I couldn’t bear it if Hanai and Adam did the same thing.
“Trust me. My,” Adam cleared his throat, “feelings for her are a problem.”
“Because why?”
“They just are.”
“If you say so. There she is. Told ya,” Hanai said, emerging from the trees right behind Adam.
“Gabby, are you okay?” Adam crossed the leaf-strewn cement and scrutinized me.
“Hyper,” Hanai whispered.
Concern and anger simultaneously burned through Adam’s eyes. I did my best to smile, but the action stretched my skin too tight. “I’m fine. Look, I found a building.” I pointed behind me. “There’s food, shoes, coats. Maybe we can come back before we leave for Gregorio.”
“You went in there alone?” Adam eyed the closed door like it had done me wrong.
“Yeah, why not? Are you scared of the dark, Airmaster? Or you think girls can’t—”
“Chill, Gabby,” he interrupted. “I was just worried about you when we made it back to the settlement and you weren’t there. Okay?”
I bent under the weight of his glare. “Yeah, okay.” He hadn’t denied being afraid of the dark. “You want to go see?”
“No, I’ve been there before.” Adam put his arm around my shoulders and turned me away from the garage. “Let’s get back. Hanai, lead the way.”
Hanai disappeared into the trees, leaving me alone with Adam. He didn’t remove his arm, and I actually liked how it felt across my shoulders.
“Listen, Gabby, don’t go off on your own again. I—we were really worried. You’re our Firemaker, our Councilman. We’re nothing without you.”
“We?” I asked. “Or just you?”
Adam pulled me into a hug. I inhaled his lemony, ashy scent as I closed my eyes.
“Me. I was worried. I…I like you Gabby, in case you haven’t figured that out.”
The wall shuddered. My heart battered it, desperate to be free. To be Adam’s.
“There you go, clamming up again,” he teased.
I studied the ground. Then I slid my hand into Adam’s. Hanai was either long gone or hidden, so I searched for the smoke to guide us back to the settlement.
Hanai acted weird all day. He kept glancing at me while raking his eyes over my body or muttering under his breath. I spent a long time in the hot spring by myself, and the rest of the time I stayed close to Adam.
As soon as Adam and Hanai got back from their bath, I headed toward the cabin. I shot Adam a knowing look along the way. He followed, catching the door before it closed.
I sat on Hanai’s cot while Adam stretched out on a blanket on the floor. “What’s up?”
“I need you to teach me to read.”
“Oh, that. Sure, let me get Hanai.” He got up and moved toward the door.
“Wait. I didn’t know it was going to be a group lesson.”
“He needs to learn too, Gabby. If I’m teaching you, he might as well join us.”
“Okay…but just a minute.” Yet I stood there, mute.
Adam moved closer. “What is it?” He smelled like hot water and spicy soap. And that heavenly smoke. I submerged my erratic feelings and tried to find the right words.
“I—I—” My thoughts blurred. How did I tell him how important he was to me without coming across as needy? Emotional?
Broken.
“Blazes,” I swore. “Thanks.”
His face remained unreadable. “Thanks? For what?”
“For…you know. Everything.” I leaned forward, trying to make him see that I’d let him in, just a little. That I appreciated him accepting me for what I was. That I accepted him for who he was.
He blinked, and something weird happened to his eyes. Was he crying?
“Adam?” I reached toward him, hesitating. I couldn’t initiate the contact.
He took my hand and placed it on his cheek. He was gorgeous and peaceful in the flickering firelight. I gingerly ran my fingers through his hair. Status: Silky and still a little damp.
“Things are so messed up,” he whispered. “It isn’t supposed to be this way.”
Confused, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Did he mean I was screwed up? Didn’t he like me? And I had no idea what wasn’t supposed to be what way.
“Please say something,” Adam said.
“What’s messed up?”
“Just everything.”
A non-answer. Typical. “Tell me.”
The cabin door creaked, and I spun around. Hanai stood there, a half-smile on his face. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“’Course not,” I said too fast. “Adam was just coming to get you for a reading lesson.” I turned around as Adam sat.
Tears: Gone—if they were ever there.
Honesty policy: Evaporated.
“Let’s do the alphabet first. Hanai, come sit by Gabby. Move over, girl.” Adam had disappeared behind his tough-guy mask. Even his voice sounded different. Lower. Sentry-trained.
As I slid over, I realized the real Adam was the scared guy. The one who allowed himself to like me enough to kiss me. To cry with me. Not the sentry who knew how to handle a knife or survive in the wilderness.
And, well, I wanted to carve a place for each of them inside my heart.
“You two are on one tonight,” Hanai said as he sat down. “Totally hyper.”
“Shut up,” Adam growled as I asked, “What does that mean?”
Hanai chuckled. “Could mean one thing for Adam and something totally different for you. All I feel is the pulsing energy coming from both of you.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and kept my gaze on the ground.
Adam leaned over to write in the dirt. “These are letters. There are twenty-six of them. They make words.”
Hanai and Adam sat too close, pressing in on either side of me. At least they’d taken baths. They smelled ashy, and I pushed down my fire as it leaped inside.
I smiled at Hanai, and he placed his hand on my thigh. We both looked at it. His warmth emanated through the leather, infusing my bloodstream with a steady heat. Time seemed to slow. My head felt too heavy when I glanced up. Hanai met my eye, a graceful smile dancing across his lips.
“Are you ready?” Adam’s voice accelerated time.
Hanai removed his hand, and the world turned cold again. I shivered with the loss, and Adam’s glare added to the chill.
“I’m ready,” Hanai said.
We listened to Adam, who had drawn a box around five of the letters and called them vowels. He taught us what sounds the letters made. Then he randomly pointed to one and made us repeat the sound. After a while, the lantern flickered.
“All right, that’s enough for tonight. I’m exhausted.” Adam started to get up.
“Wait.” I pulled on his arm. He cried out, sort of a strangled groan mixed with pain. A lot of pain. His eyes squeezed shut, and his jaw clenched. He fell back without catching himself, his head making a sickening thump on the packed dirt.
“What happened?” Hanai asked, jumping up to help Adam..
“I just…touched him.” My voice trailed into nothing with the realization.
Hanai felt his neck for a pulse, and then ran his fingers across his forehead. “I think he’s seizing.”
Helpless tears splashed my face. “No, he’ll be okay. He said he could do this. Adam, open your eyes.”
He didn’t. Now his shoulders shook, the tremor running down his back where a faint orange light flashed once.
“Take off his shirt,” I commanded.
Hanai’s eyes widened. “Gabby, come on. I know you guys like each other, but—”
“Just take it off, Hanai. I can’t touch him.”
“Do. It,” Adam growled through clenched teeth.
“Whatever you say.” Hanai lifted Adam’s T-shirt over his head.
The tattoo discolored his back, stained both shoulders. A few thin lines snaked over his collarbone and down his chest.
“The tattoo is
growing, Adam. It’s covering your whole body.” The lines expanded, flowing under the waistband of his jeans—I jerked my eyes back to his face.
“Water,” Adam panted. “And you gotta leave, Gabby.”
I sprang up and handed Hanai the basin from the table by the door. “Get my father,” he said. Adam murmured instructions, but I left without waiting to see what happened next.
Full dark blanketed the camp. I wiped angrily at the tears flowing down my face. I couldn’t believe how blazing stupid I’d been.
I mean, really. I’d touched him. Idiot.
I thought of Patches and how he’d said we couldn’t see each other anymore. While I’d nursed his tender flesh, he’d told me that he received a neurological message of the new target, and the lines of the tattoo held data and changed every time the sentry transmitted the information they’d gathered.
His had only moved once, and he’d screamed and screamed. The ghosts of his agonizing wails filled my ears as I walked.
The Chief stepped into my path. “What’s happened?” His voice sounded so parental, so kind. My tears renewed themselves.
I gestured back toward the cabin. “Adam needs help.”
The Chief placed one hand on my shoulder for a long moment before striding toward the camp. I continued through the forest, forcing myself to take deep breaths to get the tears to stop.
A few minutes later, I found myself at the hot spring. I lay next to the eternal flame, longing for the soothing comfort of smoke. But the eternal flame brought no such relief. I tried to think of something else, but all I saw were the expanding lines on Adam’s back. Engulfing him. Crushing him.
The tattoo created one mass of black. Two hands grew out of the darkness and pushed, pushed on my chest.
I couldn’t breathe. I felt like someone had bound me in Elemental cancellers, forcing my firepower to slowly ebb into nothing.
What remained: Adam’s tattoo.
“You awake?”
My eyes flew open with Hanai’s question. I sat up, trying to distinguish reality from what existed in my head.
Hanai watched me with thoughtful lines around his mouth. In that moment, I felt like he genuinely cared about me, and the walls around my heart crumbled a little.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Is Adam okay?”
Hanai sat down and brushed a stray piece of hair out of his eyes. “I think he’ll be all right. My father is with him. What really happened?”
I invited the eternal flames to dance in my palm, which they did eagerly. “Well, I touched him.” I glanced at him. “What did he tell you?”
“He said you’d spill his secret.”
“He said that?”
“Look, I’m pissed you guys both have so many secrets. So just tell me already.”
“Oh, please. You’re not mad.” I bumped him with my shoulder. “Besides I overheard you and Adam talking, and he said he had something to tell me, and I still don’t know what that’s all about.”
“Nothing, really. That Adam might know some Elementals for our Council.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s nothing.”
“Not like learning your Councilman is really a woman.” He sounded on the outer edge of frustration.
“That’s nothing too,” I said, trying to force a measure of playfulness into my tone.
He grinned, though it looked like he was trying to hold it back. “You serious? Finding out you’re a girl? That was rough. At least I got to see—”
“Okay, okay. I’m the Firemaker from Cyrlon the sentries are looking for. But I swear I didn’t set that fire. Adam’s a trained and active sentry, and my print has been uploaded to his tattoo. He has to initiate all contact between us in order to cancel the transmission.”
“Active?”
“Yes. For the Supreme Elemental. So, was he able to stop the transmission?”
Hanai sputtered like he’d just realized he needed oxygen to live. “The Supreme Elemental?”
“That’s what I said.” A dull ache radiated forward from the back of my skull.
“Active?”
“Did you see that tattoo? You think that’s a beauty mark?”
Hanai opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Did he stop the transmission or not?”
He took a deep breath. “This is heavy. He told me he ran away last year. I think he’s telling the truth there. But to still be an active sentry? That’s against the agreement he has with my father. He’s going to be livid.”
“But did Adam stop the transmission? ‘Cause if we need to run, we should go.”
“He thinks he stopped it. He didn’t explain anything but he kept saying ‘I think I did it. Tell Gabby I think I did it.’”
I nodded and focused on the glassy surface of the hot spring. Hanai gently placed his fingers on my face and forced me to look at him. “What now?”
The air entering my lungs lightened. Hanai’s dark eyes held mine, searching. Again, I felt as if the spinning of the Earth had paused.
“Adam said there’s an Unmanifested rebellion in Gregorio that’s supported by the Councilman.” My meaning was clear. We needed a Council, and our best bet was to find Adam’s friends and hope the Councilman of Gregorio would charter it.
He dropped his hand, and the tangled mess of my life snapped back into motion. Surely he’d used one of his Spirit-speaker gifts on me, but I didn’t care. I liked feeling as if time didn’t matter, that everything was warm and right with the world, that Hanai and I—
I stalled the thought there, unsure about what might complete it. Terrified to destroy the walls surrounding my heart, release the pent-up resentment, and let him in.
“So, uh, Gabby,” he said, my girl name foreign in his mouth. “Are you seriously considering leading a Council when you can’t even touch one of your own members?”
“I don’t need to touch Adam. Why would I need to do that to run a Council?”
“Well if…you’re kissing him. How would that work?” Hanai’s voice faded. “And where would that leave me?”
Ah, so there we sat. “Hanai, you don’t have to worry about anything. I need you on the Council as much as I need Adam. No more, no less. I’m, well…working through some confusing things.”
Hanai chuckled. “You sound just like him.” His playful smile faded. “I can’t believe he’s an active sentry.”
I looked down at the fire leaping in my hands. “We shouldn’t trust him.”
“No, we shouldn’t.” He pinned me with a pointed look. The flames shone in his dark eyes.
“Hanai, what would you do if you were me?”
He leaned closer. “Adam has skills. Contacts. Knowledge.”
I studied him, hearing the meaning concealed in the words. I needed to use Adam.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“It sucks all around.” Hanai put his hand on my knee and looked at it like he couldn’t figure out how it got there. “But—” He cleared his throat and pulled his hand away. “Let’s learn as much from him as we can before we do anything stupid.”
Like getting involved, I thought.
Hanai stood up and rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m beat.”
“You were acting weird today,” I said as we climbed the steps.
“Yeah, well, I was working through some of my own confusing things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled from behind.
Back at the cabin, I paused with my hand on the door. I spun, finding Hanai immediately behind me. His hand fumbled along my arm as I stumbled over his feet.
“Sorry. You okay?” He let his hand linger on my elbow.
A tiny shuffle step put more space between us. I swallowed hard at the soft curve of his lips. “Uh, yeah. Look, where are you sleeping? Councils should stick together.”
“Way ahead of you, girl. I—” He cut off, probably because of my murderous glare.
“Girl?”
He tilted his hea
d. “You really hate being a girl that much.” He wasn’t asking.
“Is that what Adam said?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“He said you thought no one would accept you. But you’re wrong. I don’t care that you’re a girl. I….” He stepped closer. “I made myself a bed in the corner.” But he didn’t move.
“You should take your cot back.”
His gaze flickered to my chest and back. “It’s okay. I don’t—”
“If I were a guy would you let me keep your bed?” I folded my arms over my incriminating evidence.
He sighed.
“Exactly. I’ll be fine on the ground.” I turned and entered the cabin. Like I was going to let him get away with chivalry.
The lantern had been trimmed so only a faint ember glowed. I waited until my eyes adjusted, then I located the bed Hanai had prepared on the floor.
Placement: Diagonal from Adam.
I crossed the cabin and lay down. I looked at Adam and choked back a scream so I wouldn’t disturb the Chief, who I could hear chanting softly on the other side of the curtain. The black tattoo ran in thick, coiling stains over his neck and face. His eyes were closed, and a staining redness of broken blood vessels covered his forehead. The mottled cloak covered his body.
“He’s okay,” Hanai whispered from the cot. “He just looks bad.”
“Looks bad?” I almost shouted. “Those lines are thicker and blacker…. What did I do?” The useless tears welled up again.
Hanai knelt in front of me. “Hey, it’ll recede.”
“You don’t know that.” I tore my eyes off Adam’s garish face and looked at Hanai. “Do you?”
He smiled and wiped my tears away. “No, I don’t know that. But don’t cry, Firemaker. He’s not dead yet.” Hanai squeezed my shoulder and retreated to his cot. I stole another look at Adam’s disfigured face before rolling over and closing my eyes. The covering tattoo stained the back of my eyelids, and sleep took a long time to come.
When I woke up, the cabin was empty. I locked the door and changed my clothes. Adam’s sleeping area was clean and orderly. I copied him, folding the blanket and leaving it on top of my clothes before I went outside.