Chapter 22

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

JESSICA

It’s mid afternoon by the time we pack up to leave. And I am so glad I didn’t drink more than the one Paloma. Day drinking just makes me sleepy.

Cindy and Andrea walk out with us, and they get into Cindy’s car.

“We’re swinging by the Earth market on our way home,” Cindy says. “I heard a rumor they might have a new brand of peanut butter. Anyone need anything?”

Kimba, Laur, and I all decline.

Waving goodbye, they head out. I watch them go as Kimba rearranges something in the back seat. When they disappear into the city traffic, I scan the skyline. I’ve spent time in major cities on Earth. None of them feel like this.

That shouldn’t surprise me.

“Come on, Jess.” Laurel bounces on the balls of her feet. “Someone is antsy for me to get home and I am just as ready.”

She waggles her eyebrows at me, and I shake my head. “Sometimes I think you might be more impatient than Chrys.”

“Only when it comes to Richter.”

I start to make a joke, and then, I see it. “Get in the car.”

I hurry her in and pull the cover closed right as Kimba sees it too.

“Shit,” Laurel says, and all three of us stare at the cavrinskh, casually watching us from the spiky orange bushes on the other side of the employee lot.

“How long do you think it’s been there?” Laurel asks, letting out a shaky breath.

Kimba shrugs. “Long enough to kill all of us, I’d guess.”

I’d guess that too. “So why didn’t it?”

“We should call the guys.” Laurel picks up her phone.

“Yeah… we should.”

“Just so you know,” Kimba says, her own neural link in hand. “If anyone comes out and that thing tries to attack them, I will be ramming it with the car, so, buckle up.”

There are no buckles.

Laurel hasn’t called Richter yet.

We all just sit in silence, staring at it.

I lean forward and it meets my eyes. “Can we test a hypothesis?”

“Not friend-shaped, Jess.” Laurel whispers. “You can’t go pet the monster.”

“I don’t want to. But… Let’s try to leave, see what it does.”

Laurel looks at Kimba, who just shrugs. Then they both look back at me.

“What do you think it’s going to do?” Laurel asks.

“I don’t know. That’s what I’d like to find out.”

Kimba puts the car in drive and eases it out of the parking spot. The cavrinskh stands, shaking out its fur.

I lose track of it for a moment as we navigate the lot, but when we get to the exit from Margot’s, it’s waiting in a different set of bushes. Still out of sight to most, but very definitely tracking us.

Every intersection, it’s there. And when we get out of the city, with tall blue grass on both sides of the road, I see the trail of it following behind us.

“Does anyone else feel like it’s protecting us?” I ask.

“ No .” Laurel grimaces out the window.

Kimba glances in the mirror. “I don’t know what it wants, but my experience is very different from Laurel’s. So, I’m not quite as sure as she is.”

Snorting, Laurel looks out the window again, and then she finally dials the phone she’s had gripped in her hand the whole time.

“Hey,” Laurel says when Richter answers. “So don’t freak out, but, we’re kind of being chased by a cavrinskh right now.”

She pauses for a moment. “I said don’t freak out . We’re in the car, headed back to the caldera, and it is just running kind of behind and beside us.”

She nods and then tips her head back against the seat, still talking to him. “I know we should have called before, but it’s better that it’s out of the city, right?”

I watch it break off. “It’s not following us anymore.”

“What?” Laurel turns back to me and I hear Richter on the other end of the call.

I point to the line where it’s running at an angle away from us. “It’s headed back toward the caldera, but not the same way we are.”

“Yeah?” Laurel says to Richter, “Okay, I’ll let them know.”

She disconnects from him and takes a deep breath before saying, “Two things. Number one, we’re not allowed to open this car until my garage door is closed and we’re sure there’s no monsters inside too. And number two… Kimba, you’re going to want to go talk to Drift before you take Jess home.” Laurel looks back at me. “You might be in trouble.”

She says it in the sing-songy way she used to when she had gotten me in trouble when we were little girls.

“I don’t think I am.”

We drop her off, following Richter’s instructions, and I switch to the front seat while she hurries inside.

Once we’re back on the road, Kimba asks, “Why did you think it was going to follow us?”

“Because the one in our garage didn’t attack us.”

Kimba glances sideways at me, and I don’t bother correcting myself.

“When Drift picked me up at the spaceport, one of the first things he told me was that their behavior has changed. Well, I can’t speak for the one that attacked Laurel obviously, but I don’t think they’re hunting women anymore.”

“Neither do I.”

Kimba pulls around the bend and parks facing the bright stream of the lavafall, beside another car and three bikes.

“Ready to go see what they found?” she asks.

“Yeah.” But I still scan the area for cavrinskh. I could be very wrong.

Drift stands at the vent station door, holding it open. “Welcome back.” He looks Kimba over like he’s checking for any damage.

She walks straight to him, wrapping her arm around him, practically burrowing herself inside of his coat.

I don’t know how he’s wearing that right now.

“Richter told me you had an escort on your way home.”

“We did.” Kimba tells him what happened and shares my hypothesis that they’ve stopped hunting women. “But I don’t think any of us are going to test that.”

“I can’t imagine anyone volunteering.”

“And no one would let them if they wanted to.” Kilo joins us, goggles on his head, a bag slung over his shoulder. “They should be climbing out in the next few minutes.”

“Where is Trench?”

“He and Arc are hiking out of the canyon.”

I look at the steadily flowing lava. “They’re what?”

Drift cuffs Kilo over the head, knocking off his goggles. “They found how the cavrinskh are getting out, but the lava trapped them in the cross tunnel, so the only option was to wait for hours, or take a walk.”

“I’m going to make like Hazard and get the fuck out of here,” Kilo says, grabbing his goggles from the floor and then dancing around us. “My services are no longer needed.”

I watch him go and then look back to Drift and Kimba. “Why do you think the cavrinskh just watched us when it could have pounced?”

They share a look before Drift says, “We don’t know.”

I’m not sure I believe him.

TRENCH

Arc has been blissfully silent for the long hike back out of the canyon. Thankfully, the system routes the lava back underground, so we didn’t have to jump across a stream of molten rock. But climbing out the other side on Kilo’s “safe path” isn’t exactly easy.

“Remind me,” I say when the end is in sight. “To kick Kilo the next time I see him.”

“No.” Arc stops, looking up, but not the direction we’re supposed to go. “You wouldn’t do it if I did, so I’m not going to waste the time or the breath it would take.”

I keep going. If he wants to stick around and study the rock formations, he’s welcome to.

But before I’ve taken ten steps, he pulls his gun and I hear the rocks fall a moment later.

“I think,” he says quietly, “that we’ve found our escapee.”

I pull my gun too, but I keep it low. I have no idea where the thing is. There are too many echoes in this canyon—too much reverberation.

It can’t have come from the cross tunnel. That’s the only thing I know for certain. The heat had already started emanating from the entrance to the tunnel by the time Kilo had told us how to get out. Nothing followed us out. This was already beyond the caldera.

“Ever feel like we’re failing in our mandate?” Arc asks, scanning the rocks, finger on the trigger.

“Recently? Yes.”

I see the cavrinskh a moment before it jumps. Arc shoots it.

I step out of the way right before it hits the ground at my feet. Dead.

“Lucky shot.”

Arc nods. “It was; Almost too lucky.”

I squat down to inspect it. And then, I hear footsteps—running—Jessica.

Leaving the thing where it is, I climb the rest of the way out of the canyon as fast as I can.

“You shouldn’t be outside.”

“Are you okay?”

She touches my face, my arms. She tries to turn me around, but I don’t let her.

“Don’t worry. There aren’t any more close by.” I would hear them—now that my panic has subsided and I’ve stopped to listen.

Arc climbs out of the canyon and snickers at us.

“Leaving me to be eaten, because your scientist was worried. That’s what I call brotherly love.” His smile feels threatening, and then he turns to Drift. “The thing is dead. Do you want me to go back and kick it into the fall?”

Kimba leans over the edge. “Think that’s the one that was following us?”

“What?”

I look at Jessica and she shrugs. “We’re fine. I’ll tell you later.”

I’d rather she tell me now, but if something had gone wrong, Kimba wouldn’t have let her come outside.

“Actually, since we have it,” she pauses, looking at the sky, “and there’s no wind. Do you want to see how the serum works?”

Jessica pulls it from her pocket and waggles the little spray bottle at us.

“I do,” Arc says, moving to the side where he can look down at the carcass.

“Is it close enough?” Drift asks.

“It should be,” I say, “I wanted the spray to have a decent range, so I used one of the deicing spray bottles.”

I don’t pay attention to anyone else as Jess uncaps the bottle and steps close to the edge. She hesitates, and from the way she looks around, I know she’s checking for wind again, but there is none.

When she takes one more step, I hook my finger in the back belt loop of her pants.

She glances at me with a soft smile, and then she sprays.

The bottle pressurized the serum, so it has no problem covering the distance between Jessica’s hand and the dead cavrinskh.

She sprays a line along it, and the other three audibly grimace when it starts to work.

“Gross,” Arc says in that familiarly detached way. “But handy.” And then, he leaves.

No goodbyes, no other comments, just straight to his bike and back to the caldera.

“What is his problem?” Jessica asks, watching him go.

Drift and Kimba share a look and then glance at me.

“I have no idea.”

Kimba asks Jessica to spray the whole thing to see how much the serum will eat away, and after a few minutes, there’s nothing of the creature left.

“I don’t like that it could do the same to us,” Drift takes Kimba’s hand and she looks at him indulgently. “But I’m glad you have it for the rest of your visit.”

I look at Drift, but he doesn’t look at me. Kimba raises a brow, but she doesn’t say anything.

I know he sees me, but he doesn’t even mutter an apology for that particular knife to my gut.

“I’ll get the other side of the cross tunnel closed off before this flow cools enough to let another one out.” Drift looks up at the two moons already visible in the pale green sky. “We’ve found their way out, we won’t let them keep using it.”

“And if they go through the vent station instead?” Jess asks.

“I’ve got that covered too.” Drift waves us toward the cars. “Go home and get back to work.”

“I thought I had the day off?” Jessica looks up at him with a little more defiance than I’m used to.

But it’s Kimba who says, “I don’t think you know how to take a day off.”

Jessica winces at that. “Maybe not. See you later.”

She turns for the car and I follow her.

Once the car is closed up tight and we’re headed for my outpost, I let go of a little of the tension that has held me.

“Did you have fun?” I ask, glad she’s with me, even if it doesn’t feel like we’re safe outside the outpost.

“Yes. Margot’s without men is… strange and wonderful. Although, it did get a little loud toward the end, and I was ready to leave about an hour before we did.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed part of it, at least.”

She waits again when we pull into the garage. She only moves when I take her hand and lead her inside.

Looking up at me, her gaze going to my lips, she lets out a little sigh and I kiss her, but I don’t touch her. “I need to get the rest of this ash off me.”

“Okay.”

She follows me upstairs and helps me wash off the dirt and ash and sweat from my time in the tunnels and the hike back.

“Let me distract you,” I say, kissing her and holding myself away from her. “You deserve a day off.”

She doesn’t technically say yes, but she doesn’t say no, and when she comes on my tongue, I make my only goal leaving her too exhausted to work.