Othersphere (11 page)

“Never,” he said. He put his hands over mine and rubbed my arms slowly. I felt their heat, and it moved up my shoulders and neck, flushing my cheeks. “You're the best person I know, Dez,” he said. “Only dictators and crazy people never feel self-doubt.”

“Can I be one of them instead?” I asked.

He laughed, and I leaned into him, resting my cheek on his shoulder, the bridge of my nose against his neck. He'd changed into dry clothes in the car, but I caught the faint scent of chlorine from his smooth skin.

His strong arms enfolded me against his long, muscular body, a cocoon of warmth and safety, a place where I didn't have to prove anything. Where I could rest. The long-held tension in my body relaxed. I felt light and liquid.

“It's going to be okay,” he said softly. One of his hands brushed the hair back from my face.

“Thank you,” I said. “Not just for tonight, but for these past weeks.”

I felt his lips press against my forehead. He'd done that before, the first time on the night Siku died, after Caleb had left and I'd told my biological mother to leave me alone. I'd been so lonely, so scared. Lazar had been there for me.

“Stalwart and true,” I said, my voice muffled against his shirt.

He drew back a little. “What?”

“That's you. Stalwart and true.” I conjured a huge effort and smiled. “And prone to falling into pools.”

His laughter rumbled through his chest. He bent his head down and kissed me.

His lips were warm and soft but slightly hesitant, a bit of reconnaissance to see if the terrain was favorable. One of his hands moved to the back of my neck. He slid his fingers up into my hair, cupping my head. The other hand supported my back, those fingers digging into my side with desire. He was trying not to push me, trying to be respectful of what I'd been through tonight. But he wanted more than just one kiss. I could tell.

An image of Caleb, chin resting on the back of the seat in front of me, flashed into my mind. Then I saw him and Lazar, brothers, using their voices as one to help me to shift, to save me.

Lazar pulled back, trying to sense my reaction. So I mentally told Caleb to go jump off a cliff and leaned in to give Lazar a kiss in return. He smiled, and then my lips opened under his mouth, and all his hesitation vanished. He pulled me in closer, a small groan of desire escaping him. His hipbones pressed against mine, and he half lifted me and pressed me back against the doorjamb, grinding into me. The friction between us blotted out the rest of the world.

It felt so good to be wanted. To forget everything but this. I wanted to pull him down onto one of the beds right there, in spite of November sleeping a few feet away. I wanted to be giddy, to forget everything and just wrap myself around him until my worries, until I, disappeared.

The thought intruded and I couldn't get rid of it. Would he be shocked? Would he lose all respect for me?

And what about Lazar? He and Caleb had worked in unison back on Cherry Drive, in spite of all their enmity. Would my being with Lazar destroy any chance for the brothers to become friends?

Sensing my distraction, Lazar pulled his lips from mine and said, his voice thick as honey, “You okay?”

I glanced over his shoulder, down the hall. “What if someone sees us?”

He took a step back. My feet hit the ground with a thump. His brown eyes were suddenly wary. The places on my body he'd been touching felt cold without him.

“You mean what if Caleb sees us.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but no words came out. Lazar deserved better than a lie.

“I don't know,” I finally said. Not the whole truth, but close enough.

He stood there, staring at me. His thick blond hair was ruffled where I'd run my hands through it. His lips were still reddened from kissing. I straightened my T-shirt hem and the collar of my coat.

Someone was coming down the stairs nearby. I could tell it was London from the sound of her light, loping footfalls.

“I'm an idiot,” Lazar said under his breath, and walked out, down the hall to the boys' dorm room.

London hit the bottom of the stairs, her shoulders slumped with fatigue, and saw me standing alone, half in the doorway. “Arnaldo's pretty close to hacking into Ximon's laptop, but he's so damned tired, he's going in circles now. I told him to go to bed or he'll be useless.”

“Good,” I said.

Sensing something, London gave me a puzzled frown. The door to the boys' dorm room shut hard, and she shot a look down the hall. “What's wrong?”

“How about everything?” I said.

She regarded me, her eyes reflecting back the light from the room behind me like blue mirrors. Her mouth turned down. “November almost died,” she said. “What do you have to complain about?”

“Almost died because of me, you mean,” I said.

She nodded. “Well, yeah. Caleb tried to tell us, didn't he? He said Ximon was probably actually possessed, but you said he was lying.”

She was angry, tired and angry and sick of me messing things up. I didn't know how to defend myself. Or why I should bother. She was right. “Why did you all believe me instead of him?”

She shook her head slowly, pursing her lips as her stare got colder. “I don't know. But I don't think we'll make that mistake again.”

I pushed past her and ran up the stairs. I ran past Arnaldo, yawning as he shut down the laptop on the dining room table. I pounded through the school's gym and out onto the outdoor patio cut into the side of the hill.

The night was still and cold. Dawn had yet to smear the eastern sky with color, but a waxing half-moon glowed over the dark arrows of the treetops. Snow draped blue-white over the dry winter grass, dotted with the hoofprints of elk.

I inhaled deeply, trying to calm myself. The air smelled of pine needles and ice. I walked down the hillside, watching my feet sink a couple of inches into the snow with every step, feeling the Styrofoam-ish crunch of it beneath my sneakers.

Before long I was deep in the woods. I looked back and saw the line of my footprints disappearing into the dark. What if I just kept walking? I had come out like this one night and felt the presence of Othersphere very close. I'd heard a strange music in everything around me, and been greeted by a hare, owl, and bobcat. It had been wonderful. What if I walked straight into Othersphere now and never came back? Maybe everyone would be better off.

Something moved in the darkness. I wasn't alone. I stopped walking and listened. The snow stirred over to my right. Something was breathing. Not an animal. I put my hand on the Shadow Blade, still strapped to my waist, and got ready. If Ximon or Orgoli or some other threat was here, I would do whatever I had to—

Snow spattered off a tree trunk about twenty yards in front of me. I blinked. That looked like a . . .

More snow slamming against the exact same spot. A ball of white flew through the air and clunked against the tree trunk, higher this time.

I took my hand off the Blade and strode toward the tall form in black I now saw through the bare branches, stooping to gather snow in his gloved hands, packing it into a ball and raising it to throw—

“A little low that time,” I said.

Caleb whirled, another snowball in his hand, raised and ready to hurl.

“Besides, what did that tree ever do to you?”

He lowered his arm. “It's there, isn't it?”

I scooped up some snow in my bare hands and cupped it back and forth to form a ball. “Fair enough.”

I turned and threw my snowball. It smashed into the exact spot Caleb's first throw had hit. Cat-shifter strength and coordination for the win.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, tossing his snowball a foot in the air and then catching it.

“Shopping,” I said.

He breathed a short laugh and flung his snowball. It hit dead center in the tree trunk.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Other than killing trees.”

“Better than killing something else,” he said, and dug up more snow.

I bent and grabbed more snow. “Killing's overrated.”

He looked up at me. “Maybe.”

“Killing is easy.” I threw my snowball, but it went wide, missing the tree trunk completely. “Forgiveness is hard.”

He stood there, packing his snowball, his expression derisive. “Not everyone deserves to be forgiven.”

My fingers were freezing. “You don't forgive them because they deserve it,” I said. “You forgive them because you deserve to live free of anger.”

He tossed the snowball in the air. “Do I deserve that? I don't know. I let my mother go out alone to be shot and killed, when I should've known better. I let Siku and November fight way too many objurers all on their own. I let Siku die.”

I rubbed my hands together. “You're right. Forgiveness is crap. Take the easy way out and run away.”

His hands stopped moving. “You think it was
easy
for me to leave you? You think it didn't rip me to goddamn shreds to turn around and go away after Siku died? To leave November? To say good-bye to my sister and the school, and . . .”

“Yet somehow you managed.” I was starting to shiver from the cold. “Somehow you deserted everyone who loved you because your ego had been bruised, because I'm just so awful, such a liar. . . .”

“I had to leave—or I would have killed him!” Caleb turned and heaved the snowball with all his might at the tree. It caught a branch, snapping it off with a crack.

“Who? Lazar?”

He said nothing. He stared off at the broken branch, his breath steaming around him.

“Is that your answer to everything? To kill?” I circled around to face him. “You wanted to kill everyone in the Tribunal for a while, and you sure as hell want Ximon dead, and now Lazar? Killing won't bring your mother back.”

“She'll rest easier in her grave.” He lifted his head, dark eyes glittering with fury.

“You mean you'll rest easier,” I said. “You think your dreams will be happier once you kill the boy who killed your mother. You don't give a shit about anything else.”

“But you care.” He took two steps toward me, pulled by anger. “You cared more about him than you did about me, about our relationship. You lied to me
for him
!”

“I had my reasons!” My voice was as loud as his now. “I told you I had reasons for trusting Lazar, but that wasn't enough.”

He leaned in, black eyes narrowed. “You were asking me to trust the boy who shot my mother. On your word alone.”

“That should've been enough for you!” Anger was warming me up. Could I go for more than five minutes without being blamed for everything? I took my hands out of my pockets and pointed at him. “Your hatred for him was greater than your trust in me. Your hatred is the most important thing in your life.”

Caleb shook his head, also fuming. “You knew my reasons for distrusting him—my very good reasons. But you wouldn't tell me your reasons to trust him. He's a manipulator, Dez. A murderer. Whatever he told you, how could you be so sure he wasn't lying to you?”

“He wouldn't lie, not about this,” I said. I could still remember how Lazar had reluctantly, tonelessly told me how his father had tortured and abused him. How when, one night when Lazar's cancer-ridden mother couldn't stand the pain any more, twelve-year-old Lazar had tried to drive her to a hospital. Only to have the car fall into one of his father's traps. Only to have Ximon beat Lazar till his bones broke, then put a gun in Lazar's hand, point it at Lazar's dying mother, and force Lazar to pull the trigger.

Thinking about it still gave me chills. After that, Lazar became a killing machine at his father's bidding. He hadn't thought it mattered anymore. He'd already lost his soul. Seeing his sister escape from their father had given him hope. I couldn't deny it to him.

“You still don't know,” Caleb said. He took two more steps toward me, lowering his voice, as if someone out here in the woods at four a.m. might overhear us. “He could be playing a very long con with us, luring everyone here into trusting him, waiting until the Tribunal is rearmed and ready to pounce . . .”

“Oh, my God.” I lifted my hands helplessly. “You are paranoid.”

“The Tribunal really is out to get us, Dez,” he said. “You led a sheltered life until recently. That's why you fell for Ximon's long con to lure us to his particle accelerator.”

“I know!” Tears threatened to spill from my eyes when I remembered the consequences of falling for that trick. “Don't you think I remember? But Lazar didn't know about that trap. Ximon tricked him right along with the rest of us.”

Caleb got right in my face. “How can you be so sure?”

I flashed on the look on Lazar's face when he gazed at me. How his hands felt when he touched me. The longing in his kisses. “I just am, okay?”

Caleb's black gaze was traveling over my face. He leaned in and hummed, low and menacing. “What have you been doing? His vibration—it's all over you.”

I flinched back, my cheeks coloring.

Gold sparked fire in his eyes. “You can trust him because he's in love with you, isn't that it? Because he's in your thrall, and you're . . . you're in love with him.”

He turned, long coat flying like black wings behind him as he strode away.

I ran a few steps after him. “What do you care? You broke up with me, remember?”