Brightly Burning(76)

Feelings flooded me, blurring my vision. My knees buckled, but Jon caught me, saved me from getting a face full of dirt.

“You’re overheated,” he said, but I knew it was my guilt. I suffered its pangs daily, that I couldn’t save everyone. That I had dared to choose who to save, like I was God. It turned my stomach.

“Drink this.” He shoved a water pouch into my hands, followed by an apple from a nearby barrel. “Think of it as a frex-you apple.”

Our consolation prize for being stuck in a quarantine after our government tried to murder us: we kept all our harvest for ourselves now.

I turned at the sound of a juicy crunch. George was availing himself of a snack as well. Soon we were all chomping on apples, counting down until we had to get back out into the fields. Our shift was another two hours.

“We need to mobilize as soon as the quarantine ends,” Jon said, getting keyed up like he always did. “The Stalwart’s built-in reentry pod can only safely carry two hundred down to Earth, so we need to find another ship and go down in smaller groups. Maybe the media would help.”

“Are you going to use my account to leak information again?” Joy did not sound pleased, and she looked scared. We’d had to use her messaging account to get the word to the press about the virus, as she was the only one not being monitored. She worried the Olympus would retaliate against her. I figured they’d already tried to kill us once. Why worry?

Perhaps I had become a bit jaded.

“Don’t worry, hon, we won’t make you do that again,” George reassured her, much to Jon’s consternation.

“You can’t promise that,” he said. “We may all have to do things we don’t want to, if we’re going to save ourselves.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go down to some frozen planet to die!” Joy stomped away, George following to comfort her.

“You should go easy on her,” I said. “She’s not a natural rebel.”

“Neither were you, until more recently.” Jon nudged my shoulder playfully. It was strange to think he’d become my closest friend since my return. George just wasn’t the same, now that he was George-and-Joy.

“Yeah, well, I went through some stuff.”

Was still going through some stuff, technically. Every day I thought of Hugo, about the horrible things I read in the news before they cut the Stalwart’s communications. My heart ached and my blood boiled, longing and fury warring for dominance. I couldn’t decide whether I hated Hugo. At least once a day, I certainly did. But the rest of the time . . .

“You ever going to tell me exactly what went down?” Jon asked.

“Nope.”

“Fair enough.”

“I am worried about the crew of the Rochester,” I said finally. “After everything that happened, with Hugo—?I mean, Captain Fairfax—?and Hanada being dragged through the press . . . I know they don’t owe me a response, but still. Not one of them has replied, even the crew members who liked me.” That not even Jessa had replied to my apology letter hurt, even though she owed me nothing. My letter was full of pretty lies, anyway.

“Maybe the Olympus intercepted them and they didn’t go through?”

“Why do that? I didn’t write anything of substance. Just inanities. ‘How are you doing? Hope you’re okay. Sorry I left.’”

“You were responsible for telling the whole fleet that their government was trying to murder them. Well, some of them,” he corrected, like the scope of the murder plot mattered. “A lot of people lost their jobs. More than one ship is seriously considering deorbiting, taking their resources with them. Blocking your messages is the least they could do to hurt you.”

“Maybe.”

Or maybe everyone on the Rochester hated me.

“Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask my uncle to look into it. They haven’t revoked his network access. Yet.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

There was a high-pitched pop. Then darkness.

“Frexing power outage.” I felt the rush of air as Jon jumped to his feet. “I’ll go see what the damage is.”

I screwed my eyes shut, counted to ten, then opened them, finally able to make out some dark shapes in the black. I got to my feet. “Shouldn’t I go with you?”

“That’s what apprentices are for. You should take it easy today.”

Right. It was my birthday. I’d forgotten.

“Oh, wait for me at dinner. I have a surprise for you.”

Jon must have had eyes like a cat, because he jogged off, unfazed by the darkness. I, on the other hand, had to feel my way carefully along the edge of the fields to find the metal stairway up to the exit.

“George? Joy?” I called out, but got no reply. I sat at the top of the stairs, savoring the solitude.

I was eighteen. Now officially an adult, though I’d carried the burden of adulthood for some time. Adults had to make terrible decisions with no good outcomes, all the responsibility falling on their shoulders. And the blame.

Still, I should try to enjoy the day. George was surprising me with a cake at dinner. Joy was terrible at keeping secrets.


With the new bounty, there was enough apple cake for everyone on our dinner shift, making me the new best friend of approximately one hundred people. It was fortuitous the cake had been baked before the power outage, which took a good two hours to fix and meant dinner was mostly crudités. At least it was fresh. I’d pulled these carrots from the soil with my own hands. They gave a satisfying crunch as I bit into them.