Idols. Margaret Stohl

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СКАЧАТЬ is not optimal, as I am certain you understand. You need to remain together for the purposes of safety. Might I remind you that twelve Icons remain fully functional? Perhaps you have forgotten that there are no known weapons, with the exception of the four of you and your exceptional abilities, that can damage them in the slightest—”

      “Parce metu, Doc.” Lucas grins. He starts up another switchback in the trail, pulling me by the hand.

      “Cease from fear?” Doc translates. “I cannot be afraid. It is not within my parameters. I am merely noting that you do not seem to recall that accomplishing the task at hand requires you all to protect each other until you reach safety.”

      “I’ll keep my eye on her, Doc. Don’t you worry,” Lucas says, squeezing my hand.

      “I am still concerned that you appear to be moving out of optimal range for the communications relay Fortis is carrying. As in the colloquial expression, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’”

      “Is that so?” Lucas eggs Doc on, and winks at me.

      “Quite. Although in my case, slightly erroneous,” Doc continues, so easily distracted by linguistics. “Seeing as I have neither eyes nor mind to speak of, per se. So perhaps the phrase more optimally would be ‘Out of range, out of ran—’”

      Lucas answers by switching off his cuff with a flick of a finger. “Out of range,” he says, grinning. He pauses to think, then pulls off the cuff and rests it on a twisted cactus that juts into our path. “Sorry, Doc.”

      I shake my head. “Oh, come on. He means well.”

      Lucas takes my hand, smiling as we climb.

      I can’t help but smile back. “And what if he’s right? If we’re gone when Fortis wakes up, he’ll freak. We’re not supposed to leave camp, remember? It’s too dangerous.” I can feel myself giving in even as I say the words.

      “Maybe I’m dangerous.” Lucas winks.

      “You?” I roll my eyes and he groans.

      “Live a little, Dol. Doc will forgive us. We won’t be gone long, and three’s a crowd. And anyway, we’re almost there.”

      He stops short, pulling me roughly in his direction. I stand tall, stepping up on a rock, letting myself stretch along the length of him, letting myself feel the weight of his strong arms as they wrap around my shoulders.

      “I’ve wanted to do this since we left the Mission,” he says, burying his face in my neck. I wince as he bumps my tender jaw, and then I smile—because I’ve wanted it too.

      I kiss the top of his head. “And yet you let a little thing like falling out of the sky stop you?”

      He laughs. “Next time I won’t.”

       I won’t, either.

      And at this one moment, Lords or not, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

      I slide down, leaning my head back against his chest. It feels safe, and I pretend for the moment that we are.

      “You know, sometimes four Icon Children are two too many,” Lucas says. “At least, maybe this week they are.”

      I look up at him. “Do you ever wonder if there are more of us out there? Than the four of us?” The words sound almost ridiculous the moment I let myself say them.

      “No,” Lucas says. “But I do wonder what’s going on inside the head of the one right here in front of me.”

      “This,” I say, laying my head back on his chest.

      “There.” He says the word softly, and I almost can’t hear him. I look ahead and see that the sun is setting, as glorious as any sunset I have ever seen, even at the Mission.

       More glorious. The most glorious.

       Not a silver ship in sight.

      From up here, the stretch of unforgiving rock and scrub and rubble expands in front of us, in long shadows of quiet purple-blue falling and fading across the red-dirt desert floor. I see the curve of the horizon, and I’m momentarily struck by the brief sensation that I’m standing on a spinning globe, hurtling through space.

      Our planet. Our Earth. It’s dizzying.

      It will be gone in a minute, I think. The sunset, and the feeling. For now, though, it is enough.

       One thing is right, in a universe where everything else is wrong.

      I smile, tilting my head back until I can look up at his face. “It’s perfect.”

      “You like it? I had it made especially for you.” Lucas smiles. He almost looks shy. “It’s a present.”

      “Is it?” I laugh. “Then I’m going to keep it forever.”

      He smiles. “Okay. Hold on to it. Keep it where you won’t lose it.”

      “I will,” I say.

      “You’re beautiful,” he whispers.

      “Shut up,” I whisper back, teasing. “It’s beautiful.”

      It’s true. This sunset—Lucas’s sunset, and now mine—is incandescently, infectiously beautiful. And it means we have made it to another night.

       We are alive.

      For now, it should be enough.

      The sun slowly moves behind the horizon. Lucas nods, whispering into my ear. “See? That’s how it works. The sun goes down now, but it always comes up again.”

      “Really.” I smile, arching an eyebrow.

      “Really.” He smiles back. “Believe it.” He kisses my cheek, softly, avoiding the bruises. “And even when you can’t see it, it’s out there somewhere on the other side of the world, getting ready to come back again.”

      Now he kisses my other cheek, so softly I shiver.

      And my neck. “It’s going to get better.”

      My ear. “Everything is.”

      The warm pull that is Lucas overtakes me, and I don’t fight it. I have my gifts, and he has his. This is what he brings the world, this feeling. Sharing it and spreading it, to everyone he meets.

      I give in.

       Love.

      Offering it to me soothes him as much as it does me, and I let myself feel it, take it.

      I push out of my mind the competing thoughts. That we are lost, with no support in sight. Hunted in the desert. No plan in place to take down another Icon.

      I wish that for once Doc was right, that it was somehow possible to forget what lies ahead of us.

      But СКАЧАТЬ