The Rift - Howard Chris. Страница 40

“Stings a little. It’s like the mud makes it itchy.”

I tried to wipe my hand across her belly, thinking maybe the Kalliq mud weren’t doing her no favors at all. I feared it might speed things up, help the bark get growing. A disease, the Speaker had called it. A disease that spread in the spring.

“What are you doing?” Alpha said, shoving me away as I staggered against her.

“Should clean it,” I said.

“It’s fine.”

“Should keep it clean.”

“How the hell would you know what to do? I told you before,” she said. “Just act like it ain’t there.”

“You should keep the mud off it.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“And what was all that before about me dying if I kept heading south?”

“Just a feeling,” I lied. “In my gut.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything.”

“Why can’t you look at me?”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not gonna lose me,” she said. “I’m right here.”

She kissed me then, and I got no recollection of that kiss ending. I mean, I can’t remember my lips leaving hers. So it’s like in some part of my brain, I’m still kissing her. Like there’s a place where the kiss never stopped.

But I remember Alpha smiling at me after. Her face shy, flushed and breathless.

“Will you keep the mud off it?” I pleaded.

Namo came bumping up behind us, his breath all noisy and warm as he prodded his trunk at my head.

“All right, babe,” Alpha said, her eyes fixed on mine as she reached down to wipe her belly clean. “If that’s what you want.”

We were blackened and baked. Blown out by exhaustion. Alpha and Kade helped Crow down to the ground, and then we collapsed against the rocks. Hard enough work just to keep on breathing. Even Namo slumped down on his belly, squeezing his great frame between the rough walls, and Zee’s limp body kept rising and falling as the mammoth sucked at the heat.

We’d ditched most of our clothes. Padded some of them inside the pack with the trees, which I used as a pillow. Alpha had ripped up her vest and wore it in pieces, just a few tight rags tied to her body as we lay there, trying not to touch one another in the heat, our skin sticky against the patches of moss.

“Gotta keep moving,” Alpha said, but she didn’t move a muscle.

Follow the heat, the Speaker had told me.

But how much heat could we handle?

“Fall asleep,” Crow mumbled beside me. “Might not wake up again.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure your buddy Kade won’t want to leave you behind.”

“Can’t you let him be?” Kade called from the other side of the tunnel.

“That’s touching. It really is.” I dug an elbow at Crow. “Said you were dead weight once. Now look at him. One cripple standing up for the other.”

“Stop it,” Alpha said. “Crow’s supposed to be your friend.”

“Supposed to be.”

“This ain’t what Zee would have wanted, bud. You acting like this.”

I glanced at my sister’s thin, flopping body. All the feeling drained out of her. No pain in her bones. No regret. Just a bloodless hollow, filled with the fear and sorrow of those of us still alive.

Finally, I slept. Passed out on the rocks. And I wound up tangled with Alpha. Even as hot as it was, as painful as the heat pricked my skin, I painted myself against her. My arms wrapped around her. My hands on her sweat. But when I felt the bark on her belly, it woke me up with a blast.

I recoiled from her, afraid and throbbing. I rolled onto my back and stared up at nothing, waiting for sleep to reclaim me, my head resting on the padded pack of trees and my heart ashamed of this secret I knew, afraid that the secret might wake me over and over, again and again.

And as I lay there, part of me longed to slip off down the tunnels by myself and never look back. I could be alone without pretending to be something different. Alone like I’d been after Pop left. Those days spent on my own, days of dust and steel.

It had been harder that way, but hadn’t it also been easier? To just drift on and keep lonesome and let no one near?

But even as I dreamt of these false freedoms, I was putting my arms around Alpha again, breaking down walls faster than my mind could build them, sinking down once more inside a bitter sleep.

Until Crow woke me with his hand across my mouth.

He squeezed my nose shut, clamped my jaws tight, and I couldn’t make a sound as I struggled against him.

Then he released his grip, glaring at me to make sure I stayed quiet. And what? He wanted me to know he could still kill me? Needed me to see just what our friendship meant now?

But Crow was pointing up the tunnel, back the way we’d come from. I followed his finger, peering into the shadows. And then I heard it. A soft slap. A pitter-patter. Almost like the sound of dripping water. But not quite. More like the faint sound of footsteps.

I shouldered the plastic pack of trees, staggered up.

Kade was coiled around the sub gun, and when I tugged it away from him, his green eyes blazed open like he was about to yell out. But then, I reckon he saw the look on my face, because the punk stayed quiet. He glanced at Crow behind me. And then we heard the tapping sound again. This time a little louder. Closer.

I hoisted the gun to my shoulder, getting it ready. And then, stepping over Alpha and squeezing past Namo, I began sneaking back up the tunnel to see what I could find.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I rounded the bend with the sub gun clamped tight in my fingers. My hands sweaty on the grips. And I couldn’t see much. Just black stone and the faint green glow oozing off the walls. But there was that noise again—the tip-tap patter. Then a shuffle.

The ground got loose beneath me. Gravel and rocks. I skidded and crunched and made too much noise. Grabbed the wall to steady myself. And then, as I peered up the tunnel, I thought I saw a murky shape flicker and bounce through the shadows, getting smaller. Fading away.

Or was it just my mind playing games?

I held still. Listened.

No sound now. No scrabble of footsteps.

I loosened my grip on the gun. And then I turned and ran back to the others.

“What is it?” Alpha whispered, eyes open wide.

“I don’t know,” I told them. “Maybe nothing.”

“Could be Harvest,” Kade said. “They could have followed us down here.”

“All I saw was shadows.” I shrugged. “That sound could have just been the ceiling dripping.”

“Better keep our eyes open and keep moving,” Alpha said, staggering up and catching herself at the wall. She called to Namo, waking him.

“I hope it is Harvest.” Kade was eyeing the sub gun. “I hope some of those troops made it down here, so we can take them out. All of them. I couldn’t ever kill enough.”

“We’re in no shape for fighting. We can barely walk.” Alpha was pulling at Namo to get him to stand. And I reckoned that beast had been built for the cold and the high mountain passes, not for squeezing along these sweltering tubes.

“Let’s help Crow back on top,” Alpha said.

“You help him,” I muttered, pushing off. “I’m gonna scout ahead.”

I staggered on, the sub gun hung from my shoulder and jabbing my side, the pack of trees on my back, and the sweat dripping off me. I stumbled around one sharp twist in the tunnel after the next. But then a blast of red light was scorching my eyeballs, and a wave of heat was blasting my skin.