Idols by Margaret Stohl Read Free Book Online Page B

could.
    “Is that an old comlink pole? All the way out here?” I tap my finger against the window.
    “No,” says Tima, and when she answers, her voice sounds as cold as I feel.
    “Didn’t think so,” I say.
    Nobody speaks after that. We all know what it is—and we all want to get as far away from it as we can.
    From them, all of them.
    These new Icon roots.
    Who can fight something that is everywhere? Who can win an unwinnable war like that?
    I am too tired to think.
    I am almost too tired to dream.
    Almost.
    Which is when I find myself losing consciousness.

    “Doloria.”
    I hear my name through the darkness of my dream. I can’t answer—I can’t find my voice. I don’t know which one is mine, there are so many in my head.
    But when I open my eyes and see her, everything quiets. As if my dream itself is listening to her.
    So she’s important , I think.
    This dream is important.
    But still, I don’t know why. And she’s no one I’ve ever seen before—a young girl in bright orange robes with a lightning shock of spiky white-blond hair, skin the color of wet sand, and icy green, almond-shaped eyes focused on me, full of curiosity.
    Then she holds out her hand, and I look down.
    Five tiny green dots the color of jade.
    They glow in her skin almost like some sort of tiny, precious gemstones, but they’re not. Because I know what they are.
    The sign of the Icon Children.
    Our marking. It’s on her wrist, same as mine. I have one gray dot. Ro has two red ones. Tima has three silver dots. Lucas has four blue ones. Nobody has five.
    Had.
    Not until now.
    This little girl. From the looks of it, she’s not our age, and not from the Californias. But somehow she’s one of us.
    I feel my knees begin to buckle, and the girl takes my hand in hers. Her touch is cool, even calming.
    “Doloria,” she says again. “I have a message. They are coming for you.”
    “Me?” My voice is low and strange in my throat, a hoarse dream-whisper. The moment I speak, the unruly voices in my head begin to riot and clamor again.
    Enough , I say, but they don’t listen. They never listen, and they never stop.
    “You can’t escape them.” The girl squeezes my hand. “They’re everywhere.”
    Then I realize she’s put something in my hand. A piece of carved jade, a human face, fat and round. Just like the jades the fortune-teller gave me, back in the Hole. “Do you still have them? My jades?”
    They were for her.
    She’s the girl who matters. She’s who I’m holding them for.
    It’s a frightening, exhilarating thought—but all I can do is nod.
    She smiles as if I am the little girl, not her. “Bring them to me. You’ll need them. And here. The Emerald Buddha will help you.”
    I want to ask her what she means, but the voices grow louder and louder, and I drop her hand to press my own against my ears.
    When I finally open my mouth to speak, I can’t remember any words. Instead, only a strange sound comes out—a thundering boom that vibrates in my chest, followed by an earsplitting, high-pitched whine, and a gust of wind that whips my clothes and twists my hair straight up.
    And then I see them.
    One silver ship after another, filling the horizon until the air is so thick with dust that I can’t see anything at all.
    Instead, I smell salty copper.
    Blood running , I think.
    I feel the ground shaking.
    People running , I think.
    I should be running. I should be running and I want to wake up now.
    I squeeze my eyes shut but I know they’re still there, the Lords. I hear them, smell them. Feel them. And I know that when they leave, everything I love will be gone with them.
    Because that’s how this goes. That’s what they do.
    Make things disappear. Silence cities. Destroy friendships and families—padres and pigs.
    Every day is a battle, since the Lords came. Every day is a battle for everyone.
    “Doloria,” the girl says, touching my cheek. I see her through the chaos. “I’m waiting for you to find me.” She