Summer Ruins by Trisha Leigh Page B

morning. Three-thirty is all but the middle of the night.
    At breakfast, my eyes are barely open but I don’t see Emmy, or anyone else I remember.
    As we’re leaving the meal tent the Warden at the exit beckons us aside. I avoid his black eyes, studying the star raised on the skin under his ear instead. It doesn’t eliminate the throbbing ache behind my eyes that comes from looking at one of them, but it’s better than when their face is in full view.
    It strikes me as odd now, how that pain used to be the worst thing I could imagine.
    “I’m to show you your assignments for the foreseeable future.” Even though his face causes pain, all of the Others have a quality in their voice that encourages unquestioning trust.
    This one is no exception, and I give my head a shake to clear it. I think of Nat and have an idea. Or more of a shot in the dark, but we don’t have anything else at this point. Get to know him. “What’s your name?”
    “Excuse me?” He twists toward me, and I summon the courage to look him in the face.
    My eyes water from the pain and a headache grows steadily, but I smile. “Your name. I’m Althea. This is Lucas and Pax.” I motion to them in turn.
    “I know who you are.” He doesn’t sound contemptuous, really. More surprised than anything. When I don’t look away he shrugs. “Carrej.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Lucas interjects.
    Pax adds his greeting to the mix, but our friendliness only narrows Carrej’s eyes farther. “It’s not going to do you any good, being nice to me. I know you killed the last one of us who didn’t eliminate you when he should have.”
    A long blow of the air horn precipitates a mass exodus from the tents, and with people jostling us as they flow past, we lose track of the conversation. He’s probably talking about Nat—no other Warden has not tried to kill us—but we can’t really set the record straight. If they know Nat’s alive they’ll redouble their efforts to find him.
    Maybe. It’s also possible the Prime cares as little for his own minions as he does for the humans. Out of sight, out of mind. But we can’t chance it.
    “Follow me.”
    We do as he asks, and when it’s clear he’s leading us toward the terraform’s entrance I push heat through my pores and let it hover over me like a second skin. I’m prepared for the intense, whipping cold outside the terraform and step as lightly as possible on the slippery ice. We keep walking, covering a good distance before a rider whirs up beside us.
    Another Warden is behind the wheel. He acknowledges Carrej but not us. “Get in.”
    “It took you long enough. It would take me more than a day to walk them all the way to the next one.”
    “Sorry. Had to deliver a load for Chief to take with him when they left.”
    So Deshi and Zakej are gone. My body can’t decide whether this is good news or bad, with my heart sinking but weight lifting off my lungs. As a general rule, having Zakej as far away as possible is the best idea. But it means Deshi’s gone, too, without our knowing whose side he’s on or if we might be able to count on him someday soon.
    Or if he’ll lead Zakej to the cabin and take away our last hope, betraying us once and for all.
    The rider’s interior appears exactly the same as the one I rode in the night Mrs. Morgan Broke, when the Wardens drove us to the Observatory Pod in the Wilds outside Danbury and tried to refresh my brain. I wonder what might have happened if Zakej had caught me then, if they’d realized that the girl they’d been searching for lay on a cot right under their noses. Nothing good. Then again, I haven’t managed to do a whole lot with my second lease on life.
    Everyone I know, every person who has trusted me, has been disposed of, Broken, or trapped in their own head to rot away. The Others have captured us and hold us hostage at this Harvest Site—we don’t even know its location or how to leave. We don’t know what their life source is, aside from