Shades of Earth Read Free Page A

again.
    â€œPush it!” I shout as Elder slams his fist against the Y .
    I can see streams of white-blue fire shooting out the front, and the shuttle jerks, then slows, the sudden movements leaving me breathless. And just like that, all my other senses kick in. Everything becomes real again. I taste copper in my mouth—I’ve bitten my lip so hard I’ve drawn blood—and I can already tell that I’ll bruise from the too-tight seat belt on my chest and around my hips. The noise from the other side of the door seems deafening, but I can pick out individual cries of pain and alarm from the 1,456 passengers in the cryo room.
    And then we stop.
    We haven’t landed—we’re hovering over the treetops—but we’re not moving forward anymore. We’re not crashing.
    The shuttle isn’t completely stable, and I can hear a
hiss-shh
sound from under our feet: the rockets are shooting down straight into the ground, keeping us over the surface.
    â€œLand shuttle? Please select yes or no,” the computer says evenly.
    Elder and I exchange a glance. There is no meaning, no words behind the look—just one shared feeling.
Relief.
    Instead of reaching for the blinking green Y , he grabs my hand. His fingers slide between mine, and they’re slick with sweat, but his grip is firm and strong. No matter what happens, what awaits us on the other side—we’ll face it together. Elder pulls our joined hands toward the last button, and we push it.
    The
hiss-shh
slowly fades as the shuttle sinks down and down toward the ground. I realize that somewhere in our mad descent, gravity’s returned, and everything feels heavy again, especially the seat belt strapping me down. I throw it off and race to the honeycombed glass windows. I can see that our landing has decimated the area—the trees nearest us are nothing but smoldering ash, and the ground is black and shiny, almost as if it has melted. Trees—trees! Real trees, real ground, a real
world!
Right here!
    With a sudden lurch that nearly knocks me to the floor, the rockets cut out and we drop the last few feet to the surface of the planet.
    â€œWell,” Elder says, staring out the window at the burning earth, “at least we didn’t die.”
    â€œWe didn’t die,” I repeat. I look up at his shining eyes. “We didn’t die!” Elder grabs my wrist, pulling me into his lap. I melt against the warmth and security of his arm, and our lips collide in a kiss full of all the fear and passion and hope this new world brings. We kiss as if it were our first kiss and our last, all at once. Our lips meet in desperation; our bodies wrap around each other with a sort of fervent fury that exists only in the joy of surviving the certainty of death.
    I pull away, gasping for air. I look into Elder’s eyes . . . and for one brief moment, I see nothing but the boy who taught me about first kisses and second chances. But then the image shifts, and I don’t see him. I see Orion. I scramble up out of Elder’s lap, and even though I tell myself that Elder isn’t Orion, I can’t forget about the way Elder insisted Orion be on this shuttle with us, as if his crimes should be rewarded with a whole planet instead of only ice.
    Elder reaches for me again as he tries to get up from his chair—but can’t. “Stupid seat belt,” he mutters, unfastening it.
    I turn around.
    The world is there, on the other side of the glass window.
    The world.
    Our
world.
    â€œWe made it,” I say.
    â€œYeah,” Elder replies, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “We did. . . .” His words are a breath of warmth at the back of my neck.
    I turn around to meet his eyes, but my vision slides past him, to the door that leads to the hallway that leads to the cryo room.
    â€œMy parents,” I whisper.
    I can finally have my parents back.

4: ELDER
    Without saying