CHAPTER FIVE
NINETY-SIX HOURS HAD PASSED. FOUR FULL DAYS.
HAD IT not been for the flowers that had slowly begun to wilt on my desk and Lo’s constant badgering for updates, I might have believed I had made it all up.
There had been nothing from Collin, no message, no other gifts.
At this point, I would have welcomed a visit from Hal.
Our parting words had been unkind, but fighting with him would at least provide a distraction.
Nothing. I did find the pen I had chucked after him on my desk the following morning.
It could have been anyone from the janitorial staff that put it back.
Maybe Collin had been judging me. Maybe it had all been a test and I had failed spectacularly. Maybe my defect that knew no bounds had won yet again. Perhaps the Starlings’ efforts and the lens hadn’t been adequate.
Four days in, the lens felt like sandpaper in my eye.
A part of me was desperate to take it out.
Call it stubbornness, perhaps just stupidity, but I couldn’t.
Even as my eye burned incessantly, I wouldn’t remove it.
I had taken to squinting or keeping my left eye fully closed.
If I took it out, then this silence might actually mean I had failed.
For some reason the idea of being rejected by Collin bothered me.
I racked my brain again for the proper procedures for the Procreation Agreement I learned at the Academy. There was the initial meeting, which could be conducted in private or public. Collin had opted for a public initial meeting with a Defect.
Then there was the contract. Several different contracts were well used.
We all feared the Procreation Contract with no public Courting Phase, no cohabitation, and no support.
Just breeding. It was a ticket straight to the Sanctuary.
Then there was the contract with public Courting and cohabitation for the procreation phase.
Once you were pregnant, you moved to the Sanctuary.
Then there was the one everyone hoped for, but only a few got.
The one Collin had proposed to me freely—public Courting, cohabitation for procreation, and the postpartum period when the offspring dwelled in the living quarters before going to the Academy.
Those contracts usually led to a continuation for a second offspring if you produced an Elite offspring. If approved by the Illum.
By him, I reminded myself. Collin was an Illum.
A chill crept down my spine at the thought. Was this different because Collin was an Illum? Was that why he didn’t see the point in the normal trials? Did he think being an Illum would easily eradicate my defect in our offspring? Questions and thoughts swirled in my head at a dizzying rate.
I laid my head against the cool surface of my desk. I couldn’t stand the game of it. But I hated myself for caring about something I had so fervently detested just days ago.
Here I was at the whim of the Illum and the Elite. Was this what they wanted?
“Do you ever work normally?” a smooth voice asked. Startled, I turned to find Hal leaning against my doorframe with that damn dimple of his.
“Would it bother you if I said no?” I asked. He had an uncanny knack for finding me in my difficult moments.
He chuckled. “No, I would say I had finally found—” He paused, his brow furrowing. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Nothing is wrong with my eye.”
“Your left eye is closed.”
“It’s nothing.” I turned toward my screen. “My lens is bothering me.”
“Take it out then.”
“No.” I would do no such thing. He didn’t understand.
“Adding stubborn to your list of personality traits,” Hal said, pushing off the doorframe.
“I didn’t realize you were taking notes,” I retorted snidely.
Hal ran a hand through his hair. “You need to take it out.”
“No, I do not.”
“You look ridiculous,” Hal stated. “Just take it out, Emeline. It’s bad for your eye.”
“The Illum monitor everything. If something comes up, my MIND will take care of it,” I snapped, attempting to open my eye. Every time I tried, it burned viciously and blurred my vision.
“So you’re going to act like your eye isn’t bright red and clearly irritated, just to keep that thing? To adhere to your dear Mate’s demands?”
“He didn’t demand it, and he isn’t my Mate.”
“You signed, though,” Hal said quietly.
“I did. I haven’t heard from him since. I think . . . I think I messed it up somehow.” There it was. In saying it, I felt so small.
Hal sighed. “I doubt you messed it up. The Elite live life by their own rules, on their own time. He’d be stupid to reject a woman like you. I am sure there’s a reason.”
“What if I’m the reason?” Even as his comment sent my pulse fluttering, the dam broke open, and all the horrible thoughts threatened to spill onto the floor around us until we both drowned in my self-pity.
Why was I telling him this? The things we had said to each other four days ago found me. I must seem crazy.
“You don’t have to worry,” Hal reassured me. “I am a Major Defect, Emeline. Nothing you say is crazy.” I whipped my head toward him, unnerved. “You wear all your feelings on your face,” he clarified. “Now take the lens out. Please.”
It would be nice to be able to see fully again. Still, I didn’t move.
“I’ll even apologize first for the other day,” Hal said. “I am sorry.”
I stared at him, huffing a breath, and he crossed his arms expectantly. Finally, I attempted to fish the lens out. It took several tries until I felt it release from my eye. Immediate relief flooded me.
“Better?” Hal asked, walking into the room. “Would it kill you to admit I was right?”
I rolled my eyes, the lens still on my finger. “I’m not willing to find out.”
He was right, though. My eye was still sore, but I could keep it open again.
“The red will go away soon.” He peered into my eyes.
I stiffened at his proximity, the fluttering turning savage.
“The blue and brown combination is striking,” Hal confessed, and he leaned closer, his warm breath caressing my face.
“I’m still waiting on your apology.” I shot him a glare even as my pulse danced, and he pulled back, smiling widely. “I’m patient. Take your time.”
“I will.”
His gaze shifted toward the dying flowers. “So you’re possibly in a contract.”
“I am, or I think I am. He said we were.”
“Does that change your offer?” Hal asked, hesitation lacing his words. “You said you’re always here if I wanted to come and look at art. If your invitation remains . . .” Hal shifted, tugging at the sleeve of his blue jumpsuit. “I would like to look at art with you.”
I stared at the man before me, at his hesitancy and the blue.
“All right,” I said, turning toward my work. I sent a landscape to reassignment. A new piece appeared, marked to be destroyed.
A man and a woman embraced fiercely in the art piece.
They gazed at each other, her face pleading as she clutched the ends of a white band wrapped around his arm.
He cupped her face tenderly with one hand, but the other pulled against the band.
The title read A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew’s Day.
Was the white band an identification of some kind?
Did they use colors to declare status before the Last War?
“Do you think they are saying hello or goodbye?” Hal asked, moving beside me, bracing his arms upon my desk for a better look.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I have never had a hello or a goodbye resemble whatever that is. Have you?”
“I have,” he told me, his voice tight. “I think they are saying goodbye.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there is a desperation in their embrace. See how she clings to him, how he’s holding her face?
When you embrace hello, there’s hope. There’s a future.
You don’t cling because you know there will be more to come.
The finality in a goodbye embrace—when you let go, it might never happen again.
So you cling to the person, the feeling, the moment.
You hold on longer because it’s doomed to be nothing but a memory. ”
I looked up at Hal, but he was lost in the painting or some goodbye. I had been down here for ten years, dissecting works of art by myself. I had always thought my rumination made me an outlier. Finally, I was not alone.
“What are the Illum doing with it?” Hal asked, breaking my thoughts.
“They’re destroying it,” I told him, hitting the delete button. The image disappeared—now just a memory. I clicked for the next one, a landscape. I shook my head.
“What?” Hal asked, but it came out like a hiss. His hand flew to his side as he leaned closer to the screen.
“They’ll keep this one,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. The Elite are running me ragged.” Hal grimaced slightly before glancing to my screen, and sure enough, the verdict said reassigned. “How did you know that?”
“I have a theory,” I said, catching my lip between my teeth. My heart raced at my boldness. It was one thing to have these thoughts. Telling them to another person terrified me, but Hal had just confided in me. Maybe I could do the same.
He tugged at the collar of his dark blue jumpsuit. “Major Defect, remember. You’re safe.”
I took a deep breath. “I think they get rid of all the ones with people to erase what life was like before the war. I think anything that makes the viewer feel is—is a threat. Like we might want more, and that would be the end of everything. Or maybe the beginning.” I bit my lip harder.
Hal looked at me. He smiled slyly like he saw something more.
“I underestimated you,” Hal confided. “Until our next meeting, Emeline.”
He made to leave. “Wait.” I stood, walking up to him. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, not at all. It’s just late.” Some of his smugness seemed to falter. His smile didn’t meet his eyes this time. I hadn’t noticed the blue smudges under his eyes before. He looked exhausted.
“Okay,” I said, turning back to my screen. Hal walked to the door, then stopped.
“Emeline,” Hal said over his shoulder. “Can I come back tomorrow? You know, to see the art.”
Our eyes met, starburst meeting blue and brown.
“I’d like that,” I responded, surprising myself.
Hal smiled at me, a genuine smile. I’d be damned if it wasn’t one of the most stunning things I’d ever seen. A work of art in its own way.
“Until tomorrow,” he said.
I smiled back, and his eyes roved over every inch of my face. “Okay, until tomorrow.”
I watched him go.
I got through several more items, wishing I could talk to Hal about a painting of several warped melting clocks and see if he had any insight into its meaning.
The Persistence of Memory was reassigned.
Maybe it would come back around again, which happened sometimes.
We could discuss it then, if we had the time.
I was convinced a lot of the items circulated endlessly.
My Comm Device dinged. I grabbed it, assuming it would be Lo.
It wasn’t. I had two messages, the first from an unknown device.
Communications will reach out shortly. Look forward to seeing you again. —Collin
My stomach swooped. The second was an official message.
F13463233 It has come to our attention that your next meeting with M17292834 has been set for 5:30 this evening following your preparation appointment at 3:00. All travel information has been loaded to your MIND chip. Fertile Blessings.
A million thoughts hit me all at once. The main one: I hadn’t messed it up. I checked the time. I needed to go now if I was going to make my three o’clock meeting with the Starlings. I quickly packed my bag, typed some notes into my report, and darted out.
As I ascended, I pulled out my Comm Device and quickly updated Lo. In the atrium, the chandeliers glittered even more splendidly from the afternoon sun’s rays. Mesmerized, I took a minute to register the cacophony of voices.
The atrium was full of people dressed in gowns and suits in extraordinary colors—no shades of gray or blue among them. There was only one group that was allowed to wear colors of their choosing.
The Elite.
Panic engulfed me. I couldn’t breathe. Just move, a voice yelled at me. Just keep moving. I ducked my head, beelining for the door, my heart thundering.
I had never seen Elite here, but I had never ventured to the surface other than to move to and from my living quarters during designated transition hours. Were they always here at this time? The glass doors loomed closer. Twenty more feet and I would be free.
I weaved among the Elite, close to running. Ten feet. I lowered my head even more, focusing on my dull gray shoes as sweat coated my body. Why did I remove the lens?
Five feet. I can make it.
I collided with someone. Steadying hands grabbed my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, dipping my head more as I tried to step away.
“I didn’t see you,” the man said.
I glanced up at his odd tone to find features that were familiar. I shared some of them, my blue eye the same crystal shade as his, the same straight nose, and he shook brown curls, a shade lighter than mine, out of his face.
I knew, without having to ask, that we shared blood. He was one of my Elite birth brothers. His face went completely blank.
“Is that a Defect?” someone exclaimed.
“Truly disgusting how they think they can be here,” a male voice rang out. My cheeks burned fiercely.
“Did you see her eyes?” another whispered. “They aren’t the same. A Defect out in the sun.”
“I want to see.” Several people began to push to the front as if I were an exhibit.
“You may proceed to the Defect-designated Pod pickup area,” my birth brother told me, pocketing something before turning away from me. “They’re ready for us,” he told the others, leading the sea of colors away from me. Whispers filled the air as I fled.
What were the ramifications of this? What would Collin say?
I began to jog. I had a birth brother. He was real.
The jog turned into a run. My lungs burned in a gloriously familiar way. I had loved going for daily runs before my MIND forbade it. Each pounding footstep into the earth cleared my head, washed out the fear.
I arrived at the Pods too quickly, taking deep gulps of air. Perspiration dripped down my neck, chilling me despite the afternoon sun.
I had felt seen in the Garden, or I thought I had. But I had looked like one of them. They had seen a crafted facade. They hadn’t truly seen me, until now. The Elite and my birth brother saw me for what I was, a Defect. A disgrace.
An empty Pod stood open, waiting. I scanned in and took a seat, trapped with my thoughts, pushing the walls in, suffocating me.
This time, I didn’t even bother to fight the hopelessness that threatened to consume me whole.