DARWIN AND TERESA were led to a two-story house farther down the street from where Darwin had stayed last time he was here. By the time they got there, they were both dragging their feet and practically tripping over them to keep up, the exhaustion of the past weeks finally allowed to show itself. Teresa was shown to her room first. She hesitated, watching Darwin being shown to his room just down the hall.
Even though he was indoors, and the building had windows to keep out the chill of the night, he kept his clothes on, too tired to care. He took off his shoes before falling between the sheets, pulling them up to his neck and closing his eyes.
Sleep refused to come.
For the first time in over a month he was warm and safe and dry, and though he still monitored the Threads, he’d pushed them far enough into the background that he barely noticed people around SafeHaven.
He was also very much alone. His thoughts flitted between memories of the long walk and the cold nights. He missed Teresa beside him, missed the gentle sound of her breathing as he drifted off to sleep. Missed their conversations.
A creak outside his door pulled him from the in-between world of sleep and wakefulness. He lay still as his door opened and a shaft of light fell across his closed eyes. Without conscious thought, he followed the Threads to figure out who it was, relaxing as soon as he found out.
Teresa closed the door behind her, her bare feet padding across the floor. Without a word, she crawled in under the covers with him, and his senses filled with her presence. The smell of her clean clothes was different than it had been on the road, but to the Threads, she was the same as she had been when they’d huddled together for warmth. Tonight it was for the comfort of the familiar and the continuation of the companionship they’d needed to live. He sent Threads out into the night, creating a shield around them, and finally fell asleep.
He woke with his heart pounding and every muscle in his body tense, ready for a fight or a mad dash to safety. Dozens of Threads had shifted all at once. By the time he remembered where he was, Teresa was sitting up, staring groggily around the room. She placed her hand on his chest until his racing heart settled down, and then left without a word. The room felt empty without her in it.
He wished he could just tell her how he felt, but he knew it would end the same way as every other time he’d tried, a pitying look and a firm no. He pulled on his shoes and followed her out.
Breakfast in the mess hall was simple, but Darwin couldn’t ever remember having a better one. From the way Teresa was eating she obviously felt the same way. The fake coffee was hot and liquid gold, sliding down Darwin’s throat and warming him to his toes. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed it. They’d just finished wiping their plates clean with a slice of oven-fresh bread when Carlos walked in and asked them to join him.
They put their plates in the giant wash bins and followed him out to the street.
“I do this every morning,” Carlos said. “Walk around, see how the repairs are coming along, what else needs to be done. But more than that, I meet the people.”
The several people they passed along the way smiled and nodded or said hello.
“Enton did it, when he was here. I could never figure out why, until I started doing the same thing. I know pretty much every face in SafeHaven, and a fair number of names. I know the work that needs to be done and what is getting done. It helps. Keeps me in touch with why I am doing all of this. Why he did it.”
They walked in silence for most of way, watching the people and looking at the damage done by the Skends. Almost all of the houses burned on the night of the attack were being worked on. Crews replaced damaged wood with new, and the sounds of pounding hammers filled the morning air. Those houses that could be salvaged had piles of material beside them. The others stood empty, husks of what used to be someone’s home. Darwin stopped in his tracks, staring at one of the husks.
It was the house he had tried to hide in. He could still feel the heat of the flames, the sound of the Skend moving through them, getting closer, wanting nothing more than to kill him.
“I can’t be here,” Darwin said.
Carlos sighed and walked to the building, breaking off a piece of charred wood with his hand. “The family who lived here are on the next street. They all made it out safe.”
“That’s not what I mean. I can’t stay here. I am the reason the Skends came. I’m the reason SafeHaven was burned down and people died. The reason Teresa’s home was attacked. How many people died that night? How many parents won’t ever see their children again, or kids their mom or dad?”
“You are the reason? I guess the Qabal knew you would be here years ago? That’s how long we think it took them to bring Skends close enough to SafeHaven to attack it. There were never any warnings. No alarms went off. The Threads showed nothing unless you compared what we saw the day before the attack to what we would have seen a few years back. No one does—can do—that.
“This attack was planned well before you came over. You may have changed the timing, but that’s it. You may have even helped us. With you here we had double shifts on watch, and a couple of extra teams stayed home instead of going out. Without them here, things could have been much worse.”
“Enton would still be here,” Darwin said. “Teresa would still have a home.”
“Teresa still has a home. We had enough warning to get everybody out. Enton gave us some extra breathing room as well.”
“If I’m here, they’ll be back.”
“Maybe. The good news is they don’t know you’re here. They know you escaped with Enton, and they know he’s dead—”
“How—”
“Like I said last night, we all saw what was left of him on this side of the hole. He barely had a chance with a healer trained for hole injuries, never mind an apprentice,” Carlos said, glancing at Teresa. “You both saw what happened to him. Hole injuries are almost always fatal.”
“If I’m here, they’ll be back,” Darwin repeated. “They found me in Salem.”
Carlos stopped and searched Darwin’s face before throwing the charred hunk of wood back into the empty building.
They finished the rest of walk through the damaged part of SafeHaven in silence, ending up near the mess hall again. Carlos gestured to a small building off to the side and they followed him through the door. Mellisa stood from behind a desk when they entered and gave Darwin a small smile.
“Are you two feeling better?” she asked in her raspy voice.
Teresa stepped up beside Darwin and reached for his hand. “Much better, thanks.”
“So, what happens now?” Darwin asked.
“First we talk about last night, then we figure out what to do.”
“Last night?”
“You were in this room last night, sitting right there in the corner. Scared the shit out of me.”
“You mean when we were talking?”
“Yeah. I’ve never Seen anything like it.” Carlos pointed to two chairs in front of the desk and sat down behind it.
“I don’t understand,” said Darwin.
“If we need to talk to each other, we need to be in the same room as each other, just like we are now. We can’t talk over distances like you did last night, let alone project our image somewhere else. I don’t think even Enton could do it, and if he did, he didn’t show us. The best we can do is hole letters or people.”
Darwin sat in his chair and stared at Carlos.
“We need to know what you did and how you did it. You know what it’s like keeping an eye on the Qabal. Teams have to hole back and forth across the country. By the time we get the news, it’s already old. Being able to talk across large distances would be a huge advantage for us.”
“I don’t know—”
“Just think if Enton could have sent a message from San Diego to here. Even though we managed to get everyone out, it was close. He might even still be with us.”
Anger and pain surged through Darwin. How often would he be reminded of what he had caused, of how many had died because of him? “Dammit. I don’t know. It just happened. I have no clue what I’m doing—” He stopped short, realizing he’d shouted the words.
Teresa placed her hand on his arm. “Maybe we can try to recreate what you did that night. Why don’t we go back to your room where it’s quiet, and you can sit in the corner and get ready to practice again, like when we were at the border.”
Teresa’s touch calmed him down, and he looked at her, grinning sheepishly and feeling stupid. He nodded.
As they walked down the street back to their rooms, Darwin went over the previous evening in his mind. What had he done? He remembered not wanting to practice, and he had been so tired.
“So . . .” Teresa’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You know Mellisa . . . and Carlos . . . them . . . pretty well?”
“Not really. Carlos and Wally brought me across most of the country to SafeHaven. Mellisa I met when I got here. I think her and Carlos are together, but I don’t know. Why?”
“Oh! Oh . . . no reason, just asking. They just seemed to go out of their way to get you back here.”
Darwin stopped walking and Teresa turned to look at him.
“Do you think they want me for something?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just . . . I don’t know. They seem so friendly, so willing to help. It just feels weird, that’s all. Maybe I’m still thinking about what happened in Salem too much.”
“Your mom came here to help when they needed it. Does that change anything? All I know is that I trust them more than I trusted the Qabal.”
Teresa ignored his question, asking one of her own. “Why?”
Darwin thought for a minute before answering. “Being with the Qabal was different. They . . . the people there all seemed to be afraid of something, or someone. Everyone guarded what they said, like if they said the wrong thing, they would get in trouble. Here everyone seems happier. They’re not afraid to say what they think, and those in charge listen.” He paused again. “Someone like you would never have hung around with the Qabal.”
Teresa leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward his room. “We had better get started, or they’ll think you failed.”
Darwin bumbled after her, unable to keep the grin off his face and the heat from spreading through his body.
The room had gotten warm in the morning sun and Teresa moved to open the window. A fresh breeze blew in as he settled himself in the corner, bringing with it the faint stink of burned buildings. It was different than a campfire smell, rancid and full of chemicals. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Besides being tired and cranky, what else had he done or felt last night? He remembered preparing to practice some Thread work, and then his mind had wandered. He had started thinking about Carlos, remembering what he looked like, imagining what he would be doing, the Threads forgotten.
He tried it again. The details of Carlos’s face formed in his mind, and he could See the Threads in front of him shift as the details became clearer.
Next was what would Carlos be doing right now. That was easy, he was in his office, waiting for Darwin’s image to magically appear. He concentrated on the details, and the Threads shifted again.
He was sweating now. The breeze from the window made him shiver when it hit his damp skin, and he wished Teresa would close it again. He put more detail in the image of Carlos in his office, and the Threads shifted for a third time. He thought he saw a pattern and pushed the Threads some more.
His head exploded in pain and he fell sideways to the floor with a sharp yelp before the blackness took over.
Darwin came to lying on the floor. Teresa was on her knees beside him, her forehead scrunched in concentration. He could See soft white Threads moving around his head.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know. The pain seems to be gone, but I’m a bit dizzy.” He pushed himself upright and leaned back into the corner.
“I’m going to get one of their healers. You wait here, I’ll be right back.” Teresa moved to stand up and Darwin reached for her hand, keeping her where she was.
“No, wait. I need to try again. I think I know what I did wrong.” Maybe if he concentrated on the actual task, and ignored the Threads, it would work.
“That’s not a good idea. I’ve never seen what happens when someone pushes the Threads too far, but I’ve heard about it. They go insane, like a whole portion of their brain is fried. I don’t think anyone has come back from that.”
“That’s not going to happen to me.”
“And how do you know that? You suddenly have magical powers? You can See into the future?”
Darwin grinned. “Yeah, kinda.”
“This isn’t funny.”
He wiped the grin off his face. “I know,” he sighed. “Carlos and Mellisa may be my only way of getting back home. I need the QPS, and I can’t get past Rebecca and the Qabal without their help. I’ll do whatever I can to help Carlos, so he’ll want to help me.”
Teresa sat back, pulling her hand out of his grasp, and moved farther away. “Right. That’s the goal, isn’t it? To get back home?”
He felt a sharp stab of guilt. He knew what she was thinking: after all they had been through together, he was still willing to leave her behind as if she didn’t matter. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. He wasn’t going to say anything out loud, but he couldn’t deny to himself that he’d fallen for Teresa, and the thought of leaving her behind was something he just wasn’t prepared to deal with. He didn’t know how. Instead, he fell back to his default.
“Even if I can’t go back, I still have to try. Maybe I can figure out how to turn off the QPS. I don’t want my world to become what this one has, a handful of small groups barely staying alive.”
“So, we’re primitives who are barely smart enough to speak our own minds? And you’re the one who is going to enlighten us and bring us out of these dark times?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Not what you meant?” Teresa stared at him and then stood. “Whatever.” She turned and left the room, the door slamming behind her.
It felt like his heart ripped out of his chest. What the hell was he supposed to do? Couldn’t she see what was going on? He wanted to stay, with all of his heart, but he couldn’t get rid of the image that had been haunting him since he’d escaped the Qabal . . . his dad struggling to move on with his life, visiting two graves instead of one. Darwin had been gone so long, they had to think he was dead. He couldn’t be the cause of that much pain in another person. In his dad. Darwin felt the all-too-familiar anger rising. Even though he knew it was a defense mechanism, he couldn’t stop it. His default. She hadn’t done anything to deserve it, but it flowed through him anyway.
Enough of this bullshit. Pull yourself together. He sat upright again, keeping his back in the corner, pushing Teresa and the ache that permeated his soul out of his mind as best he could. Once again he thought about Carlos, concentrating on the details of his face. When he had a complete picture, he moved on to where Carlos was and what he would be doing. He did his best to ignore the Threads swirling in front of him, letting the eddies shift without him watching them. The Threads popped into images.
He could See Carlos sitting behind his desk, grinning from ear to ear. Dust motes sifted through the shaft of sunlight from the window before disappearing into the relative darkness of the room.
“Welcome back to my office,” he said.
“It . . . it’s working? I have no idea how I did it.”
“Damn right it is. I’m going to send Mellisa over to See what you’re doing. She’ll examine the Threads as we talk, and then ask you to stop and start the connection again. This is bloody awesome!” His grin got wider.
Darwin’s field of view was narrow, like he was looking down a short tunnel. He heard a door open in Carlos’s office and turned to look. Teresa walked in, staring at the image of Darwin. He gave a quick smile and raised his hand to wave. She turned and left, closing the door behind her. Carlos gave him a quizzical look but didn’t say anything. He watched Mellisa walk into view and follow Teresa out.
A few minutes later Mellisa knocked gently on the door and entered his room. He barely heard her. She sat on the floor in front of him, a ghost in his vision, and watched. After a while she touched his arm, pulling him from Carlos’s office, and asked him to start again. She interrupted him five times, asking him to start from scratch again, and each time the task became easier. He told her about the images, about how Enton had Seen them too, and how Bill had thought they were a waste of time.
On the fifth and final try, the images came into sharp focus quicker. There wasn’t any pain.
He fell asleep where he sat, exhausted and sweaty, and didn’t wake up until the next morning, tucked into the bed, starving and alone. He got up, searching for Teresa and some food.
She wasn’t in her room when he knocked on her door, or at breakfast. He wolfed down an omelet with peppers and onions and went looking for Carlos, finding him talking to a construction worker in front of one of the damaged houses.
“Good morning! Good to see you up and about.”
“Morning. Have you seen Teresa?”
Carlos held up his hand and finished his conversation with the construction worker before turning back to Darwin. They began walking back to Carlos’s office before Darwin got an answer.
“I’m sorry, Darwin. She left last night. A group was heading back to San Diego, and she joined them. She said she wanted to see her family.”
Darwin stopped in his tracks, a hole opening in his chest. She’d left him.
Carlos put his hand on Darwin’s shoulder, looked into his eyes, and spoke, his voice soft. “I’m really sorry. She made sure you were comfortable in bed, wrote you a note, and left.”
“A note?”
“Yeah, somewhere in your room.”
Darwin turned and ran back to his room. The letter was stuck under his pillow.
Darwin,
We’ve been through a lot together in the last few weeks, and I think, I hope, we have gotten to know each other fairly well.
One thing I’ve come to realize is, despite my feelings for you, you don’t belong here. Your home is somewhere beyond where I can imagine, and somewhere beyond where I can go.
I will miss you, more than I can put into words, but our journey has come to an end. I’ve gone home to my family. I’ll finish my apprenticeship and figure out what to do from there.
I hope you find what you are looking for, and I hope you get back home to your Dad.
Love always,
Teresa.
A tear dripped off his nose, falling onto the letter. He wiped it off, smearing the neat handwriting, before folding the note with shaking fingers, putting it in his back pocket, and lying on the bed.