UNBREATHABLE (7 page)

I scan the faces of the Jute. Other than their unmasked faces and uncanny beauty, there isn't a way to tell they aren't human.

But I can tell one thing: the dark-haired Jute in the center is the leader of the five. His long coat, rich and dark, billows behind him in the wind. The others stand slightly behind him, their clothes faded compared to his, but new compared to my own. He stands out. His features look familiar, but I’m too far to tell for sure.

“We aren't here to hurt you,” he calls.

His voice reminds me of Julian. Maybe it's because I’ve heard very few young men speak before.

I think of the countless weapons in the training room.

Why did I run?

“What do you want with me?” My voice cracks.

He laughs, the sound deep. “You. I want you.”

“Leave her alone, Rowan.” Someone shouts behind me. Julian. Relief floods my veins. He raises a black bow, and I hear the sharp slice of metal as he draws an arrow back.

“Didn't think I'd see you again in this life,” Rowan shouts back with a one-sided grin.

Their voices. Rowan. Julian. The same.

Julian narrows his eyes. “I said leave. Or they're all dead.”

Rowan moves his mutant forward and his hair ruffles in the wind. He holds his arms out in mock defiance.

There’s a swoosh of air behind me, followed by another. One by one, the Jute on either side of Rowan fall and oxygen seizes in my chest. The mutants groan and take off into the emptiness beyond human land.

Rowan surveys the fallen bodies lazily. Carelessly. “I need her. Not them.”

“Leave, or I'll shoot,” Julian says. His voice is tight.

But the same arrow is nocked in his bow. Someone else killed Rowan's men.

Rowan jumps down from the creature. “You. Shoot me?” He laughs. “No, Jules, not even if your life depended on it. But I—”

He falls when two blasts of blue hit him square in the chest. His body jerks in silent spasms. Not dead.

I turn to Julian, my eyes wide. The wind howls suddenly.

“Teach me,” I say with a wheeze. Neither of us says anything else.

I tremble as I walk. Julian looks at me with sympathy and I hate it. But I keep walking. The farther away I can get from the Jute named Rowan and his dead crew, the better. Every few steps, Julian glances back, as if he expects something. Someone.

I just want to clear my mind. I just want answers. I
need
them.

“You knew him,” I say. Fear pulses in my veins. Rowan wanted me.

Julian clenches his jaw. “Yes.”

An arrow sinks into the dust ahead of me and a cloud of red explodes over my clothes. I jump with a gasp but Julian stills as a defiant laugh sounds behind us.

A girl about my age and height walks toward us. Her eyes are dark shards of glass. I’ve seen penetrating eyes like those before. Her pitch-black clothes are tight and her stark white hair is cut short, falling in messy strands over her right eye. Everything about her screams pride. She strolls past us and plucks her arrow from the dirt. Julian throws a nervous glance at me before facing her.

“Dena. What are you doing here?” He sounds wary.

“What, no 'thank you'?” She places one hand on her hip and waves the arrow with the other.

“Thanks for what? Killing them? For immobilizing Rowan? I could have done that.” But his voice lacks the conviction of his words.

The girl, Dena, doesn't even spare me a glance before sauntering over to him. Close to him. Closer than close. She presses her body against his and leans in, so their faces are barely breaths apart.

“No, Julian,” she breathes. He leans away, but she leans closer. “For saving you from my father.”

I blink.

That’s where I’ve seen those eyes. She’s Chancellor Kole’s daughter. My sliver of dislike increases tenfold. That’s why Julian wasn’t at the gallows.
She
saved him from Chancellor Kole. Not Slate. Not me, like I wanted to.

The tips of Julian’s ears turn pink and he opens his mouth. She raises her finger and traces his lips. “Shh, don't give me that ‘I wanted to die’ crap again.”

I inhale sharply. Julian was trying to get himself killed in the Chamber. The reality of that hits me in the stomach.

They stare at each other in silence.

Dena's gaze flickers to his lips and my cheeks burn. I don't want to see anymore. I wipe my sweaty palms down my pants and hurry towards the Tower.

It wasn't Julian who saved me. It was Dena. I don't feel afraid anymore. No, this is disgust. And anger at my cowardice.

I hear Dena screech and Julian sigh. I want to cover my ears and wash my eyes.

“Lissa, wait!” Julian calls. I stop, but don't turn around.

“Thank you saving me,” I say. He flinches at my monotone.

“It's not what you think.”

“I don't
think
anything. It's none of my business,” I say. Even I'm surprised at the bitterness in my voice.

By the time we near the Tower, my anger has faded, and every heartbeat of silence makes me more embarrassed.

Julian looks at me. “There was one point in my life when I wanted so many things, her included. I thought I loved her.”

I purse my lips and stare ahead. But he knows I’m listening.

“Then my mom died.” His voice is a soft, pained whisper. “I loved her so much. More than anything. And I-I couldn't save her.” He chokes off in a humorless laugh.

“I didn't want anything after that. Not Dena, not Earth, not even my life. Life lost its meaning. I've been trying to join my mom ever since. And Dena—”

“It wasn't love.”

“What?” He stops.

“You never loved Dena,” I say, facing him. “Or you would love her now, even more so. Love only gets stronger through hardship and pain.”

He stares at me and his gaze softens. I laugh softly, and continue walking. “Not that I know anything of love.”

“You loved Gage,” he says after a moment.

I shake my head. “I thought I did. I thought he loved me. But I was a hungry creature he was able to feed with Earth and lies. When Slate looks at me—
that
is love. Until then, I had no idea what it looked like.”

The sharp tang of acid flits into my nose, and though there are no clouds in the sky, it’s only a matter of time before the sky will split and rain will spill.

They say Jutaire is red because of the rain. When humans first came to Jutaire, there were many of us. They spread their arms and welcomed the rain to wash over them. But they didn’t know.

Standing in the rain is suicide.

Each raindrop is a bullet. A wound that leaves blood trailing down your skin. They say half our race was murdered by the sky. Their blood seeped into the ground and stained the land red for eternity.

Gage said on Earth, rain was as clean as the water in our basins, which we boil long after the rain has passed. On Jutaire, the scent that reeks in my nose is a warning and a reminder, to me and everyone else.

Rain is deadly.

“You're going to train.” Julian breaks through my thoughts.

I nod. I don’t have a choice, I don’t say.

But I can’t be vulnerable anymore. I can’t run from every little thing that scares me. “Why are they after me? Why now?”

“They need you. We're not sure why yet. As for why
now
, I’ve got a theory.”

“Tell me,” I say, climbing up the steps behind him. He turns back with his hand on the Tower door.

“The metal and glass are locked up because of Earth. There were people before Gage who tried to build scopes, too. If humans knew Earth existed, they would draw courage from it’s existence, they would fight back,” he says softly. My eyebrows furrow. “The Jute want to make sure we stay here. They want to keep us contained until they leave.”

“Leave?” I ask.
Fight back?
I want to ask.

He meets my eyes. “For Earth. They have a ship, fuel, provisions. They lack one thing.”

A ship. The Jute want to live on Earth, which belongs to humans.

“Gage wanted Earth more than anything. The Jute need one person more than anything. If you ask me, it's the perfect trade.”

Everything clicks then. The Jute coming after me. Gage keeping me a secret from my own father.

“More than anything. More than me,” I whisper.

He would have traded me for passage to Earth.

“I'm sorry, Lissa.”

But I don't understand. They have everything they need to get to Earth—a ship, provisions, fuel. So why me?

The man with the answer is dead.

I stare out the tinted window at the rain that falls for the first time since Gage's death. Maybe the sky has finally remembered to mourn his loss, for it falls in the thickest torrents I’ve ever seen.

I mourn him even now, knowing what he would have done to me. Would he have mourned me this same way, after handing me over to the Jute he always cautioned me from?

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. I look around to distract myself, but my mind drifts to Rowan and the ship Julian spoke of. How can their entire mission depend on me?

The room door opens and closes.

I meet Slate’s eyes.

“You were an experiment to Gage,” he says before I can part my lips to apologize.

I gasp. I never liked gasping, betraying so much in a single inhale. But I can't help it now.

“It isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. He told me the night I arrested him. He studied you, took blood samples every day.” He studies my reaction, which is nothing but an empty stare. “You never knew?”

I shake my head. But how did he take it without me knowing? Where did he have the equipment to test it? There are so many snippets of new knowledge I have to embed into my head, and so much more I need to know.

“He studied your bone structure, your lungs. He studied the others too, half-breeds like Julian. Where their lungs are weakened by excessive amounts of oxygen, yours aren't. You can breathe both without consequence.”

Which explains why Julian never wears a mask.

“I'm sorry for what I said earlier,” I say.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. He steps forward and I hold my breath. He raises his hand slowly and trails his fingers through the hair that has come loose from my braid. I can't imagine how much this simple gesture means to him. A breathy laugh escapes his lips. “You have my hair, my nose. You're so… beautiful. Mine. My daughter.”

His eyes fill with anguish. “I will never see you grow up. Take your first steps, say your first word, read your first line.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. This is all Gage’s fault. How could he be so selfish?

“You'll see her do other things.” I freeze as Chancellor Kole steps into the room, his dark eyes glued to me. “Like maybe, I don’t know, try to save us all.”

This is the first time I’ve seen him since Gage’s death, and he is just as frightening as always.

“Yeah, right,” Dena snorts and walks in behind him. “You should've seen her back there, she nearly peed her pants.”

Chancellor Kole chuckles. They all stare at me, even Slate. I want to tear the mask off my face and curl up in a ball and disappear.

“Her strength lies in her mind. Gage made sure of that.” There’s an edge to Slate’s voice.

“Right.” Dena rolls her eyes and leaves.

Chancellor Kole continues to stare at me. I can feel him sifting through my mind, learning everything in my silence.

“You killed Gage.” I surprise myself by blurting out. It’s far from the truth, I know now, but he did hang him.

He shrugs, nonchalant. “Someone has to do the killing. Better me than them.”

Chancellor Kole’s voice is constant in my mind as I try to find the training room, where Slate said Julian is waiting for me. Every hall looks the same, with unfeeling white walls and smooth unblemished floors.

After I take the wrong turn thrice, stumbling on a stern-faced soldier each time, I find it.

I push open the door and step inside. But it isn't Julian standing before me. A one-sided smile lifts Chancellor Kole's gaunt face. His black suit hangs from his shoulders, and makes him look like he has sticks instead of legs.

“You're scared of me, aren't you?” He asks. His voice reaches the soles of my feet before my ears.

“No,” I say. I am terrified. And my voice betrays that.

“Do you know why Gage wanted Slate to kill him? He was going to hang anyway—what difference is there?”

I asked the same question. I have no answer.

Chancellor Kole clasps his hands behind him and slowly walks closer, just as he does when he strides onto the platform to announce another crime and death.

“You see, Lissa, the Jute have a ship.” He pulls a small ball out of his pocket. I look at it without giving him the satisfaction of my interest. Blue and green, with hints of white. A replica of Earth.

Earth in his pocket.

“How? How did they build a ship?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Something about dust making metal and sand making glass. I wouldn’t know. But that’s aside from my point. We don't have gas or oil. Where would they get fuel?”

“I don't know,” I say when he stares at me.

“Humans breathe oxygen. Our main component is oxygen—of course you know that, don't you?” Sarcasm drips from his voice. It’s true. After Gage, I know more than the average human on Jutaire will ever know. “The clever, cunning Jute found a way to convert human bodies into fuel. No one wants a bloody body. Hence the bloodless hangings.”