“Knock it off, Doug,” Denver says quietly. Lixue blanches, looking between them as if she’s expecting the captain to lash out, but the captain doesn’t punish Denver for it. Instead, he turns away, pacing the tight space as if he’s trying to pull himself together.
Lixue reaches into her backpack and offers him a water bottle. My heart stills as he pours some into his hand and washes the blood from hischin. All it would take is a handful of that water to kill me. If he’s strong enough to master fire, he could just as easily drown me where I sit. He must read the fear in my eyes—must sense compliance in my sudden quiet.
“Fine,” he says, slowly screwing the cap back on the bottle. “Let’s play it your way and assume you don’t have feelings for Sommers. Why turn off your transmitter in the presence of an enemy when you’re so close to falling below the red line?”
I search his face for signs of a lie. My stomach clenches when he smiles, at the glimmer of pity in it. I knew Poppy and I were close to the Purge line, that I was at risk of being cycled out for my performance. I’d let Jack’s seasons go on too long. Had let my emotions go unchecked, the spring rains running out of control. I had let Julio kill me too quickly, too easily. My downhill slide in the ranks has been building momentum for years, but time is strange here, hard to grasp, both fleeting and endless with the perennial promise of immortality hanging over our heads. When I turned off my transmitter, I hadn’t stopped to consider how much a moment alone with Jack might cost me.
That my next death might be my last.
I lift my chin. Erase the fear from my face. No matter what these Guards have planned for me, I’ll face it alone. I refuse to drag Jack down with me. “If I’m so close to the red line, maybe I deserve what’s coming to me.”
Something shimmers beneath the hard frost of Doug’s eyes. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”
I suck in a breath as he tosses the water bottle to Noelle. She catches it against her jacket. Their eyes hold, his voice rough with emotion whenhe says, “If you won’t confess to your feelings for Jack Sommers, I’m left with no choice but to test where your loyalties lie.”
Denver swears under his breath. “Let it go, Doug. So she made a mistake. It was a long time ago.”
“It didn’t mean anything,” Noelle says softly.
“If it meant so little to you, why are you still watching his feeds?”
Noelle’s throat bobs with her hard swallow.
“Let’s just do what we came to do and go home,” Denver says. I jump at the snap of his blade flipping shut. The rope doesn’t budge, no matter how hard I twist.
“Doug—” Noelle starts.
“Captain!” he corrects her. Her cheeks flash red.
“Captain,” she says sharply. “I don’t think—”
“Who exactly is it you’re afraid of hurting, Lieutenant?” There’s a challenge in his eyes. Whatever she did wounded him badly, and I’m going to be the one to suffer for it.
The chair creaks under me as I struggle to get free.
Noelle adjusts her grip on the bottle, and all the color drains from her cheeks. The temperature in the room plummets. I start at the telltale crackle of water freezing, at the groan of plastic as the ice expands and the lid breaks. Noelle’s eyes glaze over, swirling with white fog, the same way Jack’s do when we argue. Rime splinters over the walls, sizzling over the surface of the lantern. My teeth begin to chatter, my magic retreating deep to keep warm as Lixue and Denver close the circle around me.
Breath steams from my lips. Every gasp of chilled air burns, the Guards’ magic filling the tight space too thickly with smells: peppermint, winterberry, pine, chimney smoke...
Winter smells. Jack’s smells. The smells I cling to at night when I’m curled around his coat.
I stare the Guards in the eyes. So when it’s over, I’ll remember. So when it’s over, I’ll recognize their faces and remember they’re not him. I picture Jack’s night-black hair and storm-gray eyes. The shadow of his lashes against his cheeks and the way they fluttered closed as he lay in my arms. I remember every delicate detail, every soft and vulnerable piece of him, clinging tightly to the memory of that moment when I held him, the rush of magic—the pulse of electricity that jolted through me, leaving me weak when our skin touched.
It felt right, felt different at the end, when our transmitters were off. When it was only the two of us.
Not like this.
Anything but this.
It isn’t until my eyes swell closed with frostbite that I forget who I am. That I forget what I want. That I’m certain I’m going to die.
4
May Flowers
FLEUR
Julio doesn’t even try to conceal his arrival. The sun peeks through the clouds and the Potomac River Basin grows unseasonably warm a moment before he finds me. He sinks down beside me on the damp riverbank and scoots close until our knees are almost brushing, careful not to make contact with my skin. Shivering in jeans and a windbreaker, he blows into his cupped hands. His breath smells strongly of chewing gum. Under that, faintly of cocoa butter and the sea. Smells I loved a lifetime ago, but that only manage to set me on edge now. No matter how attractive the package, Julio’s here to kill me. If he ever gets around to it.
