes and other animals with teeth. Or some unusual predator he’d never seen before, fit only for this strange landscape.

He took a few steps and nearly tripped over a portion of underbrush. Stopped, inhaled, and listened. The wind had picked up; branches clacked together, arrhythmic, taunting.

He stomped his feet to keep the blood circulating. It got cold in San Francisco, but not like this. It had started to seep down into his bones, chilling him from the inside out.

“Corinthe!” He tried again. It occurred to him that maybe she’d just leave him out here to die. But no. She needed him. She was the one who would likely freeze without his help.

“Luc?”

The faint cry came from somewhere to his left. He inched toward the sound, stepping carefully so he wouldn’t trip. This was how Rhys lived all the time, Luc suddenly realized: in total darkness. How did he do it? Luc’s heart was drumming in his throat. He kept having visions of a sudden plummet down a steep hill.

And then, all at once, the sky lightened. Luc watched a covering of clouds break apart, and two crescent-shaped moons were suddenly visible over the peak of the rocks. He exhaled.

The campsite was only a few feet in front of him.

Corinthe huddled against the back of the rocky shelter, her arms wrapped around her knees. Even from a distance, he could see that she was shaking. He lowered the bundle of sticks he’d collected.

The way Corinthe looked—so small, so pathetic and afraid—reminded Luc of the first time Jas had gone off her meds. For two straight days she’d stayed up, talking a mile a minute, trying to wallpaper her room with old magazine covers. Then she’d crashed: Luc had found her curled in a corner, shivering, her fingers stained with paint and ink, the room stinking of glue and only half papered. As he sat with her, trying to coax her to her feet and to the doctor, the magazine covers kept detaching from the wall and sliding down around their heads, like some weird shedding.

The memory brought back a heavy surge of feeling: he was gripped with helplessness and grief.

“Corinthe,” he said. She didn’t answer. He went a little closer, cautiously—he still didn’t trust her. Christ, she looked cold. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were purple. Her breathing sounded shallow and slow. Not a good sign.

“Hey, Corinthe.” He squatted so that he was level with her. She didn’t wake up. After hesitating for a second, he reached out and began to rub her arms.

Instantly, her eyes flew open. She let out a cry—of anger or surprise, he couldn’t tell. He pulled away. He felt like an idiot.

“Hang in there,” he said. He was glad, at least, that it was dark enough to conceal his blushing. “I’m going to get a fire started.”

He stacked a dozen smaller branches into a neat tepee shape, just like his father taught him so many years ago, then reached into his pocket. The bright pink lighter belonged to Jas. He’d taken it from the wobbly kitchen table the morning after their talk, hoping she’d stop smoking if she couldn’t find it. It was a stupid thing to do, totally irrational. She would have just bought a new one at the corner deli. It had been an impulse—powerful, deeper than words—like the time when Charlie Halley had called Jasmine a freak in fifth grade and Luc had punched him.

Love was irrational. Luc knew that. His dad knew that, too.

He wouldn’t think of Jas ensnared in that horrible growth; he wouldn’t think of Blood Nymphs or blood forests or blood anything. He would only think of finding her.

It took him a while to get the lighter to work. Finally, tiny flames licked at the dry sticks, catching and spreading quickly. He fed the fire more branches, watched the light grow gradually higher, felt the heat ever so subtly begin to emanate. Slow and steady. If he piled too many branches at once, he’d smother the flames and the fire would go out. Though he’d been too young on their old camping trips to actually build a fire himself, he’d helped his dad do it several times—had studied him closely. As a kid, he’d always been like that: an observer. He watched people. He noticed the little things.

How’s it look, Dad? I did it myself this time.

I’ve never seen a better fire, Luc.

He stood up. The fire was good now, strong and hot. He stared at the flames for a while, allowed the warmth to flow through his chest, burn up his memories, turn them to ash. No point in hanging on.

Corinthe had fallen asleep again, curled up against the stone. He eased down next to her.

“Corinthe,” he said. “You have to stay awake until you’re warm.” He tried to ignore the strange desire to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair. When she didn’t respond, he took off his jacket and draped it over her like a blanket. “Corinthe.”

She moaned softly when he shook her. Still she didn’t wake up. Fear began to gnaw at him. If she was too sick, if she didn’t wake up …

Would he be able to save Jas without her help?

Gently, he reached out and eased her up and into his arms, pulling her onto his lap, keeping her wrapped in his jacket, rubbing her arms and shoulders. For a second, her head lolled heavily against his, and he could smell her breath. Flowers.

She smelled like flowers.

Then she stirred and shifted in his arms. He knew the moment she became aware of him. Her body tensed and she let out a startled cry, half turning in his lap. Her hands found his chest. Her eyes were huge and silvery in the moonlight.

Luc couldn’t breathe.

“I—I was trying to keep you warm.” His voice sounded distant, unfamiliar, as if someone else were speaking.

For one long second—time enough for him to think about kissing her, about bringing her closer to his chest, running his hands down her back and through the wild tangle of her hair—they stared at each other.

Then Corinthe pulled away, shifting off his lap. “What happened?” she asked.

He felt dizzy and—since he had given her his jacket—cold. And yet, weirdly, there was a wild heat racing through his veins. He stood up and moved toward the fire.

“You fell asleep. You were freezing.” He squatted and stoked the fire, trying to avoid looking at her.

But she came and sat next to him. The color was returning to her skin, and her lips weren’t blue anymore. “You did this?”

“Yeah.” Luc leaned back on his heels, watching the flames twist up toward the sky.

“How?” Corinthe asked.

He glanced at her quickly to see whether she was making fun of him; but she actually looked interested. “My dad used to take me camping,” he said. He didn’t like to talk about his family—had never talked about them with Karen, if he could avoid it—but here, in this crazy world, with two moons hanging above them, it didn’t seem so bad.

“Dad,” Corinthe repeated, as though she’d never heard the word. Then, abruptly: “Did you like it?”

Her question took him off guard.

“I did,” he said slowly. “I loved it.” He tossed a couple more pieces of wood on the fire, and for a while, he and Corinthe sat in silence. Luc didn’t know why, but he felt oddly comfortable sitting with her in the cold and the dark.

“This one time, we hiked ten miles to these hot springs Dad wanted to see,” Luc said suddenly. The memory had only just returned to him. “It took all day to get there because I was just a little kid and had to keep stopping for breaks. I was really pissed at him because he made me carry my own pack. He kept saying, ‘Trust me. It’s worth it.’ ”

Luc paused. He could practically smell that forest; the creeper moss and loamy earth, the smell of animals and growth, and that thick lemon sports drink he always chugged when they went camping.

“Was it?” Corinthe asked.

“What?” He had almost forgotten she was there.

“Was the hike worth it?”

He smiled. It felt like forever since he’d smiled. “Yeah, it was.”

Corinthe moved a little closer. Luc was suddenly hyperaware of the space between them: barely an inch separated their arms. “Do you still go camping together?”

“Nah, it’s been forever. Since my mom left.” The words came out before he could stop them. He’d never told anyone about his mother. Only he, Jas, and their dad knew the truth.

“What happened?” Corinthe hugged her knees to her chest, brushing his arm accidentally with one hand. Her fingers were so small, so delicate, her unpolished nails like little seashells. He wanted to curl his fingers around hers until this stupid burning in his chest stopped. Corinthe said, “You don’t want to tell me. That’s okay.”

Luc sucked in a deep breath. That was the problem. He did want to. “We thought she would come back,” he blurted out, and immediately felt like screaming. No, his voice felt raw, burnt, as though he had been screaming the entire time—the full ten years since she’d left. That was the sad, pathetic truth. That for years after she walked out, Luc, his dad, even Jas—they’d all believed she would come home. For four years Luc had worn the sweater she’d given him for Christmas to school every year on picture day, even after it was far too small, in case she came home suddenly and wanted to frame his photos.

Luc had been only seven when she left, but he remembered the day perfectly.

“Be right back,” she had said, looping her ratty leather bag onto her arm, sparking up a cigarette. The cloying scent of clove lingered in the air for days after she was gone.

He’d watched her walk down the porch steps; her yellow cotton dress looked dingy in the sun. Her dark hair, streaked with old highlights, was pulled into a messy ponytail.

She glanced over her shoulder one last time, but she didn’t wave.

He and Jas had waited hours for her to come back.

Eventually, Jas had gotten hungry. She sat in the middle of the playroom crying. Luc went to the cupboard—he knew Jasmine loved graham crackers, but they were too high up to reach. Climbing on the counter was not allowed, so he used the broom handle to knock the box from the shelf. When the box hit the floor, crackers scattered, broken, across the kitchen tiles.

Little fuzzy-haired Jasmine sat down in her footie pj’s and started eating the graham crackers straight off the floor. After a moment, Luc joined her and started to reassemble the pieces, like a puzzle. She laughed at the new game and together they spent the afternoon right there on the linoleum.

When his father got home that night and found them still alone, found the money in the canning jar gone, it was as though he, too, vanished.

“She died.” He’d never said those words. “My mom died.” His eyes stung. Smoke.

Corinthe sat so quietly he thought maybe she hadn’t heard. Then she reached out, very slowly, and laid her hand on his. They were warm now, and Luc swallowed against the lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said haltingly, as though these words, too, were unfamiliar.

Luc cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, shit happens.” He detached his hand from hers, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “So what about you? Mother? Father? Sisters and brothers?”

Corinthe shook her head. “We have no family,” Corinthe said. “I did have sisters, but it was different from in your world.” Corinthe bit her lip. “Still, I miss them.”

Your world. The words reminded Luc that Corinthe was different; that he didn’t know what she was. He wanted to ask her to explain but he found he couldn’t. He was almost afraid of what she might say. He wasn’t ready to hear her speak the words: she wasn’t human.

But he understood, too, that he and Corinthe had one thing in common: Corinthe wanted to go home. She wanted to go back. Luc knew the feeling.

“So why did you leave?” Luc asked,

“I didn’t leave. I … I made a mistake.” Her voice cracked and he had to strain to hear it over the crackling fire. She looked so lost all of a sudden. He wanted to put his arms around her and keep her safe.

“What kind of mistake?” he asked instead.

She looked at him quickly, then looked back at the fire. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Luc had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Try me,” he said. He knew all about mistakes. God, look at his mother. His sister. Hell, even he had more than his share of screwups. The first year at Bay Sun, he almost got kicked off the team. The opponent’s right fielder had tripped him—deliberately, Luc was sure of it—and all of a sudden he’d been filled with a blind rage. He didn’t even know what he was doing, didn’t remember anything until Coach was hauling him backward and he saw that the other guy’s nose was bloody.

“I did something no one else had done before. Something terrible.” She shifted again. Now their knees and thighs were touching. He had that insane urge to put his arm around her, but he didn’t have the excuse this time. She wasn’t shivering anymore.

He settled for leaning back a little and resting his arm just behind her, enough that he could feel the heat from her body and shield her from the cold. There was that smell again. Flowers. It seemed to be getting stronger, seemed that as she got warmer, her skin exhaled it.

“So what?” Luc said. “They … like, kicked you out or something?”

Corinthe nodded. He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he prompted, “So why do you want to go back so bad?”

She turned her head to look at him. A fine line had appeared between her eyebrows. “It’s … safe. Everywhere else hurts.” She frowned, and he could tell she was having trouble putting her feelings into words. “When I first came to Humana … to Earth … I hurt all the time. Now it’s more of an ache. But in Pyralis I feel right, and warm. Like I belong.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s my home.”

Home. Just that word started a slow ache in his stomach. How many times had he wished he could go home, back to how it used to be? When he was younger, he’d bury his head in his pillow and shout until his throat was raw, but it never changed anything.

Luc rubbed his forehead. He was trying to make the pieces of Corinthe’s story slot together. “And to get back there, you have to … do certain things? Is that it?”

Again, Corinthe nodded. She picked up a handful of those strange pine needles, and fed them one by one into the fire.

Luc licked his lips. He was closer to understanding but wasn’t sure he wanted to. “Like kill people?” Must be a real nice place to live.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” she said fiercely. “I just … I help. I make accidents. What you would call accidents, anyway. Coincidences. And chance events.”

Luc thought of how he had first seen her: the car, the woman slumped on the steering wheel, the way she had run. As the meaning behind her words sank in, he felt as if he might be sick. He closed his eyes and reopened them. “You tried to kill me,” he said.

“This is the first time I’ve been tasked with a killing,” she said, and for a moment, she looked troubled. No. More than that. Angry.

“Why? I’m not that important, so why kill me?”

Corinthe slid her hand away and tucked it into her lap. “I don’t know why.”

“If you don’t know why, how can you just do it?” It would be like dribbling the ball down the field as fast as he could, with the goal nowhere in sight. What was the point? “How can you follow orders if you don’t understand them?”

“The point is not to understand,” she said simply. “The point is that it needs to happen. It’s fated.”

“Was that woman in the car a task?” He braced himself for the answer.

“Yes.”

He was glad that she had admitted it. It was a relief, in a weird way. And something else became clear to him. At Karen’s party, she’d been so determined on the boat, as if she knew exactly where to go. She’d been talking to Mike, too. He’d seen her.

“You set up Karen and Mike, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, softer this time. “I am sorry about that.”

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The thing was, he wasn’t really mad about it.

“I’ve done good things, too,” Corinthe said. “Beautiful things. Births and meetings and discoveries … I’ve given people happiness. Your people.”

“What about you?” Luc asked, without knowing where the question came from. “Have you been happy?”

Corinthe turned to him. The question had obviously surprised her. The fire lit up crazy colors in her eyes—threads of silver and gold, that wild violet color—and for a second, he felt as if he was consumed by her eyes, lost in them.

“I … I don’t know,” she responded in a whisper. “I’ve never thought about it.”

She looked totally vulnerable, totally lost. Alone in the universe. The phrase occurred to Luc suddenly, and he didn’t know where it came from. Unthinkingly, he reached out and pulled her hand back into his.

It felt good to touch her.

Too good. He felt a surge of energy, and he lost his breath, as though he’d been running sprints for an hour. The world around them seemed to swirl away. There was only her: her eyes, her smell, the softness of her lips. Her skin burned under his fingers, and after a second’s hesitation, she leaned into his touch and closed her eyes. He brought his other hand to her waist; he could feel the soft line of flesh just above her jeans.

They were both breathing hard. Heat radiated between them. Corinthe hesitated, then walked her fingertips over his cheekbones, to his jaw, to his neck.

“I’ve never … ,” she said.

“Never what?” He could hardly breathe. He would die if he couldn’t kiss her.

She shook her head. Then her expression relaxed, and she smiled. She leaned in closer, and simply laid her head in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

He hooked one arm under her legs and shifted her until she was cradled in his lap. She rested one hand on his chest, right over his heart. He didn’t want to move, was afraid she’d pull away. Wanted to go further and didn’t want to, too.

They’d been so close to … what? What the hell was he doing? He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

She kept slipping under his skin in small ways, making him forget who she was. At Rhys’s house, she had brushed against his arm and sent his body on high alert. She probably didn’t even know she had an effect on him, but he knew it every time she got near him.

At the same time, he wasn’t at all sure he could trust her. She’d tried to kill him. She’d led him into this mess in the first place.

That horrible image of Jasmine resurfaced in his mind: trapped in that awful flower, ensnared by the snaking vines. A wave of guilt overpowered him.

“Corinthe?”

She lifted her head. He pulled back a few inches so he wouldn’t have to stare into those eyes—the eyes that made him forget who he was and what he was doing.

“I need to see Jasmine. I need to know she’s okay.”

Corinthe didn’t hesitate. She carefully scooted an arm’s length away and picked up the backpack Rhys had given them. In it was a flask of water. “Hold out your hands, like a cup.”

He did. She poured out a stream of cold water. He knew he might need the water later, might regret using it for this purpose, but Jasmine was all that mattered right now.

Corinthe reached behind him and extracted the knife from his pocket, keeping her eyes locked on his. His breath hitched. She had the knife now. But she was so weak her hands trembled. There was no way she could kill him, even if she wanted to.

She merely pricked the end of her finger, and carefully, deliberately, she set the knife back down beside him. She held her hand over his and allowed a drop of her blood to spill into the water.

She cupped her hands under his. His skin tingled as if a small electric charge flowed from her to him. He stared at the surface of the water, but nothing happened.

Beads of sweat broke out on Corinthe’s forehead, and her breathing became ragged.

The water rippled like a tiny lake in his hands, and finally, a wavy image of Jasmine appeared. She still lay inside the flower, but already he could see the changes in her. His stomach twisted. Thick veins were visible under her blue-tinged skin.

Corinthe cried out and slumped forward. Luc let the water run out between his fingers and caught her before she fell to the ground.

Her body was shaking. She felt cold under his touch.

“Corinthe?” His pulse pounded in his ears with a dull thumping beat. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her arms vigorously.

Her eyes fluttered open. Slowly, they focused on him. She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was difficult to find her.”

Dread seeped under his skin. “That’s not good, is it?”

“I can connect with living things, but …” She didn’t have to finish for him to know what she meant.

Jas was dying.

Luc wanted to jump up and hike down the mountain in the dark right that second. Wanted to tear apart the whole universe until he found her. But he knew that would be idiotic—a death trap. And his arms were like lead. He hadn’t slept for almost two days. A few hours was all he needed.

Then he would find her. He would find her and save her.

No matter what.