The Moon Dwellers (16 page)

“Thanks,” I say
.
Tawni
’s crying coupled with Cole’s quick for
giveness mak
e
s
me
feel even worse about what I’
ve done.
But at least I have
n’t lost my new friends—at least not yet.
I
’m sure I will
do something else to screw it up soon enough
though
.
“And I’m sorry for eavesdropping.
I won’t do it again.”

Cole dismi
sses
me with a wa
ve of his hand.
“Even,
” he says.
The way he says it makes me believe
my transgression
i
s like a distant memory to him, soon to be forgotten
entirely
.
Tawni
wa
sn’t kidding about him.

“Can I get yo
u something to eat?” she says.

I nod
, sliding out of the booth to let her past.
“Anything not green, not slim
y, and not still moving,” I say
wryly.

Cole chuckles
.
“Good luck with that,” he says
.

Tawni
marches
of
f
,
her hands fisted and her head firm,
as if
she’s
on a mission.
Meeting my criteria
will
be a mission, I think
.

When
Tawni
is gone, Cole says
, “How are you feeling?”

“Feeling?” I say
absently, trying to decide
how to respond.
In truth, I have no idea how I am
feeling.
In the
last twenty-four hours a lot has
changed in my life.
Two new friends, my strange
eye contact
with the President’
s son, my dad being alive: it i
s all too much to take in
, to process
.
I mean, I
am
happy
—no, make that extremely happy, ecstatic, over the moon—
that my dad might be okay, but it feel
s
weird, to
o.
For one thing I don’t know anything about my mom’s whereabouts.
Also, f
or the last six months I’
ve
been trying to come to terms w
ith the possibility that my parents are
dead, executed as a traitor
s.
Now
there
’s hope that
at least
one of them is alive…I dunno, it just feels weird.
Then again, I’m not sure it really matters that he’s alive.
It’s not like I will
ever
get to see him again.
And I’m
sure that
the conditions for him are
awful to the point
of complete misery.
So that i
sn’t much to live for either.

I almost shout
at m
yself aloud.
Thankfully, I keep
it inside, opting to scream in my mind
:
No, no, no!
You’re better than that, better than a quitter!
Dad would be ashamed by such thoughts!
I know then what I have
to do: rescue my father a
nd find out whether my mother i
s still alive.
Oh, and also take a detour to find my sister, too, if I h
ave
time.
Should be easy, simple, no
problemo!
Or impossible.
It i
s
definitely
one or the other.

I still have
n’t ans
wered Cole’s question.
I’m not sure how long it has
been since he asked it, bu
t probably awhile, because he i
s looking at me strangely, like I h
ave
poo on my face or something.
While
I’ve
been battling with myself in the comfort of my own head, I can only guess at what weird facial expressions I was making.

“I’m guessing you’re n
ot sure how you feel?” Cole says
.

Bingo!
Give the guy a prize.
I
am
impressed by Cole’s recognition of my feelings without me having
said a single word.
Maybe he i
s a mind reader.
I hope
not.
W
ith my muddled thoughts, h
aving a mind reader around will
be far too embarrassing.

“Yeah, I’m a bit confused right now.”

“But I bet you want t
o go rescue your dad,” Cole says
.

Crap
!
He
IS
a mind reader!
Or possibly just very perceptive
.
I am
hoping for the latter.
“Yeah,
and my sister and mom, too, while I’m at it.
S
hould
be easy,” I say
.

“Espec
ially with us around,” Cole says
.

“What should be easy?”
Tawni
says
, returning
with two plates of gunk that are
meant to be food.
To her
credit, the gunk on my plate i
sn’t gre
en, slimy, or moving.
But it i
s brownish and
gooey
.
I take
a bite, swallowing
quickly before my taste buds have
much of a chance to linger on the flavor.

“Rescuing Adele’s family
,” Cole says
.
“It shouldn’t be a problem.
Only small hurdles to get over, like escaping from the Pen, crossing hundreds of miles of cave networks while avoiding detection by Enforcers, breaking into a
t least one
maximum security prison, and then breaking back out.
Piece of cake.”

I groan
.
“
I was
trying to be positive,” I say
.
“In any case, I’m doing it alone, so it’s not your problem.”

“Wrong,” Cole says.

“Right,” I retort
.

“Look, whether you like it or not, we’
re going to help you,” Cole says
.

I stare
directly into his strong eyes, trying to get him to back down.
Ab
out three seconds later I look away.
What am
I thinking trying to beat Mr. Power Eyes
in a staring competition—I ca
n’t even beat myself in the mirror.

I remember
the argument that Cole and
Tawni
were
ha
ving when I was
listening in the closet.
“But I thought you were against me because of Tristan.”

Cole shrugs
.
“You’re gro
wing on me.”
His bottom lip doesn’t pout the way it normally does
.

“Lie!” I declare
, raisin
g my arm in victory before it’
s even confirmed.

Cole laughs
and
Tawni
nearly spews
out
the
spoonful of yellow goop she has
in her mouth.
“You’re right, Adele, you’re not growing on me.
That would be disgusting.
Hair
grows on me, foot fungus on occasion, too, due to the shameful hygiene of the guys’ bathrooms, but not other people, and most definitely not you.”

His eyes a
r
e twinkling even more than before.
I grin
.
“So what’s the real reason
for wanting to help me?” I ask
.

“I got nothing against you, nor your magical mysterious love affair with the sun prince
”—I try to interject, but Cole sees it coming and pushes
a finger to my lips, silencing me—“but I just don’t trust Tridlan one bit.”

“Tristan,” I say
.

“What?”

“His name is Tristan.
You said Tridlan.”

“Did I?” Cole says
, throwing his hands up and feigning ignorance.
I realiz
e he’s mocking me.
I want
to
be angry, but his mannerisms make me smile.
“Anyway,” Cole says
, “
him
being the son of the President and all, it’s not easy for me to be as trusting of Tr
ift
an as you guys are.”

I ignore
his repeated mispronunciation of Tri
stan’s name and try to focus.
It will be great to have friends help
me—at least to get
out of the Pen.
But I still do
n’t understand their motives
, which bothers me
.
At least not Cole’s.
Tawni
i
s probably trying to make up for the actions of her pare
nts—to prove that she i
s bet
ter than them.
Also, she seems
to just be a nice person, willing to help a friend in need, even a
new friend like me.
But Cole is a mystery.
It doesn’t help that he jokes around so much, which makes
it even harder to get a r
ead on him.
He has
no reason to help me.

“Seriously, why do
you want to help
?” I repeat
.

His eyes darken
.
“Okay, look.
I’m just really tired of everyone getting treated unfairly by the sun dwellers.
I’ve been in j
u
v
ie
once before, when I was eleven.
I had this teacher, Mrs.
Witchikata.
She was really kind, really pretty, always saying nice things to me.
What can I say?
I fell for her—head over freakin’ heels.
So one day I told her I loved her.
Mrs. W would never have reported it, but a nasty little Year Five kid overheard and told the principal, who told the authorities.
Unauthorized flirting
,
they called it.
I got six weeks in the Pen.
Since then, I’ve always wanted revenge.”

Tawni
giggles.
I look
at her, then back at Cole.
“La la l
ie,” I say
.

“Almost, smarty,” Cole says
.
“It was a half lie.
All the stuff about Mrs. W
was
BS—in fact she was about ninety-five years old, two hundred pounds overweight, covered in warts, with a mean streak a mile wide.
I hated her guts.
But I did give you the truth about why I want to help you.
The sun dwe
llers are creeps, period.”
I gi
ve him a look and
he
thro
w
s
up his hands
submissively
.
“Okay, okay, maybe not all of them,
maybe not even your beloved Triptan
, but the majority of them.”

“Okay,”
I say.
I believe
him.
It certainly fit
s with what little I kno
w about the
male species.
Their motives a
re generally simple: fun, honor, sex,
food,
pride, revenge, sex.
Pretty basic stuff.

“Okay?”
Tawni
says
, confirming.

“Yeah, we’ll escape together.”

“And then go rescue your f
amily
,” she says
.

I have
n’t thought that far ahead, but I
figure
I c
an
talk
them out of it when the time co
me
s
.
“Uh, yeah, whatever.
So how do we pull it off?”
I say
, leaning in.