Phoenix (15 page)

“No!” Elijah says. “We have to keep moving forward. If we go back, it’ll add days
to our journey.”

Ash looks behind us, and I follow his gaze. The Destroyer Ship is heading upstream,
in the direction of Dusty Hollow.

“I think they’re expecting us to go there,” Ash says.

Elijah starts walking. “Then that’s settled. Onward it is.”

Ash catches my eye, giving me a worried look. I know what he’s thinking. Once we head
out of the ravine tonight, there won’t be anywhere to hide. If we don’t find a town
before dawn, then we’ll be in serious trouble.

We trudge through the canyon, our spirits low. Thrace feels like a million miles away,
the Ora so far out of our grasp. We follow the path of the rushing river, which carves
through the ravine, occasionally wading into the shallows or briefly splitting off
in different directions to throw the Lupines off our scent when they eventually come
after us.

The sun continues to rise over the canyon, lifting away the last tendrils of night
and turning the cliffs a burnt shade of orange, the river a brilliant turquoise. Beneath
the clear waters, hundreds of small shadows dart about. There’s a surprising amount
of life around here. Lizards bask in the sun, rattlesnakes slither between the rocks,
condors glide across the sky. Elijah flinches every time one flies overhead. Nearby,
a herd of wild horses drink by the river edge, their chestnut tails swishing as they
swat at mosquitoes. The sound of our footsteps makes them look up, and they immediately
gallop away, kicking clouds of dust into the air behind them.

As the heat intensifies, I shrug off Elijah’s coat, handing it back to him, while
Ash pulls out a black cotton scarf from his bag—the type the Legion guards wear in
Black City—and wraps it around his head and neck, so only his sparkling eyes are visible.
He must be uncomfortably hot, but he can’t risk exposing his skin.

The gorge is remarkably peaceful, the sound of rushing water and the call of wild
animals our only companions, and for a while, I forget why we’re here as I take in
the dramatic scenery, thinking about Polly and how much she would have loved it. I
feel her presence everywhere, like she’s with me. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking.
I hope not. I like to think of her in a better place, not curled up in a ball in a
bloodred room.

My reverie is quickly shattered when far in the distance a man howls, his cry echoing
throughout the ravine and turning my blood to ice. It can only mean one thing.

The Lupines are coming.

NATALIE

WE CUT ACROSS
the river, wading across the cool water until we reach the other bank to try and throw
them off our scent. My clothes are heavy with water, weighing me down, and it’s a
struggle to keep up the pace with Ash. Only the knowledge that the Lupines are after
us keeps me going, but every step feels like I’m dragging my body through mud.

“Ash, I need to stop,” I say after an hour, unable to take another step.

The Lupines howl again. The sound seems to be coming from both sides of the gorge
this time.

“They’ve split up,” Ash says distractedly.

“That’s a good thing, right?” I say. “It means they’re having trouble tracking us?”

Ash doesn’t say anything. Instead he surveys our surroundings, then leads us into
the shallow waters of a stream, I presume to cover our scent. We follow it through
a crevice in the cliffs to our right, the water splashing around our boots. The light
immediately dims as we enter the passageway.

The sandstone walls close in around us the farther we walk, making me feel claustrophobic.
At one point, the passageway gets so narrow, we have to turn sideways to squeeze through
the gap. Ash grunts as the stone scrapes at his chest, tearing a button from his jacket.

“Fragg,” Ash mutters, getting jammed.

I shove him with my shoulder, wincing as my arm collides with his hard body, and we
burst through the other side of the passage. My eyes widen with surprise as we’re
greeted by a natural pool inside a giant cavern. A large section of the cave’s roof
has fallen in, so sunlight streams down on its glittering surface. Boulders and green
thorny shrubs line the embankment, while silvery fish dart about underneath the jade
waters.

We find a place to rest on the stony banks. I lay our coats on the ground while Ash
removes his black headscarf, tucking it into his duffel bag.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Elijah says, walking to the water’s edge. He finds a
boulder to sit on, and turns his back on us.

Ash and I lie down on the coat-bed, facing each other. Tingly sparks of electricity
shoot through me, the way they always do when I’m close to him, because of our Blood
Mate connection. He smiles softly at me as his fingers brush over my cheek, making
my blood temperature turn up a notch. He closes the gap between us, and we gently
kiss. This is all I need: him, me, like this. His hand slips under my top and lightly
traces up my spine. I melt against him, my moan muffled against his lips.

“Ahem.”

The sound of Elijah’s exaggerated cough makes us both start. We stop kissing, and
grin sheepishly at Elijah. He shakes his head, then turns around again. Ash holds
me against him as we fall asleep.

In my dream I’m walking through the canyon, but it looks different: the skies are
storm gray, the earth as black as cinder, the river rose-red with blood. The sight
should repulse me, but instead I feel
thirsty.
Up ahead, Ash kneels by the water’s edge, drinking from the blood-river like the
wild horses we saw earlier.

“Ash?”
I call out.

He raises his head, and I gasp. His eyes are sickly yellow, his flesh rotting from
his bones. He lifts his hand and points an accusing finger at me.

“You . . . did . . . this,”
he says.

I shake my head.

“No, it wasn’t me,”
I cry out.

“You . . . did . . . this,”
he says again, then points to the river.

Confused, I glance down at my reflection in the glassy red water, wondering what he
means. My scream echoes around the canyon as a monstrous Wrath stares back up at me—

I start awake, my chest heaving. I blink, trying to erase that image from my mind.
The air is warmer than before, suggesting it’s close to noon. Have I really been asleep
for a few hours? It felt like seconds. Ash’s arm is wrapped around my waist. His breathing
is ragged, his eyes moving rapidly under his pale lids, clearly trapped in his own
terrible nightmare.

“Stop, oh God . . . the flames . . . oh God, oh God . . . Natalie,” he says in his
sleep, panic rising in his voice. “Natalie!”

“Sshh, it’s okay,” I whisper soothingly. “You’re safe. I’m here. It’s not real.”

Ash’s breathing immediately starts to slow. It breaks my heart that he has to relive
his execution every night. I wait a few minutes until his breathing is back to normal,
and then carefully move his arm, getting up. I walk over to the water’s edge, shading
my eyes from the bright shafts of sunlight coming through the hole in the cavern roof.
Elijah’s standing in the middle of the pool, deep in concentration. He’s taken off
his shirt to reveal his lean, tanned torso, which glistens with water. I feel embarrassed
seeing him half dressed like this, which is ridiculous, considering I’ve seen him
completely naked before, when he was being held captive in Sentry headquarters back
in Black City.

He’s bulked out a lot since then—which is hardly surprising now that he’s not being
starved and tortured. His chest and arm muscles are firm and defined, his neck muscles
thicker. The beautiful brown markings on his flanks continue down his narrow hips,
darting below the waistband of his pants. If memory serves, those markings go all
the way to his feet. I flush. Why did I put
that
image in my head?

He’s staring at the water with great intensity, his dark russet mane hanging around
his face. His tail stirs the water around him in circular motions, coaxing the silvery
fish to form a tight ball in front of him. All of a sudden, he thrusts his hand into
the water and plucks out a fish. It flaps wildly in his hand, its mouth gaping. He
bites its head, killing it, then tosses it onto the embankment by my feet, where another
two fish are lying. Elijah wades out of the pool, his black pants slick against his
thighs.

“What’s this?” I say, pointing toward the dead fish with the toe of my boot.

He grins. “Lunch.”

We sit on some flat rocks while he starts to gut the fish with a piece of flint, the
sun beating off his back. Up close, his skin has a reddish hue, like the sandstone
around us. It’s a stark contrast to Ash’s alabaster skin. They’re like winter and
summer. While Ash is tall, Elijah is short. Ash’s face is long and angular; Elijah’s
is square and strong. Even their lips are different—Ash’s pale and straight, Elijah’s
scarlet and curved. I tear my eyes away, realizing I’m staring.

“I think the Lupines have lost our scent,” he says. “I haven’t heard them in over
an hour.”

My shoulders relax. I hadn’t realized I’d been hunching them.

“I’ve never seen anyone catch fish with their bare hands before,” I say, nodding toward
our lunch.

“My brother Acelot showed me how to do it. It’s usually the dad’s job, but . . .”
He sighs, hurt flickering across his features. “He doesn’t have much time for me.”

I slide off the rock and sit beside him to help prepare lunch. I’m not keen to eat
raw fish, but I’m too hungry to argue. My knee accidentally brushes up against his
as I lean across him to pick up one of the fish, but he doesn’t make any attempt to
move away. I squeamishly dig my fingers into the slit Elijah cut into the fish’s belly,
pulling out its insides.

“You mentioned your mother was a geneticist?” I say, trying to keep my mind off the
fish guts.

He nods. “Her work is mostly focused on xenotransplantation—”

“Xeno-what-now?”

“She transplants cells or organs from one species into another,” he explains. “Because
there are so few Bastets left, organ donation among my people is almost unheard of
these days, so she’s finding alternatives that we can use if we get sick.”

I think about the scar on my chest, from my own heart transplant when I was a kid.
I would’ve died if Dr. Craven hadn’t ripped out Evangeline’s heart and given it to
me.

“I like to help my mom around the laboratory. Well, I did before she . . .” He stares
at his hands, which are covered in fish blood. “Do you think they’re torturing her,
like they did with Polly?”

My heart stings, thinking about my sister. In all honesty, if the Sentry has Elijah’s
mom, then I’m certain she’s being interrogated and tortured. It’s what they do. He
doesn’t need to hear this, though.

“We’ll get her back,” I say, lightly touching his tanned arm.

He glances down at his arm where my fingers touch him, and a deep flush rises up his
neck. He lifts his honeyed eyes and holds my gaze for a lingering moment, and suddenly
I’m the one who feels too hot.

“You’re getting fish blood on your leg.”

I start at the sound of Ash’s voice. Flustered, I quickly drop my hand from Elijah’s
arm. Ash is leaning against the cave wall, his thumb hooked in one of his belt loops.
There’s a hard edge to his expression I’ve never seen before. I place the gutted fish
on the rock.

“I thought you were asleep,” I say.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Ash replies as Elijah puts on his shirt.

My cheeks burn. I’m not sure whether I’m furious at Ash for insinuating that something
was going on between me and Elijah or embarrassed that maybe he was right, at least
a little bit. Ash stalks over to the water’s edge. I go over to him.

“Nothing was going on,” I reassure him.

I try to take his hand, but he puts it in his pocket, preventing me.

“Why are you being like this?” I say.

“Sorry,” he mutters, finally taking my hand. “I guess it pisses me off when a half-naked
guy flirts with my fiancée.”

“He wasn’t—”

Ash raises a brow.

“Even if he was, it doesn’t mean anything,” I say. “You know what he’s like.”

“Yeah,” Ash replies. “It’s you I’m confused about.”

I snatch my hand away from his, definitely angry now.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I snap. “
Nothing happened.
He was upset, and I was consoling him, that’s all. I—”

My words are cut off as we’re suddenly plunged into twilight. Confused, I peer up
at the gap in the cavern roof just as the air around us starts to hum. My heart freezes
as the Destroyer Ship slowly stalks across the sky.

They’ve found us.

We sprint away from the large hole in the cavern roof and slam our backs against the
stone wall, trying to make ourselves invisible. The shadow of the Destroyer Ship blocks
out most of the light, the aircraft’s engines making the surface of the water vibrate.

“Did they see us?” Elijah whispers.

“We’ll know soon enough,” I murmur, keeping my eyes fixed on the airship’s hatch.
If they know we’re here, any moment now it’ll open up and a Transporter will come
down to get us. We wait for second after agonizing second as the Destroyer Ship cruises
by overhead. After what seems like an eternity, light floods back into the cavern,
and the blue sky returns. It’s gone.

I exhale, my nerves shot.

“How many hours until nightfall?” Ash asks.

I check my watch. “Six.”

“We’ll leave as soon as it gets dark,” he says.

We sit down on the coats while Elijah finishes cleaning the fish. Tension bubbles
between me and Ash, still upset from our fight. Elijah returns and offers some pieces
of fish to me, but I’ve lost my appetite. Instead, I retrieve the portable digital
screen from Ash’s bag and watch the news with the sound down low, not wanting to draw
attention to our position on the off chance the Lupines are still in the area.

“I’m sorry,” Ash whispers to me.

“Me too,” I reply.

He loops his arm around me, all forgiven.

The three of us huddle around the digital screen. There’s been some fighting in Fire
Rapids in the Black River State, plus three rebel strikes against munitions factories
in Gallium. Roach, Beetle and Day are certainly sticking to their end of the deal
by keeping the Sentry busy while we search for the Ora, but how much longer can they
hold them off?

Eventually night falls and it’s time to leave. We gather our belongings, exit the
cavern the same way we entered and wander along the river for a few hours, passing
a herd of resting horses. I keep an eye out for any sign of the Destroyer Ship, but
don’t see it anywhere.

Ash stops and points toward the cliff. “There’s a trail up ahead. We should follow
it up to the top of the ravine.”

In the moonlight I can just make out the path snaking up the rock face.

“It looks very steep,” I say, concerned. “It could take all night to climb.”

“Why don’t we ride the horses?” Elijah gestures toward the herd of animals.

“You can’t be serious,” Ash says.

Elijah smirks. “You scared?”

“No,” Ash replies, then adds under his breath: “Good luck catching one.”

I watch, intrigued, as Elijah cautiously approaches one of the chestnut mares. The
horse clambers to its feet, neighing loudly. He raises his hands.

“Whoa, girl,” he says in a strangely hypnotic voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The horse scuffs its hoof against the ground, agitated.

“Maybe you should back off,” I say.