Renegade (7 page)

F
ather led me to an empty cabin and closed the door behind us. He rested his forehead against the door, his fingers around the handle. “I didn't know,” he said.

“Sure you didn't.”

“I'm telling the truth.”

“So what? If you hadn't lied to me about my element, hadn't kept it from me all these years, I would've found out what I can do.
All
of it.”

“And if we'd told you the truth, you'd have faced this moment even sooner. Do you really believe everyone would have treated you better when they didn't even need you around? Or is it possible they'd have stayed away from you completely?”

He had a point, but I didn't want to admit it. He didn't deserve a moral victory, especially one he hadn't earned.

“Can
you
do it too?” I asked. “Take over other people's elements?”

“I used to be able to, a little—if they were tired, or didn't know what was happening. But not like you. Sounds like you can take whatever element you want, and no one can stop you.”

“I don't want to
take
anything. Don't you get it? I'm not trying to frighten people off. This element has controlled my life. Even before I knew about it, it kept people away from me. Now I want to get control of it. I want to practice combining, so that we can work together.”

He barked an angry laugh. “Who's going to combine with you? Not me—you can repel me without breaking a sweat. You could destroy me with a touch, if you wanted.”

“Stop it! You're not the victim here.”

“We're
all
victims, Thomas. Some of us are just more deserving of sympathy than others.” He ran a hand through his straggly hair. He had the face of an old man—wrinkled and tired and worn. It wasn't the image of my father I remembered from a few weeks ago. I wondered how I appeared to him now. “I just discovered that your mother might still be alive, remember?” he continued softly. “You're not the only person who has been lied to.”

Back to the wall, he slumped down to the floor and folded his arms across his knees. “I used to imagine she was still with me, your mother. I'd talk to her every day. Ask her what I should say to you. You were so full of questions when you were young. Would've stayed that way, I think, but we wore you down with silence.”

I sat across from him. “What did Mother tell you? When you talked to her, I mean.”

He closed his eyes. “Nothing. I felt like she was leaving me to decide. And look how that turned out—I couldn't have been more wrong about how I handled everything.”

It was a confession and apology rolled into one, but I had nothing to say. Learning the truth about myself, my element, and the history of our colony hadn't made sense of everything. I was still in the dark, just a different kind than before.

“Tell me how to control the echo, Father.”

“It takes time—”

“Well, I don't
have
time! Griffin could be dead in a couple days. Nyla too, and Dennis, and . . . Rose.”

He made a little sound at the back of his throat. “I'm sorry, son. I know you like her.”

He was trying to be sympathetic, but
like
was a hopelessly inadequate word—offensive and thoughtless. It was as if he was undoing everything that had happened over the past few weeks. In his eyes, I was once again that boy standing alone on the beach on Hatteras Island, watching Rose from a distance, wondering if there would ever come a time that she'd know how I felt about her. And return those feelings.

Well, if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that.

“I know how it feels to have this element,” he said finally. “The things you're going through, they aren't unique. As hard as your childhood has been, mine was hard too, in ways you can't imagine.”

“How so?”

“I grew up with non-elementals, remember? Before the Exodus, we all coexisted. They didn't know my secret, of course, but the only way to preserve it was for me to stay away from everyone. I had to make sure that I didn't touch anyone, and I also had to be careful that no one accidentally touched me. When things were busy, and there were lots of people around, I had to focus on keeping space between me and others, so I wouldn't shock them.”

“Did you used to hurt people?”

“Accidentally, yes. Lots of times. But if it was a one-time thing, they blew it off—called it static electricity, or something. But it would make me so nervous. It got to the point that I avoided crowds. I wouldn't play in groups. People thought I was weird. Anti-social. I wasn't weird; I was petrified. And I needed to be to survive the echo.”

“But you got control of it,” I pressed.

“I'll get to that, I promise.” He gave a deep sigh. “There was a girl I knew—quiet, like me. Kept to herself. We became friends. We were both sixteen, and even though I knew I should keep away, I liked her.
Really
liked her. We began spending all our time together. And then, one day, she tried to kiss me. I knew what she was going to do a moment before it happened, and I panicked. I lost all control of my pulse. She didn't even get in a kiss before I pushed her away. She felt the echo, the pain. I think she wanted an explanation. And then, she didn't—she just gathered up her stuff and left. Never spoke to me again. Three years later, I fell in love with your mother. And my only regret is that I didn't have the strength to stay away from that girl when I knew it was the right thing for both of us.”

“So you're saying I should stay away from Rose?”

“No! Not at all. I'm saying that you're
lucky
in one respect: Rose knows who you are. She knows what you'll do to her, and she likes you anyway. She'll work with you, Thomas. You'll deal with it together.”

“I don't want to
deal
with it. I want the echo to stop.”

“It won't st—”

“That's a lie. You and Mother had three children, so don't pretend you never touched.”

“Of course we touched. And we tried every trick we could to make it all right. At first, we'd combine elements, so that my echo passed right through her. But touching someone isn't the same when your mind is on something else.” I didn't tell him that I was already well aware of that. “After a while, I'd try to focus on my pulse, keeping it slow. That's when things began to change for us. Everything got better.”

“So I should focus on slowing down my pulse?”

He hesitated. “I guess it would help, yes.”

“But you're not sure.”

When he spoke again, he looked defeated. “Your element is so much more powerful than mine, Thomas. I've never experienced what you can do . . . the power you produce, the way you completely take over other people's elements. I've never had to suppress that power either. And I won't lie to you—I'm not sure I ever could.”

He closed his eyes and turned away. I played his words over and over in my mind, searching for another meaning, a conclusion I could bear to face. But I knew precisely what he was saying: If Rose had been exposed to the Plague, which seemed almost certain, I'd spend the next few days watching her grow sicker and die, unable to hold and comfort her.

“Hey,” he said, watching me. “You saved us all, Thomas. I need you to remember that. Saved us from Dare, and saved us from Sumter. For sixteen years, we broke you down, and look at you now—strongest of all of us. I'm so proud of you. None of us deserve for you to be the boy you are.”

He wanted a smile from me, or at least an acknowledgment of what I'd done. But in my mind, I was still focused on Rose. My time with her was going to be over before it had even truly begun.

I
hadn't meant to hurt Alice, and I needed to apologize to her. Plus, she knew better than anyone what it was like to exist on the edges of our colony, and was more likely to let me combine with her. We'd be reaching Roanoke soon, probably by the following morning, and I still had no idea how to control the flow of my element. What use was our greatest power when it was as likely to destroy us as the pirates we'd be fighting?

Alice wasn't on deck. She wasn't poring over maps in the radio room. She wasn't in any of the cabins, as far as I could tell. So I made my way to the galley. Faint voices came from inside—one male, one female.

I tried the door, but it was locked. “Alice?”

There were sounds of movement, but no answer.

“Alice?”

More scurrying around, and this time, a response: “Hold on.”

I shook the door, but it wouldn't budge. A moment later, Alice opened it. “What?” she demanded.

So much for apologizing. As if to emphasize how much she didn't appreciate the intrusion, Alice ran a finger across the burned side of her face and squinted her left eye, reminding me of what I'd done to her. Behind her, Jerren sliced fruit with mechanical regularity.

“I get it,” I said, looking from one to the other. “I'll leave you two alone.”

“We're preparing food for everyone.”

I snorted. “Sure you are. You've always been first to volunteer for meal preparation, Alice. Everyone knows that.”

She produced a thin-lipped smile. “Sarcasm. Nice. What are you going to hit me with next, Thom? You going burn me to death with my own element?”

I stepped back. Alice was expert at offending people, but she'd never turned on me. We'd had our differences, but she'd always respected me enough to be up-front about what they were. I still didn't fully understand what was happening between us, but it was clear that she didn't want me around. Why would she, now that she had Jerren? How perfect that they could lock the door and be alone. To talk. To touch.

How perfectly unfair.

I headed straight for Rose's cabin. Except it wasn't her cabin, of course. It was a place for her to have some company while she waited to die.

The first thing I noticed as I entered was that Marin was tending to Nyla. Rose and Dennis were both sleeping, but I'd figured that the Guardian would ignore everyone except her son. Instead, she was applying ointment to Nyla's neck in a gentle circular pattern.

That's when I saw the angry black lumps. The boils migrating across Nyla's bare legs. And most horrifying of all, her ash-gray fingertips.

Marin raised a finger to her lips, warning me to hold my tongue. At first, it seemed like a ridiculous thing to do—Nyla must have been aware of her condition—but in the quiet and calm of that cabin, it actually made sense. Nyla was awake, but from the way she stared blankly at the ceiling, she obviously wasn't fully conscious of everything that was happening. Wasn't aware of the fact that her short life was already entering its final chapter.

Griffin kept vigil beside her. As much as she had deteriorated in just a few short strikes, he had recovered. The night before, his body had been a mess of blood-red wounds. Now the scabbed-over cuts were itching. He ran his hands along his arms, desperate to scratch, but knowing that he shouldn't. Hard to believe he could be bothered by something as mundane as itching after everything he had been through. It was a sign of how near he was to a full recovery.

Marin leaned back and rolled her neck. She replaced the lid on the container of ointment.

“What's it for?” I asked.

She placed the container beside her. “It has a numbing agent . . . reduces the pain. Doesn't cure anything, though.” She glanced at Griffin—curing the Plague was the solution's role. But how?

“You can take a break, if you want,” I said. “Alice is making food.”

She gave a curt nod, and stood. A moment after she left the room, Griffin rolled over and laid a hand softly on Nyla's bruised and swollen arm. She moaned as if he was hurting her.

Griffin turned his face toward me.
Help,
he signed.

How?

Combine.
He studied my reaction, and clearly didn't like what he saw.
Me. Solution
.

How could I explain that everything I'd known about combining had just been turned upside down? Even if it hadn't, even if I still believed that combining was something we could safely do, Griffin was too weak to be using his element to help someone else. He couldn't even sit up to sign with me.

Unable to find words, I stared at Nyla instead.

Me. Solution,
he signed again, stabbing his chest with his free hand.
How?

I. Not. Know,
I told him.

Must. Find. Out,
he insisted.
Please
.

I hated denying him this after everything he had been through, but there was no way I was combining with him. Even without me, his touch made Nyla flinch. Who was to say we wouldn't kill her instead of curing her? He must have been coming around to the same idea, because he pulled away from her. Seeing her pain had weakened his resolve as well.

“Thomas?” Rose's voice pulled me around. She smiled a little as she saw me, and the smile was genuine.

“How are you doing?”

“Better than you, I think. I look at you and all I see is hurt.” She reached out and ran a finger along the fabric of my tunic. “It makes me sad.”

I watched the progress of her finger as it slid under my tunic and onto my skin. I felt the familiar rush, the simultaneous hope that she'd do more and the fear of what would happen if she did. She kept her finger still for a few moments. Her expression was neutral, but the perspiration on her forehead told the real story: It was hurting her to touch me.

I eased my arm away. “Please,” I whispered. “Don't hurt yourself.”

“All right.” She touched the hem of my tunic instead.

Behind me, Griffin let out a groan. I didn't look around, though. I wanted Rose to know that even if we weren't touching, she still had my full attention.

“What's Griffin doing?” she whispered. “I think . . . he's hurt.”

As I turned to see what was happening, my heart sank. Blood dripped from Griffin's wrist, and ran in rivulets along his forearm. The wound was fresh—it hadn't been there just a moment before.

I ripped material from my tunic and wrapped it around his wrist.
What. Happen?
I asked.

He pulled away and kept his eyes fixed on Nyla. That's when I realized that her left wrist was bleeding too. Worse, a knife lay between them. The edge was rimmed with their blood.

It wasn't an accident. Griffin had made both cuts.

He hid his bloodied wrist.
At. Sumter,
he protested.
Blood. Machine.

I remembered it perfectly: The large machine in the gunroom at Sumter—the plasmapheresis unit, Chief had called it—that would extract Griffin's blood. Chief had believed that the antibodies in Griffin's blood might provide immunity to everyone else, and prevent them from getting Plague. But that was just speculation. Did Griffin honestly believe that it would work, and that he could give Nyla his blood without the machine?

You. Crazy
. The signs exploded from me.
Maybe. You. Kill. Her.

Then. Combine,
he fired right back.
Combine. Combine. Combine.

It was only then that I understood the full meaning of what he was saying. He'd already tried to help her by himself, and hadn't seen any difference in her. He was telling me that I was his last hope. Which meant that I was Nyla's last hope too.

If. You. Do. Nothing,
Griffin continued, calmer now.
She. Die.

I placed one shaking hand over Nyla's arm. My heartbeat was so fast I thought I might throw up. I imagined that I could
see
my element spreading out from each finger like a mist—opaque, insidious.

Nyla shifted position slightly and our bodies came into fleeting contact. Where she'd appeared almost unconscious before, now she gritted her teeth and yelped. It only lasted a moment, but it was a sign.

I left the cabin immediately. Not even Rose could keep me there any longer.