Unravel (30 page)

Then Cadan was there, swinging himself up into the flyer. He reached up, hit the door button, and the door clamped shut, sealing them all in.

THE PROPELLERS
raced above them. Elissa's stomach dropped with a violent lurch as the flyer rose into the air.

“Lissa.” Cadan went to one knee in front of her, shoving his gun into its holster.

“Oh God, Cadan, I thought . . .” She couldn't say it. She rose to her knees, reaching for him.

He shifted position so he was on both knees too, drawing her into his arms. She put her arms up around his neck, feeling him safe and whole against her, feeling his hands shaking where they touched her, warm through the back of her T-shirt. “Lissa, God, when I told you to run and you didn't move . . .”

“I tried to. I couldn't see.”

“Jeez, not blaming you.” He pulled back enough to look down into her face. His eyes were blazing, the bright blue of a sunlit sky. “That was incredible. What you and Lin did.
We'd never have gotten out if it hadn't been for you.”

The sunlight seemed to go all through her, lighting her up from inside. “I didn't think we'd manage it. It was the hardest thing
ever
.”

“Yeah, I believe you.” His lips curved in a smile. “You're amazing, you know that?”

“Not just me.”

Cadan flicked a quick look up. Above them, in the jumble of people, no one was paying them any attention. He looked back at Elissa, the smile creeping into his eyes, and lowered his voice, for her ears only. “Mostly just you.”

He pulled her tight against him and kissed her, harder than he'd ever done before, his fingers threading through the hair at the back of her head, his hand tilting her face to his. Her heart picked up, thundering against his body where he held her. Her arms locked around his neck, her mouth opened under the insistent pressure of his lips, and the world disappeared.

Except not really. A long way off, someone cleared their throat. Cadan pulled away, leaving her dizzy. She put a hand up to cover her tingling lips, ducking her head, swept by shyness.

Cadan looked a little dizzy too. He glanced up, a flush coloring his face.

His father was standing close by. He looked down at Cadan, raising one eyebrow, and Cadan's flush deepened.

“More important things at hand, son?”

Cadan rolled his eyes a little. “Jeez, can't a guy get half a minute?” He looked quickly back at Elissa, and suddenly there was a slight hesitation in his face, as if he'd been brought back to the moment, back to the life where he was
supposed to stay in control at all times. “You okay? That wasn't—I didn't . . .” He trailed off, leaving it unspoken.
That wasn't too much? I didn't go too far?

She was breathless, heart still thumping, not to mention nerve endings all over her body. “I think we should risk our lives more often,” she said, low enough so that only he could hear her.

His eyes met hers, and a spark seemed to jump between them. “I'll remember that,” he said, and the grin he gave her made her blush from forehead to toes.

When he stood up he moved a little awkwardly, pulling his jacket down with what seemed like unnecessary care. Elissa looked at him for a puzzled moment, then—
Oh.

A burst of almost-shocked giggles rose within her.
That
must have happened before today—okay, she hadn't done a ton of dating, but she wasn't an idiot—but it was the first time it had happened so
obviously
.

Her skin tingled all over again, as if a shower of warm sparks had fallen over and through her. It wasn't just . . .
that
. It was the way he'd touched her. The urgency in his hands, in the feel of his mouth, was all new, as if seeing her in danger had forced him, just for a instant, into letting go of all his usual careful control.

The flyer tipped, making her sway sideways, bump against the wall. It brought her out of the bubble of glowing warmth to which the world had momentarily shrunk. Above her the flyer's propellers beat the air, and all around her were refugees, shocked and wounded.

Felicia! Oh my God, what's wrong with me?

She scrambled to her feet, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. The body of the flyer, separated from the
cockpit by a clear barrier, stretched out before her, easily big enough to hold all the passengers plus two crew members, a man and a woman, both dressed in light blue shirts and pants, the trident-caduceus showing on their right sleeves.

Felicia had been lifted onto a pull-down bed, and both crew members were bending over her. Her shirt had been cut off, and the female crew member was holding a clean white pad to her shoulder while the male crew member hooked her up to an IV unit.

Sofia was lying on another bed, Emily Greythorn attending to her head wound. Her movements were calm and steady, betraying no urgency.
Head wounds bleed a lot anyway,
thought Elissa, the snippet of random information entering her mind from nowhere. Despite the gray look to Sofia's face, and the expression of barely controlled panic on El's, it didn't look as if Sofia's wound was anywhere near life threatening.

It was Sofia getting hurt that freaked El out so badly, then. It wasn't just getting attacked—it was her
twin
getting hurt.
From how Sofia and El had interacted back at the safe house, Elissa wouldn't have thought there was enough of a bond between them to make El react like that.
I should have known better, though. Once I'd gotten over the weirdness of meeting Lin, it hardly took any time before she mattered more than anything. . . .

Everyone else who'd fled the safe house was sitting or standing around the flyer, holding on to grab handles to keep them steady as the flyer banked in the air.

And not just the people from the safe house. As Elissa's brain caught up with what she was looking at, she realized that the parents and children from the playground were on board as well, grouped at the end of the flyer farthest from the cockpit. When had they gotten on board?

“They all ran for the flyer when we did,” said Samuel's voice behind her. Elissa turned to see him sitting, his back against the wall, his shoulder close to Jay's. “That big guy who came with you—Ivan? He pulled them all on board. The commander said they didn't have refugee clearance, and . . . well, he didn't pay much attention.” He grinned. “It was very cool.”

Elissa shot a look down to the other end of the flyer, where the commander stood, speaking to Cadan and Mr. Greythorn. “Jeez, I should
hope
he didn't pay attention. Those little kids, with grenades and bullets flying—you couldn't just leave them there! But what are they going to do with them now? I mean, they're not up for relocation, are they?”

“They're putting them back down,” said Lin. She was kneeling beyond Samuel, next to where Cassiopeia huddled. Cassiopeia's face was hidden on her knees. After a second Elissa noticed that Lin's hand was on the other girl's shoulder, as if she was trying to comfort her but wasn't quite sure how to go about it.

That's new.
Although Lin had wanted to come back to Sekoia in order to help other Spares, this was the first time Elissa had seen her do anything so normally human as offer comfort to anyone—apart, of course, from Elissa herself.

Big change.
Was that the effect of escaping immediate danger, or was it just a natural development of meeting people like herself?

Belatedly, Elissa realized she hadn't responded to Lin. “Back down? Near where we were?”

“I guess so.” Lin slid a glance at the unmoving Cassiopeia, putting her free hand up to her mouth to chew on the edge of her thumbnail. Her look at Elissa had some appeal in it.
I'm trying,
her expression said,
but I don't know what I'm doing.

Elissa choked back a giggle. It was really cool that Lin was trying to look after Cassiopeia, but it was a bit like watching a robot follow some kind of preselected “empathy” program. The right gestures, but performed in a way that made them a little alien.

“Cassiopeia?” she said. “Are you okay?”

A dark swathe of hair slid back from Cassiopeia's face as she turned her head to the side to look at Elissa. “I . . . don't think I'm hurt.” Her voice came out as a croak, and she stopped and swallowed. “I . . .” A shudder took her, making her teeth chatter together.

“It was pretty freaky back there,” Elissa said, speaking as gently as she could. All at once she was remembering the first time she'd seen Lin, filthy, shaking with fever, tipped out into a world she didn't understand, a world that had no welcome for her. “You're probably kind of shocked.”

“Oh,” said Lin suddenly. “Where's my hoodie?”

Elissa cast a quick look at her. Had that been all the empathy Lin had to spare? Seriously? She tried not to let her voice show disappointment. “Over by Felicia or something, I guess. It'll be all bloody, though, Lin—they won't let you get it.”

“Okay.” Lin looked back at Cassiopeia. “Sorry. I had some chocograin bars, but I can't— Oh, wait!” She delved in the pocket of her trousers, and after a few seconds produced the familiar wrapped bar and held it out to Cassiopeia. “I forgot I put one in there.” She looked at the bar critically. “It's a bit squashed.”

Elissa found herself smiling, wanting to reach over and hug her twin. “She's right,” she said to Cassiopeia. “We're all pretty shaky, I bet. Chocolate does kind of help.”

Cassiopeia took the bar, fumbled to tear it open, and bit off a piece.

Lin watched her eagerly. “It's nice, isn't it?”

Cassiopeia swallowed and bit off another piece. She nodded, and Lin beamed. Then, after a moment, Cassiopeia lifted her head fully. “It was you two who saved us down there,” she said. “Wasn't it?”

Elissa felt herself flushing. It was one thing to have Cadan praise her; it was somehow less comfortable to have the others comment on it. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just that she and Lin—oh, they'd been so
lucky
, really, although it hadn't felt like it at the time. The fact that their link was powerful enough to save themselves, to save
other people
, felt almost embarrassing, like it was good luck on top of good luck, and none of it really deserved.

Lin didn't seem to feel any of the same reticence. “Yes,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “That was us.”

From over by Zee, Ady spoke. “What you guys can do—it's amazing.” He gave a rueful grin. “And kinda unfair. All the Spares were taken for the same reason—at least, as far as we know. We should all have that kind of power, don't you think?”

“No,” said Lin seriously, missing the humor in his tone. “People's minds are different, even when they have telepathy or electrokinesis.”

Just the corner of Ady's mouth curled. “Yeah, you're right,” he said, deadpan.

Past him, Samuel started to laugh, then covered it by turning his head to speak to Jay.

Jay dug into his pockets as Lin had done, coming out with two bars—not chocograin but a couple of varieties of
chocolate and dried fruit. Elissa had always thought those mixes worked even less well than chocograin. Samuel took them, unwrapped one, and started breaking it into pieces, dropping them back into the wrapper as he glanced up at the others. “Do you want to share? There's not enough for, like, everyone, but we could save a bit for Sofia and El?”

“That sounds fair,” said Ady, reaching to pluck a bit from the opened wrapper.

Elissa shook her head. She felt shaky, but nothing like the ravenous hunger from before. Maybe some of the energy from the bars she'd eaten then was still in her body?
How much energy does electrokinesis use up, anyway?

Lin nibbled a corner of her piece. “I never tried this one. We didn't have it on the
Phoenix
.” Then her eyes went to the far end of the flyer, where the parents and children sat, huddled and silent. “Should we . . .” She hesitated. “Some of those children were crying. Do you think they'd like some?”

Jay followed her gaze, a reluctant look appearing on his face. “But we don't have much. And they're my bars.”

Lin narrowed her eyes at him. “You can get more. And those children are really little.” She leaned forward, took the second bar from Samuel's hand, and stood. “I'm going to give them some.”
So there,
said her tone of voice.

Elissa smothered laughter, turning to watch as Lin made her way across to the far end of the flyer. Beside the laughter, affection for her twin glowed, warm within her. Those kids weren't even other Spares. They were just people, ordinary Sekoian citizens. She'd asked Lin, once, what people like that were to her, and Lin had said,
Just nobody. They're not anything.