Rachel Caine - Thin Air

Of the girl calling me Mom.

“Lewis,” I said. He hesitated in the act of stabbing the branch through the snow, then took two or three more steps. “I saw Imara. In Cherise’s memories.”

He didn’t answer. He took another step. I followed in his wake, puffing for breath. The air felt icy and wet around us, and sleet burned my face. The sky was an unbroken gray bowl, and it felt oppressive, as if it were slowly lowering down onto my head. Nature. Who needed it?

“You going to talk to me about her?” I demanded. It came out sharper than I intended.

“No,” he said. “It’s one complication you don’t need right now. One thing at a time, Jo. Let’s get ourselves safe before-”

“Before we talk about my dead kid ?” I shot back. “Well, if you’re worried about me breaking down, don’t. I can’t even remember her. All I have is a name and a face.” That wasn’t true, but I didn’t want him to know how raw and bloody that simple vision had left me.

Cherise stopped in her tracks, puffing hard. “She’s dead ?” she blurted, and made a gesture as if she were going to reach out toward me, but then thought better of it. “Oh, my God. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped. “I don’t know anything. That’s the problem.”

Lewis poked the stick into the snow with unnecessary violence.

“I want to know how she died,” I said.

“If wishes were horses, you’d be doing one fifty in a cherry red Mustang on the autobahn.” He sounded bleak and cool. “No.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Probably.” He gave me a smile that was equal parts apology and sadness. “But I’ve always been like that. You’ve just forgotten about-”

He stopped in his tracks, straightened, and held up a hand for silence. Cherise and I both froze, too. Wind swirled across the clearing, picking up snow crystals and peppering me in the face with them, but I didn’t move.

In the distance I heard a faint chopping sound. “What is that?” I whispered, and then I recognized it. That was the sound of a helicopter. “Trouble?”

“No,” Lewis said. “That’s what I was hoping for. We just arrived here a little early, that’s all.”

“Here?” Cherise turned a slow circle. “Where’s here, exactly?”

Lewis held up his GPS device, which had a blinking red light. “Rendezvous point. That’s our ride out of here.”

That suddenly. Wow. Except that even though that had to be good news-right?-Lewis didn’t look any less tense. He shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped pockets, moving quickly and competently.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “Because there’s a problem, right?” There was always a problem.

“I think we’re being followed,” he said. “Head for the tree line,” he said. “Both of you. Move it.” Cherise took off instantly, plunging through the snow as quickly as possible. When I didn’t immediately snap to obey, Lewis yelled it at me, full throat: “Move!” A drill sergeant couldn’t have put more menace into it. I galloped clumsily along, my feet sinking deep into the snow. I prayed I wouldn’t hit a sinkhole, because a broken leg right now would be inconvenient.

When I looked back, Lewis was standing in the middle of the clearing, looking up at the gray sky. His backpack was at his side, and in his hand was a black, angular shape-the gun he’d fired at Cherise.

He scanned the far side of the clearing, but it was obvious it was a useless effort; he might have sensed trouble coming, but he wasn’t sure which direction it was heading. He saw me hesitating, caught in the open, and motioned for me to keep running. Cherise had already made it to the trees; I saw a flash of pink as she found cover and stayed there.

And I would have followed her, really, but I caught sight of motion to Lewis’s left, out in the deep forest shadows, and I sensed a blurring, as if someone were trying to avoid notice.

“Lewis!” I yelled it, but the increasingly loud churning of the rotors drowned me out. “Lewis! Over there!” I waved my arms frantically, trying to catch his eye, and just as I did something hot ignited in the tree line where the blur had been, incandescent and round, and it shot straight toward me.

I didn’t even think; I just hit the snow face-first. The fireball sizzled over my head right where my midsection would have been had I been caught flat-footed, and rolled away, hissing into open snow, where it quickly melted drifts in a five-foot radius to the bare dirt.

That caught Lewis’s attention. He whirled just as Kevin stepped out of the trees. The teen looked grimy and scraped, but there was a burning light in his eyes, and as I wondered what to do he held up his hand, palm up, and formed another ball of fire in it.

Apparently my dive-for-it tactic was Warden-Approved, because Lewis did the same thing; he waited until Kevin threw the fireball, and then threw himself flat in the snow. Kevin’s fireball streaked through the air and exploded like a bottle of napalm against a tree on the far side of the clearing-he’d thrown that one with a lot more fury. Lewis rolled, brought up the gun, aimed…

And didn’t pull the trigger. I held my breath, horrified, because Kevin was already reloading, forming fire in his hands and snarling in rage.

No. Dammit, why didn’t Lewis shoot?

Kevin threw the plasma straight at Lewis, who was helpless and prone on the ground, and Lewis still didn’t pull the trigger.

He also didn’t try to avoid the impact of the flame.

It hit and erupted in white-hot fury, sizzling the snow around him into an instant spring thaw, and then Lewis was on fire. I screamed and started toward him, then stopped, because Lewis-burning all over, fire clinging to him like a second skin-calmly pushed himself up to his feet, brushed a hand over his chest like a man flicking away dust, and the flames just…died.

Not a mark on him.

Kevin’s eyes went wider, but then he shut down, went hard and cold. “You cold-blooded son of a bitch,” he spit at Lewis. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Good luck with that,” Lewis said. “I think the waiting list is into double digits by now.”

“Where’s Cherise? What did you do to her?”

Lewis took a step toward him. He was still holding the gun, but carefully, at his side. I doubted Kevin could even see it. “Kevin, relax. She’s all right.”

“No. No, she’s not, or she’d be here. She’d be with me.” Kevin’s fingers, consciously or not, were dripping with fire. “You’re lying. You hurt her.”

“I’ve got no reason to lie to you,” Lewis said. His voice was still and quiet, very gentle, and he continued moving toward the boy without seeming to be in any hurry at all. “She was hurt, Kevin, but she’s better now. You’re hurt, too. I need you to stop fighting me. Can you do that?”

“No!” Kevin screamed, and extended both hands toward Lewis. Fire erupted in a hot, incandescent wall that swept toward Lewis at a frightening rate, searing the snow into instant steam, leaving everything dead and smoking behind it…

And I caught a flash of pink, and Cherise ran out in front of the advancing flames, and stopped just in front of Lewis.

“No!” I screamed, and lunged up. “Cherise, no! He can’t see you!”

Kevin’s view was blocked by the flames. Maybe he could see Lewis, I didn’t know, but he couldn’t possibly have seen Cherise, and he was going to kill her.

And she wasn’t going to move.

Lewis put out one hand, palm out, and stopped the wall of fire cold. His fingers curled down, and so did the blaze, collapsing into a confusion of hot streamers and flickering out of existence a bare two feet from Cherise’s pale, terrified face.