Summer Ruins (16 page)

It would make me feel better if I could tell them what Emmy said about the Others mining neodymium, but I don’t see how that’s possible.

Pax and Leah have talked as much as they dare, and although it sounds as though they’ve been spending hours together, he hasn’t brought home any gems, either. The most interesting tidbit is that our old chemistry Monitor from Danbury works at the same Station as Leah, and the two of them have been working on how to use the element against the Others for weeks. The Monitor’s passion for chemistry, for science in general, along with her pre-Other training means she could have ideas the rest of us can only guess at, and we need to talk to her.

Like every other time we managed to make strides, the three of us need help. A Goblert that can transport us home, or a Sidhe to tear open a portal. Even our Spritan bracelets would do the trick. But those things are inaccessible or gone for good, and it’s becoming clearer with each passing day that we’re ill-equipped to win this war on our own.

We’re made from a combination of two species with plenty to offer, but not much that’s helpful at the moment. The only things the Others are especially good at is gene manipulation and mind control, neither of which is going to help us here. They also can’t seem to be killed, but we don’t know if we’ve inherited their ability to heal quickly from mortal wounds. Given that it took Pax days to heal from his wound last spring, probably not.

Kendaja has powers that go beyond what I’ve seen the rest of the Others display, but I’m guessing she’s a freak even among her own people.

Humans don’t have any of the magic powers that Spritans or Sidhe have, and the facts of the environment at the South Pole stifle our elemental abilities. There’s nothing to blow around, and it’s already cold. Melting the ice or starting a fire wouldn’t do anything but get everyone killed.

My inability to find a way out of here changes the day Jas has another breathing attack.

Tommy runs to get me between my second and third counting pass of the day. I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how many hours have ticked by and how many remain, even though there are no clocks down here.

I follow him, aware from the frightened look on his face that it’s bad. She’s slumped against a wall at the far end of the Southeast Main, and the other kids are nowhere to be found, as usual. It makes me angry that they abandon her this way, even if they are just scared of being associated with someone who can’t fulfill her duties.

Tommy’s tried to tell them that I’m not like the Others, but they don’t believe him or don’t care, one or the other.

Jas’s lips are blue, her face pasty white against her black hair when I arrive. Usually she gasps, but this attack is different; instead, small yips escape her lips. There’s no way she’s getting enough air, and before I can say anything, her eyes roll back in her head. Dark circles sink above her cheekbones, and her chest concaves with each desperate attempt to draw oxygen.

“Tommy, has it ever been this bad before?”

Tears roll down his cheeks, reminding me again that he’s just a little boy, and I try to swallow a little of my panic to calm him. My hands grasp his shoulders and he locks his gaze on me, swallowing hard. “No. She’s never fallen asleep in the middle before. Lots of times she does after and I have to hide her so no one sees.”

“Okay. We have to get her out of here, Tommy. If it’s the dust like you guys think, she won’t get better until she can breathe, and the end of the day is too far away.”

“We can’t go outside until the horn blows. The elevators don’t work before then.” His voice trembles and he moves closer to me.

I put my arm around his shoulders, holding him tight while my brain tries to figure out what to do. The idea of letting this little girl die isn’t an option, but if we get caught taking her outside, the Wardens might decide she’s more trouble than she’s worth and kill her anyway. Expose her.

The thought of Jas outside, freezing to death while some Other watches and laughs, kills a part of me. While my mind clicks through everything I know and grows more desperate with the fact that I don’t know how to help her, Tommy’s shoulders slump under my arm.

“I know another way out,” he whispers.

“What? How?”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you. It’s our secret, Jas’s and mine. I use the old tunnels to hide her when she needs to rest, but they connect with the other stations and there are windows in the tops sometimes.” Fear washes off him in palpable waves.

“Tommy, I swear I’m not going to tell anyone about your secret. But the windows, where do they lead?”

“Outside. I guess that’s why they’re not worried about anyone using the old tunnels. Because we’ll freeze if we go out there.”

“Show me where the closest one is.” I kneel down and hook one arm behind Jas’s knees and slide the other under her shoulders, pulling her into my chest.

She’s tiny, even for a five or six year old, and doesn’t weigh much. If the exit is far, she’ll get heavy fast, though.

Tommy leads without another word, traipsing deeper into the tunnels as we leave the rest of the workers behind. He takes left and right turns from memory in the darkness. Only his outline remains visible in front of me, but I can’t help with any light because my hands are full. I give up trying to keep track of where we’re going. I’ll have to depend on him to get us back safely.

I don’t know what I’m going to do once we get Jas outside. I can keep her from freezing, but if the fresh air doesn’t help she could die anyway. Every couple of seconds I lean down so my ear hovers above her mouth, and each wheezed breath makes me want to dissolve into tears. I need to get her breathing again, then figure out the rest.

Tommy slows to a stop next to a rickety ladder, one that climbs out of sight. The top isn’t visible, but a pinprick of gray light reaches down into the darkness, revealing that there’s an exit into the permanent twilight up there somewhere.

“Stay here, Tommy. I’ll be back.”

“What are you going to do once you’re outside? You’ll die out there. Jas’ll die too. It’s too cold.” He pins me with a serious gaze.

“You saw how I could make fire in my hands, right?” He nods. “I’ll keep her warm, I promise.”

Carrying her up this ladder is a challenge. If Pax were here that would solve a lot of problems, since he could simply create a wind to blow us to the top. Jas starts coughing in her sleep, and for some reason that makes me feel as though time is running out.

I sling her over my shoulder, knowing it’s probably not safest to compress her stomach and chest but having no other ideas. I climb as fast as possible, my arms and legs burning. Soon they stop burning and go numb, like pieces of lead hanging off my body. I ignore the pain and focus on the light above, refusing to take my eyes from it until I get there.

It takes me a long time to make it. Twenty minutes, maybe more, and the black circles under Jas’s eyes look like bruises now.

There’s a hatch made of glass at the top of the ladder, right above our heads. It’s held in place with a simple metal handle and clasp, which I push open with no issues and shove Jas through before following.

I drop to the ground, my legs unable to support my weight, and the wind bites at my face and arms, tearing at my clothes like I’m being cut to pieces by a hundred knives. My power is as lame as my legs, reluctant to emerge due to my exhaustion, but if I can’t push warmth around us the whole journey will have been for nothing.

It takes less than a minute to push heat out until it warms me and expand it until Jas stops shivering and her skin grows warm again. I rub her arms, pulling her head into my lap and talking softly for the next five or ten minutes. It doesn’t take long out in the fresh air before she stops wheezing and opens her eyes. Another half an hour passes before she sits up and breathes normally. Like magic, the black circles under her green eyes have faded and she hugs me, sagging in my arms.

“Thank you.” Her head droops, and I remember what Tommy said about her falling asleep after the really bad attacks.

“Jas, I know you’re tired, but you can’t fall asleep yet. We have to get back down into the mine and I can’t carry you again. I’ll fall over, too.” I grin and make a funny face, trying to keep her engaged enough to stay awake.

Tears fill her eyes. “I can’t.”

“You can, Jas. You go into the mine every day knowing it will make it hard for you to breathe but you never say anything. You’re the strongest kid I’ve ever met.” I drop the warmth that’s shielding us, causing her to shudder. It seems to push her eyes open a little more.

I slide my feet back through the hatch, finding a rung and stepping down several to make room for Jas. Her feet, clad in the same worn boots as everyone else, dangle through and I help her find footing. “You’ve got to close the hatch. It’s not too heavy; you can do it.”

She does after a minute or so of trying, and we take forty-five minutes or so to get back to solid ground. Tommy lights up when he sees her walking on her own, and they give each other a little-kid hug that spews happiness through my exhausted limbs.

I have no idea how many times this has happened to Jas in the past, but this is the third time it’s happened in the weeks I’ve been here and every time it’s been worse. If I hadn’t been here today, if it had been a Warden instead, Jas would be dead.

“We’d better hurry, you two. The workday must be about over, and Carrej gets mad if I’m not up waiting when the horn goes off.”

Not that I care all that much—Carrej has proven to be a benevolent captor, as Wardens go, and leaves me alone more days than not. He checks on me about twice a week and seems satisfied that I’m doing my job, that the workers are doing theirs, and never says much.

We get back in plenty of time and I’m waiting at the top of the elevator bank when the horn blows a little while later. Carrej nods at me, then tells me some joke about a guy in his Main who tripped and banged his head, then fell on his pickaxe and sliced open his leg. It’s not funny to me, but I smile appropriately, too tired to spar with him. If he wants to believe that I’m coming around to the Others’ way of thinking or report that to the Prime, so much the better.

The less time they spend thinking about us or watching us, the more chances we’ll have.

I can’t wait to tell Lucas and Pax about the tunnels that connect the Stations through the mines. The fact that I finally have an idea for how we can meet with the people we need to see from other stations, that we can maybe use our combined brainpower to figure something out—or at the very least, to inform them of any plans back home—makes enduring everything a little bit easier.

Chapter 17.

“So, you think there are these escape hatches outside all of the stations, and we could climb down and meet people from other stations in the tunnels? Like Leah?” Pax’s question sounds skeptical, which I’m used to from him. It distracts me for a minute, the way he says her name, and I stare.

It irritates me more than it should, mostly because he’s right that my idea sounds useless. “Yeah. Except I don’t know when. They lock us in at night, and if we get stuck down there we won’t have a way back inside in time to meet the Wardens in the morning.”

“Maybe during work hours?” Lucas suggests halfheartedly.

“No. They’re too far away. The stations. We’d never get to a common place, meet, and get back before someone did a count and noticed they were missing. We only do the count in our Mains and there are countless more. We’d have to do it overnight. It’s the only time they’re not counting us.” I get up and pace in the darkness, but the chill in the air gets to me after a minute and I flop back under the covers, pulling them to my chin and pushing a little heat through my skin.

The boys are both silent, but their shallow breathing tells me they aren’t asleep. This has to be the answer. There has to be some way we can use Tommy and Jas’s knowledge. No one else knows about the abandoned connecting tunnels, and if the Wardens do, they don’t expect anyone to be able to slip away unnoticed.

“What about this?” Lucas’s breath tickles the hair on the back of my neck. “The people who would help us move through the tunnels during the day until they all end up in Station One, then they come up at the end of the day with everyone else.”

It’s a good idea. I turn it over and over in my mind, but I find the hole quickly enough. “None of us patrol Station One. The counts will be off and the game will be over before it starts.”

“Plus they won’t have anywhere to sleep,” Pax points out.

A light bulb blinks in my mind. “We get people to switch places with them.”

Another long silence tells me they’re considering it. Lucas’s hand moves over my side and teases the hem of my shirt. His soft fingertips brush the bare skin around my belly button, distracting me from saying anything for a moment. Instead I sink back into his chest, enjoying being near him.

He presses a silent but not-too-short kiss to the side of my neck, under my jaw. “That’s the answer, Althea.”

“Maybe so, but how are we going to convince people to switch? They may not be veiled anymore, but these people are still robots. They do what they’re told and they sure don’t want to get into trouble.” Pax rolls onto his back and springs squeak. “It’s like you said, Winter. The Others have an endless supply of workers back home, and these people are disposable. They’ve exposed three people from my station this week alone. The last one just for having a coughing fit and asking for water.”