Stitching Snow (6 page)

Something about Dane made me feel very
out
of control.

I stood by my initial assessment. He was terrifying. I had to get him out of Forty-Two and get things back to normal. Soon.

I ran through my mental checklist of systems that still needed to be patched and found it wasn’t as long as I’d feared.

I’d send all the drones—other than Dimwit—to the mines the next day so I could focus on the computer subsystems. Another couple of days, maybe three, and Dane would be gone. I’d settle back into my routine. That assurance fi nally lulled me to sleep.

A scraping noise jerked me awake.

The door.
I’d been in a hurry to get into the lab and lose myself in my work. I may not have engaged the lock.

Someone was in my shack. Someone big and lumbering, someone who’d never learned how to sneak around.

I barely had time to sit up before that someone entered my bedroom.

44

R.C. ll E WI S

“Like I said, Essie, yeh shoulda been nicer to me.” One step into the room, then another. Panic fll ooded me along with the stench of jack-ale. He came closer, and I should’ve moved, my mind screamed to move, but my body wouldn’t listen.

Tiny space, no room to maneuver, no escape route, no weapons.

Big. He’s too big—

It was too late. Moray grabbed my shoulder, his fi ngers digging in.

My surroundings went fuzzy, blurring with motion as something inside of me was yanked somewhere else.

To some
one
else.

A sniff of dizziness rolls through me, like I’m too close to the edge of the mine shaft. Like I’m too tall. But that’s just because I’m standing over Essie.

Essie. I look down at her, slim but strong, small outside the safety of the cage. She doesn’t even pull away from my grip. I squeeze tighter, digging my fi ngers into her shoulder, and she does nothing. She knows. She knows she was wrong.

I know no such thing! Blazes, he can’t hear me. I’m stuck
in here—my body there, my eyes are so blank, I’m helpless. But
there’s something here, something holding back. That voice,
listen to the voice in the corner, Moray, what it says, listen
listen listen . . .

My grip loosens. Hawkins and Petey. They might fi nd out. Essie might take the drones and leave. We’d be like all the other mines, burying a man a week, like my uncle 45

S T I T C H I N G S N O W

and my grandfather. She might, but I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d dare.

Yes, you know, Moray, you know I’ll leave you with the
harri-harra and their sludge and the dark, and you can die in
its depths and I’ll never look back . . . listen to that voice, you
know it’s right.

I release my hold on her shoulder.

My mind snapped back where it belonged, back to my own body. At least, I was pretty sure it was my body. It felt more like an old woman’s, drained and worn. Moray stumbled out the bedroom door, but I still couldn’t move.

I’d body-hopped him. It was a part of me I thought I’d shut down years ago, only using it with my mother and never since then. If Moray had any idea, if anyone else found out, I’d have more trouble than he’d already meant to bring. No one could discover I had any Exile blood. From there, it was a short dig to the whole truth.

It brought a new and very different panic, one that was cut off by a shout and a thud that shook the fll oor.

I pulled myself out of bed, bracing myself against the walls to stay up, and took a few steps toward the doorway and the cause of the noise. Moray was sprawled in a tangle with Dimwit and Zippy on the ground. It looked like he’d tripped over the drones.

“Get out,” I said, pushing all shakiness from my voice.

When Dimwit sparked a microwelder in his face, Moray managed to get to his feet, only a little wobbly, and stagger out into the night. As soon as the door closed, cutting off the frosty wind, I turned to the drones.

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“What are you two doing out here? You’re supposed to be recharging.”

“Essie was in danger and needed help,” Zippy said. “Human male was in the wrong place, not the right place, not supposed to be here.”

Huh. I hadn’t programmed the drones to wake at signs of an emergency in the shack. Maybe I should have. Maybe the upgrades were taking them further than I’d realized. Then Dimwit offered its own answer.

“Dane Essie watch Essie help Essie.”

Something fll amed in my gut, churning with the panic and exhaustion. “Oh, he told you to keep an eye on me, did he? Well,
he’s
the one who needs help, not me. Get back to recharging.” Both drones scurried back to the lab, and I triple-checked the locks on the door. By the time I got back to bed, I was gasping for breath, unsure whether it was more from the fear or the effort.

Body-hopping was more work than running out to the fll ats. I didn’t remember it being so hard when I did it with Mother.

I’d only gotten out of trouble because my control had slipped.

That wasn’t supposed to happen, ever. But if it hadn’t, Moray might have overpowered me.

And maybe the drones would’ve come in and taken a cutting torch to his backside.

Maybe it was a good thing Dane had given Dimwit whatever instructions he had.

I vowed never to tell him what had happened.

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S T I T C H I N G S N O W

The hike out to the fll ats felt twice as long the next day. I’d been both too tired and too worked up to do more than doze fi tfully for an hour or so before giving up. Dimwit was chipper as ever, naturally.

It might have been the awkward moment the day before.

Maybe something else. Either way, one look said Dane knew I’d had a rough night. Another look said he wasn’t going to comment.

Whatever the reason, I accepted it and got straight to work.

Despite the exhaustion, I pushed hard, telling myself to take on one more system before I left . . . and then one more again. The more I fi nished, the sooner he’d be gone. And I was ready for him to be gone, for everything to be normal and dull and quiet.

For the fi rst time, he was silent most of the day, but he lingered nearby, handing me interfaces or reading off diagnostic results when Dimwit wandered away.

Finally, I’d done the last thing I could without more weaving and stitching in my lab, plus another round of cracking interplanetary networks. I closed out the coding matrix and tucked my gear in a corner. “I think I’ve convinced the stabilizers to coordinate with each other, but the thrust regulator still doesn’t want to listen to the computer. Tomorrow I’ll try some code with more teeth.”

As I wrapped myself in my heavy coat and scarf, Dane stepped between me and the main hatch. “It’s well past sunset and the temperature’s plummeted. You should just stay here tonight.”

Alone with him in the shuttle all night? I don’t think so.
“One of the moons is out—it’s light enough.”

“It’s an hour to the settlement. You’ll freeze out there.” 48

R.C. ll E WI S

I rolled my eyes. “We’re not all from Garam, you know. Come on, Dimwit, we’re leaving.”

The drone whirred and beeped, skittering behind Dane to open the hatch. I pushed by and stepped out into the frigid night. The breeze bit the exposed skin of my face, but I strode across the fll ats without a word.

It took an unusually long time before the whine of the closing hatch reached my ears, so I glanced over my shoulder. The moon gave enough light to see the dark form of Dane trailing after us. Just what I needed after last night—a strange off-planet boy following me in the dark.

I walked a little faster.

Half an hour later, he was still behind us. Maybe he was just making sure we got back all right. I hadn’t seen chivalry like that in years. It felt foreign. And it didn’t make me like the feeling of being followed any better.

When we were far enough into the forest to cut off the breeze I’d felt earlier, I fi gured I could lose him in the trees and the dark.

“Wrong way wrong way,” Dimwit said for the third time.

“Oh, shut it,” I muttered. “You’d get lost in a one-room shack.

I think I know my way home, thank you.”

“Wrong wrong wrong—”

A cracking sound cut off the drone’s electronic voice. I registered that it was a
bad
noise, but had no time for anything else.

I fell, swallowed by glacial water.

49

5

SINKHOLE.

The only thing it could be, fi lled in and frozen over.

Not frozen enough.

I fought off the refl exive gasp as my body reacted to the sudden change, but that was all I could do. Water soaked my heavy clothing, weighing me down. I clutched frantically at the fasteners on my coat, trying to shed my outer layers, but my fi ngers refused to work. Cold seeped instantly to my bones, sapping my strength. Gravity seemed to triple, fi ghting my efforts to swim back to the surface.

No hope. No chance. All I’d survived in seventeen years, only to be taken down by a frozen chasm on this ice-rock.

I kicked one more time. One last try.

Something clamped onto my shoulders, piercing all the way through to my skin. A corner of my mind that hadn’t frozen yet directed my hands to reach up and grip the metal arms the best I could as they pulled me out of the pit.

R.C. ll E WI S

When my face broke the surface of the water, I gulped icy air.

A roar fi lled my ears, but Dane’s voice sliced through it.

“Move, Dimwit, get her out of there! Essie? Essie, hold on.” If I’d thought the air cut into me before, I was wrong. As Dimwit and Dane both dragged me onto solid ground, my body shook like I was having a seizure. Then Dane began groping at my clothes, and instinct took over. I rolled away and pushed myself to my feet.

“D-don’t touch m-me,” I forced out.

“Unless you want to die of hypothermia, you need to get out of those wet clothes,
now
. Do it yourself or I’ll do it for you.” Blazes if he wasn’t right, and blazes if half of me didn’t consider freezing to death over the alternative. Self-preservation won in the end. I turned my back on him and forced my rebelling limbs to start stripping off the layers of sodden fabric before they turned to ice.

“D-Dimwit, f-fi re.” Building fi res was one thing the malfunction was good at—it had nearly burned down my shack three times. It raced around, gathering a respectable pile of wood before I’d gotten more off than my coat, scarf, and boots.

I heard movement and refl exively glanced back. Dane had moved closer, prompting me to choose between punching him and running. Both options dissolved when I saw he’d removed his outer coat. He held it between us, like a curtain, and a quick fll icker of warmth clashed with the cold as I realized why. He was trying to let me keep a little dignity while staying close enough to help if the cold overpowered me.

That
level of chivalry didn’t exist in the mining settlements, ever.

Dimwit had the fi re burning by the time I peeled off the last 51

S T I T C H I N G S N O W

layers. Dane’s sharp gasp elicited new panic, but another glance confi rmed his coat was still between us. The most he could see was maybe my shoulders.

My shoulders . . . the mark.

“What, never s-seen a t-tattoo before?” I asked grufflly.

“I—No, you’re bleeding.”

“Grapples aren’t m-made for grabbing p-people, are they?

It’s not b-bad.”

Once I was naked, he wrapped his coat around me. It was much too large, but I was glad for that since it more than covered me. Then he sat me in front of the fi re, working his fi ngers through my hair to encourage it to dry. If the drone hadn’t built the fi re so quickly, my hair probably would’ve frozen solid already. The convulsing shivers eased to a more normal level as I absorbed the heat. Half of what remained might have been more about Dane’s closeness, the way he touched my hair. I shoved the thoughts away and focused on warming up.

Dimwit made itself surprisingly useful, rigging lines above the fi re to hang my wrung-out clothes and dry them. It didn’t botch anything.

“You aren’t going into shock, are you?” Dane asked.

“Don’t think so. Why?”

“You’re just very quiet.”

“Because I usually talk so much?”

His hand paused before continuing through my hair. “No. I guess not. It’s . . . it’s an interesting tattoo.”

“Nothing special,” I muttered. Last thing I needed was him digging into that. An elaborate
S
with fi ligree around it. Nothing more than a sentimental design, unless someone knew what it really meant.

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He fell quiet, and I willed both time and heat to move faster.

When my hair fi nished drying, he released it and scooted away from me a little. I appreciated the space. I’d have appreciated it even more if he’d scooted all the way back to the shuttle, but I didn’t have the strength to demand it.

Sitting up took more strength than I had, so I shifted to lean back against the nearest tree. Only the crackling of the fi re interrupted the silence of the woods. My eyes closed, just for a little rest, and the fll ickering fll ames lulled me into a doze.

I jolted awake, startled that I would let my guard down like that. Nothing had changed. Dane hadn’t moved, still huddled in front of the fi re, which Dimwit still tended.

“How long was I out?”

“A couple of hours, I think,” he said. “You should go back to sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“No, I should get home.”

I pulled myself to my feet and checked my hanging clothes, fi nding they were dry. My plan was to get out of the light of the fi re and dress as much as I could without removing the coat entirely. Dane had different ideas.

“Stop. Here, stay where it’s warm.”

He stood and held the coat to shield me again until I was ready to put on my own. I wordlessly shoved my feet into my boots before looking over my shoulder and meeting his eyes, just brieflly.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank Dimwit. I was too far away.”

“You didn’t tell it to grab me?”