The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📗

“I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t.” Ben’s hand dropped away. “Starkey took the kids up the mountain, where the buggies can’t reach. It’ll be a slog, but I’ll help you. We’ll carry him together.”

I sagged where I stood, limp with gratitude. Shame followed soon after. I’d been cold without meaning to, brushed him off in my panic. “Thank you,” I said. “How soon can we go?”

“Tonight.” Jetha stepped up, grim-faced. “I just need to organize parties to alert the other camps. Myla, you’re with me. You’ll brief our runners on everything you saw. Ben, you find a stretcher, and get Lock in the truck. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

I wanted to go after Ben, tell him how sorry I was. How I’d thought of him every day, missed him to my marrow. But Jetha was beckoning, and I trotted after her. Lazrad was building an army, and Lock was dying. Everything else would have to wait.

The truck dropped us off where the foothills gave way to cliffs. Jetha called us to attention, me and Ben with our stretcher, then our retinue to the rear. We’d brought four armed guards and a lookout, just enough to watch our backs. Lock hadn’t opened his eyes since we’d left camp. He lay swaddled in blankets, moonlight silvering his goggles. Jetha glanced at him and frowned.

“Before we go, we need to be mindful,” she said. “Decemites have been sighted patrolling the foothills. We cannot draw their attention. The Nest’s full of families and children, so go by moonlight where you can, and keep your beams low where you can’t. Keep the chatter to a minimum till we pass the snow line. Do I make myself clear?”

A murmur of assent went through our ranks. Ben lifted his end of Lock’s stretcher, I took mine, and we began our climb. The track was narrow and steep, barely visible in the dark. Rock shifted beneath us, rattling pebbles into the void. We shuffled step by step, testing the ground as we went. Ben had found boots for me, but I’d have felt more stable without them, toes rooting in the dirt.

We passed a still mountain lake, just south of the snow line. Ben muttered something and startled me from my thoughts.

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” He took three steps and sighed, then he nodded across the lake. “See those piles of rocks sticking up from the water?”

“Yeah.”

“Those were a pier once. When the air was still sweet.” He stopped to let Jetha overtake us. “There was a cabin there, too, when we first found this place—what was left of one, anyway. We found this box under the floorboards, full of pictures, years old. You couldn’t see much, with the mold and the wet, but what you could see, just... Kids swimming. Kids fishing. You can’t do any of that now.”

A lump rose in my throat. Ben sounded sad, his voice thick with longing. I dragged my feet to let the procession outpace us.

“Tired?” Ben hitched up Lock’s stretcher. “We can rest if you need to. A few minutes won’t hurt.”

“It’s not that.” I cocked my head, listening. The mountain stood silent, the others out of earshot. “I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “Before, what you said, about your feelings not changing—”

“You don’t have to say it. It’s okay.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” I looked down at Lock, at the moonlight reflecting off his goggles. “I thought of you every day. I nearly ran back to you, my second day home. I missed you so much it hurt, not just in my head, but my stomach, my chest. It felt like a weight on me. Like a physical pain.”

Ben didn’t say anything, but I saw his shoulders tighten. My eyes felt hot, like I’d been staring into the sun.

“Sky wasn’t anything like I pictured,” I said. “I went up there for you. For you and for everyone. Ona. Lock. My parents. I thought I could find answers, some way we could all be safe. But it’s a whole other world. I was alone. Ona wouldn’t listen, and to the Lofties, I was—we were—we were like pictures in a museum, fun to look at a while, but you go home and forget them, and—”

“Lock was there for you. I get it.” Ben hugged the cliffside, rounding a curve. “Watch where you’re going. It gets icy up ahead.”

“He’s a good man,” I said. “A good friend. And he wouldn’t be in this state if I hadn’t dragged him into my fight.”

I heard Ben inhale, a long, ragged breath. “I guess I know what that’s like. If I could’ve been there for Derrick, saved Lita that pain...”

“I can’t let him die.” I steadied myself against the slide of ice underfoot. Lock’s breathing had quickened, coming in irregular bursts. I wanted to comfort him. It hurt that I couldn’t, that same crushing pain I’d felt in Ben’s absence. Guilt welled in my throat, bitter as bile. I hadn’t lied to Ben, not exactly, but Lock was more than a friend. We hadn’t kissed or gone courting, never given name to our feelings, but I felt safe when he held me, and I wanted him to feel the same.

“Where those trees are, up there, that’s the Nest.” Ben pointed up the slope, steadying Lock’s stretcher on his hip. I followed where he was pointing, but all I saw was snow and the black cliffs above. I kept walking anyway, one foot after the other. Lock was shivering through his blankets, and I urged Ben faster. Soon, the trees shadowed our path—thin, scraggly evergreens clinging to the cliffside. I caught a glimmer of purple between them, and then I saw Starkey, red-faced from the wind.

“You three are the last?”

“That’s right,” said Ben.

“Good. Get inside, then. Jasper’s waiting in back.”

We squeezed through a narrow pass, angling Lock’s stretcher to fit. A short flight of stairs led to a warm, firelit cave. A stream bubbled through it, separating a cluster of huts from