The Star Dwellers (30 page)

“Why are you telling us all of this?” I blurt
out.

He grins. “Now you’re catching on. I just
wanted you to know what I’ve accomplished. And in a minute it won’t
matter anyway, because you’ll be dead. Both of you.”

He’s going to kill us. My mind is whirling.
Everything he told me before now was a lie. Even—

“Was all that crap about everyone in your
family dying a lie?”

“Ha ha ha!” he laughs. “I’d forgotten about
that. No, they died, all right, but not the way I told you. You
should have seen the look on your face when I told you the story.
Pathetic, just like them. They were useless pawns with no ambition,
so I killed them.”

It’s not until I hear him say it—no remorse
in his voice—that I know what he truly is: a psychopath. We have no
chance to talk our way out of it. The only option is to take our
chances fighting. Even if I get shot, if I can just distract him
enough for Tawni to escape, to tell my mom what happened,
maybe…

“No more questions? I’m weary of this
conversation anyway. Say goodbye to your friend, Adele.” His finger
tightens on the trigger as a smile flashes across his face.

One second before I die.
Make the most of
every opportunity
. My dad’s words. I leap to the side, hearing
the crack of the gunshot, followed by a muffled thump and a groan.
I feel nothing. No flash of pain. No searing heat spreading through
my body. No tickle of trickling blood. Nothing.

More thumps and groans—the sounds of a
struggle. The gun booms, much closer to my ear this time. I roll to
my feet and spin around, trying to take in the scene before me with
just a glance. Brody is on top of Trevor, who’s lying in a pool of
blood. The crimson rivulets are meandering toward me and
instinctively I twist away from them, regaining my feet.

Tawni is next to me, screaming, her face
contorted with fear and disgust. Brody has killed Trevor, and we’ll
be next if I don’t do something. Our only chance is now, right now,
no time to think, to plan, to strategize.

With a horrific yell I charge Brody, slam my
shoulder into him, thrust him off of Trevor. At the same time, I
search frantically for the gun in his hands, ready to wrench it
from his grasp. To my surprise, his hands are empty, and I
naturally scan the stone floor for the weapon.

“Adele,” a voice says next to me. “It’s
over.”

My head jerks to the left and I see Trevor
pulling himself to his feet, my gun dangling loosely from his
fingertips. His tunic is covered in red, slick and splotchy. Blood.
But not his. Brody’s. I turn back to Brody, who I’m straddling,
nausea rolling in my stomach, churning and heaving. His dead eyes
stare lifelessly at me and I notice the hole in his temple.
Frantically, I roll off of him, throw my head to the side, vomit
all over the floor. My hair is in my face, mingling with my
regurgitated breakfast, but I don’t care.

The guy who was so nice to me when I met him,
who taught me to shoot, who nearly kissed me just this morning, is
now dead. “You…you killed him,” I manage to blubber, still staring
at the floor.

“I had no choice,” Trevor says.

“No—I didn’t mean it that way.” I pull back
from the putrid scent of my upchuck, wipe my mouth with the top of
my tunic, push my soiled hair away from my face. “Thank you. I
meant to say thank you. You saved my life. Both of our lives.”

Trevor’s eyes are steely. “I’d do anything
for your mother.” Implying what? He only saved me because it’s what
my mother would have wanted?

“And for me?”

“Eh, I guess for you too, by default.”
There’s humor in his words, barely betrayed by a wry smile he can’t
hide.

“Trevor, I’m, I’m—”

“She’s sorry,” Tawni interrupts, moving
between us. “She’s always had trouble with the S-word.” Although I
can tell my friend is freaked out, her face ashen, her lips thin,
she manages to put a smile on my face with her words.

“I’m sorry—really sorry,” I say.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, thankfully
not giving me a hard time. “I know you both must be in a bit of
shock, but we don’t have much time. We still need to leave for the
Moon Realm soon, but given what’s just happened we’ll need to brief
General Ro—I mean, your mom—right away.”

“Can we get cleaned up first?” I say,
motioning to Tawni. When I look at her, I realize she’s perfectly
clean and tidy and looks ready to go. It’s me who’s a mess. A
nervous laugh escapes my throat. “I mean, can
I
get cleaned
up first? Oh, and you’ll probably want to change, too,” I add,
trying not to look at Brody’s blood all over Trevor’s clothes.

“Of course. I’ll take you to your mother’s
personal quarters for all that.”

“What about…the body?” I say, looking away so
Brody’s dead corpse is out of even my peripheral vision.

“Don’t worry about that—I’ll take care of
it.” Trevor’s voice is so firm, so calm, I wonder how I never saw
this side of him before, how I never trusted him. But then again,
after what happened with Brody, I may never trust anyone again.

* * *

It’s one of the best showers I’ve ever had.
Not only am I scrubbing away the dried blood, my own filthy bile,
and sweat, but I’m exfoliating away Brody’s lies and treachery.
Although I’m shaken up, I’m alive, and I feel like it’s a new
beginning for me. A chance to stick with the people I know and
trust. My family, Tawni, Tristan, and now Trevor. A lot of T’s in
the bunch, which is fine by me.

After toweling dry, I leave my dirty tunic in
a pile in the corner of the bathroom, where my mom told me to. She
said we’ll probably never be coming back to this place anyway. My
new tunic feels wonderful against my clean skin. When I move back
into her bedroom, she and Tawni are waiting for me.

“Tawni told me everything while you were
getting ready,” she says.

“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t trust your judgment.
You too, Tawni,” I say, looking at the floor. I’m ashamed of
myself.

“It’s okay. I am completely shocked it was
Brody, too,” Mom says.

“Yeah, even though I didn’t think it was
Trevor, I was surprised it was Brody,” Tawni agrees.

“You are?” I say, looking up.

Mom answers for both of them. “Yes, I never
would have guessed him, which is probably why Trevor and I couldn’t
figure it out.”

“About Trevor…” I say.

“That’s okay, too. You’d only just met him,
and it was perfectly normal for you to be skeptical of him,
especially because I know he can be quite…grating sometimes.”

“Someone must be talking about me, because my
nose is itching something fierce,” Trevor says, pushing through the
half-open door. He’s smirking in that way that I used to find so
irritating, but now seems somewhat endearing. It’s amazing how much
difference a change in perspective can make to how you view
someone.

“Trevor, I just want to say again that I’m
so—”

“No more apologies,” he says. “I know how
much you hate that word, so I won’t make you say it again.”

“Thanks,” I say, thoroughly humbled. He’s
being so nice to me. Why didn’t I see this side of him before?

“I’m just glad you’re all okay,” Mom
interjects. “Trevor, I already owe you so much, but now…” I’m
surprised when I see tears shimmering in her eyes. My mother the
general. Still the same compassionate woman I remember. She blinks
them away. “Let’s just say there will always be room for you at our
table.”

“I might just take you up on that,” Trevor
says. He maintains his smirk, as if everything is no big deal, but
I can tell from the lightness in his eyes that he’s touched. He
claps his hands together. “Okay, the generals have agreed to meet.
They seem very interested in ‘the new developments’ that I told
them we want to share.”

“Good. Let’s go,” Mom says, rising, no trace
of the weakness that had clouded her eyes only moments earlier.

“Me too?” Tawni asks.

“Of course. You’re all a part of this now and
you all have valuable information.”

For some reason I hesitate. “What if the
generals are all working for the Sun Realm, too?”

My mom looks at me seriously. “I’ve
considered that possibility. But don’t let one person’s lies affect
your ability to trust anyone. While one or more of the generals may
be against us, I don’t believe they all are. We just have to trust
that there are still good people in this world, Adele.”

I don’t know if I can do that, not after what
Brody tried to do—what he
did
do—but I don’t say anything,
just nod. I ignored my mom’s judgment once.

I won’t do it again.

I
’m still feeling a
rush of energy through my chest when Ben walks in. It’s been over
an hour since I saw Adele, but the effect is lingering. It’s like
there’s a bubble inside me, leaving me airy and light. I expect I
feel kind of like Ben felt when he saw his wife again.

The only thing that was weird was when she
told me about this Brody guy. He seems like a real creep to me,
trying to kiss Adele when they should be preparing for a war.
Although I can’t really blame him—I might’ve done the same thing if
I was in his position.

I realize Ben is standing over me and I look
up, surprised. I expected he was coming in to spend some quality
time with Elsey, who’s across the room reading a book with Roc,
while I sit and daydream about Adele, bask in the few minutes of
uninterrupted conversation I had with her.

“Something’s happened,” Ben says. He’s
wearing a frown, which concerns me because I haven’t seen it much
from him.

Adele’s hurt—I just know it. Evidently my
inner concerns make it to my face because he says quickly, “No
one’s hurt, thank god.” I take a sharp breath out that I’ve been
holding in.

“Then what?”

“A sergeant in the star dweller army was
working for the sun dwellers. He tried to kill Adele and
Tawni.”

I suck in a short breath. “What? How?
Why?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have all the details.
I’ve only just received an encrypted message from Anna. Evidently
my wife’s second-in-command rescued the girls from their attacker.
Shot the guy—killed him.”

A thought flashes into my head. “Brody?” I
ask.

Ben’s head jerks slightly. “How did you know
that?”

So Brody is Adele’s mom’s right-hand man.
“Uh, Adele mentioned his name.”

“What? In what context?”

I stare at Ben, wondering why he’s so
interested in the guy who saved Adele’s life. I’m certainly not
going to say he tried to kiss Adele. “I dunno. Just that she met
him during training.”

Ben shrugs, as if he was never really that
interested anyway. So Brody saved Adele and Tawni, but—

“Who was the attacker?” I ask.

Ben stares at me strangely. “The guy you just
said. Brody.”

I put a hand on my head, run it through my
hair. So Brody saved them from Brody? Are there two Brodys?
“Wait…what? I thought you just confirmed it was Brody who saved
them?” I’m getting more confused by the minute, as if Ben and I are
running around in circles chasing each other, fake tails stuck to
our butts.

“No, no. Brody was the attacker. Anna’s
second-in-command rescued them.”

My mind is whirling. “But I thought Brody was
her second-in-command.”

“No, that’s Trevor.”

Trevor? Who the hell’s Trevor? Some other guy
I don’t know about apparently. Some guy who didn’t try to kiss
Adele apparently. Soooo…

The guy who tried to kiss Adele tried to
kill Adele?
My jaw drops when I finally understand. Funny how
changing two little letters in
kiss
transforms it into the
deadly opposite:
kill.
Just thinking that word and
Adele
in the same sentence sends shivers down my spine. If
he was working for my father, clearly he was trying to get close to
her for information. I’m glad she didn’t fall for that crap.

“Adele said Brody was friendly to her,” I
say.

“What do you mean
friendly
?”

“I don’t know—a nice guy, I guess. Trying to
get close to her. Perhaps trying to get information as it turns
out.”

“Well, he’s dead now.” Ben’s eyes are as
sharp as daggers. He’s happy this Brody dude is dead. Not that I’m
not.

“Remind me to thank Trevor when I meet him.
So are they on their way here now?”

“No, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell
you. There will be a slight delay because of what happened. They
want to tell the generals they had a mole in their midst, try to
get them see what’s happening, that the Sun Realm is playing games
with us, hopefully convince them to travel to the Moon Realm with
them.”

“So what do we do?”

Ben shrugs. “We wait.” Ugh. Already I’m tired
of waiting. “There will be another peace summit, which my wife and
at least one other general from the star dweller army will attend,
so that’s being planned, but other than that, there’s nothing
really for us to do right now.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Get some food. Get some rest. Hopefully by
tomorrow they’ll be closer to getting here.”

“Okay,” I repeat, because I’m all out of
things to say.

* * *

I swear one of my least favorite things in
the world is waiting. It’s not my father’s bad politics, or the sun
dweller soldiers, or even the dust-filled moon dweller air that’s
killing me. No, it’s none of those things. It’s the waiting that’s
killing me. Slowly, second by second, minute by minute, hour by
hour. Sucking the life out of me, making me grind my teeth and pick
at my fingers, and bang my head against the wall.

I’d almost welcome Ram to stop by and beat me
up again—at least it would kill some time, get my blood pumping
again, break up the monotony of the gray stone walls and slap of
cards against the table where Roc and Elsey are playing some
game.