Firebrand (12 page)

I
claimed two portions of dinner and carried one to my father, grateful for a reason to avoid Chief. Father was sleeping, so I ate one bowl and left the other beside his bed.

Outside, I climbed the metal staircase that ran against the battery and wandered across the roof. Beyond the roof was the esplanade, a large area on the same level. The flat grounds were covered in rows of plants. There was grass too, brown, worn thin by the long summer. A stone monument rose a yard above it all.

I took a seat on the monument and surveyed the harbor. It was dark now. Stars glittered to life above me. Waves brushed against the tiny island, soft and hypnotic.

Footsteps on the staircase broke the quiet. It took me a moment to recognize Dennis's figure, and longer for him to recognize mine. He stopped a few yards away, and turned to leave.

“Don't go,” I said. “Please.”

He hesitated, then shuffled onto the stone beside me. “My father made me promise not to talk to you.”

“I know. I'm sorry.” I wasn't sure why I said that, but I meant it. Dennis had lost his father. Maybe his sister too, if things didn't get resolved between Rose and Marin. “Your father was probably trying to protect Rose. You've seen what I can do. Or maybe it was because Dare was my uncle.”

He raised his hands. “So? You never knew that before. It's not fair.” He dangled his legs from the monument. His feet bounced against it. Seeing him like this reminded me how young he was—still only nine.

“How's your new room?”

“Weird. Mother was so pleased to get away from you all. But no one in that room will talk to me. They smile and nod, but . . . something's not right.”

“They're probably just not used to you yet.”

“No. It's more than that. Chief made two of the adults give us their beds. It doesn't make sense. If this is home now, why should I get a bed? Why should adults sleep on the floor?”

“It's strange,” I agreed. “Do you want to move back to our room? It's all right if you do.”

He thought about this. “No. I want my mother to stay with you. Then I'll come back too.” The answer seemed to satisfy him. “Do you like Rose?”

I hesitated. “Yes. Although . . . it's more than that. It's kind of difficult to explain.”

Dennis nodded sagely. “That's okay. You can try now. She's standing right behind you.”

I spun around. Rose met my eyes, flushed red, and looked away again just as quickly. As Dennis left us alone, she wandered over to the perimeter wall, tiptoeing the edge.

“Planning to jump?” I asked, joining her. The sheer wall plunged into stacked boulders. Waves lapped against them.

“No. Just realizing how much water there is in the world.” She crouched down, hair blown about in the wind, and tightened the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “It's strange, but I've never really
thought
about water until now. It just existed, like my element. Now I realize what I'll lose if I let it all go.”

I suspected this wasn't just about water and her element. “Dennis is going to be all right.”

“Only if my mother comes around. And I don't think that's going to happen.”

She raised a hand and I helped her up. We wandered past the rows of plantings. When we reached an open area, she laid her blanket on the ground. “Stay with me?”

I put my water canister down and lay beside her. Side by side we stared at evening sky.

“Do you trust the Guardians now they've told us everything?” she asked.

“
If
they've told us everything. That's the problem, I guess. We'll never know.”

“True. I heard Alice and Tarn arguing outside the main gate during dinner. They stopped when they saw me, but I don't think Alice trusts her mother anymore.”

“I'm not sure she trusts anyone anymore.”

“You're probably right.” Rose sighed. “Do you trust Chief?”

Maybe it was the way she asked, her voice uneven, but the question felt awkward. “Why are you asking?”

She glanced toward the battery steps before continuing. “As soon as you all left today, he stopped what he was doing and disappeared. One moment, he was tending to the goats. The next, he'd gone. I kept an eye out for him, but didn't see him until a couple strikes later. He was coming out of the room that Jerren says he's never seen.”

“The gunroom, he called it.”

“Exactly. It might mean nothing,” she added hurriedly. “Or it might be important.”

I almost wished she hadn't told me that. “I don't know who to trust, Rose.”

She tilted her head toward me and smiled. “Yes, you do. You can trust me.”

She'd rolled up the sleeves of her tunic, revealing her bare arms. The skin was slightly pink, sunburned, but perfectly smooth. I ran a finger along her right arm and she stiffened momentarily, then let out a long breath. I was relaxed for once, and the discomfort she'd braced for wasn't there. She shuffled closer to me so that our bodies were touching.

“What does it feel like, your element?” Her words were tiny breaths punching the air. I felt them as much as I heard them.

“Like tiredness. Like ache.” I propped my head up on my arm. “Used to, anyway. It's not as bad now, but I wish it would fade faster.”

Rose didn't hide her disappointment. “I don't want to lose my element. When we were on the ship, I couldn't tell for sure that the water was fresh. We might've gotten sick. Someone might've died. And I would've felt like it was my fault.”

“You can do other things—”

“Anyone can do other things, Thomas. That's not the point. I don't see what's so wrong about being special.”

I let my finger slide off her arm. “Being here with you . . . I couldn't have done that at Roanoke.”

“I guess so. But you could learn. Like you learned to channel your element.” She bit her lip. It looked nervous and cute all at once. “Would you do it to me? Take over my element, I mean.”

Just thinking about it sent me back to our last night on the ship—how I'd seized control of Ananias's apologetic sparks and propelled them into flames. How I'd sent a man to his death.

“Hey,” she whispered. “It's all right.” She stroked my cheek as if she were calming a wild animal. “Everything is all right.”

She reached for her canister and sniffed the contents, challenging herself to connect with water the way she used to. But she couldn't do it. I could see it in her eyes.

Before I could change my mind, I wrapped my arms around her and focused on the water inside the canister. My pulse was quick, but as long as I focused on the water, the energy surged right through her.

Rose didn't pull away.

I could feel her regaining control of her own element, forcing the liquid out of the canister in a slow, perfect arc. She opened her mouth, ready to drink. Her eyes shone with the miracle of it. At least until the water touched her lips. Then I sent a rush of power that spattered the liquid across her face.

She gasped. “You . . . pig!” She tried to brush the water off her suddenly wet tunic, then burst out laughing instead. “I was actually thirsty!”

“So try picking up the canister with your hands. It's what I've been doing all these years.”

I meant for it to come out as a joke, but it fell flat. Maybe deep down, I kind of meant it.

Rose lifted the canister and drank. “You're right,” she said. “It works this way too.”

She lay back down then, wet tunic and all, and reached for my hands. She dragged my arms across her. “It's your job to keep me warm now. You know, since you're the one who got me wet.”

She held my hands and pressed them against her chest. I couldn't decide what was more amazing: the feeling of holding her, or that she'd forgiven me for being stupid.

We were still after that. Nothing but our breathing and heartbeats to tell us apart. Concentrating so hard on my element had left me tired. My pulse wasn't racing anymore.

“I felt you, Thomas.” Rose swallowed hard. “Felt your element running through me. It was gentle and warm. I was controlling the water, but you were controlling me.” She closed her mouth, then opened it again. Her breaths were fast and shallow. “There was no pain. I . . . I liked it.”

For a moment, the words hung between us. They were more than words, though. In them was a promise.

There was so little distance between us. I studied the arch of her eyebrows and the way the breeze toyed with her hair, each loose strand silhouetted by the setting sun. As she played with the glass pendant around her neck, her hands shook.

Rose lifted my hand to her cheek. I ran my fingers over every part of her face and lips. She closed her eyes, and I closed mine, and when our lips came together it felt completely natural. I still half expected her to pull away, for closeness to shift toward pain. But the energy, or adrenaline, or fear, or whatever usually came between us wasn't there this time.

I ran my hand behind her head and pulled her closer. Kissed her over and over, madly, fumbling for everything at once. She dragged me on top of her and I felt her legs and her chest. The moment I'd dreamed of was finally—impossibly—here.

I was as alive as I'd ever been.

W
e woke up as the sun rose. My clothes were damp from the grass and I was sore from the hard ground. Cold too. Rose and I came together for a moment and shared body heat while I ran my fingers in slow circles around the small of her back.

A strand of hair fell across her face, so I eased it away. Eyes still closed, she batted at it as if it were an insect. I couldn't help smiling. There was something so instinctive about it. I was reminded that everything had felt that way until a couple weeks ago.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, breaking the silence.

She opened her eyes halfway and ran the backs of her fingers across my right cheek. “Hatteras. I thought what we had there was real, but it was a lie. Now I want to believe that this is real, but . . . I don't know. It's just this feeling I have. You know what I mean?”

I rolled onto my back and sighed. “Yes, I do.”

Scanning the area around us to make sure no one was there, Rose leaned across me and planted a kiss on my lips. “So what's bothering you?”

“Right now? Well, Chief told me that Kell is his right hand. He also said Jerren is like a son to him. But those two are hiding things from each other, and maybe from him too.” I fought to concentrate; it wasn't easy with Rose so close. “I'm worried that they were both so interested in Dare's cabin.”

Her eyes opened wide. “You think it was Kell who disturbed us on the ship?”

“I'm sure of it. What I don't understand is why he and Jerren were there at night in the first place. What's ours is theirs, right? They could've just gone during the daytime.” I took a deep breath. Saying everything out loud was making my concerns feel more real, not less. “No. There's something more. What if neither of them is playing by Chief's rules anymore?”

“Then we stay out of it.”

I gave a wry laugh. “Try telling Alice that.”

“Are she and Jerren . . .” Rose raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“If they're not, I reckon they will be soon. Anyway, staying out of it might not be an option. Griffin noticed that Dare's logbooks were missing some pages from about a month ago. He traced the ship's course to Hatteras, but we don't know where Dare came from. What if he visited
here
?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Dare could've come from anywhere. And even if you don't trust Kell and Jerren, do you really think Chief would keep something like that from you?”

“I don't know anymore.” I puffed out my cheeks and let the air out in a steady stream. “I just want this place to be perfect, you know? Without all the stuff that tore our colony apart.”

“Sumter doesn't have to be perfect to be good, Thomas. I mean, I know one person I can always trust.” She leaned in to kiss me. “And we couldn't do this on Hatteras. Or . . . this.”

She opened her mouth, and so did I. The energy that flowed between us then had nothing to do with an element. It was more powerful than that, more all-consuming. And still I needed more. I slid my hands down her back and found the hem of her tunic. I pulled it upward, her bare skin perfectly smooth against my fingertips. When I reached her chest, she pulled away from me slightly so that I could lift it over her shoulders.

We heard the footsteps at the same time. Slow and heavy, coming from the battery.

Rose sat bolt upright and adjusted her tunic back down. The footsteps stopped at the first level. She reached out and took my hand, relief written all over her face.

Then the footsteps started again. Someone was climbing the stairs to the esplanade.

There was a bank about ten yards away. It looked like the other side was only a yard or so lower than where we were, but we crawled over and hid behind it. I didn't stop to think about why we were hiding, or how guilty it made us look. I just knew that I didn't want us to be seen.

The new arrival paused at the top of the steps. At first, I was relieved because it meant we probably wouldn't be found. But why climb the steps at all, then? Unless he or she was looking for someone.

Or making sure that no one was around.

As the footsteps receded, I pulled myself up and stole a quick look. I didn't see much, just the top of his head, but as the light caught the wisps of gray hair, I knew it was Chief.

Several footsteps later there was the sound of a door opening. There was a click as Chief closed it behind him.

Rose exhaled slowly. “Please tell me that wasn't Chief.”

“At least it wasn't your mother.”

She wasn't amused. “He's in the gunroom again. All those weapons—it scares me. Why is he visiting at dawn anyway?”

“I don't know. But I do know he didn't want anyone to see him.”

We lay side by side again, but apart now. Kissing Rose already felt like a distant memory.

“We need to know what's in there,” she said. “And soon.”

The words could've come from Alice, but Rose's tone was different. Where Alice would've been looking to prove someone's guilt, Rose just wanted to reassure herself that everything was all right. At least we were in agreement about that.

“There's no way we're getting in that room, Rose.”

“We won't have to.” She wrapped her fingers around her pendant. “Anyone would notice you or me sneaking in. But what about Dennis?”

“No.”

“He's small, Thomas. If someone were to leave the room in a hurry, he could slide in before the door closes.”

“He shouldn't get involved in this—”

“He's already
involved
in this.” She huffed. “He's split between us, my mother, and everyone new at Sumter. He doesn't want to leave us. Anyway, has it occurred to you that he might want answers too? He's not stupid, you know.”

“I know.” I wasn't sure what I felt worse about: getting Dennis mixed up in everything, or telling Rose she didn't know what was best for her own brother. “How can we make someone leave that room in a hurry?” I asked finally.

“Oh, I can think of a way.” She smiled to herself. “Want to hold my hand again?”