Tracked (21 page)

“You want to sit down?” I ask.

He says nothing, but steps away and claims a seat at the table in the farthest corner of the room. It's late. No one else is eating here. I follow.

We sit across from each other. When I finally muster the courage to look up from my uneaten sandwich, he's staring at me.

“What do you want?” he asks.

Back at the Spire, I'd rehearsed my plea a dozen times. Now the words won't come. I look into his sunken blue
eyes and forget everything. “I want you and your par
ents to come to the next race. I want you to be my pacer.”

“Why?”

I've never seen him this way. Closed off. Flat. Empty. Bear isn't angry. He is drained and colorless. I used to look at him and see a quiet light, clear skies, and the first blaze of morning on the dunes. That light is gone, and I don't know what to do to bring it back any more than I know how to summon the sun.

“I need you. In the race.”

“You have a pacer,” he says. “Use Dradha.”

I'm not sure why I ever thought I could avoid bringing Cash into this conversation—Bear isn't going to let me off the hook so easily. “I can't do this without you.”

“What do you want?” he repeats. “Really?”

“I need you in the race. You have to come with me to Cyan-Bisera.”

“I don't want to. Not now.”

“Please. Do this one thing, and I'll never ask again. Everything depends on it.”

“I don't care about the circuit anymore. You can win without me.”

“No. I can't. We leave this Thursday at noon. There's a spot for you and Hal and Mary on the transport. Sand Ridge Launch Yards. Bay number four.”

“Are you still with him?”

I'm not sure Bear heard a word I said, and I don't know how to answer. He's here. This corner is our fragile truce, but my promise to James, my oath to keep Cash's secrets, hangs like a noose. I need to tell Bear. It's the only way he'll agree to come along. “Cash can't pace me in the race. I need you, Bear. I can't make it without you. Things are not what you think. You're in danger.”

“Is this another threat? Benroyal told me about the DP clinic raid. How you practically begged James to have them shake my parents down, how he didn't really want me on the team in the first place. Even then, I still loved you. I stayed. Like a fool, just to be with you. But you just kept pushing me away, Phee. I don't know who you are anymore.”

“No. It wasn't like that. Listen to me. You have to get on that vac. It's not safe for you here anymore.”

“And I'm safer on Benroyal's payroll? Watching you and Cash?”

“No, Bear. You have to leave with me. I can't tell you why. Just come with us, and I'll explain everything. I swear to you. We have to get out of here. I hate this life.”

“Don't come to me for escape when you're tired of Cash,” Bears says. “Come when you want to be with me.”

His chair slides back with a grinding scrape. Bear is already on his feet, turning away. I reach for his arm, but he recoils.

“Bear. Please. Listen to me.” I try to block his way. “I can't let you get hurt. I'll die if anything happens to you.” My voice thickens into a teary croak, but he's not listening anymore. He pushes past me, and there is nothing I can say or do to stop him.

When I leave Picker's Grocery, I see the Onyx parked on the corner. I climb in and hand my sandwich to Hank, who's waiting for me along with Cash. “Going anywhere else tonight?” Hank asks from the driver's seat.

I shake my head. “Take me back.”

“I talked to James,” Cash says. “Can you believe it? It's on. Benroyal took the bet.”

I don't answer. I can't even think about that right now. If I do, I'll fall apart. Everything that ever mattered to me, the anchors that always held fast are all coming undone, and I'm drowning. Silent, I lean against the door. My whole world has changed in such a short time.

Quietly, Cash sits beside me. He doesn't take my hand or push me to talk. He's waiting for me to say something first. I'd reach for him, but I can't. I understand it now, the look in Bear's eyes. I feel that absence of light. I can't live without my best friend, the boy who's stood beside me for so long, I don't know how to run without him.

“I tried,” I whisper to Cash. “He won't listen to me.”

“It's going to be okay,” he says.

“No, it's not. I was just a runt. A scared little girl stuck in a string of windowless rooms on Mercer Street. I was hungry and alone. One day, Bear's parents delivered supplies. He found me, Cash, hiding under a bed. He smiled at me first and gave me his coat.” I stop, my voice too halting and ragged. “I can still remember what it smells like. Bear is my family. I can't lose him. James won't let me tell him the truth.”

“We won't leave them behind.”

In panic, I lurch forward. “Take me to the Larssens'. Right now. Hal and Mary will listen, if I can just tell them everything.”

Cash pulls me to him. “Benroyal's watching your every move. Don't flex them or show up at their apartment. Don't give him an excuse to suspect you.”

“But I can't let Bear—”

“Leave it to me. He will be there. Hal and Mary too. I swear it.”

I wish I could believe him.

Thursday comes like a death sentence.

We pass three other teams on the way to launch bay four, and I'm pretty sure Max Courant mouthed something nasty as we drove by. I heard he broke two ribs and a wrist when I drove his rig into the wall during the Sand Ridge 400. He's still wearing a special splint.

Figures. My car flips six times and I don't fracture a single bone, but I give that weasely sap-hole one little tap and he shatters. Pity I won't get the chance to do much more damage in the next race. If everything goes according to plan, I won't face him on the course for long.

It's petty to care so much about it, yet I don't relish handing him—or any of these corporate clone drivers—a rally victory. But I have a lot bigger things to worry about. In a matter of days, I won't be part of the circuit anymore.

Soon, I'll be burning, a thick ash cloud rising.

After the team finishes loading my covered rig and our gear on the behemoth transport vac, Cash and I ascend the ramp, following Goose to climb aboard.

James and Benroyal, along with the rest of the Sixer entourage, are taking a smaller, more luxurious vac, of course. Living it up in one that's not so grim and gray, like this monster made of Pallurium bolts. I bet King Charlie's already outside our sweatbox atmosphere, moving across space bridges in high style.

Cash and I linger on the last open loading deck. I squint and search for any sign of another approaching vehicle. Even now, a tiny part of me clings to a fragile hope. Maybe he'll come. Maybe he's changed his mind after all.

There's nothing to see. Not even the wind moves today.

“Quick, quick.” Auguste walks back out to me. He clucks his tongue. “Obey the schedule. We are waiting to close the doors, spitfire girl.”

So much depends on this race, but a selfish impulse dances through me. You don't have to do this. It's not too late to jump and run back to Mercer Street. “I can't leave. Not without Bear.”

“Have a little faith in me.” Cash cups my cheek. His thumb catches a falling tear. “I'll never break a promise.”

I nod, but I don't follow him into the passenger hold. I'll wait on the deck until the doors shut out the noonday sun. I want to look out on Castra one last time.

Even though I've never traveled to another planet, I know how it works. After we rise above the pitiful protection of the Castran atmosphere, the flight crew docks our uni-vac into its Orbital Charging Shell. Without our craft locked into the OCS, we wouldn't be able to make it far out here, let alone drift through folded space.

The actual trip is supposed to feel like an eye-blink, but the lock and launch phase eats up three hours. We are securely pinned in our seats while the crew is caught up in a series of checks and tests and protocols, a bunch of stuff I don't understand. Now that we're juiced up and armored, we navigate our way to the nearest space bridge.

When we first broke through the atmosphere, I'd expected to see the glimmer of stars right away. Instead, it seemed a curtain of black had fallen. There was nothing visible but endless, starless night. But now that we've reached the giant man-made space bridge, the turning satellite wheel, I see the swirl of golden light all around—nebulae as blue green as sea foam, and billions of jeweled stars, rubies and diamonds, winking bright.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain's voice drones into our headsets. “We're fully calibrated, so we'll be charging the bridge in approximately two minutes. For those of you who haven't traveled with us before, welcome.” The captain's voice slips into a quick, rehearsed monotone, but I'm not listening anymore. Tightly, I'm clutching Cash's hand and cursing under my breath.

Put me on any road and as long as I'm behind the wheel, I don't break a sweat. But hurtle me through folded space, at the mercy of another driver, and yes, I'm rusting white-knuckle nervous. One of my headaches takes root. Tendrils of dull pain stretch and unfurl inside my skull.

“It's no big deal, really,” Cash reassures. “I've done this a hundred times.”

Banjo and Auguste are strapped into the seats across from us. “Yes, yes,” Auguste says. “Have no fear. Almost there.”

I close my eyes. I just want people to stop talking.

Banjo, with his good-natured twang, interrupts my cleansing breaths. “Once you have a good puke, you'll be good as new.”

Yeah, I think I'm going to hurl.

Our vac drifts into the open center of the space bridge. I think something went wrong. I heard a soft ping in my headset, but I don't feel the rumble of engines or the
skull-rattling quake of g-forces at work. Nothing's happening. In a blink, all we've managed to do is coast through the calibrated rim.

Wait. No. My gut says otherwise. My nervous system sends out a distress call to every cell of my body, a buzzing relay that says:
You were someplace else a second ago, only that somewhere is now far, far away and we're not sure if all our particles are accounted for, do you copy?

I repeat, do you copy?

My stomach answers. Affirmative. I reach for my gray airsickness tube and slip the attached rubber mask over my face. I lose everything I ate for breakfast and then some. A push of a button and tiny jets of water and mouthwash rinse out the nasty acid tang. As I spit the last of it, it's all suctioned up and out.

I look around and see that several other members of my team have done the same, including Banjo. I shove the apparatus back into its chamber and take a deep breath. Cash is fine; he doesn't look the least bit green.

“That wasn't so bad, was it?” he asks.

I shake my head. Except I'm lying. That was completely weird.

Cash smiles, like I'm not the most repulsive thing he's ever seen. Like he actually can't get enough of me, even after watching me vomit in outer space.

“Feel better?” he says.

I nod, and this time it's the truth.

The captain's voice comes through our headsets again. “We'll be preparing to enter Cyan-Bisera's atmosphere shortly. Until then, we hope that you enjoyed the flight, and we ask that you bear with us for a few minutes as we interface with our crew on the ground. Your seats will unlock as soon as it is safe for them to do so. At that time, you may stretch your legs and make your way to the forefront of the hold. You might want to catch a glimpse of the view.”

Another soft ping interrupts, and the latches on our safety restraints click open. I stand up and drag Cash out of his seat. I might still be a little woozy, but there's no way I'm going to miss this. “Let's go.”

All of us disentangle and make our way to the observation point. A hatch opens, revealing a floor-to-ceiling convex window. The view steals my next breath. I've caught images of Cyan-Bisera on feeds and through Cash's telescope, but up close, it's more beautiful than anything I've ever seen.

There is so much water—teeming seas and oceans of rich drowning blue. I'm used to the endless brown of Castra, but there's hardly any to be found on Cash's home planet. Pristine clouds swirl over the black deltas of great rivers. Fingers of land reach out from two visible continents, every rise and valley emerald, dappled and veined with gold and orange and red.

I see the Biseran Gap, the deep slash cutting through the center of the largest land mass. From here, the ancient canyon blazes like a firestorm, a thick line of flame dividing one half of the world from the other. Just to the west, I can even make out the Pearl Strand, the demilitarized zone between the two countries, with its endless fields of giant white poppies. From here, the strand is a ribbon of snow, melting into the singed embers of the Gap.

This cannot be real. Something so full of light and life must be an illusion.

Cash rests his palm at the small of my back. We stand silent for the longest time. It's the captain's voice that breaks the spell.

“Preparing for re-entry,” he says. “Please return to your
assigned seats in the passenger hold. Six minutes until
countdown.”

We land on the outskirts of Belaram, Bisera's capital. As we climb down the exit ramp, I gulp my first breath of
the atmosphere. My headache disappears, swept away
by the scent of balm leaf on the breeze. I'm so conditioned to the scorching heat of Castra, it's a shock to breathe in cool moisture. Every pore of my skin opens and drinks in the nourishment.

We're only halfway down the ramp when the roar begins. At the edge of the launch yard, a crowd swarms. They press against the gates, shouting and chanting in Biseran. But they aren't circuit fans. They are here for Cash, clamoring, pulling at the fences to get a glimpse of him. It occurs to me, I don't know if they are cheering or crying out for blood. Suddenly, I tense up, afraid.

Dradha. Dradha. Ay-khan banat bakar. Eb banat bakar.

I lean into Cash, to be heard above the roar. “They're calling your name. What are they saying?”

“Ay-khan, the evening star,” he whispers in my ear, then turns to wave at the crowd. “Eb banat bakar. It means ‘he returns.'”

It's then I finally see it. The hope shining in each face. Despite every lie, every bit of gossip on the feeds . . . here, Cash isn't a spoiled aristocrat or a gambling pacer. He is his father's son. They believe in him. They believe in the promise of impossible things. And for the first time, I think I do too.

When he takes my hand again, Cash's eyes are bright, maybe with unshed tears or with relief or joy at coming home. All I know is when the smile lights up his face, his people answer, cheering louder than before.

Eb banat bakar. Over and over and over, a thousand voices strong.