These Broken Stars(35)

I know he has no reason to lie. Still, it’s hard to connect the long mound with the reality of people resting beneath it, actual flesh and bone. The sky is as empty as it always is—the world is quiet. My ears pick out the wind, the sighing of the leaves, the distant chirp of a bird. The stillness of an undisturbed wilderness. I can’t help but wonder how long it’ll take for the grass and the trees to consume these graves—how long until it’s impossible to tell anyone ever rested here.

How long until we too are swallowed up?

“I don’t know who any of you are,” I whisper, eyes blurring with sudden tears. “I wish I did. I wish I could keep pretending none of this is real. That my father will swoop down, pick everyone up, and everything will go back to normal. That this is all some terrible dream.”

I crouch, reaching out to lay a hand against the stones warming in the sunlight streaming through the clearing. The surface is rough and smooth at once, irregular but soothing. Nothing like the stones in our gardens, polished and placed with perfect artistic balance. I’m hungry and tired, and there’s sweat rolling down my back. Tears drip from my chin, splattering against the stone, leaving uneven patches of darkness against the gray rock.

“I could have fit a lot more people in that maintenance pod. Maybe it could have been you. I’m sorry.”

I straighten and look back, toward where Tarver waits at the tree line, adjusting his pack. From here the trek to the Icarus seems endless—I can’t even see the mountains, much less the plains, or the rest of the forest that lies between us and our only chance at rescue. Maybe it would have been better to have died in this crashed pod. Easier than dying slowly out here, alone but for this man who hates me, so far from the one person who cares about me. Fear, icy and sickening, roils in my stomach.

Tarver lifts his head as if sensing my gaze across the distance between us. If he heard any of what I said, he gives no indication, merely hefting his pack and inclining his head to suggest we get moving.

I swallow, glancing down once last time at the freshly dug graves. “I think you might’ve been the lucky ones.”

We walk.

My feet are nothing but a dull ache as Tarver marches me through the woods. He takes my hand sometimes to help me over logs and rocks and lifts me over the creek when we cross it. Other times he makes me drink from the canteen. I let him, because what else can I do? The day morphs into eternity, a nightmare from which I cannot wake. As the hours stretch on, not even the sounds of the forest make me jump. I see nothing but the ground before my feet. I cannot turn back because there is no back, only the next step, and the one after, and the one after that.

I used to think that my name would always keep me safe. That those two words—Lilac LaRoux—would be the only password I needed no matter where I ended up.

I had been so sure my father was coming for me, but now it’s hard to find that certainty. This is a wilderness waiting to swallow me; I’d barely make a dent trying to fight it. There are no rules for me to learn, no points to be scored, no bluffs to be called. This is a hell I’ve never imagined.

And I think I’m going to die here.



“Nothing of note happened when you camped that night?”

“If you’d tell me what kind of thing of note you’re wondering about, I’m sure I could be more help.”

“Are you saying that nothing unusual happened?”

“Nothing at all.”





THIRTEEN




TARVER



THE CAMPFIRE’S DOWN TO COALS when I wake. my eyes snap open, and as always, there’s that brief moment of disorientation as I soak in everything around me, wait to know where I am.

This time it doesn’t take long to remember. Our camp is near the end of the woods and the start of the plains. I built the fire up high before we slept, still thinking of the monster that nearly killed Lilac.

I roll over onto my back to find her blocking out the unfamiliar stars, standing above me like a ghost in the night. Something must have prompted her to come around to my side of the campfire—she’s still insisting on separation—and I’m reaching for my Gleidel as I blink up at her.

“Miss LaRoux?” I ask, quiet and careful. I don’t want to give her a fright and get a kick for my troubles. Assuming she’s real at all, looming up there like a specter. Even as a ghost, she’s something to see.

“Major, there’s somebody out there,” she whispers. “Can you hear? There’s a woman crying out there in the trees.”

A shiver of apprehension runs through me, and I tilt my head to one side, surprised the noise didn’t wake me. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing to break the silence. I shift and sit up, noticing I’ve still got my boots on. I think I remember deciding to sleep in them.