Melted Tears: The Outliers Chronicles, #2

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. In such case the author has not received any payment for this stripped book.

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Melted Tears

Copyright © 2013 Annabelle Blume

All rights reserved.

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ISBN: (ebook) 978-1-939590-14-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911584

Inkspell Publishing

5764 Woodbine Ave.

Pinckney, MI 48169

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Edited By Rei Langdon.

Cover art By Najla Qamber

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This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The copying, scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

DEDICATION

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For Michael, who came back

Chapter One

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Are you ever coming in? I shouted across the stretch of hard-packed snow that fanned out from the access door. The boys were off on their typical morning errands of absolutely nothing. Beckett liked to pretend to be training our dogs, Tonk and Tilo, but they usually passed the early morning hours enjoying the bright summer sunlight. From what I could discern, their very busy schedule consisted of chasing squirrels, digging holes, and running circles around each other. I heard Beckett’s heavy footsteps crunching across the distance before I saw his head pop up on the horizon.

Yeah, we’re coming. Slightly out of breath and rosy-cheeked, his smile stretched ear to ear. I thought back to a short time ago, when we were locked away in his cabin hiding from the storm that surrounded us, and the way that ever-present crease had scored his forehead. In the months that had passed it had been all but erased. Tonk and Tilo bounded in behind him and rushed to their water bowls.

Your porridge is cold. You have no one to blame but yourself. And we’re out of dried berries so you’ll have to eat it plain. I brushed off the flakes of ice that clung to his jacket while he pulled of his gloves, then walked away, shaking my head in mock disgust. Beckett grabbed me from behind and swept me up in his arms, nearly knocking all the air out of my lungs. Unable to contain my giggles, I leaned back into his embrace. His cold hands stung against the warm skin of my torso as he nestled them under my sweater and pressed them to my stomach. A pang of guilt accompanied the love that filled my chest.

Mmmm, you smell so sweet. Can I add you to my porridge? he murmured in my ear.

I smell like burnt copper and you know it. I pulled away from him and went to dish up his breakfast. One of the filaments came loose on the stove and I had to solder it back on. Relentless as he was with his affections, Beckett followed me to the corner of the cabin that acted as our kitchen, stroking my hair and kissing at various parts of me. I swatted away his hands and kept about my business of preparing his breakfast. Should we consider a trip to the Collective? We haven’t been back since...

I didn’t need to finish my sentence. His cheery disposition faded into a more somber tone. He folded himself into a chair at our table and I set his bowl of thickened and cold porridge in front of him. Beckett shoveled heaping spoonfuls into his mouth, swallowing it down without tasting or chewing, simply filling his body with sustenance and not enjoying a single bite.

Look, you don’t have to go with me. I’ve made that trip a hundred times if I’ve made it once. I’m perfectly fine out there on my own.

Cressie, I can’t let you—

Let me? I’m sorry, did I miss when you became the boss of me?

Don’t be like that.

Be like what? How I’ve always been? Beckett, the boys, and I have been doing this run for ten years. Ten long years we trekked that mountain all by ourselves before we had a big, strong man around to protect us. I didn’t need one then and I don’t—

His eyes cut to mine, daring me to finish my rant.

I sighed and reeled in my defensive anger.

I didn’t mean that I don’t need you. I love you and I want you here with me, with us, I just don’t need you in Affinity Guard mode all the time.

It was his turn to sigh. I waited to see if he had something to say, but he only nodded. The crease had returned.

I know you’re worried about someone recognizing you, I said. It’s a big risk, one that may be too big for us to take. It’s summertime. This is the easiest time to make the trip. I’d be back in four days, maybe five, tops. I could get enough rations of salt and legumes to last us six months. We’d be set until the new year.

Beckett abandoned his congealed porridge and cozied up next to Tonk and Tilo on the big fur rug, the one thing from his cabin he’d packed on his mobile when he prepared to leave the Collective. I pretended to hate it, but secretly, every time I looked at it I my mind flitted back to those amazing three days we shared in his cabin. Three days that changed both of our lives forever. My life had been enriched in immeasurable ways, having Beckett here with me and the boys, but I wasn’t so sure Beckett had fared as well in the deal. He had given up so much, sometimes I found it hard to believe he could be happy here.

It’s not quite the same to be contemplative in front of the heating coils, is it? I gestured to the wall-mounted heating device. It doesn’t have the same romantic feel the hearth does. I waited a beat. Do you miss it?

Beckett shook his head, but he didn’t look at me.

Not the hearth.

I know what you meant. No, I don’t miss the Collective, he said, or the Affinity.

Silence stretched between us, thin and flimsy, waiting to be punctured. I mustered up the courage to drive the sharp point of my inquiry right through it.

Your family. You miss your family.

My family died with Liana, he replied.

Beckett had told me about how things had changed in his family after his sister’s failed attempt at living as an Outlier. His parents had internalized the shame, his father refusing to speak of her and his mother crying incessantly for the first year after her death. I understood the difference between the loss of a person when their life extinguished and the pain that came with the loss of someone you knew was still alive. My parents, as far as I knew, were still alive, toiling away in a work camp somewhere within the world of the Affinity, and it gnawed at my insides every day of my life.

Cold seeped into the backs of my legs through the woven fiber mats covering the floor. I adjusted myself to lessen the discomfort. Beckett sat with his legs stretched out on top of the warm fur, and I crouched next to him on my makeshift rugs. Envy bounced around in my head at his ability to give himself over to comforts so easily. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to let go like him. We might have to abandon our cabin at any moment, so I saw no use getting attached to anything in it.

I would understand if you did miss them, that’s all I’m saying. I leaned against his back for a moment, stroking shoulders, imagining the sadness sliding off of them with each swipe of my hands. He only nodded in response. Settling my bottom onto the sliver of fur behind him, I eased his head back into my lap and ran my fingers through his hair. His dark lashes fluttered shut and he let the full weight of his heavy heart settle on my lap.

Do you miss them? he asked.

Your parents? Never met them, I replied with a smile. The mood lightened a little and he smiled up at me with his eyes still closed.

You know what I mean, I said.

Every day, but sometimes more than others. I’ve never given up hope. They’re still alive, still out there. I can feel it. I just wish I knew where. Actually, scratch that, I don’t want to know where. That’d be too tempting.

Tempting to what? Beckett’s eyes popped open. Though I expected him to be scared or angry at my admission, he seemed excited.

To try to break them out, I said. Waving my hand in the air, I added, Yes, I know it’s crazy talk. I’m not really going to try to do it.

Why not? He sat up on his knees, his face animated with excitement.

Have you been inhaling while you solder again? Because it’s impossible, that’s why. I raised my eyebrow at him. Have you ever heard of someone breaking out of an Affinity camp? No. You haven’t. Why? Because it’s impossible.

Cressie, we conquer the impossible every day. We live in the wild, where the Affinity tells everyone it’s impossible to survive. You move in and out of the Collective without ever raising suspicion.

I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he talked right over me.

You’ve been doing it for ten years, for crying out loud. The Affinity claims that’s impossible too, to be undetected, but you always have.

What exactly are you proposing? I stared at him with incredulity, certain he couldn’t possibly be saying what he seemed to be.

Let’s go get them. He said it with such innocent definitiveness. As if we could just sashay into the Collective and politely knock on the doors of the camps inquiring as to the whereabouts of my parents.

I shook my head and stood to clean up the uneaten remains of Beckett’s breakfast. His hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me back toward him. I remembered another time when the odds seemed insurmountable. Beckett and I had stood in the Trade Path, his face etched with concern over my Outlier status as the blizzard alarm sounded, his pleading offer to keep me safe and my incomprehensible choice to trust him to do so.

Beckett had a positivity so foreign yet so infectious. In the