Unravel (56 page)

Cadan's been riding for years. He's never crashed the thing. And I've done stuff much more dangerous than this. And I
have
to, anyway.
But it didn't make her hands any less shaky, didn't dispel the icy flutterings in her stomach.

Cadan reached out to take one of the helmets from her, then tipped it up and pulled a pair of black gloves out. “There'll be gloves in yours, too. Make sure you strap them tight around your wrists. And Lis, fasten your hair back first.”

She'd left her hair loose after the doctor's visit. Now she delved through her pockets until she found a hair tie, then dragged her hair back into the tightest ponytail she could manage, feeling it pull painfully at the little wound in her scalp. She drew the gloves on, working her fingers into the ends, strapping the cuffs tightly around her wrists, then picked up the helmet.

“Lissa.”

She looked up, helmet in her hands. Cadan was watching her.

“What?”

A tiny smile came and went across his face. “That's all.”

“Just ‘Lissa'?”

He tipped the helmet, pulled it down over his head. His eyes looked out from beneath the open visor, very steady, very blue. “Yeah.”

That was all, but for a moment she wasn't cold anymore, and as she pulled her own helmet on her hands didn't shake.

Cadan moved both hands to the handlebars, steadying the bike between his legs. He nodded down toward a footrest behind him on the side of the bike. “Step on that, Lis. I'll keep the bike steady. Hold on to my shoulder. There's space for you to swing your leg over the bike in front of the tail.”

Only just,
Elissa thought, all shaky with nerves again as she stepped onto the footrest, felt the bike dip toward her, saw Cadan shift his grip as he adjusted for her weight. Her fingers dug into the shoulder of Cadan's jacket as she got her
balance and slid her leg over between his back and the steep slope of the tail fin.

Then she was sitting, snug behind him, feeling the seat grip her, hold her steady, the footrests clinging to her feet.

“All right?” said Cadan over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“Visor down, then. And don't hold on to me, okay? There're handgrips behind you.”

Elissa's stomach fluttered again as she reached back. She'd thought she'd be holding onto Cadan's waist, and it felt all wrong to have to put her arms behind her.

He must have noticed her expression. “It's much more secure, trust me,” he said, and snapped his own visor down. His face blurred behind it.

Then he turned his head away, and, again with a roar, the skybike sprang to life. Elissa felt the vibration run through her feet, her thighs, the inside of her calves where they pressed against the bike, her hands where they tightened around the handgrips.

They eased forward a few feet, so slowly the bike wobbled, seeming to lose its balance, sending Elissa's hands closing in a spasm of panic on the grips, then faster, smoother, the engine noise rising around her. Cadan's hand moved on the throttle, the bike seemed to kick beneath them, and all at once they'd screamed out of the cargo hold, through the gray blur of the spaceport bay, out into the thin gray twilight of the mountains.

The spaceport—buildings, landing pads, plateaus—fell away beneath Elissa. There was nothing but the rush of icy air, a wheeling of gray sky, dark ridges of trees, a far-off scatter of black shapes of birds.

Her head spun. Her stomach swooped. It was like falling
up
, feeling as if gravity had been reversed, feeling as if all control over her own body had been taken away.

Her hands and knees tightened desperately on the bike. Inside her shoes, her toes curled as if they were trying to curl around the footrests. The wind shrieked past them, and she hunched down behind Cadan, all at once convinced that, friction grips or not, she was going to be torn out of her seat.

How far is it?
Last time she'd made this journey she'd been drugged unconscious.
I can't do it—I'll freeze—or fall.

A side gust of wind buffeted suddenly against them. The bike lurched, and hot liquid terror shot through Elissa's wrists and belly.
We'll crash, we'll crash—he can't keep control of the bike up this high!

They didn't crash. Cadan pulled the bike back under control, and they tore through the cold, empty air, far above the forested valley, far above the bare rock of the heights.

Until, all at once, far ahead of them, Elissa saw something moving, gray against gray. A glinting speck that became a minuscule arrow, that became, as Cadan dragged the throttle back and they tore, screaming faster and faster through the air, the far-off shape of the shuttlebug.

CADAN HAD
been right. Lin might be able to fly the shuttlebug, but she didn't fly it well. While Cadan circled, descending, Elissa watched, throat tight, as below them the shuttlebug lurched and bounced, banging down onto the ground, first one side, then another, showering sparks as metal screeched against rock.

But, poor style or not, Lin did reach the ground first. Cadan was still maneuvering the skybike in its downward spiral when Elissa saw the door of the shuttlebug spring open and the figure of her sister jump down. She must have seen the bike in her viewscreens, must be able to hear its engines now, but she didn't so much as look up. She ran, cutting a line across to where skylights rose, smoothly gleaming, above the rocks. They must have been kept shuttered and camouflaged before, but now their glass surfaces gleamed, reflecting the sky, betraying the location of the place the terrorists had set up as their
base, the place where they were now imprisoned.

We still have time. We have time. She hasn't done anything yet—

Even as Elissa noticed it, she saw her sister reach the nearest skylight. Lin knelt at its edge and leaned forward to spread both hands on the curve of the glass. The skybike's circling swept Elissa out of the line of sight, and she whipped her head around, trying to see past the bike's tail that was blocking her view.

Still have time. We still have time. We're nearly down. I can stop her.

But when they circled back around, farther down, suddenly much closer, there was smoke rising from the edges of the skylight.

Panic swept Elissa's hands from her death hold on the handgrips. She thumped frantically on Cadan's back. “Get us down! Get us down now! Look what she's doing!”

He couldn't hear her—even in her panic she knew that—but he couldn't ignore the thumping on his back. The bike dipped sharply, dropping from its careful circling, a hawk stooping suddenly on prey, and they plunged, in a scream of wind and shrieking engines, so fast that Elissa's stomach lurched into her throat.

They landed, as the shuttlebug had, in a spray of sparks and dust and flying broken rock, slewing sideways, Cadan's booted foot coming out to help steady them, leaving a long streak of black along the ground.

He swung around as Elissa began to scramble off the bike. “Careful of the engine!” he yelled at her, just as her leg skimmed too close to it and she felt the slash of heat even through her clothes. She snatched her foot back, making a clumsy half fall, half jump off the bike, landing staggering in the burned-smelling dust next to it.

She turned and ran, hearing the engine die behind her, that burned smell in her nose, her ears buzzing in a way that made her half-deaf.

There was more smoke rising now, enough to obscure where her sister knelt, and a flicker of sparks jumping, here and there, from the metal into which the skylight was set. Sparks that were nothing to do with the landings of either the shuttlebug or the skybike.

“Lin!” Elissa shrieked. Her voice came muted through the buzzing in her ears. “Lin!
Lin!
Stop!”

Smoke swirled. Lin rose from it like a demon from a horror movie. Her eyes were bloodshot, not just the skin around them but the whites themselves, and there was a smear of blood streaked from under her nose across her cheek.
Oh God, look what she's done to herself. The effort of knocking my dad out, and the security guards, then breaking through the electronics of the shuttlebug. And now . . .

Lin could explode ships' engines. And she could set buildings on fire. She'd done it before, twice that Elissa knew of, forcing the electrical currents of the building to run higher and higher, overloading the circuits, jumping the breakers and exploding into flame.

She'd done it in the facility in order to escape, and in Elissa's house to help
Elissa
escape. She hadn't cared if she hurt people in the process, but at least she hadn't
intended
it. But now . . .

The people in there—they're imprisoned. They have no way out.

If Lin burned this down, she was going to burn the occupants as well.

“Lin,
no
.” Elissa took a few quick strides toward where Lin stood.

Sparks leaped in front of her, hissed out on the rock.
Sparks, and tiny tongues of flame. Their heat reached Elissa, stung against the already-scorched patch on her leg. She stopped dead.

“Lin.”

“You shouldn't have come,” said her sister.

Elissa's eyes stung with smoke and dust. “I
had
to come. Lin, look, I know what you're doing, I get why, but you can't. You can't just kill people.”

“These people? Oh, I so can.” Lin's voice spat like the flames.

“
No
. Lin, I keep
telling
you—”

“That's over.”
Even through the smoke, Elissa could see Lin's hands clench, see every muscle in her face stiffen. “I'm done, Lissa. ‘It's not right,' and ‘it's not human,' and ‘you can't,' and you being angry with me—none of that matters anymore. It's all done. It's all over. I don't care.”

“You don't have to care.” Cadan's voice came from behind Elissa. “You just have to stop.”

Elissa didn't turn to look at him, but Lin looked, and her eyes narrowed. “You even
try
to use that whip and I'll burn it from end to end. And you, maybe.”

“You'd hurt
Cadan
?” The horror Elissa heard in her own voice was real, but at the same time she was thinking,
She doesn't mean that. She can't mean it—not Cadan. If I can just make her think clearly, see what she's doing, shake her out of this insane state she's gotten into—

Pain and fury flashed over Lin's face. “No, I won't hurt freaking precious
Cadan.
Only if he tries to stop me. Are you happy now?”

“Happy?”
Elissa's voice rose. “When you're going to burn a base full of people? No I'm not
happy
! Lin . . . Lin, please listen to me. You can't really be planning on doing this.”

Lin's face twisted. “Yeah, I know, I know,” she said. “I do this and you won't love me anymore. It's a bit late for that threat now.”

Elissa stared at her, blank. “What?”

“That threat.”
Lin's face twisted again, impatient, furious, despairing. “It's too late to make me behave by saying you won't love me anymore. Isn't it?”

“I
never
tried to use that as a threat,” Elissa said, the unfairness of what Lin was saying for a moment overriding everything else. “I
never
used it. And, anyway, for God's sake, no, it's not
too late!  
”

Lin slammed her foot onto the skylight, a sudden violent movement that made Elissa jump. More sparks leaped from the metal, and the smoke billowed up around her. “That's not true! The link's gone! The link's gone and you're glad!”

“I'm
not
glad.”

“You are! You
are
! You wanted me out of your head, and now I am! If you're saying you're not glad then you're lying!” She broke off, scrubbed a hand across her eyes. “I don't even know why you're here, why you've bothered. We don't have anything anymore, Lissa.” The leaping, fiery fury had gone from her voice. It was flat, as gray as the smoke.

And for the first time since catching up with her, Elissa was afraid. Lin hadn't come here because she'd gone psycho. She hadn't even lost her temper. She was just . . .
She doesn't think she has anything else to try to be human for. She doesn't think she has anything left.
For the first time the realization came, cold, clear, inescapable.
I'm going to lose her. This is it—I could lose her. Here, today. Now.

“We'll always have something,” she said, but she could hear the despair in her own voice now. It didn't sound
convincing to her; it was never going to convince Lin.

But at least it sparked a question. “What?” said Lin, staring at her through the smoke, her voice still flat, her face empty.