Free Betrayals in Spring by Trisha Leigh

it is he followed me out here to say. “Althea, what aren’t you telling us?”
    “What?” My heart jumps with the reminder of how he can still read me, even after our time apart.
    “We’ve been separated for a while, but I know you, Althea. You saw something or heard something that scared you, when you grabbed Natej in the hive. Please tell me what it is. We have to work together, trust one another—you, me, and Pax—that’s what you said.”
    Lucas reaches out and takes my hand. It doesn’t feel romantic, more like friendship and support—things he’s always been able to offer me without a word—and I cling to both his touch and the intangible qualities of his presence.
    After everything he’s done for me, all we’ve been through, it’s not fair to keep the news of his father from him. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes to gather my courage. My withholding the secret from him might convince him once and for all that I’m not worth caring about, not when I don’t return the favor with as much trust and ease as he’s always displayed. “Lucas, I did overhear something. It’s about your father.”
    “What? What did you hear?” He drops my hand and takes a few steps back, his gaze already dimming with betrayal.
    I swallow hard. “He tried to kill himself. The Prime said he figured if he were gone, the Others couldn’t kill you—because they would need you.”
    Lucas shifts farther away, the weight of his gaze bathing me with guilt. I can’t find the courage to meet his eyes.
    “How could you not tell me?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    A muscle bulges in his jaw, potent evidence of his upset, and I know better than to try to touch him. It’s as though my voice unleashes his fury. He looks at me, blue eyes like blocks of frigid ice that crawl into my heart and freeze it solid.
    I don’t have the courage to tell him the real reason I waited until now—that the way he’s been talking about Apa and the Others since returning to my life pressed the confession into the back of my throat. He’s right, though. I have to tell him everything. If I trick him into staying with me, he’ll never really be mine.
    “There’s more. The Prime said that without Apa at the Harvest Site—I don’t know where that is, but I’m guessing it’s where they’re harvesting whatever substance they need from Earth—that the planet would destabilize enough for them to have to leave within a week.”
    There’s no need for me to expound on the implications of those facts. Understanding is all over Lucas’s face that he’s the only one who can help. Does he realize it means leaving me—us—again, and that he might never come back? Does he care?
    “How could you, Althea? You knew about this since last night in the hive—were they talking about it when you eavesdropped through Natej? And you said nothing?”
    “I didn’t want to tell you in front of Pax, and I thought I could—”
    “You thought you could what? Figure everything out on your own? Doom an entire planet by keeping your mouth shut? Make all of my decisions for me?” His words drip with an anger I’m still unused to being directed toward me. “In case you forgot, I managed to survive on my own. So did you, and you ask me to remember that you can take care of yourself. Take your own advice. You don’t have the right to keep things from me, either.”
    As I struggle with a response, all of the rigid anger drains from Lucas’s body. It bleeds out of his face, then slumps his shoulders, and I swear I can see it drip out of the bottom of his boots. In its place slides resignation, and the thing that frightens me more than that—anticipation.
    Fear clenches my heart, squeezes until it can hardly beat. He’ll never tell me what he’s thinking, but I need to know, anyway. “We need to talk to Pax about this.”
    “There’s nothing to talk about, Althea. I’m going to help them in my father’s place, until he’s well enough to resume the duty on his