Sea of Stars (23 page)

I shouldn’t be happy; I know that. The entire world is one big series of scary events, but right now, at this moment, I’m having a hard time focusing on all that. I just want to live in this moment—in these seconds—with Trey. I know it’s wrong. I know when it ends there will be no soft landing.

In no time at all, all the gear is unloaded from the hovercycles. Dusk is quickly turning to darkness when Trey joins me. “Wayra and I are going to gather the transport. It shouldn’t take long.”

I lose any hint of a smile I had. “What? You’re leaving?”

“I’ll be back in less than a part.”

“Where are you going?” I ask.

He leads me to the mouth of the smaller tunnel once more. “You see the roof of that building over there?” he asks.

I nod, fear turning my stomach. “Yeah. It looks like a barn of some kind.”

“Wayra, Fenton, and I are going there to gather spixes. I know the owner. I’ve worked with him for many floans—he’s a family friend. We’ll bring the spixes back here, load up the gear, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Ohh . . . no. No, no.” I shake my head. “That’s not a good plan.” I clutch his forearm. “We need a trift—or a skiff. Spixes are unpredictable. You can’t just put fuel in them to make them go.”

Trey smiles like I made a joke, but I’m completely serious. “Kricket, no technology means the Alameeda can’t find us easily. That’s why we were so successful at avoiding them in the Forest of O. We didn’t use anything they could track. It will be nearly impossible to hide from them as it is. They can employ aircraft and satellites at will here.”

Everything he is saying is true. “Okay,” I agree, “that makes sense. I’ll help—I’ll go with you.”

“Wayra, give me a fleat,” Trey says to the waiting Cavars. Leading me away from the opening, he takes me to a quiet place by the hovercycles. Raising his eyebrow in a questioning look, he asks, “I need you to stay here while I do this. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because we always stay together.”

“There are going to be instances where it will be better to have you remain in a safe place while I scout ahead. Are we going to have an argument every time something like this comes up?”

I point my finger at him. “Don’t make me sound like a crazy, clingy girlfriend,” I retort. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“Kricket, just listen to me. Stay here. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in less than a part.”

He turns and walks toward where Wayra and Fenton are waiting for him. I panic.
Don’t go!
I think, wringing my hands. “I wish I knew if it was safe,” I whisper.

My breath turns to ice as my body turns to fire. I try hard, but I can’t stay on my feet. It’s almost like the floor raises to hit me in the cheek; blood spits out of my mouth and from above my body. I watch Trey run back to me and pick me up in his arms.

When I return to my body, I’m dead cold. Gasping for air, my head aches and my cheek throbs. Tasting blood in my mouth, I’m fairly certain that I’ll never be warm again.

“Kricket.” Trey shakes me lightly, trying to get my attention.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie. I feel like I almost died. “It’s okay to go get the spixes now. You were right, it was safe—it is safe—whatever.” I hold my head, because even a hangover would be better than this.

“Do you mean to tell me that you just forced yourself into the future to make sure that it was safe to go to that barn just over there?”

“Yeah—and I know you’re mad now, but—”

“I’m not mad. I’m furious. Why would you hurt yourself like that when I already knew that this task was a minimal risk?”

“Well, now we know to a greater degree of certainty that it’s safe.”

He looks so angry that if there were nails to be chewed, he could do it. He lifts my head off the pillow of his thigh and rests me on the ground with my head upon a balled-up shirt. He places a blanket over me before he straightens. “Jax,” he growls.

“Sir,” Jax says by his side.

“Make sure she’s okay,” he orders.

“Yes, sir,” Jax says.

Trey doesn’t look at me as he moves away toward the exit again. I call out to him, “I’m sorry too.”

He whips around, looking like he has never been this angry in his entire life, not even when I put a znou near my ear in the Forest of O. “I didn’t apologize!” he barks in frustration.

“I know,” I say weakly, “but you’re going to get to the barn and you’re going to feel really bad about being a total knob knocker to me right now, and then you’re going to apologize to the future me that you know is there watching you. Err . . . or is she the past me now?”

He turns around abruptly, striding out of the tunnel and into the night.

Jax crouches down next to me. He checks my pulse the old-fashioned way: by holding my wrist. “That was a bit unnecessary,” he observes.

“This time,” I say in a way that lets him know I’m not above doing it again if any of them pushes me.

“Was it worth it, though? You stayed away way too long, Kricket. I thought you were going to stop breathing—so did Trey. If you gave it a few more fleats, you might not have been able to return to your body, even if you wanted to. It was that bad.”

“I had to make sure he wasn’t walking into anything,” I reply stubbornly.

“This is a gift for sure, Kricket,” Jax says quietly, examining my cheek. “But if you abuse it, it could become a curse—or your end.”

I drop my eyes from his.

“You may have a concussion, and this is going to bruise,” Jax says, rubbing his thumb gently over my swollen cheek.

“No it won’t,” I mutter. “Cut my hair.”

“Excuse me?” Jax asks, like he didn’t hear me right.

“Do you have some scissors?” I ask him.

“You want to cut your hair? Now?” He looks as if he thinks I’ve lost my mind.

When I nod, he gets up from the floor and goes to his medical pack. He comes back with a pair of very sharp scissors. I sit up, but I almost have to lie back down again from dizziness. It takes me a second to focus enough so that I can take the scissors from Jax’s grasp.

He’s gravely concerned about what I’m about to do. “Trey might get angry with me for letting you cut your hair. He seems to really like it the way it is. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’ll grow back.”

His anxiety grows as I put the blades to the back of my head and gather a large handful of my hair. “Sure it’ll grow back,” he argues, seeing how short I intend to cut it. “But wouldn’t it be better to wait until you can have a professional do it—you may not be happy with the results when you—”

I snip off a large section of my hair; Jax winces. As I pull my shorn locks away, they turn black and curl up into dust. New hair springs from my scalp, extending down my back to fall to about the same length as before. Jax’s mouth hangs open.

“I’m sort of a freak,” I explain with a grimace, but I can’t regret showing him because I immediately feel better. The dizziness is receding. He takes the scissors from my hand, using them to cut off another section of my hair. When it regrows, he cuts more off with the same result.

After a few minutes of cutting, Jax grasps my chin in his hands, turning my face so that he can get a better look at the bruise on my cheek—or should I say, the lack of a bruise on my face. It healed much faster than the ones I had before, probably because there’s only one this time and no broken ribs. “This is—this is—you are—”

“—monstrous,” I fill in the blank for him.

His grasp on my chin grows tighter. “No!” He sounds almost angry. “You are without a doubt the most amazing Etharian I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”

“Thanks, Jax.” I try to smile.

“You’re a genetic enigma.”

“That I am,” I agree. He lets go of my face, allowing me to stand with his hand beneath my elbow for support, but I don’t need it. I feel fine, just really thirsty. “Do you have some water, Jax?”

“I do. I’ll get it for you.” When he returns, he hands me the water canteen. We talk about the first time I had my hair cut on Earth, how my foster mother nearly lost her mind over it.

“Does Trey know?” Jax asks.

I shrug. We lean against the cement tunnel wall together, out of the way from where the other Cavars are waiting by the exit. “Well, I told him on the way here about everything that happened to me after we were separated from each other. But, I don’t think he actually
knows
. It’s a little hard to explain it to someone. Seeing it happen kind of brings it all home, though, doesn’t it?” I ask him.

“It does,” he agrees. “Do you know how it—” Jax is distracted by the nickering of spixes outside. It means that Trey, Wayra, and Fenton have returned from the barn. Jax pushes away from the wall. “I need to go pack my gear onto my spix. We can talk about this later. It’s a long journey and we have to get going soon.”

I nod my head. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll be along in a minute. I’m just going to braid my hair.”

“Don’t be long. You’re already on the naughty list,” he jokes.

“There’s a naughty list? And I’m on it?” I ask as if scandalized.

“You own that list,” he says with a smirk.

As he walks away, I mutter, “Oh, Jax, that I do.”

Swiftly plaiting my hair, I warily watch Trey when he enters the tunnel from outside. He doesn’t see me right away, searching instead the place where he’d left me on the floor. As I finish my braid, I knot the end of it.

I move to where I’d left my bag earlier. Trey meets me near it. “You were right,” he says, reaching out to pull me into his arms for a hug. “I do feel really bad about being a total knob knocker.”

“I know. You said that in your other apology.”

“I’ve been so worried about you.”

I rest my upturned chin against his chest, looking up at his face. “I know you have. You told me that while you were saddling the spixes—you saw me hit my head and you saw me almost stop breathing. Over nothing, as it turns out.”

He takes a closer look at me, his hand stilling on my cheek where it had been swollen only a few minutes ago. Confusion clouds his eyes. “You hit your head—there was blood—”

“Remember when I mentioned that cutting my hair causes my body to regenerate cells at a faster rate than normal?”

He nods his head. “I remember.”

“I had Jax cut my hair.”

Trey’s fingers stroke my cheek for a few moments. Then, he leans down and brushes his lips to where I was hurt. “Is there anything you can’t do?” he asks me softly.

“I can’t swim,” I remind him. He kisses me again. “I’m glad you’re not mad at me anymore. I’m sorry—I wasn’t trying to be a lurker. It’s just that I’m not used to needing someone. I don’t know how to handle it.”

“You weren’t being a lurker. Our circumstances here are extreme. I want you to need me. I don’t ever want you to stop needing me.” He kisses me; my insides warm as if I’m drinking sunshine.

“Gennet, we’re loaded,” Wayra says from the exit to the pasture.

Trey and I both become aware of where we are once more. He takes my hand and leads me outside. I take off my night-vision glasses and follow him blindly, gazing at the stars. They’re far away again, not like they were when I was on the Ship of Skye. The king and queen moons are holding court among them.

I put my glasses back on while Trey helps me mount a spix. He joins me on its back, sitting behind me. I raise my eyebrows to him. “Is your riding with me a commentary on my equestrian abilities?” I ask him.

“Maybe, but secretly I’m always looking for any excuse to have you this close to me.” It’s not a lie, which causes me to grin like an idiot. “What shall we name this spix?”

“Honey Badger,” I reply.

“Why?” I can tell that he doesn’t know what that is. Maybe they don’t exist here.

“Because the honey badger is fearless.”

Wayra hands Trey a blanket made from the camouflage fabric that I was used to seeing them wear when they were in the Forest of O. Trey unfolds it, wrapping it around himself and covering me with it. I’m grateful for the heat it’s giving me. The weather has become decidedly colder than what I’m used to here. The shield that once covered the area is now down, allowing the natural climate to assert itself upon us.

“This will block our heat signature. If Alameeda ships do a flyover, they’ll just see a group of riderless spixes.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

Trey leans near my ear, being deliberately quiet. I think he’s worried that one or more of the supernatural priestesses are somehow listening. “There are spix stables and training lodges several rotations, journey from here. It’s rural and close to the border of the Forest of Omnicron. That’s where we’re headed.”

“Is it in the Valley of Thistle?” I ask. I’ve been curious about where Trey grew up since I made up our fake commitment ceremony to fool the Comantre soldiers.

“No. It’s south of there. We can’t go to Thistle. Kyon will have patrols there searching for you.”

“Your family!” I say in a startled tone. The spix becomes restless, throwing its head back a couple of times and scaring me more with its wicked-sharp horns.

Trey makes hushing noises, settling the spix. “They’re already gone from Thistle. If all goes well, they’ll meet us at the lodges.”