Free Othersphere by Nina Berry

far had not been an easy one. But the lines just gave his strong, handsome face a touch of character. I could already see the thoughtful, kind man he would be in twenty years. “Mostly to avoid more conflict for you. But there’s this tiny little part of me that wonders what it would be like if we could just be . . . brothers. Or half-brothers, or anything other than enemies. I know it’ll probably never happen.”
    â€œBut you can’t help hoping,” I said. “I don’t blame you.”
    â€œWhy do you care what he thinks?” Lazar asked.
    I hesitated. I couldn’t tell him the truth: that I didn’t want Caleb to think poorly of me. Caleb had broken up with me because of Lazar. If he saw us together now, he might think I’d cheated on him. I hadn’t cheated, but still. He might never get over it; we’d never be friends. Or anything else. “I’m so sick of conflict and pain and anger. I think I just want peace.”
    He searched my face as if somehow it held an answer to an unspoken question. “I wonder if we’ll ever get that.”
    Then the door to the boys’ dorm opened and we sprang apart, acting nonchalant as Arnaldo and Caleb passed by the open door to the computer room. We joined them as they headed up the stairs, careful to keep an arm’s length between us.
    The ride was quiet. Lazar drove, with me in the shotgun seat, and Caleb and Arnaldo behind us. November and London got stuck in the back with our equipment and two large bags filled with chips, pretzels, cookies, and soda.
    Not long ago, it would have been Caleb driving with me at his side, and Siku next to November. The bear-shifter’s absence was like a black hole in the group, sucking away any desire to talk. Where there once had been anticipation of danger pulling us together, there was now a cloud of vague conflict and tension pushing us apart. Maybe this raid on Ximon would dissipate that cloud.
    As long as it succeeds.
    I pushed doubt away. Caleb was the only one really mad at me, and that was for personal reasons. November blamed me a bit for Siku’s death, but she’d agreed with me that Ximon was lying about being possessed, and she’d eagerly pushed us to go on this raid. Because Ximon’s man had shot Siku, November wanted Ximon dead or captured more than any of us.
    And at least a few things hadn’t changed. London, Arnaldo, and Lazar had all readily agreed to my plan. If it worked, the biggest threat to the otherkin would be neutralized.
    Lazar drove seated in a much more upright, alert position than Caleb had, often casting me a sideways smile and asking me unnecessary questions to fight off the soul-squashing silence. I couldn’t help smiling back and keeping the conversation going, grateful to him, ignoring the black cloud of disapproval emanating from Caleb.
    For the last six weeks Lazar had been in our classes at Morfael’s school, honing his ability to recognize and draw out the shadows of objects, something his father had told him was the devil’s work. Objurers were only supposed to suppress shadow when they found it, never call it forth. Lazar had struggled at first against his early training, but after a couple of weeks, he got kind of giddy at all the shadow he saw, and at his ability to manipulate it. He’d sneaked up on me and tried to make me shift into being a tiger one day. I’d been forced to yell a contradictory note to stop him from succeeding.
    He became a bulwark against my despair at the loss of Siku. I’d actually been able to laugh. And Lazar’s face had lost its debased, guilt-stricken cast. He made jokes, usually very clean ones, and volunteered to babysit Arnaldo’s young brothers when we, the older shifters, were sent out on assignments too advanced for them, and irrelevant to a caller like Lazar.
    Cordero and Luis enjoyed learning how to repair the refrigerator or build an elaborate fort out