CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“AH, THERE HE IS,” NORA SAID. “TELL ME, DEAR brOTHER, why Emeline did not know about me.”
“Nora, not now,” Collin said. I stood as he descended the stairs, stopping in front of me.
He looked dashing in rich brown pants and a white button-down shirt.
It was strange to see him in something other than a black suit.
My body and mind waged an unseen war in his presence.
His magnetic pull tugged on something low and relentless, but my mind raged against it.
I had worn blue. I’d had a Major Defect in my room last night.
I had not seen him since the Sphere. Since he had implored forgiveness before his lips met mine. Despite myself, my eyes lingered on his lips. Was I about to beg his forgiveness? I wasn’t sure I wanted it.
“Emeline, are you all right?” he asked with real concern in his voice, and the war fell silent.
“Yes, I’m okay.” I didn’t mention how my muscles were still so sore that it was difficult to stand, much less walk, or how emotionally drained I felt.
His calculating gaze flickered between my blue–brown gaze, and I realized Nora hadn’t commented on my heterochromia. She hadn’t said anything, which had been a first. I glanced over my shoulder at her. She smiled at me, raising her teacup to her lips.
Collin gestured to the sofa. I took my seat as he sat on the table directly across from me. “Can you tell me about last night?”
I glanced over to Phillip, who shuffled through his stack of papers on the other sofa.
“Didn’t Phillip tell you?” I asked, uneasy.
I didn’t want to relive Vincent’s words. I didn’t want to tell a group of Elite what it felt like to be cast aside. That instead of accepting me, my birth family wished for me to be eliminated. My chest hollowed out at the thought.
“He told me his recount, that Vincent mentioned the Elimination Act,” Collin said.
“He more than mentioned it,” I choked out.
“Some of the older Elites still believe in it,” Collin told me. I glanced at Phillip. Had he told Collin everything that was said? Collin made to continue, but I cut him off.
“Do you?”
The room fell deathly silent. The Academy lessons preaching obedience seemed very far away. I looked up, my mismatched gaze colliding with Collin’s. I couldn’t breathe at the wild look in his eyes. I wouldn’t look away. If he thought people like me should be murdered, I would watch him say it.
“I do not,” he told me, his gaze dipping to my lips. He cleared his throat, tearing his eyes from them. “We did not repopulate only to wipe out a good portion of our efforts. It would be counterproductive, as I have stated to the Press and in every meeting it has been suggested.”
“What exactly is the Press?” I asked, one of the many questions I had boiling inside of me.
“A media source for the Elite,” Collin said.
“It’s a gossip column at best,” Nora huffed, unimpressed. “It exists to entertain those in the clouds.”
“We’re getting off topic,” Collin said. “After the dinner, your Pod had the emergency button pushed and then our cameras saw you take off on foot.”
The floor went out from under me as fear surged through me, potent and heavy like my panic had felt last night. Had the Illum seen Hal? Surely he would have led with that. I was property, his property, if Gregory was to be believed.
“Your scans this morning are erratic at best, unhealthy at worst,” Collin stated. Phillip passed along a paper, which Collin glanced at before handing it to me.
I scanned the entire photo. There was no sign of Hal—just me and my wild sprint. The metal cuff had allowed Hal to remain undetected.
“Oh, I love that dress,” Nora exclaimed.
“Where is the dress?” Collin asked, looking toward the doors where I had dropped it. “Gregory, bring me the bag.”
Gregory scooped up the bag, dropping it next to me.
“Gregory, didn’t you want tea?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Gregory said before returning to the window. I watched him walk away. He was older than everyone else in the room, yet he stood on the outskirts, removed. I only heard his name as a summoning or a curse. Gregory stared at the blue dress Collin handed to Nora, his face unreadable.
Nora hissed. “Why is it this color?” It looked black in the photo.
“I don’t know, but I want to find out why and who is responsible.”
“You didn’t make me wear it?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Collin turned his head toward me, his face tense. “You thought I did this?”
“Of course I did. It came in a black box like my lens.” I glanced toward my lap.
“I was told the lens was from the Illum. That they sometimes send their—” The word plaything caught in my throat.
“They send stuff to people like me. You said we should get the dinner with my birth family out of the way.” I didn’t look up to see how my birth brothers took that.
“Then you didn’t show. You left me alone with them.
I thought it was a particularly cruel trial. ”
Collin leaned forward. “I intended to be there. My duties as an Illum have to come first. I have only sent you things I thought you might want and enjoy. I did not send you this.”
“What else was I supposed to think?” All the hateful things Vincent had said my entire life twirled with the Academy’s rules, spinning me lower and lower. “I am a Defect, a visual Defect. My own Elite birth family wants to eliminate me.”
Collin moved closer, his long legs bracketing mine. I froze, heart thumping hard.
“Leave us.”
A flurry of movement erupted around us as the others made to leave.
Collin didn’t glance their way. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear in the Garden, so let me tell you again.
I quit caring about the Elite’s opinions long ago.
” Collin reached for me, then let his hand fall between his legs.
“Emeline, you are an extension of me now.” Slippers scuffed against the floor, lithe steps faltering.
Collin held my gaze. “If someone hurts you, I take it personally.”
Power churned in Collin’s eyes as his jaw bulged.
My pulse fluttered helplessly as all of him remained focused on me.
Defect and all. Maybe I should fear the power I saw—the viciousness he directed at my birth family in the Sphere.
How he could damn me to elimination with a breath.
Instead, I leaned forward. The corner of Collin’s lips tugged up, the power shifting into something else entirely, something I couldn’t quite place as his gaze found my lips.
“You may speak plainly,” he told me.
I knew that wasn’t true. I had spoken too plainly and others paid the price.
I didn’t know who Collin was in the clouds when I wasn’t around.
Gregory had called him the Enforcer. I leaned back, away from his all-encompassing orbit I seemed afflicted by.
Rose and Violet had been hurt. Hal had miraculously managed to remain invisible to the Illum.
I swallowed my questions for their sake—Violet, Rose, and Hal. The cost of my curiosity was too much.
I looked to find the others congregating just outside the room. Nora leaned toward us, not at all inconspicuously, the blue gown still in her hands.
“Busybodies,” Collin grumbled, disgruntled fondness in his voice, and surprise flashed through me. “Nora, do you recognize the gown?”
“Not off the top of my mind, but it fits her well in the photo,” Nora called over, and they reentered the room.
“Whoever made it had a good idea of her measurements.” I swore Collin hid a smirk at her quick response.
He hadn’t even raised his voice to ask her, but when I looked again, his smile was gone.
“Have your seamstress look at it. See what she can tell us. Gregory, take the dress,” Collin ordered. “Nora, are you and William free in three days?”
“I believe so,” she said, gripping the dress tightly as Gregory approached her.
“Phillip, update their MINDs,” Collin said. “Emeline and I will dine with them. At the Pond—is it still your favorite place, Nora?”
Gregory snatched the dress from Nora’s grip, turning without a word as he walked out onto the balcony, undeterred by the frigid wind.
“Always,” Nora said quietly. I didn’t miss how her eyes had followed Gregory to where he stood at the balcony edge, the blue dress whipping wildly in the wind.
“Good. Summon a Pod for Gregory, Phillip,” Collin instructed.
“Add Nora’s seamstress to his MIND. Begin running interference—last night stays close.
Document Gregory’s breach of curfew and be certain nothing befalls Emeline.
Make it a trial or something.” None of it made sense to me but it did to Phillip.
He pulled out his Comm Device and began typing away.
“I—” I began but bit my tongue.
“You what?” Collin asked, turning toward me fully.
“What do you mean running interference?”
“And Vincent?” Phillip interrupted, his eyes on his device.
“You can leave that to me,” Collin told him, his sapphire eyes cold. A shiver ran up my spine.
“Pardon, your morning meals are ready,” an attendant stated before disappearing.
“We will meet you in there,” Collin told Phillip and Nora.
I sat up straighter at his dismissal. A Pod came to a stop at the edge of the balcony, and Gregory disappeared from view. Nora turned away, looping her arm through Phillip’s. They actually left the room this time.
Collin sat next to me. “Phillip is running interference to ensure the events of last night do not get out to the Elite collective, thus ensuring that the attendants at your parents’ do not share what they witnessed.
I also overrode the curfew by an hour, granting Gregory’s MIND and yours access to move freely.
I am calling it a trial so the rest of the Illum are not offended by my overstepping. ”
“The Defects?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes, it was not only your family in that room. The Minors witnessed as well. They could share the information if not persuaded to keep their silence.”
“How will you persuade them?” I asked as fear twirled around my spine.