These Broken Stars Part 11

SEVENTEEN.

TARVER.

I WAKE UP BECAUSE IT'S RAINING. A fat raindrop lands right behind my ear, running down to somehow find a way inside my collar, freezing cold. I s.h.i.+ver and roll onto my back, and another smacks me right between the eyes.

Lilac's moving, stirring as I s.h.i.+ft away from her, and she rolls over with a little protesting noise, reaching sleepily after me. Then she begins to register the raindrops as they connect with her skin, and she sits up straight with a gasp. I'm busy sitting up too, because when you go to sleep wrapped around a pretty girl, there are some things going on first thing in the morning that you don't exactly want making headline news.

So I'm shuffling into a slightly more diplomatic position and trying to look casual, and she's staring across at me, all confusion and dawning alarm. I realize in my surprise I've grabbed for the Gleidel, and she thinks there's some threat around.

"Tarver?" She looks up, eyes huge. One of them is still a little puffy, the skin bruised and dark where her face hit the side of the escape pod. Then a raindrop splats against her upturned face, and she jerks back. As I watch her flinch, lifting her fingers to her face and staring astonished at her wet fingertips, it hits me: she's never seen it before. In her world even the climate is controlled.

"It's raining," I say, voice hoa.r.s.e from sleep. I clear my throat and try again. "It's fine. Straight from the clouds to you."

She frowns, still huddling over and trying to shelter from it. "Straight from the clouds? Is that hygienic?"

I can't help it. It starts out as a snicker, but I'm grinning, and there's a tension inside me that snaps and releases, and a moment later I'm laughing so hard I can't stop.

She stares across at me, wondering if I've finally cracked. I reach for her hand and wind my fingers through hers, turning them so the rain patters down onto her palm. I trace a circle there with my thumb, smoothing the water into her skin. I want to show her there's nothing to be afraid of.

Then her lips are curving slowly, and she's flopping back to lie down and let the rain hit her upturned face. I look across, drinking in her smile, some part of me noticing I'm still holding her hand, fingers tangled through hers. I notice she's shaking, and for an instant I think she's crying.

Then I realize she's laughing too.

I get exactly ten heartbeats to live in this perfect moment, before she blinks and lifts her head sharply, looking off across the plains, a heavier shudder running through her body. She catches herself a moment later and turns back toward me, trying to recover her smile, but I know what that was. I can see how large her pupils are, the trembling of her lips.

She heard another voice.

"I thought you said the rain was on the third day."

"No, that was the first time it rained."

"You're contradicting yourself, Major."

"No, you're trying to trip me up. I know how this works. The military invented these techniques. What's your next question?"

"What did you make of your relations.h.i.+p with Miss LaRoux at that stage?"

"What does that mean?"

"How did you see it unfolding?"

"I didn't. I'm a soldier. I'm from the wrong sort of family. I think it's more comfortable for everyone when guys like me are out of the way."

"Do you believe that? That you're from the wrong sort of family?"

"My family wasn't on the planet with me. I don't see a need to discuss them."

"There's no need to raise your voice, Major."

EIGHTEEN.

LILAC.

IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH CAN CHANGE with just a few short hours, and a few million gallons of water.

I hate the rain and I hate this planet and I hate the cold and I hate my stupid, stupid dress. And I hate Tarver, for the way he strides ahead without a care, as if there isn't water falling from the sky, as if he doesn't even notice. I hate the way he offers me his jacket exactly when I've gotten so cold that I can't refuse. Just once I'd like to look like I've got myself together.

The morning stretches into a frigid, never-ending drizzle as we head for the river he spotted from higher ground. The mountains we're aiming for are concealed behind a soggy gray curtain. Darker clouds line the horizon, and Tarver glances over his shoulder to track their movement. I'm looking over my shoulder too, but there's nothing for me to read in the weather patterns. I simply can't keep myself from searching for the sources of the sounds I keep hearing. I keep turning to scan the plains behind us before I remember we're alone out here.

It's the rain, I tell myself. The wind, flattening the gra.s.s. One of the gra.s.sland creatures like that thing we ate last night.

But can an animal cry?

The sobs that surge over the rain shatter my heart, sounding for all the world like Anna, like me, like any one of the girls in my circle. With rain rolling down my cheeks and brokenhearted weeping so close at hand, I almost believe that I am the one sobbing so hopelessly. Head spinning and muscles shaking, I can barely put one foot in front of the other. It's no longer one voice-now I'm surrounded by a desperate, heartrending chorus. My eyes blur and I stumble again and again, muddying my ruined dress beyond recognition. More than once Tarver has to come back and haul me to my feet.

I despise him for how easy it is for him, the way surviving this ordeal is second nature. When he catches me staring across the plains, he grins as if to say, Yeah, it's no big deal, I've been there. His eyes, though, tell a different story. He's worried. Worried in a way he hasn't been since we crashed, not when the pod started to fall to the planet, not when I told him the beacon wasn't working, not even when we saw the Icarus fall.

And that scares me more than anything else.

Though the strange moon has set again, it's not far from my thoughts. It has to be a structure made by the corporations that terraformed this place-but what is it? Some kind of surveillance system, perhaps. Something to keep track of the colonists, should they rebel.

Only there aren't any colonists here. There's nothing to track.

There's just us, waterlogged and freezing, trekking endlessly across this planet, lives depending on finding the search parties when we reach the wreck.

Neither of us suggests stopping for lunch, despite our exhaustion. There's no way to make a fire in the steadily increasing downpour, no way to warm up if we stop moving. I wish I'd listened to his repeated suggestions that I put on the spare mechanic's suit he brought with us from the escape pod-my dress is so ragged by now and so soaked that it's as though I'm wearing nothing at all. Worst of all, I'm so cold and so tired that I don't even care about the way it clings to my body and winds around my legs, outlining my every feature.

The river swims into sight as a black smear in the distance. Tarver stops and raises a hand to s.h.i.+eld his eyes from the rain, the picture of a soldier saluting some commanding officer. I drop into a crouch, wrapping my arms around my knees and trying not to s.h.i.+ver so visibly. He'll be making some mental calculation about how long it'll take to get there. This isn't a real break, I know. But it's all I have.

I don't open my eyes until I feel his hands on my arms, trying to warm skin so chilled it makes him grimace at me. "Not much farther," he promises, water cascading from jaw and nose and brow. His features have become so familiar in only five short days. I'm staring bemusedly at the rivulets meeting under his chin when he gives me a little shake.

"Lilac? You in there?"

I blink, trying to remember how to speak. My lips are sluggish, refusing to obey me. "Yes. At least I think so."

Tarver grins, that lightning-quick s.h.i.+ft of expression, and pushes my soggy hair back from my forehead. He's about to speak when I hear something behind us, a low, rising susurration like a thousand different voices.

I'm turning before I remember that he'll see more evidence of my descending madness. It's a half a second before I realize that he's staring in the same direction too.

I open my mouth, heart constricting with sudden hope, but he beats me to it.

"More rain," he murmurs, so soft I almost can't hear him.

Not my voices, then. I cast my gaze back toward the horizon, and this time I see the thick gray curtain advancing across the plains toward us. More rain. If there's any more rain than this, I think, we'll need gills. We could swim up to the sky and leave this place with no need to wait for a rescue s.h.i.+p.

I want nothing more than to lie down in the mud, but as my knees buckle, his grip on my upper arms tightens, holding me up. When he stands, he pulls me with him.

"Can you run?" His face is close to mine.

"What?" I can't do anything other than stare.

"Come on, Lilac, focus. Can you run for it? That rain is too heavy. We need shelter."

Heavy? How can rain be heavy?

I know there are blisters on my feet because I saw them there this morning, but right now I can't feel them. I can't feel my feet at all. I keep staring at him, at the water running down his face, never the same path twice. It ought to follow the same pattern over and over, but instead it splits and cascades and dances off his cheekbones. Like it wants to touch all of him.

"G.o.ddammit," mutters Tarver, glancing at the advancing monsoon over my shoulder. "I'll pay for this when you warm up enough to hate me again."

What? I don't have time to consider the words any further before he's wrapping his hand around my wrist and jerking me forward, forcing me to break into a run before I'm yanked along after him like streamers on a parade car. I get my heavy legs moving somehow, reaching inside myself for one more effort.

My feet slide and skid in the mud behind him, and the bones in my wrist click under the tightness of his grip, but he doesn't let go. He's making for the dark smudge of the river on the horizon, and as we grow nearer, the darkness resolves into trees, and I don't even care that we're returning to forest again, because trees means wood and wood means fire and fire means warmth and I think I've forgotten what that feels like.

I open my mouth to say something, but before I find any words, the roar of oncoming rain overtakes us and the sky comes cras.h.i.+ng down on our heads.

Tarver is cursing, swearing like I've never heard him do. The sudden torrent of water pries my wrist from his grip, my skin slipping free like wet rubber, and I go cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. I'm more surprised than hurt, because I can't really feel my legs, and I didn't realize they weren't working.

He scoops me up and carries me the last few meters to the shelter of the trees bordering the river, then dumps me unceremoniously on the ground.

"Stay there," he shouts, putting his face close to mine until I push him away, because he's dripping on me. The sound of the water hurling itself at the canopy is almost as deafening as the roar of the rainstorm outside, but the branches are thick, and they keep most of the water off us.

He throws his pack to the ground and rummages until he pulls out the mechanic's suit, and shoves it at me. "Put that on," he orders, retrieving the jacket he gave me earlier. Then he's leaving again, pulling his gun out of its holster as he goes.

The mechanic's suit stays where he put it, resting half in my lap, half draped over my folded arms. I'm too cold to take off my dress, wet as it is. I press myself against the tree trunk and wait for him to come back. Whispers rise at the edge of my hearing, somehow distinct from the sound of the rain on the trees overhead. The voices are no longer crying, but I still can't make out the words. I stretch out my shaking hand in front of me, pale, clammy, smeared with dirt. I never knew madness came with such a physical toll.

I don't know how much time has pa.s.sed before I wake up to find Tarver gently tapping at my cheeks. "I'm going to try to get a fire going," he says, and I realize he's not shouting anymore. The rain must have lessened a little. "Get your dress off."

"Why, Major," I find myself whispering. "I never."

"Lord help me," he says, but this time he's rolling his eyes, and I know he'd be laughing if he were a bit less cold. That is a triumph far more satisfying than annoying him ever was. "Just do it, okay? No arguing with me this time. I promise not to look. Dry off with the blanket, then put on the mechanic's suit."

I take the blanket he thrusts at me, and lean on the tree as I get to my feet, stiff and cold. The voices have stopped, but I'm still s.h.i.+vering. I'm working at the knotted laces for a full five minutes before I realize that I haven't taken this dress off in five days, the laces are soaked and waterlogged, and my hands are so cold I can barely make them curl around the strings.

"Tarver," I whisper. "I need help."

There's a spark of heat left in me, because I feel my cheeks beginning to burn as he turns to me, confused. Understanding dawns as his eyes fall to where my hands are fumbling at the neckline of my dress.

Muttering something foul-sounding in a language I don't recognize, he closes the distance between us again and directs me to warm my hands under my arms while he tries to unknot the laces. Eventually he's forced to pull out his knife and saw through them while I look away and try to think of something else. The dress was already so far past saving anyway. This is just one more tiny casualty in the name of survival.

I had the delicate purple flower that he gave me on the plains tucked down my bodice, and as I peel away the remains of the dress, I find it crushed against my skin, almost beyond recognition. I'm forced to let it go, drop it in the mud.

What does it say about how I've changed that I feel more for the loss of one tiny flower than for the loss of the dress?

He turns away to start finding kindling that isn't soaked through, careful to keep his back to me, and I let the dress fall to the ground. Leaving it where it is, I grab the blanket and wrap it around myself, gasping in the cold. I drop to my knees so that the blanket will cover more of me as I huddle.

A tiny flicker of orange against my closed lids prompts me to open them to see Tarver nurturing a fledgling fire so carefully that his hands are shaking with the effort.

The trees above us have thick, broad leaves, but even so, it's raining so hard that some water finds its way through. I can't quite stop the inarticulate sound of relief that he was still able to find enough dry wood to burn. He looks up at the sound, eyes flickering down when he sees me in the blanket, then jerking away.

I must not be as covered as I think I am. Clearly I'm warming up, because suddenly I actually care, and hunch more carefully into my coc.o.o.n.

"On with the mechanic's suit, Miss LaRoux. You'll be the height of fas.h.i.+on, I promise. Then give me the blanket so I can dry off as much as I can."

That's what finally convinces me to give up my claim to the blanket. He's still dripping, forced to lean away from the fire as he works so that he doesn't swamp it. We'll never be completely dry with the rain that makes its way past the canopy, but damp is better than soaked. I get to my feet and let the blanket fall so I can shove my legs into the bottom half of the suit and zip it up. It's made for a man, and I draw my arms inside the loose material to cradle them against my chest, letting the sleeves hang empty. The material's so rough that when it comes time to move out, I'll have to wear the dress underneath or risk rubbing my skin raw. But for now, it's comparatively dry, and that's enough.

It isn't until I crouch down next to the tiny fire that Tarver looks up again, cautiously. He adds another stick to the flames before standing to retrieve the blanket and start stripping off his own wet clothes. I am not as honorable as he is. My mind goes blessedly blank as I watch him drop his jacket and his s.h.i.+rt to the ground. His dog tags leap and gleam in the meager glow from the fire. His skin is taut with cold and covered with goose b.u.mps, reddening as he scrubs at it briskly with a fistful of the blanket.

The jacket goes back on, and he lays his s.h.i.+rt out on the other side of the fire to dry before retrieving the blanket from the ground. He wraps this around me, and I don't even care anymore about its coa.r.s.eness-it's warm despite being damp, and though all I can feel right now is the chill of my own body radiating back at me, I know in a few moments I'll be better. My eyes follow Tarver as he goes through the motions of setting up camp, jerky and quick. It's not until he's got the canteen set to boil over the fire that he joins me, ducking abruptly inside my coc.o.o.n of blankets and wrapping an arm around me before I can react.

The fire's still too young to give off much heat, hissing unhappily at the drops that squeeze past the sheltering trees overhead. After a time I stop s.h.i.+vering, but he keeps his arm around me nonetheless. There are no voices to be heard above the popping fire and the splat of raindrops on the canopy above, and in a rush my sleepless nights catch up to me with all the force of a mag-lev train. I ought to disentangle myself from Tarver, go to sleep properly on my own. I ought to wait for dinner to boil. I ought to let him rest without having to take care of me.

But I'm warm now, and for once there's no one calling to me in words I can't understand, and for reasons I don't care to examine, the thought of pus.h.i.+ng Tarver Merendsen's arms away makes my stomach twist unhappily. And so I stay still, and let my head drop onto his shoulder, and if he minds the way my wet hair drips on him, he says nothing, and lets me sleep.

"You told us that Miss LaRoux suffered some minor head injuries as a result of the crash."

"That's right."

"There were no side effects? She was able to travel without difficulty?"

"I'd like to see you hike across a planet in a ball gown and the type of shoes those girls wear. I don't think I'd say the walk was without difficulty."

"It's a relevant question, Major Merendsen."

"And?"

"And I'd be obliged if you'd answer it."

"I'm not aware of any difficulties she had that were a result of the knock to her head."

"What about you?"

"It was a walk in the park. What do you think?"