Page 67 of The Brightness Between Us

We go for I don’t know how long, me stumbling and him striding. It feels weird not to have Rover beside us. I have so many questions, and OS is usually my source for information. Without answers, my mind plays back that terrible minute, again and again, searching for details I overlooked. What if I hadn’t been so excited to see Yarrow and Dad; what if I’d kept quiet instead of calling out? Maybe I somehow panicked my brother into doing that terrible thing.

But setting up that attack with the fence guns took work. Yarrow printed a gun. He planned this. He plotted to murder us all.

Gentle Yarrow. We were so blissfully bored with each other. I knew every part of his mind. Even now, when he might have just killed our dad, my heart says that we can talk it out. That the right words will fix this. That if we sit for long enough, back-to-back, he’ll be okay. I don’t think that’s true, but my heart says it is, all the same.

Because the reality of what’s happened is too hard to face head on, I go at it sideways. “Which direction did we flee in?” I ask Father.

He glances up at the Sisters. “East-northeast, it appears.”

I chuckle. A ghoulish sound.

“What?” he asks.

“I begged you to come with me to go investigate the mysterious beacon that landed. The one that called out for you and Dad to visit it.”

Father gives a hollow snort. “And that’s where we’re headed now.”

“Basically. We’re doing another search for the beacon after all,” I say.

Father pauses. I fiddle with my eyelids, grimacing against the pain. It feels like I have a fingernail-sized eyelash in each one. I can see colors and vague shapes, but that’s it.

“There’s no sign of Yarrow pursuing us anymore,” he says. “In this flat muckland, we have plenty of visibility—we’ll have advance warning if he comes for us. During the day hours, at least.”

“Do you have any water?” I ask. “I can barely see.”

He tsks. “It’s that bad? You should have said something earlier. Here, lie here.”

Father sits cross-legged in the dirt and pats his knees. I drape myself across, so I can stare up into either the vague patterns in the sky or my father’s eyes. I choose the sky. He dribbles water from his canteen into my eyes. I try to keep them open as best I can, but the moment my thoughts go to Dad being shot, concentration fails and I blink furiously. “Better?” he asks.

I wipe my face with the hem of my tunic. “Yes, a little.”

We sit in stunned silence for a while. “So what do we do now?” I finally ask.

He lets out a guttering breath. “I don’t know. We don’t have enough information to make any decisions.”

I look out at the setting Sisters. “Let me try, then. Maybe we wait here until morning, and then we make our way back to the settlement to see what’s there. Maybe Rover subdued Yarrow. Maybe OS is healing Dad. Maybe Dad needs us so much that we have to risk an ambush from Yarrow.”

An ambush from Yarrow.Fuck.

Tears are in Father’s eyes, but he’s not crying. “Dad was shot twice in the gut, Owl. At least twice. Even in fully equipped hospitals on Earth, that kind of injury was very dangerous. There are all sorts of bacteria in the gut, and when you perforate an intestine they all get released...”

“But our bullets are simple polycarb pellets, not like Earth bullets with their gunpowder and shrapnel. So it’s more like he got shot twice with a slingstone. What were the chances of survivingthatback on Earth?”

A tear streaks down his controlled face. This is how Father cries. The last time I saw Father cry at all was two years ago, when the latest fetus came out blue. This measured tear is totally unlike what Yarrow described from the reel saved on theEndeavor.Maybe that’s what set Yarrowoff? Seeing that kind of emotion from Father? “I don’t know, Owl,” Father says. “I simply don’t know.”

“I think Rover is curing Dad right now. It has to be.”

“I hope so, too.”

Father and I wrap ourselves around each other, in a sort of sitting hug. I smell his sweat and his fear. I must be just as rank. But our bodies are warm within the rapidly chilling evening.

I stare back toward the settlement, waiting to see Yarrow approach. Not sure which Yarrow we’ll get if he does. My vision is still wobbly, so when I think I see movement, I almost don’t say anything. But I nudge Father and point toward the settlement. “Do you see something moving out there?”

All is quiet while he focuses. “I think I did. But I don’t anymore.”

I shiver and pull his arm around me, wanting protection. I’m not brave explorer Owl, not tonight. “Soon it will be too dark for us to see. Yarrow could do anything to us.”

“Once it’s dark, he won’t be able to see, either. And I don’t think anything moved. I think we were both mistaken.”

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