The Color of Rain (27 page)

“You've got to be kidding!” I scream at Ben.

“This is as close as I can get!” he yells back. “Go now!”

I get my hand around the release and move to the edge. My heart slams in my throat. The hover cab sways in the wind, and I look down at the longest drop I've ever faced, let alone considered jumping from.

“Go!” Ben calls.

I step out.

And that's all it really takes to fall.

I swing to a stop in the harness only feet from the top of the crate. From there I have to let the line out by hand, zipping down to the ground a few feet at a time. As soon as my feet touch the soil, I circle around to the crate's doors, turn the wheel lock and
pull the gates open.

Hundreds of faces peer through the crate. Their eyes blink glassily, and the stench of their captivity fills the cool night air.

“You're free.” My mouth is dry, and my voice cracks. I point toward the woods. “Go!”

But none of them move.

I grab the nearest man and tug him out of the crate. He turns in a full circle but won't keep walking. I grab another and another, but they linger, bumping into each other.

“Go! Go!” I scream, pulling at arms and shoulders to get more of them out, but they stiffen in clustered groups, blocking the exit. A few hold on to each other the way Walker always held on to me. They're afraid. How can people say the Touched are brain dead when they clearly feel fear and pain? When they cry when they're hungry or flee when there's danger—

That's it!

There were words that I used to help Walker through his fogs.
Food
was one. No matter how lost he became in the quicksand of his mind, if I said “food” he would open his mouth.

And the other one was instinctual as well, the word I used to trigger his flight response.

“
RUN!
”

I'm beaten back by the stampede, gripping the hover cab line to keep them from knocking me over as they flee and scatter on old bones and starved limbs. They must know. Somewhere beneath all those blanked surfaces, they can smell the clean air and the soil underfoot.

When the last one has disappeared through the shadowy
trees, I close the crate doors, seal the lock, and press the button that returns me to the hover cab. The wind kicks my hair from my face while I soar toward the blue glow, and I feel my dad. My missing family. I feel their pride through me like a blaze of fiery light.

Once inside, I shut the door.

“Well,” Ben says. “Are they gone?”

“They're free.”

I collapse across the backseat as we surge up in a spiral toward the night sky and the black shadow of
Imreas
for the second crate. This time, I'm brimming with joy when I leap from the hover cab and fling open the doors. I imagine my mom and Jeremy sprinting into the woods, and am filled with the hope that saving these people is like helping them.

The cops on Earth City tried to make the Touched disappear, but all they did was sever our society into pieces too small to function. Too small to thrive.

Toward the end of the second group, the two small blonde girls, still holding hands, streak into the dark like links in a chain that can't be broken.

Ben and I return the empty crate to its spot on
Imreas
's side and head back to Entra. I slip the harness off and climb over the front seat to join him. “Johnny won't even know that they're gone until it's too late to come back for them.”

“That's the hope.” He takes a deep breath. “Now we just have to go back and pretend like nothing's changed so he doesn't
suspect anything. We were fast,” he adds. “Still two hours until dawn.”

“Do we have to go back?” I ask.

“You know we do.”

“My brother,” I say, answering my own question.

“Not to mention the fact that if we don't return and act normal, Johnny will suspect something. Our entire plan rests on the idea that he doesn't bother to check those crates in person.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” I glance out the window at the shadowy rush of the tree line.

He clicks his com against my red bracelet. “Plus, running away is a death wish. All he has to do is press a button and we're zapped. Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say again. I had almost forgotten that Johnny could electrocute us through our tags. “But it's not dawn yet. And he's still out. We don't have to rush back.”

“You're right. We don't.” He steers the cab out over the forest, bringing us down with a jarring thump on the only spot wide enough for the vehicle to land—a cliff face overlooking a wide, glistening lake.

We get out in silence. The light is different here. Brighter. Ben's silhouette is lit against a navy sky, and the white moons shine within an aura of clouds.

“What can you see?” I ask.

“It's deep water,” he says. “A submerged canyon.”

“This planet is so empty of people and yet full of life.”

Ben rubs his arms and nods. “It would make an amazing relocation place for Earth Cityites. There used to be talks about it on
the Edge, but that was before they started to become entangled with Mec culture. Apart from the K-Force, my people don't care much for the rest of humanity, Rain. It's embarrassing. Heartbreaking, really.”

“But you said that they never really leave the Edge. So maybe they don't know about Earth City. About the Touched or the slaving in the Void.”

“They know enough to ignore it,” he says sadly.

I step to the edge of the canyon, peering over the side. The water is black, but the reflecting moons highlight a slight ripple on the surface. I sit on the ledge, my feet dangling over the drop.

Ben shuffles down next to me. “I can't really believe that we did it. You?”

“I believe it.” Out over the water, small bats swoop, diving toward the surface only to swing up like a dance. “When Walker was little, he would run through alleys with his arms out, singing high notes that echoed off the bricks. Dad called him the Night Bird like it was his superhero name.”

“You make me wish that I wasn't an only child.” Ben scoots over until our legs touch. I turn to face him, finding him so very close. “What do you want to do now?”

“Enjoy what time we have left.” I sigh. “At some point, he'll figure out that we're the ones who stole his cargo.” And then he'll kill us. Walker, too.

“We'll find a way to get away from him before then.”

“Let's hope.” I throw a stone. It drops for long, long seconds before echoing a minute splash. Jumping from the hover cab was terrifying, and yet it filled me with a sense of crazy freedom that
I've never felt before. I throw another rock and touch the bracelet on my wrist. Even at this distance from Johnny, the scarlet glow is strong.

The second rock splashes, and suddenly I would give anything to be that stone, dropping through an unknown freefall. No harness this time and nothing but the air to comfort me. No memory of gripping fingers and stripping men. No Johnny.

Maybe that falling girl wasn't so far off after all. I touch the bandage on my burnt wrist.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. Is that strange?”

“Nerve damage,” he says. “It's not a good sign. I wish there was something I could do.” I run my fingers over the linen, wondering if being Touched feels like a kind of whole body numb like this burn. Or like slipping into that voided mental place I frequent when I touch the other men. When I let them touch me.

“Johnny will be awake in a few hours. We'll have to come up with an excuse for why he has a concussion. We could tell him that he passed out.”

I get to my feet, my toes over the edge.

“Rain, what are you doing?”

“I don't want to talk about Johnny.” Or remember the heat of his skin and lips and constant taking. I pull my dress over my head, toss it away, and leap out over the cliff face.

The air whirls as I drop through the night, crashing into the silver-lined black surface. My skin stings from my heels to my hips, but my body is mine in the weightless plunge. I sink into the cool of deep water, only clawing upward when my lungs begin to spasm.

I emerge to the biggest breath of my life. A newborn breath. It stretches to the soles of my feet, and I splay every finger and toe. I shake the water out of my ears and hear the echo of Ben's shout.

RAIN!

Rain

rain

“I'm here,” I call back. A dark body hurtles over the cliff's edge, and Ben comes falling after me, dropping past the shine of the moons until he explodes against the surface.

I laugh and swim to where he thrashes.

“You scared the hell out of me!” he yells, spitting water. I crawl closer and closer to him, unable to stop. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss his wet lips.

He goes still for a heartbeat.

But then his arms seal around my waist, and his mouth is alive against mine. Waves of warmth roll through me like when I kiss Johnny, but there's more—an added jolt of surprising joy. My tongue finds the edge of his, and his breath rushes into mine. And all the while, our feet churn the water to keep us above the surface.

To keep the moment.

We kiss until we're both gasping. I press my face to his cheek, his hair dripping on my nose, and though I don't feel at all like crying, my eyes leak.

“Unbelievable,” he murmurs, and I can't help but agree.

W
e kick to a sandy shore beneath the sheer rock face. I swim through a mass of old leaves before my feet touch down, stepping out covered in bits of foliage. As I pick the leaves away, I'm more aware of my knees, hips, and breasts than I've ever been in my life.

Ben yanks his wet shirt over his head, and the moons' light shades his chest with a gray color as pale as death. The same color as Walker in his cold prison.

I have to look away. The rush of the water and the kissing was one thing, but this is land now. Land means Johnny and the girl trade and my frozen little brother.

He wrings his shirt and swings it over his shoulder. “You've got leaves in your hair.” He reaches for me, and I back into the rock face. His hand drops. “What's wrong?”

I breathe in—and then out too fast. His naked chest and half-open mouth sting even as I close my eyes against them. He's my Ben, not some sleazy passenger with grubby fingers and a hairy smell. But when I open my eyes, my heart is throbbing . . . and no longer in that good way.

He steps closer, and I back up again, scraping my shoulder on
the rock.

“I need a little distance,” I say.

He laughs. “After all that?” He points at the water. “After what we just did? You're shy now?”

I move away from him, feeling the lightning in my nerves. My panic rising. “Just listen to me, okay?”

The moons slip behind a cloud, and Ben is shadow. “Okay. I'm listening.”

I rub at the shivers on my bare stomach and arms. I want to tell him about the other men. About the nights and the deals and the horrible things that I've done. But I can't.

“We shouldn't get caught up in this.”

“You mean us?” he says in a tone that makes my shivers worse.

“Remember Bron?” I can't see him wince, but I bet he does. “The closer we are to each other, the harder it will be to hide it from Johnny.”

“Hell, Rain! You really should have thought of that before you jumped me.” He wrings his shirt over and over until he's in danger of ripping it to pieces. “I wasn't being guilt stricken earlier. I really do like you, and I think about you all the time. Are you trying to torture me?”

Heat flares up through my cheeks, and I don't care if he can see it. He shouldn't be this thick. He should know what I am and what I've been through.

“Sorry, Ben”—I say, resisting the urge to knock him back into the water—“but I'm not going to sleep with you just because I kissed you.”