Nil on Fire Page 4

  All she could hide were her thoughts, which sucked.

  I used to be able to read her mind. Literally hear her thoughts; they drifted through my head through some potent connection forged in our last moments on Nil. A connection forged by Nil. But lately that connection had weakened, because Skye had blocked me out. More like locked me out—of her head, out of her thoughts. Where Skye’s mind used to be was a Nil-black wall. Maybe it was self-preservation, maybe it was to protect me. Either way, I hated it.

  We used to protect each other.

  I glanced over. Her snack sat untouched, her book unopened. She’d actually fallen asleep. Lips slightly parted, eyes closed, Skye breathed in a slow but steady rhythm. Considering the Red Bull she’d downed earlier, the fact that she’d crashed out upright was impressive.

  Sleep, I thought, willing the moment to stretch out long enough for Skye to score some solid REM. Surely the shadows under her eyes would fade with rest, the crescent moons banished once and for all.

  I’d no sooner had that thought when she jerked. Her hand gripped mine, her nails digging into my palm. “What do you want?” she croaked. Her voice sounded constricted, like she was underwater.

  “Skye.” I brushed her cheek with my free hand. “Wake up.”

  Skye’s eyelids flew open, her chest heaving, her hand holding mine in a death grip. She turned to me and my heart stopped. Her steel-flecked eyes were packed with fear and desperation and something else, something potent.

  Want, I thought. They were packed with want.

  But it wasn’t want for me.

  I held her gaze. “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one.” She averted her eyes.

  “Skye. Look at me. Please.”

  She did. Haunted eyes, packed with Nil ghosts.

  “Are you talking to Nil?” I asked bluntly.

  To my relief, she shook her head.

  “Then who?”

  She did that chew-on-the-inside-of-her-mouth thing that she always did when she was thinking—especially when she was deciding how much to share.

  “A girl,” she said finally. “I hear her, Rives. Every night. Every nap. Every time I fall asleep. She won’t leave me alone.”

  I frowned. “A girl? Like, someone you know?”

  “No. I don’t know her, but she knows me. She knows my name.” She hesitated. “I think she’s in trouble, that she needs help. But how can I help her?” Her haunted expression gave way to frustration. “I know it took me longer than normal to come through that return gate; Jillian told me that. Which means I was in that darkness longer than anyone.” Skye met my gaze straight on. “Do you think Nil did something to me during my last gate trip, while I was in that darkness between? Something that makes me hear people in trouble? People in trouble here, in this world?” Skye looked at me like I might have a clue. Like she hoped I had a clue.

  I had nothing.

  Would I ever stop being wholly pissed off with Nil?

  “Quit being all mad and think, would you?” Smiling, Skye squeezed my hand.

  God, I loved her.

  I refocused. “Of course Nil did something to you. To me, to us. But, do I think you can hear people in distress, in this world or dimension or whatever?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a stretch. But I wouldn’t rule it out.” I regarded Skye thoughtfully. “This girl,” I said slowly, focusing on the key problem keeping Skye awake, “have you seen her? Or do you just hear her?”

  “I used to just hear her. But…” Skye twisted one wild curl of her hair as she spoke, a nervous Skye tic if there ever was one. “Now I see her. She’s so real. I have a clear picture in my head of what she looks like. I don’t know if I’m just imagining it, or if that’s really her. Or if I made it all up.” She gave a weird laugh. “Maybe I’m losing it.”

  “You’re not losing it. I believe you. And maybe if you think about her, I’ll see her too.”

  Hope lit Skye’s face, erasing the ghosts. “That’s a great idea.” She took my free hand in hers. Holding both of my hands tight, she pressed as close as the armrest allowed and slowly touched her forehead to mine. “Close your eyes,” she whispered.

  I did.

  The other passengers faded away; awareness of Skye filled me like light. Like life and blood and bone and breath. Eyes closed, hands tight, I felt our connection, solid and real, far deeper than the press of skin between our palms, but when I reached for Skye in my mind, all I found was blackness: an unyielding black wall as solid and massive as the one I’d hit when I sucked down deadsleep tea on Nil.

  But we weren’t on Nil; we were on a plane. And I’d given up deadsleep tea months ago.

  The disappointment tasted as bitter now as the tea had then.

  Pulling away, I opened my eyes. Skye’s expression was eager, her eyes overly bright.

  “Did you see her?” Her hopeful tone crushed something deep inside me.

  “Skye.” I chose my words carefully. “I think you’ve been shutting me out for so long that you can’t let me in. You know how when we first got back, you could hear my thoughts and I could hear yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Lately I haven’t heard anything from you. It’s like your mind is closed off. I just hit a wall.” I smiled slightly. “But I’ll give you credit, Skye. It’s an intense wall. Pure black. Impenetrable. You don’t do anything halfway.”

  Skye froze. “What did you just say?”

  “That you don’t do anything halfway.”

  “Before that. About the black.”

  “Each time I reach for you here”—I tapped my head—“I run into a solid wall of black. I can’t tell whether you’re locking me out or locking yourself in.”

  Skye had gone white.

  “No,” she whispered. Then she sighed. “Crap. It’s both, I guess. I have been blocking you out. I didn’t want you to know about my nightmares, I didn’t want to drag you in.” She laughed humorlessly. “But I guess I already have.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Skye looked at me with her no-holds-barred expression. “Every night I dream of blackness, like the darkness between gates, Rives. Every time I sleep. It’s alive, Rives. I know it. There’s a speck of light though, too, and I think that’s where the girl is, inside the darkness. But the darkness—” She fought a shiver. “It’s real and powerful and it wants something from me, just like the girl.”

  The darkness is real and powerful and it wants something from me.

  Dread flooded my gut. The darkness sounded bad. Like demon-spawn-of-Nil bad.

  “The darkness.” I forced myself to stay calm. “Can you show me? Can you let me in, not that you’re not intentionally locking me out?”

  “I’ll try.” She closed her eyes.

  Rives. Skye’s thought, calm and clear.

  A summons.

  An invitation.

  A mental lock clicked, a wall shifted. I was holding Skye’s hand; I was following her through. An expanse of black filled my head; it slammed me back into my seat from the sheer scope of it. Before I’d only brushed the edge, like touching the tide at the high-water mark. I fully grasped that until now, Skye had kept me out. Held me back.

  She had protected me.

  But now, I saw it; I felt it. It was yawning and hungry and full-on Nil black. And it desperately wanted her.

  How could she not see it?

  I’d never felt so afraid, because I didn’t understand. Or maybe I did. My flash of insight brought a whole new level of terror.

  “Did you see it?” she asked. Still hopeful.

  “Yeah.” I swallowed, still reeling from the onslaught of black. “It was—” I grappled with the word to sum up the darkness, and failed. “Intense.” I looked at her. “No more, Skye. Don’t lock me out. We’re a team. You don’t have to do this alone, whatever this is.”

  She nodded and exhaled, her relief clear.

  Looking at our hands, Skye traced a swirling line on my palm, a path reminiscent of the Man in t
he Maze. “What you saw?” Her voice was as soft as her touch. “I know it doesn’t seem that bad but it’s so much worse when I actually sleep, Rives.” She flinched. “When I sleep,” she continued, “the darkness is alive. It reaches for me even as the girl calls to me. The more I try to listen to her, the harder it is to fight the darkness. It’s like I can’t have it both ways. And when I fall asleep, I’m scared I won’t wake up. Ever.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “That won’t happen.” I pressed my palm against hers, leaving no space between them. “I won’t let that happen. Next time you fall asleep, I’ll be there. With you.” I didn’t know how—hell, I didn’t understand what was even going on—but I refused to lose her to invisible demons, especially demons born of Nil.

  She nodded. “You always are, you know. You always bring me back. But lately”—she looked away—“you don’t hear me.”

  My blood chilled. “What do you mean, I don’t hear you?”

  “You don’t answer.” She bit the inside of her cheek.

  “I don’t answer,” I repeated.

  I’m failing her.

  The thought made me furious. Where was my fighting chance? My fair shot? How the hell was I supposed to be her mental knight in shining armor when I’d no clue what I was fighting? We were pawns in a game without rules, or with rules we didn’t know. I had the sick sense it was the latter. Nil-created, perhaps Nil-directed. A Nil tendril, in this world.

  “Rives.” Skye’s voice was quiet. “It’s not your fault; if anything, it’s mine, and not just because I’ve blocked you out. I think I go so far into the darkness that you can’t hear me. So far that it pulls me in farther than I want, far enough to pull me away from you. For those few seconds, it wins.” She closed her eyes. “And that’s when I scream, and you don’t answer.”

  Merde.

  It was a nightmare reaching into the light, full of fangs and claws. If I could see it, I’d punch it in the face, beat it back. Beat it to death.

  But I couldn’t see it. And that was the problem.

  I focused on the solution. On Skye. On what mattered.

  “Skye, listen. This thing, this darkness, it doesn’t win. Ever. You’re in control. You’re stronger than whatever the hell this thing is. Remember, it’s in your head. And if you locked me out, you can lock the darkness out too, right?”

  “I guess.” Skye didn’t sound convinced. She sounded exhausted. She rested her head on my shoulder as I wove my fingers through hers.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said adamantly. “We’ll get through this, whatever this is. And if Nil did something to you, we’ll work through it, together. That’s why Nil gave us that gift, right? Our connection. So you don’t have to do this alone, okay?”

  “Okay,” Skye whispered. For a long moment she didn’t speak. “I’m so tired, Rives. And I feel like I’m failing the girl. How can I help her if I don’t know who she is?” Her steel-flecked eyes glittered behind a slight film of tears. Skye rarely cried. Only when she was angry or flat-out spent, and right now, I knew it was the latter.

  She was beyond exhausted.

  And the mystery girl was partially to blame. Maybe if we could get the nightmare chick to leave, she’d take the darkness with her and let Skye sleep.

  “Try again,” I said suddenly. “Show me what the girl looks like. Now that you’re not consciously keeping me out, maybe I can help. Two is always better than one, right?”

  “Right.” She sat up straight and squared her shoulders, Skye-fierce. “Close your eyes,” she said. “I’m going to focus on the picture I have of her in my head. Don’t think of the blackness, okay? Focus on the girl’s voice. It’s what works for me.”

  I thought of Skye. Of her smile, her laugh, her passionate I-will-take-you-down look that she faced Nil with every damn day. I thought of the girl who made me want to breathe and live. The girl who took on the blackness in her head and gave it a cold shoulder.

  I thought of us, of our connection. A golden thread linking us both.

  The darkness washed through my head with a powerful iciness, pulling me deeper as I held Skye’s hand in mine; our connection pulled taut, a potent thread that I couldn’t see but could feel. A light flickered, like a bulb on the brink of failure. I focused, and it brightened into a beacon. Into a tunnel. No, a halo, a flash of blond. An outline. A face.

  A girl. A voice.

  No.

  And I knew that voice.

  I knew her.

  A face flashed full and crisp, a high-def nightmare made real.

  My eyes flew open; I couldn’t breathe. This is not happening.

  “What?” Skye leaned close, her eyes full of hope. “Did you see her? Blond hair? Big eyes?”

  “I saw her.” My voice sounded remote.

  “You saw her,” Skye breathed in wonder. “She’s real. So maybe we can save her.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t save her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s already dead,” I said flatly. “I buried her, on Nil. Her name was Talla.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  NIL

  AFTER NOON

  It would be so easy, the island marveled with delight, relishing what lay ahead. Their connection was so strong, so entwined, that breaking one would break the other. The island would shatter them both, a reward of two for the effort of one.

  Perhaps it had been wrong to focus on her all these weeks. Perhaps he was the one to break.

  The one who would break, the one who could be broken.

  Yes, the island reasoned, reviewing the history of the male, Rives. He’d nearly broken once, over a female, the one with electria so powerful it had taken all the island’s restraint not to take her on her Day 1. How fun—and unexpected—to bring this male to the point of fracture again, to push him beyond. And this time, he would take the female, Skye, with him. Their connection would be their undoing.

  Abruptly the island’s focus shifted.

  Like a scent on the wind, darkness called, demanding attention. Still reaching beyond the seam, the island pivoted toward another male, a different one with no connections worthy of interest. The stench of his pride tainted his soul, a window to the darkness within. There was always darkness, and the island was drawn to it. The island was drawn to him.

  The gate caught him unaware.

  He was easy to find, easy to take. He would be easy to manipulate.

  The island trembled with the rush of new blood.

  *

  Ace woke slowly, disoriented.

  Blood leaked down his cheek from where he’d scraped his face on the ground, but he didn’t wipe it; he was too intent on his surroundings, fighting a slice of anger and a bigger wave of annoyance. He had plans for today and this detour wasn’t a part of them.

  He’d always hated surprises.

  Ace hopped to all fours as he looked around. Charred ground surrounded him, unfamiliar and eerily quiet. Something terrible had happened here; he felt it.

  Something that now involved him.

  He had the freak thought that he’d brought this upon himself. After all, he’d just ratted out Mikey, a classic jerk move if there ever was one, but it wasn’t Mikey’s butt on the line now; it was Ace’s. And technically, Mikey had taken the money. He was the muscle; Ace was the brains—and the beauty. His perfect abs were pure icing on the Ace cake, and girls loved it. Loved him.

  Mikey had never had much of a backbone, and Ace had never had much of a conscience.

  But damn, even if karma had kicked him here, this scene was messed up. And by the standards of his world, that was saying something.

  Suddenly Ace knew.

  Someone kidnapped me—to send a message to Dad. Ace half smiled, knowing if that was the case, his dad would come bail him out—or send someone who would. His dad knew people. But first his dad would set things right, or make things right with the right people. Which meant, for now, Ace was on his own.

  The b
reeze rustled at his back. He turned to find a blackened corpse resting a few feet away and he froze. Something had burned here, and someone. Even though it was long gone, he could practically smell the burned flesh. That scent wasn’t new for Ace, but the lack of total control was.

  I’m out, he thought abruptly. He stepped quickly, moving away from the charred body and scorched earth, not sure where to go except away from death. Never get your hands dirty, his dad had taught him.

  He left the dirty work to others—just like his dad.

  And now his hands were coated in soot.

  Ace frowned.

  *

  The island was so captivated watching the first male, it nearly missed the second. A rare mistake.

  The second one whimpered.

  He bled, too, christening island dirt with his DNA, weeping from a slash on his forearm. He’d landed out of sight of the first male, their view of each other conveniently blocked by the surviving thicket. Fresh blood pumped through the second male’s veins, shock mixing with panic and pain.

  The island breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of fear.

  The second male cowered in the island breeze, retreating into himself as if he held the escape route inside, which, the island pondered, was not altogether untrue. The island examined this male carefully; it sifted through his thoughts, catalogued his reactions, isolated his fear. Like the first male, he had not seen the gate coming. Then he had been surprised; now, he was terrified. He did not move. His fear had shut down his reactions. At this rate, this male would perish before ever reaching anywhere close to his full potential, his true electria wasted.

  A test, the island decided. To determine whether the second male had potential for growth, or whether his weakness was an inherent flaw too ingrained to change. It was illogical to wait to take power that would never develop. The test would begin, now.

  The island breeze whipped in a new direction, blowing the scent of rotting meat toward the far corner of the meadow, along with the smell of fresh blood.

  This male’s blood.

  Past the burn line, two heads pricked above the grasses. They sniffed once. Moving in tandem, the pair slunk forward. Acting on instinct, the hyenas parted ranks, cornering the injured male with predatory precision.