CHAPTER TWELVE
HAL brOUGHT ONE ARM UNDER MY KNEES AND THE OTHER around my shoulders, lifting me off the ground and pulling me in close.
I felt the world shake, or perhaps I was shaking.
He held me tightly, making small, calming noises while he rubbed his thumb in reassuring circles on my arm. The collar was too tight.
“I want it off,” I begged, my chest aching. “I need it off.”
“Okay, we’ll get it off,” he reassured me. A buzzing sound filled my ears, drowning everything out. “I need help,” Hal stated, readjusting me in his arms. “Give me your wrist.”
I dropped my glowing wrist as he shifted until I heard the beep and the familiar click of the glass door. “We’re in,” Hal said quietly. I shivered viciously, my wet gown chilling me to the bone even as we entered the empty lobby of my building.
“Give me your wrist again,” Hal’s warm voice coaxed. I felt the elevator lurch upward. Hal tucked me in closer against his chest. “Almost to the floor.” A heaviness settled over me, the thundering in my ears too loud as I began clawing at the collar again. “Which room?”
“On the right,” I croaked, my throat dry. I clutched the metal, my breathing still too shallow, too fast.
“Almost inside. Give me your wrist one more time,” Hal whispered. “And we’ll get this off of you.” I dropped my wrist again. “That’s it,” Hal encouraged before opening my door and stepping into my living quarters.
I heard the door shut.
“We’re in,” Hal reassured me, but his arms remained wrapped around me as he leaned against the door—pulling me in closer still.
Our bodies melded. I rested my head against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat.
The firm beats caressed my nerves. I didn’t know how long we stayed there, how long he held me, giving me space and time to come back until my panic finally released me.
My breaths became deeper, longer, until the shaking turned into a mere shiver from the wet silk. Still, Hal held me quietly.
“I—” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “I can stand now.”
“Okay,” Hal said, slowly lowering me to the ground.
My feet ached as they met the floor. My legs wobbled under my weight. Hal kept his hands on my sides. Something poked me. In his right hand, the one that had been under my legs, he held my clutch.
I glanced up at him, taking him in. He was soaked; his jumpsuit was tied around his waist like he had become too hot while he ran. His blue undershirt was also drenched, revealing his muscular chest and torso.
My throat ached in an entirely different way. “You followed me all the way here?”
“It’s not every day you see a woman in a blue gown run through High Town. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Our eyes met. I didn’t look away. Hal cleared his throat. “Do you still need the dress off?”
I nodded, my hand flying to my metal collar. I heard the bag thump on the bed before he approached me. A foreign panic found me. I had never been alone in my living quarters with a man.
“I need you to move your hair,” Hal instructed quietly, his breath warm on my neck.
I lifted my hands to my wet hair, untangling it from the low bun. “What were you doing in High Town?”
Hal hesitated for a moment. “I was walking to work. I wanted fresh air and to see the moon’s light. The ground is usually empty at that hour, but then I saw you. That was an impressive run.”
“I used to love to run,” I told him, my hair finally free. I pulled it over my shoulder.
“Used to?” Hal asked, his strong hand brushing a stray hair away. His calluses scraped lightly against my skin. A shudder ran through me that had nothing to do with the wet gown. His hands began to work on the clasp.
“MIND said it made me less fertile,” I said quietly. “Fertile vessel, remember?” I felt the collar give way. A sigh escaped my lips. Hal’s hands stilled at the sound.
“Do you have the dress?” Hal asked. I nodded, and he released the gown. I heard him step away. My skin was instantly cold where his hands had been. “I’m going to turn around.”
I let the gown fall to a puddle at my feet, the metal clinking against the wooden floorboards. I stepped out of it before grabbing from my wardrobe the gray shirt and shorts I usually slept in.
“Moonlight,” Hal said, still facing my door.
His usual taunting demeanor was gone. His voice sounded tentative, almost shy. I halted everything at the sound. “Yes.”
“This might be an insult, but . . .” He hesitated and shifted from one foot to the other, clearing his throat. “The color looked beautiful on you.”
I clutched my gray shirt to my chest, where my heart ached.
I stared at the wide breadth of his shoulders, tapering to a trim waist, and the muscled cords of his back, clear through the wet undershirt, the shade of blue identical to my gown.
I couldn’t process what that sameness did to me. I didn’t want to.
“I’m going to shower.” I needed to step away. I was too raw, exposed. I needed distance to piece myself back together.
“Right, I’ll leave,” Hal said, reaching for the door handle. I nodded, letting him go when the resounding thunk of the lock resonated, and the room plunged into darkness. The only light radiated from my golden wrist.
“Don’t,” I exclaimed, stretching out my arm, illuminating the room. “You can’t leave.”
Hal’s entire body went rigid. “I need to go.”
“You can’t,” I told him, quickly slipping on the gray shirt and shorts. “It’s curfew. My door is locked and the door to the entrance won’t let anyone in or out unless their MIND chip is authorized.”
Hal raked his hands through his wet hair. “Are you dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Hal darted to my window, peering down before moving to the next window. He navigated the near dark easily.
“You aren’t seriously thinking about going out the window, are you?” I asked, trailing him to the window near the bed. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark.
“I can’t stay here. You’re in a contract.”
“That’s exactly why you have to stay, Hal. If you set off the door, I could be eliminated,” I hissed at him, although it was possible I might be eliminated after my performance tonight if my family reported to the Illum how badly I had stepped out of line. Then finally Vincent might be happy.
Hal whirled around, coming face-to-face with me. “And how do you think,” Hal shook his head, sending water droplets flying, “your Mate will feel about another man, a Major Defect, being in your room overnight?”
“I am hoping I never have to tell him,” I confessed. “Look, I shouldn’t have let you carry me up. I shouldn’t have . . .” I paused, searching for the right words.
“Shouldn’t have what?” Hal asked me, looking down at me. “Shouldn’t have been human? Should have been able to withstand whatever they threw at you?”
“You don’t know what happened tonight,” I said, flustered.
“It doesn’t take a genius to put it together. You were dressed in blue in High Town. I watched that Pod drop from the damn clouds.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hating how easily he read what I’d endured. Because the details didn’t matter, did they? Someone had made my contract a mockery. Tears gathered beneath my lids, but I refused to fall apart. Hal stepped toward me.
I looked up at him. We were too close. Too close. I took a step back. “I’m in enough trouble as it is. I need you to stay,” I admitted.
“Need me to?” he asked, and I could just make out a smirk in the dark.
“That’s not what I meant.” I fumbled over my words, my cheeks warm. “I meant you can’t go. You are stuck here.”
“So I am stuck here—with you all night—in cold, wet clothes.” Each word set my heart careening. I gulped, and my eyes darted immediately to the bed.
Hal smirked at me. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You still going to shower?”
The sweat and rain had crusted to my skin, and I nodded. I took a step but stopped. All of Hal’s concerns were directed toward me. He hadn’t mentioned himself once, not his work or what the run had done to him. “Will you get in trouble? For missing your shift?”
Hal moved in the dark. “Let me worry about that, Moonlight.”
“Wait, what about your MIND?” I hadn’t thought about the chip once. Did Collin already know Hal was here?
“It’s taken care of,” Hal told me, his voice closer. I looked up to find him standing before me. He held up his wrist, where a metal cuff encircled it. “The Majors have secrets. We can make ourselves invisible. For a while.”
“How?” I asked, stepping closer.
“These scramble the chip and the Illum technology, not sure how exactly. Not my thing.” Hal shrugged. “But the Illum don’t watch us the way they watch you.”
“I’m s—”
“Don’t apologize,” Hal cut me off. “I’ll be fine. I am glad I was there.” His eyes met mine.
“Okay, um, there’s water from the sink. If you . . .” I had nothing else to offer him. “If you’re thirsty.”
“What, you finished all the chocolates?” Hal joked.
My cheeks flushed, my hands twisting the hem of my shirt. “I left the rest for you in my office.”
Hal went still. “Why?”
“A lapse in judgment,” I told him. I almost stumbled as those starburst eyes glittered at me in the dark.
I closed the bathroom door, blowing out a long breath.
Hal was staying in my room tonight. I started the shower, grabbing my toothbrush as the water heated up.
I brushed my teeth as I caught my reflection.
I could just make out the smeared remains of Rose’s work.
Hal said I was beautiful in the gown, but I looked like I had almost drowned.
I stepped into the shower. Slowly, the hot water warmed the bone-deep chill from my run.
My body ached in a way I barely remembered, limbs too heavy, legs already succumbing to the lactic acid accumulating.
The water stung my feet; tiny cuts peppered them.
It was a miracle I hadn’t sliced them open.
I lifted my face into the stream of water, washing it all away.
I pulled back quickly, but not fast enough, as the lens shifted before dislodging completely. I wiped my face, searching for it in the dark.
“Dammit,” I muttered, resting my forehead against the tiles as the water cascaded down my back.
“Dammit.” I hammered my fist along the wet tile, the heaviness of the evening engulfing me.
The water couldn’t wash away my birth father’s hatred or the Elite’s desire to murder everyone they deemed beneath them.
And you wanted to save her, Helen.
Helen had wanted to save me. I still breathed so she must have been successful. I must have meant something to her at some point. Enough to whisper warnings but nothing else.
The glow of my wrist was the only light.
The implications of my Procreation Agreement with Collin slithered in, unlocking something I had never let myself consider.
The desolate part of my soul that had watched other Minors embrace their birth mothers on visiting day, devoid of any memories of maternal love, swallowed me as viciously as my panic had. How could she not want me?
Tears prickled in my eyes. Even alone with the water to conceal them I did not let them fall. I had always been fearful of my role. Terrified to carry an offspring. What if they were like me, defective and cast down? I couldn’t let my offspring suffer as I had. I wouldn’t.
A soft knock sounded on the door. “You all right?”
“Fine,” I responded. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine. Not even close. My birth family hadn’t spent their whole lives isolated and alone.
They were a family. Gregory’s confession replayed in my mind.
I didn’t believe them when they told me the girl in the sheer white dress was my birth sister.
That I had a sister. Members of my birth family hadn’t known I existed.
My twenty-seven years of solitude and pain—they had lived blissfully unaware of my existence.
Someone had dressed me in Major Defect blue and left me in my family’s clutches.
The only explanation was that it had been Collin.
Despite my vehement declaration that I did not believe in happy endings, I had somehow allowed myself to become delusional.
Thinking my Procreation Contract would somehow change my life.
Allowing myself to believe my desperate dream was within my grasp.
That that dream was enough. That the kiss and Collin’s kindness might have meant something.
The thoughts were crushing. I scrubbed my face and washed my hair quickly, then shut the water and toweled off. I threw my gray shirt and shorts on and wrapped my wet hair with my towel.
I glanced at my reflection and was startled to see one blue eye and one brown looking back. I had gotten used to the lens—to brown eyes. I understood why people gawked.
I padded back into my room and froze, my heart beginning to pound.
Hal perched on the edge of my bed, clad in nothing but a pair of boxers and his cuff.