Gods, Lea and I had been far from best-friends-forever, but we’d come so far. I’d respected her, probably longer than I’d realized, and the same went for her. There was so much between us that needed to be addressed—to be repaired—but there would be no more time. And even though we’d spent the better part of whatever time we’d been together hating on one another, she’d come to my aid and she’d stood her ground.
Realizing that cut so deep it matched the pain of Caleb’s loss.
“Alex,” Aiden said from behind me.
I shook my head. “I can’t… I can’t do this right now.” My voice cracked. “I need a few minutes.”
He hesitated, and then I felt his hand on my shoulder. I pulled free and walked ahead, dragging in deep breaths even though they didn’t seem to be pulling enough air into my lungs. I couldn’t afford to lose it like I had after Caleb’s death. I couldn’t disconnect from this or self-destruct. I had to deal, but…
Godsdammit. I bent over, placing my hands on my knees. The urge to vomit was strong, but there was nothing coming up.
Had I apologized to her about what a douchebag I’d been to her when we were kids? I didn’t think so. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw her body lying on the ground back there.
Alex? There was a pause and the bond pulled taut. What’s happening!
I sat down—probably fell down—for the second time that night. Keeping my eyes closed, I kept the shields up but followed the bond to Seth. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Maybe it was all the anger taking up too much room to feel anything else. Is this what you wanted? I asked.
Seth didn’t respond immediately. I’m not sure what you mean. I can feel your emotions. Something has happened.
Shut up! I’m not sure what did it—the almost-sincere quality to his voice, or the fact that he had taken Lea’s sister and my mom had taken her family and, because of what Seth and I were, she had lost her life. I broke wide open in an instant. Shut up! Just shut up! Are you happy, Seth? Is that what you wanted from this?
Tears tracked down my cheeks, fast and furious. My arms shook—my entire body trembled to keep the shields up. I couldn’t let them down, not when Seth was inside my head like this. He’d know where I was and there’d be more death.
I threw my head back and there were no words, just sorrow, guilt, and rage. They poured from me in a scream that made no sound outside my body.
Stop, he said, and there was a pressure around me, almost like Seth was wrapping his arms around me, holding me still. You need to calm down because you’re bursting a lot of my brain cells. Take a couple of deep breaths. Just calm down. Okay?
Several moments passed, and I breathed heavily through them. I sat there, eyes closed, seeing nothing and feeling nothing. None of this seemed real.
Who’s dead? Seth asked, and I could tell by his tone that he expected the worst.
Lea. Even the voice inside my head sounded numb. She’s dead, like her whole family.
Seth said nothing. Maybe he knew the significance. After all, when we’d been connected before, he’d seen a lot of my past, and he probably could guess that I had no idea how to deal with this. Perhaps he was even thinking the same thing I had—that our connection had taken everything from Lea, including her life. I doubted that, even if he was thinking that, it would make any difference. Seth would continue doing what he was doing. And so would I. He didn’t say anything as I pulled my legs to my chest and balled up, desperately not wanting to feel the biting loss again. And he said nothing as the odd pressure inside me increased.
We were enemies to the core, more so now than ever, but my loss was his. When I suffered, he suffered. It was the way we were built, and even the death that he had indirectly caused couldn’t breach that or shatter what lay between us.
Nothing could.
CHAPTER 33
I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I opened my eyes again, the sky was still dark and Seth’s presence was gone. At some point, I’d felt him ease away. I thought he had whispered something before the connection faded, but I had to be hearing things, because it couldn’t be right.
I’d thought I’d heard him say he was sorry.
Obviously I was losing my mind. Seth rarely apologized, and given his needs for power and acceptance that had driven him toward this end game, I doubted he felt remorse.
Taking a deep breath, I almost choked on the bitter remnants of smoke. I knew what I needed to do—pick myself up and get moving. Sitting out here in the open, waiting for more automatons to come along, wasn’t safe.
I stood and turned, brushing the dirt off my tactical pants. The group was still around Lea’s body. Olivia was sitting beside the fallen half-blood, her head in her hands. Deacon and Luke flanked her, the half cradling his injured arm.
Wiping my hands across my cheeks, I stopped beside Aiden.
Olivia looked up, her eyes shiny in the moonlight. “She didn’t feel it, right?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”
She nodded, and then picked up Lea’s blade, holding it close as she stood. “What do we… what do we do from here?”
It was Solos who spoke. “We need to move quickly. There’s no telling if more will come along, and we’re sitting ducks out here.”
“Do you still think the University is a safe place?” Marcus asked, rubbing his chin. The palm of his hand came back red. I realized then he was bleeding.
I started toward Marcus, but he waved me off. “I’m okay. It’s just a scratch,” he said gruffly. “How do we know that the University is still standing? The automatons could’ve torched it and…”
And all those people. My head swam as I glanced down at Lea. Someone had closed her eyes. Mine burned.
“We have to find out.” Aiden thrust a hand through his hair. “We’re about a mile from the campus.”
Luke shook his head. “There could be more of them. Hell, there could be a dozen or more over the next damn hill and we’d be walking into that blind.”
“Or there could be nothing but open land and the damn University,” Aiden countered, his jaw set hard. “As far as we know, these automatons may’ve been here to stop anyone from reaching the campus… or to stop people from leaving.”
“Or the campus could be gone.” Deacon backed up, running his hands down his sides.
Solos stepped forward, clapping a hand on Deacon’s shoulder. “I cannot believe the whole campus is gone.”
“With all those automatons, anything is possible.” Luke straightened his injured arm as he stared in the general direction of where I assumed the campus was. “But we have to see. We’ve come this—”
“Wait!” Olivia’s voice rose above the guys’. “I wasn’t asking about going to the University or not. I was talking about what we were going to do with Lea.”
Silence fell again and I turned to Aiden. “We can’t leave her here.”
Pain flickered in those deep gray eyes. He reached out, extending his hand, and I went, pressing myself against his side. My fingers dug into his singed shirt, finding tiny burnt holes in the material. “We can’t,” I whispered.
His arm tightened around me. “I know.”
“We can’t… take her with us,” Solos said. “We have no idea what we’ll be facing.”
Olivia went off like a nuclear bomb, holding that dagger like she was considering impaling it between Solos’ eyes. “We can’t leave her here like this. That’s so wrong I don’t even need to explain.”
Sympathy shone in Solos’ scarred face. “I know, but we—”
“We bury our dead—our warriors.” Olivia’s lower lip trembled. “We don’t just leave them here to rot.”
Laadan placed a pale hand on Olivia’s arm, but Olivia was beyond consoling. “I don’t care what we have to face or what is waiting for us! We can’t just leave her here.” Her gaze swung to me. “We need to bury her.”
“With what?” Solos asked gently. “We don’t have shovels and this ground is rock hard.”
Olivia sucked in a sharp breath and turned. Her slim shoulders shook as Luke wrapped his good arm around her.
“Aiden, we have to do something,” Deacon pleaded. “I don’t know what, but something.”
Pulling away from Aiden, I glanced down at my hands. I wasn’t sure how much juice I had left in me, or even if I could use the earth element to create… to create a grave, but I would try. There was no way we could leave Lea out here.
“I don’t know if this will work.” I tucked my hair back, having no idea what’d happened to my ponytail.
Aiden’s brows slammed down as concern flared. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
I nodded. “Where do you think we should do it, Olivia?”
It took her a couple of seconds to pull away from Luke and process what I was asking. She looked around and seemed to recognize that there really wasn’t a suitable place. She headed off and I followed her. We stopped near two juniper trees that had remained unscathed from the fire and battle, their sweet scent so at odds with the lingering acidic and metallic smells.
“This should work,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s not much, but the trees… she’d like the trees.”
I looked at her.
Olivia slowly turned to me and she let out a choked, hoarse laugh. “Okay. Lea really wasn’t big on nature or trees.”
“No.” I smiled and it hurt. “She’s probably thinking what the hell right now.”
She blinked. “You think?”
“Yeah, I mean, when I was down there waiting, I couldn’t tell what was going on up here, but maybe it’s different for her.” I thought of the oracle I had met, and then the old woman. “It seemed different for everyone, but I know she’s not in pain.”
Olivia nodded slowly. “That’s the thing about death, I’ve realized. They’re gone to us, but not really, you know? There is life after death, just a different kind of life.” There was a pause. “I wish we’d become friends before all of this crap. Lea… she was pretty cool if you got past the bitchiness.”
I rubbed my temple, feeling an incredible empty place in my chest. “I wish I hadn’t been such a bitch to her.”
“What?”
Shaking my head, I lowered my gaze. “It’s a long story.”
Olivia looked like she wanted to push it, but didn’t. “She’ll see her family again.”
“Yeah, she wanted that.” My eyes were starting to burn again and I knew, if I let the tears fall once more, they wouldn’t stop and I’d be utterly useless. “Okay. I can do this.”
Taking a deep breath, I got down on my knees and placed my hands on the dirt. I closed my eyes, wiggling my fingers into the leaf litter until I found the topsoil. I’d made the ground move before, when I’d fought Aiden, so I imagined I could do this.