THAD
DAY 355, ALMOST NOON
Today was my day.
I felt it—when I woke up, when we picked the Flower Field as the day’s hot spot, and when Charley squeezed my hand a second ago. Today feltright. Or maybe I just wanted it to be right. Want, need, entwined in a blur of desperation, choking me so tight I was incapable of separating the two.
Charley’s voice sucked me back from my mental black hole.
“Scan the field,” she said, her eyes busy. “I’ve got the north edge.”
Tick-tock.Seconds passed, then minutes. I felt noon slip when Charley shouted.
“There!” she cried, pointing.
Meters away, the writhing wall of air whispered my name as it rose.Come, Thad.Run.
“Run!” Charley yelled, pulling my hand.
I took off, Charley by my side, her hand tight in mine. The gate was glorious, winking with outbound perfection. Abruptly, clarity struck—as crisp and clear as the cloudless Nil sky—and in that moment, I knew: I couldn’t win. Because even when I caught the gate, I would lose.
I would lose Charley.
Just run, I told myself. Charley’s feet paced mine.
The gate rolled fast, skimming the north edge of the Flower Field. It was a racer, a single. Three meters away, the air glittered like sunlight bouncing off of snow.
I looked at Charley, certain I would shatter, even before I felt the burn of the gate. “I love you.”
“As I love you.” She grinned. “No regrets. See you on the flip side!” Then she let go.
In my peripheral vision, Charley spun out of gate range.
Heat leaked from the gate; it was like approaching an oven set on full broil, and I was about to throw myself in. As I braced for the burn, a sickly looking orange cat darted from the field, brushed my ankle, and shot into the gate.
Charley screamed as the cat shimmered; I fought to stop, windmilling my arms to get away before the gate zapped me to death. Millimeters from my nose, the gate snapped shut with an audible hiss.
It was gone. So was the cat.
And I was still right here.
“Well, that sucked,” I said. I rested my hands on my hips as I fought to catch my breath. My quads trembled; I couldn’t make them stop.
Charley threw her arms around me. “If you’d have hit that gate—” She shook her head, holding me tight.
I rested my head against hers. “But I didn’t.”
For a long moment, we just stood there. I had no clue who was holding who, and it didn’t matter. We were together. And I was still alive.
“Holy crap,” Charley murmured, her breathing almost normal. “That gate was yours. We wereright there. And some crazy cat stole it and almost killed you in the process. What’s up with all these frickin’ cats?”
“You know how Nil loves to play with kitties. Gates are like catnip. It’s weird.”
“It’s awful.” Letting go, she sat on a rock. Her expression was half shocked, half furious. “To be so close only to have it stolen by something so random, especially something that looked half dead.”
“Nothing like Nil to try to save a cat with one foot in the grave.” My voice was bitter. Forcing a smile, I sat beside Charley and took her hand in mine.
“No,” Charley said. “It wasn’t Nil, it was random. Cats are like a wild card, literally.”
