Betrayals in Spring by Trisha Leigh Page B

don’t know. Maybe it makes the silver discs work.” I set the contraption down on the end table by the couch and head to the kitchen, where the cabin’s previous owner kept an entire drawer filled with batteries. I grab the ones that look like the right size, then return to the living room and fill the empty compartment.
    A light comes on next to the buttons, signaling that the thing still works. Pax abandons the maps and scoots next to me, watching as I press a couple of buttons to see what happens.
    When I push down the third one, which has a triangle on it, sound emerges and pumps through the room. It’s so loud I can’t hear myself think. Wolf looks up with alarm.
    “Turn it off,” Pax yells loudly enough to be heard over the din.
    “I don’t know how!”
    I push more buttons with my left hand, and my right on lands on a knob that swivels to the left, immediately softening the noise. “There.”
    “Much better.” Pax cocks his head to the side, looking like Wolf for a moment. “What is it?”
    I start to shrug, then recall the memory Cadi walked Lucas and I through, the one that took place the night our Element parents learned of their Partners’ deaths. “Oh. It’s called…balls. Cadi told me, but I can’t remember. Lucas’s father made it once while we were in a memory.”
    We listen for a moment, and the sound shifts and changes, from fast and happy to slow and moody, back again. I like it both ways. The fast one makes me want to move around, and slow one draw out my emotions and rub against them until they’re raw. “Oh! Music! That’s what Cadi called it.”
    “Music. I like it.” Pax smiles at me, then goes back to reading his maps.
    I turn the music lower still, until it’s a steady undercurrent but not distracting, and turn the second map to face me. Pax still pores over the page in front of him.
    I get impatient and slide over to peruse it, too, risking getting closer to Pax again, letting his warm, autumn scent fill my lungs. After a moment I spot Rapid City on the map. “There!”
    “Wow. We were kind of close to it on our westward hike. I wonder what’s there?”
    “Maybe Deshi.” I chew on the tip of my finger, ripping the skin around the nail. “But how are we supposed to figure out where we are now?”
    Pax yawns and stretches, and despite all of my mental urgings not to look, I can’t help but sneak a peek to see if his tanned stomach is visible. His eyes sag; he still tires easily and I know his wound isn’t healed all the way, even though he takes care of it himself now and won’t let me near it.
    “I’m beat, Summer. Let’s hit the hay and try to puzzle this out in the morning.”
    “Yeah. Okay.” The last thing I am is tired, but Pax needs to rest and I know he won’t want to go to sleep if he thinks I want to stay up talking.
    Over the next fifteen minutes we take turns in the cleansing room brushing our teeth. I wash my face and untangle my hair while Pax lets Wolf outside for the last time tonight. I’m an expert at the fire by now, and settle it for the night so that it won’t go out but won’t be too big, either.
    Pax crawls into the recliner, Lucas’s usual spot, and all of the worry and missing him that I’ve been studiously ignoring for the past several hours crashes around me. Before Pax can see, I roll onto my side on the couch, away from his gaze.
    The selfish part of me hopes the Others will show Lucas their true colors, remind him that with me is where he wants to be. His harsh words from earlier scroll through my head. He wants to make his own decisions, and as much as I want to tell him what to do because I believe it’s right, the decision is Lucas’s to make.
    It’s the same lesson he needs to learn about me—and I think together we can be an even stronger team if we can find a way to trust one another again. But that small voice in the back of my mind whispers that right now Lucas doesn’t know what’s right. The suggestion breaks my