Steel Lily ARC (27 page)

Small rivulets zigzagged their way down the huge mirrors where steam once was. It reminded me of teardrops.

Water cascaded down the small ledge adorned with river rocks outside the shower. I slid the door open, afraid of what I’d find.

It was worse than I could have imagined.

Alice sat crunched up in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. A white towel was plastered to her body, soaked from the showerhead pounding water down on her small frame. Her body convulsed with alternating sobs and hiccups.

I got into the shower on my hands and knees. Ice-cold water drenched me as I grabbed Alice by the shoulders and shook her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?”

She cried with new fervor. The water streamed down her matted hair. What this morning was a beautiful chignon, was now a rat’s nest of bobby pins and a sodden bow. She looked up at me and I saw that her careful application of blue eyeliner was streaked, intermingled with the mascara that slid down her soft cheeks. The smeared makeup made her appear bruised and battered.

Her once beautiful brown eyes were bloodshot. I pushed myself away in bewilderment, my mouth half open.

She hiccupped. “This isn’t a game, is it? We’re trapped here.”

“What are you talking about?” I said through shivers that wracked my body. I wrapped my arms under her and tried to lift her. She refused to help. I shook her in an attempt to spur movement, but she didn’t stir at all; she simply sat there, her bloodshot eyes far away. “Alice!” I yelled, and she jumped. “What are you thinking, sitting in this cold water? Do you want to freeze to death?”

“It’d be better than being naïve,” she said so quietly that I almost missed it. “I’ve always been the one watching out for you, Avery. Then we get here and I ignore my own advice. We can’t trust anyone. I was stupid to think I could.”

My teeth chattered so hard that it was a battle for me to formulate a complete sentence. “What…are you…talking about?”

“They don’t need someone common here.” she said with sad eyes. “They don’t need me for anything more than research.”

“Research…?”

Then it hit me.

I tugged her arm from its protective grasp on her knees and looked at the crook of her elbow.

There it was.

The simple red light flashed under a layer of skin that had three small stitches.

I wrapped my arms around her. “It’s okay, I promise we’ll get that thing out. Riggs won’t hurt you.”

“Riggs won’t hurt me,” she repeated into my ear as the frigid water crashed down on my back. Her body shivered underneath my embrace. For all I knew, she may have been talking to herself as much as to me.

“Jaxon, can you get in here?” I called, my voice cracking.

I tried to lift Alice once more, and this time she swayed but carried her own weight. Jaxon stood in the doorway, his eyes wide. I motioned for him to come forward. He swept Alice into his arms as he had me.

He wiped Alice’s hair out of her face. “It’s okay, Alice, we’ll take care of you.”

He began to bark orders. “Get towels. Warm them up in the dryer and bring them to me. Get her some clothes. We need to get her body temperature up. Change her into something dry and we’ll work on getting her back to good.”

I nodded numbly. My feet sank in the shaggy wet carpet as I heard Jaxon plod out of the soaked bathroom with Alice. I grabbed four fluffy towels and ran to the dryer in the utility room by the kitchen.

While those tumbled on low, I hunted for a pair of pajama pants for both Alice and me, along with two simple cotton t-shirts. A pile of sweaters that Alice had tossed in the corner caught my eye, so I grabbed one of those as well, then went back to the dryer for the towels.

My arms full, I found that Jaxon had grabbed my massive down comforter and was holding Alice on the floor of our room, waiting for me. His strong arms were wrapped around her; his biceps flexed as he held her tightly. He rocked her as she leaned against his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

When Jaxon looked my way, I gestured to the pile of clothes in my hand. Without needing an explanation, he untangled himself from the pink comforter. His soaked cashmere sweater clung to his chest. He whipped his dreadlocks back into the leather thong he always wore on his wrist as he walked over to me.

“She’s in shock. We need to get her to talk.”

“Should we take her to Xander?”

“I don’t know if we could get her there without being seen right now, and we don’t need anyone asking questions. She’s a mess.”

I nodded. He was right; she was still hiccupping and unable to speak coherently. Trying to get her through the atrium without being seen was too much to ask.

“Give me five minutes with her, okay?”

“You got it.”

I made my way to Alice. “Hey Sis, I’m here,” I said quietly as I began to extricate her from the comforter. Her convulsive shivers were subsiding, but her lips were still an unhealthy purple.

I worked quickly to put dry clothes on her. Alice’s limp limbs made it hard to maneuver the sleeves of her shirt, and putting on her pants was nearly impossible. I was tucking her under the sheets of her bed when Jaxon’s head peeked in the door once more. “Is she decent?”

I curled my arms around her after pulling the duvet over both of our shoulders. “Yeah, she’s good.”

When he entered, I was startled by his change in attire. He’d abandoned his sweater and wore a white sleeveless undershirt. A stray blonde dreadlock framed the left side of his angular face as he made his way to the foot of the bed. He hesitated before crawling up the opposite side. We sandwiched Alice between us, and as Jaxon’s toes found mine under the covers, I gave an involuntary start.

“Sorry,” he said apologetically, “that water was cold.”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on Alice. How could we help her?

When I reopened them, Jaxon was staring at me.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said in a hushed tone.

I didn’t know if he was talking to Alice or me, but for once, I believed him.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

“You can sleep. I’ll make sure she’s okay,” Jaxon whispered for what seemed the thousandth time.

Our body heat and the warmth of the overstuffed duvet had quelled Alice’s shivering for the most part. After Jaxon quizzed her on her name and where she was from, he was satisfied that she was okay and allowed her to sleep.

My eyes fought to stay open. “I’m fine.”

“You look like death,” Jaxon said simply, with no malice in his voice. “There’s no reason for you to become an insomniac. Sleep.”

“Alice is my friend. I need to take care of her.”

There was no hesitation in Jaxon’s response. “And you’re
my
friends. I can take care of both of you.”

Jaxon reached his arm around Alice. His fingers found my jaw line and he strained to trace the length of it with his fingertip. His expression was pained, as though he were doing something that caused him physical harm. “Look Avery, I’m not used to this stuff. I’m not good with relationships.”

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

“But neither are you.”

Alice stirred and separated our embrace. It was a relief. Even with our physical touch severed, the tension in the air lingered like a corporeal being.

Jaxon looked at me with a hunger I hadn’t seen before, and I was powerless to fight the depth of his stormy blue eyes. They were a maelstrom I couldn’t avoid. Or maybe the problem was I didn’t want to avoid them.

I said the only thing I could think of.

“I need to pee.”

Jaxon laughed and closed his eyes long enough to break the hold he had on me. He readjusted, careful to not wake Alice.

My fingers searched for the edge of the sheets. I hadn’t realized how warm I was until I pulled away the covers. Part of me wanted to dive right back into the odd Alice sandwich that provided me with enough distance from Jaxon to feel close, but still be safe. The other part of me felt horrible and a little weird for using Alice as a human barrier.

She’d probably laugh and harass me to kingdom come if she had been in any shape to know what was going on.

My feet hit the carpet and I sat there on the edge of the bed, my back turned to Jaxon and Alice, as I mulled things over. “Why are you being so nice, Jaxon?”

“Am I not allowed to be nice?”

“It’s not that…”

“You don’t think I’m nice.”

“Not really, no.”

Jaxon laughed. “Well, I promise I haven’t eaten any little children for lunch since I was twelve. Gave it up for Lent and decided to stick to it.”

“You’re kind of sick.”

“Riggs is my dad.” He said it as though it would explain any oddity he had.

I guess in a way it did.

Jaxon’s voice filled the void. “Read some of the journal while you’re up.”

The comment made me laugh and I turned to look at him. “Did you just suggest toilet reading? I didn’t know we were that close.”

Jaxon shrugged, his expression grim. “I’d use it as toilet paper if I could.”

“Why would you share something with me if it’s that horrible?”

“You deserve to know, especially now that Alice is tracked.”

“What do you mean?”

Jaxon shifted uncomfortably. “My arm’s going to sleep,” he muttered.

“What did you mean by the Alice comment?”

Jaxon’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and it reminded me of the first day I met him. God, it felt like a lifetime ago. He pulled the comforter up to Alice’s neck as he sat up and rested his back against the headboard. “I think she’s going through some of the same things I did when I was younger, that’s all. Read the journal.”

I walked quietly to my nightstand on the opposite side of the bedroom. The leather bound journal sat with my father’s reconstructed watch on top of it. I showed the watch to Jaxon. “You shouldn’t have stolen the watch, you know.”

Jaxon’s eyes widened. “I didn’t steal your watch.”

“You don’t have to lie about it. You helped Alice, I’ll let you off the hook this one time.”

“As much as I appreciate the gesture, I didn’t steal it,” Jaxon said earnestly. “Can I keep the forgiveness for a rainy day? I’m sure there’s plenty more times I’ll irritate you and need a get out of jail free card.”

I shook my head and tucked the book underneath the crook of my arm. “Whatever, Jaxon.”

Without another word, I left him sitting there looking half-amused and half-concerned. Amused I’d seen on him before. Concerned, well, that was a new one.

***

I didn’t really have to go to the bathroom. What I needed was an excuse to get away from my unexplainable desire to touch Jaxon’s face, chest, any part of him. Being so close to him in the bed made me uneasy and tingly and excited all at once.

The journal that Jaxon had implored me to read sat before me on the coffee table, the little leather strap untied. The worn cover beckoned me to open it. It felt like an intrusion of privacy to read Jaxon’s innermost thoughts, but he
had
told me to, so that made it okay, right? I rocked back and forth as I sat on my hands, trying to convince myself I didn’t care what Jaxon’s past held.

To stave off the moment, I walked to the other side of the room and started a fire. It spluttered and fought for life when I attempted to make it with logs and matches. I grew tired of hoping it would become a full-fledged fire, so I focused on the glow of the embers and imagined the fire in the library. The flames quickly blossomed, and I was pleased to find that I wasn’t tired from using my ability.

Smug with my success, I curled up on the couch and pulled the journal onto my lap. I took great care not to tear the water-stained pages as I opened the journal.

The smooth, elegant handwriting on the first page indicated that this was not, in fact, Jaxon’s journal, but Riggs’s. When I turned the page, more of Riggs’s aristocratic calligraphy filled the pages and every few lines, a scrawl of Jaxon’s was thrown in.

Atticus Riggs, M.D., Ph. D.

Journal Number One of Thirty-Seven

11 June, 2077 — 14 July, 2078

11 June, 2019

Jaxon turned five yesterday, and today begins his
acclimation training
(I was told it was Army games)
. While apprehensive, I have high hopes for his transitioning to low oxygen levels. If we can prove that humans can withstand the once conceived physiological limits, we may be able to save our world as we know it. At the current time, the average oxygen level for a human being is twelve to fourteen kPa. I am hoping to see Jaxon withstand three kPa by the end of these tests. A medical patient with a kPa below eight is considered extremely low currently. To continue to survive on the Earth, we will need to be able to survive with much less oxygen.

12 August, 2019

Jaxon managed to remain conscious through extremely low oxygen levels (4.42 kPa) before succumbing to arrhythmia. We reinstated the oxygen levels and brought him back with a defibrillator. Jaxon was scared and confused, but I assured him
he was safe
(It was a LIE.)
. We will take a day off before introducing him to the carbon monoxide testing.

24 December, 2019

I was instructed not to address the test subject by his first name in these journals. Therefore he will be called Subject 1 (S1). Today
S1
(MY NAME IS JAXON, DAD. JAXON.)
will be introduced to low levels of carbon monoxide, as our world is dealing with higher levels and our numbers are dwindling from the phenomenon. Studies place low oxygen levels and heightening carbon monoxide levels hand in hand. To survive, we must be able to adapt. S1 is our first and only
hope
(Lab rat)
at the current time.

8 February, 2020

S1 was given forty percent carboxyhemoglobin (COhb). While it’s below the assumed amount required to cause loss of consciousness, S1 passed out after three hours of exposure
(I remember the room. It was all white and one-way glass covered one wall. I remember banging on that glass and choking on my own blood after I bit my tongue. I never saw who was on the other side of the glass, but I remember calling for Mom. She never came. No one ever came.)
. S1 also experienced convulsions while passed out. When resuscitated, S1 experienced extreme paranoia over having repeated exposure to the elements
(I WONDER WHY, DAD.)
. S1’s eyes were extremely bloodshot from a severe breakdown, and he eventually required sedation.