CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, ON THE DAY OF THE DINNER, I FOUND Hal sitting in my chair, his feet on my desk, staring at the ceiling.
“Hi.” I grinned and scanned my wrist.
“Hey,” Hal responded, dimple on display.
He crossed the room toward the waste bin, his hand brushing mine.
My body came alive at the graze. I sat in my chair and logged in to the system.
As the first piece of art loaded, I turned toward Hal.
He was limping, just barely, but it was there every time he took a step with his right foot.
“Are you okay?”
Hal flipped the trash bin upside down, grimacing as he sat. “Tired, but fine now.”
My brow furrowed. “You don’t look fine.”
“Rough shift. Physical labor catches up with you,” Hal said nonchalantly. “What do you think of this piece?”
The painting depicted a pregnant woman wearing a long dress decorated with golden circles and other colorful geometric shapes.
Her breasts were bared, and she looked down at her rounded belly.
Peeking behind her gown was a skull. At the bottom of the dress, three other women bowed their heads as if in mourning.
I glanced at the title: Hope II by Gustav Klimt.
My stomach bottomed out. The women all seemed remorseful, as if the skull predicted the offspring’s future.
“I don’t like it,” I confessed, wanting to look away.
I hated that it depicted a warped representation of what might await any offspring I produced.
That they would live my life, hidden and shamed for something they couldn’t control.
Something I gave them. It would mark the trajectory of their life—or death.
“Why?”
“Because only sadness and grief await those with offspring,” I told him, shifting.
“Sad things can be beautiful too, Moonlight.”
“I disagree.” I looked away from the painting, glancing at the screen. “That’s strange. They’re reassigning it. Usually, they get rid of ones with people in them.”
“Maybe they don’t want to lose the idea that having an offspring is sad.”
I couldn’t look at the painting any longer. With a click, it disappeared. I released a long breath.
The next painting had a dreamlike, ethereal effect, capturing a city in the foreground and rolling hills that bled into the night sky.
The stars swirled, and the moon glowed, the long brushstrokes mimicking the movement of light.
It was stunning and unlike any night sky I had ever seen.
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. I was shocked that it was the same artist who had painted At Eternity’s Gate, the despairing man with his head in his hands.
I bit my lip, lost in the contrast between the shadows and light.
“What are your thoughts?” Hal asked. I turned to find him staring at me.
“A person who painted such pain has also painted such beauty. I want to ask the artist which came first.”
“What do you think?” Hal asked, leaning toward me.
“Beauty first. You can’t come back from that kind of pain.”
Hal chuckled, the sound pebbling my skin in its wake. But his eyes held a sadness. “Things are made more beautiful by pain. You see everything differently afterward. Not right away. It takes time, but knowing the darkest depths—” Hal paused. “It allows you to experience the highest peaks.”
“I don’t think I care to see the peaks if I have to feel the depths,” I confessed.
Hal shook his head. “You do, Moonlight. I promise you do. They have just robbed you of it.”
My Comm Device dinged several times. I turned, fishing it out of my bag.
“What news from the world above?” Hal asked. I read through the two messages, the first from Collin.
Your work schedule has been updated. Look forward to seeing you tonight. I personally picked your gown. —Collin
The second was a formal message changing my workweek from every day to five days on, two days off. Starting tomorrow, I would have two days off.
“My schedule has been officially modified. I don’t have work the next two days,” I told him.
“So, things are progressing,” Hal commented dryly. “Even with the Press article.”
It was the first time he had brought up the Press since the other day.
Before I could respond, Hal rubbed his jawline and stood. “Guess I’ll see you in two days.”
“Don’t do that,” I urged, standing.
“Don’t do what?” Hal crossed his arms.
“Walk out over something I didn’t have a say in,” I sputtered, frustrated.
“I’m not.”
I reached out, grabbing his arm. “You are. You’re trying to leave.”
“It would be easier if I left,” Hal admitted, looking over my shoulder at the painting. “One day you’ll have the nerve to ask, and I don’t think I’ll say no.” His eyes traced my lips before he stepped away.
I tilted my head back to stare into his starburst gaze. “What are you saying, Hal?”
“I was looking for . . .” Hal shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Not this,” Hal admitted.
“Do you think I was looking for this?” I exclaimed, gesturing wildly between us. “I was happy down here with my life. Then you show up, and then the contract. I was happy down here.”
“No, you weren’t. You were lonely.”
“You don’t know that,” I practically shouted, anger surging. “I was fine alone.”
“Fine isn’t a feeling,” Hal said.
“It’s better than this feeling. Why bother me if you’re going to leave every time reality sets in?”
“I should have walked away the day I saw you staring at that painting like you saw more. I should have left you alone.”
“You should have left me alone because I wear gray and you wear blue,” I sneered. My anger turned into an ugly thing, vicious, the deluge of emotions and thoughts I had been running from breaking through my walls.
Hal fisted his hands at his sides, his posture rigid, and I knew I had crossed a line.
“Yeah, you wear gray,” he seethed. “It doesn’t make you above me.
It makes you a mindless vessel, one they use to achieve their whims. That’s what your gray clothes get you.
Do you think that Nora, Collin, or Phillip will ever accept you as anything other than a Defect?
It’s all an act and you just waltzed right into it, claiming he’s different even as he uses you. ”
I felt like I had been doused in cold water. “I didn’t tell you everyone’s names.”
He rolled up his left sleeve. On the inside of his wrist was a long, jagged scar.
“I told you I was deemed Elite; they killed my parents and sent me to the Academy. I’m the same age as your dear Mate, his twin, and your brother.
They were thick as thieves, swallowing every lie they were fed.
Looking down on everyone else. Even after what they did to Nora”—my brows pulled in; what had they done to Nora?
—“Collin stayed committed. The moment I left the Academy, I cut out that fucking chip. Most people die when doing it, but I lived. Faked my death and disappeared. I wore color and I gave it up!”
I know how to be invisible.
“You can cut them out?” I asked as too many questions ran through me. I felt blindsided, my heart beating too fast. “Who are you, really?”
“I’m whoever I choose to be.”
My pulse roared in my ears. “Hal, are you—”
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Hal moved quickly, sprinting behind the open door. I thought I might be sick as a man dressed in dark gray entered the room, holding a black velvet box.
“Ms. Emeline,” he said, and I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. “Mr. Collin wanted this delivered personally to you. If I could scan your wrist.” The man produced a small silver scanner. I thrust my arm out, willing it not to tremble, and he passed me the box. “Good day, Ms. Emeline.”
I blew out a deep breath as the man exited the room. The box thudded on my desk as I reached for the doorframe, peering out to find a long empty hallway. I rubbed my hand into my chest, massaging my racing heart.
I knew one thing: If Hal was the Reaper, then the greatest danger to him was myself—the Mate of an Illum.
I turned to find Hal opening the velvet box. The insides sparkled in the light of the hologram.
“I’m going to go,” Hal muttered, pushing past me to the door.
“Fine, go,” I spat. “Everyone does, especially Elite.”
“I am not like them,” Hal growled, whirling toward me.
“Doing what you want, leaving when you want, giving half-truths, making me feel inadequate,” I stormed, my chest aching as I did—begging me to stop.
I didn’t, because this was for the best and too many things were crammed away in the depths of my soul that were eating me alive.
“Tell me, Hal, exactly how you’re different? ”
“Moonlight—”
“Don’t. I’ve only known you a week anyway. Might as well say goodbye now.”
“Whether I do it now or in three moons, you were always going to be a goodbye,” Hal promised.
My eyes burned, but I didn’t let the tears fall, clenching my fists so hard my nails broke the surface. “You’re right. I’m a vessel, and that’s all I’ll be.”
Hal stared at me, opening his mouth as if to say something, but a second later he closed it before turning and walking out. I gripped the door I never bothered to close, slamming it shut.
I threw myself into my chair. I was fine, I was fine. I chanted it over and over again until I leashed the mess that dwelled inside, shoving it all down until the buzzing from the lights overhead filled the room once again. My only consistent companion.
My chest felt empty. I had been no better than the Elite, throwing his status at him.
Disgust twisted viciously as I looked at the open black velvet box.
Inside was the grandest jewelry I had ever seen—an exquisite necklace that boasted large oval bloodred rubies surrounded by smaller round diamonds running its entire length, as well as a matching pair of diamond-encircled ruby earrings.
The finery was grotesque in its beauty. Inside was a note.
For tonight, something I hope you enjoy. —Collin
I snapped the lid closed, staring at the box unseeing as I waited for the ding to signal the end of my shift.
Lost in self-hatred. For the ugly words.
For not chasing Hal down. But mostly for being in this situation in the first place.
I knew how to be alone. It was easier than this.
In a week I had let my soul tether to others.
Relying on them, wanting them, caring for them.
It was a bad choice, one that put not only myself but others in danger.
I needed to cut the tethers. With Hal, it seemed I had succeeded.
It was safer for him to stay away from me.
The golden glow of my wrist was the one tether I couldn’t sever.
I ran my finger down the inside of my wrist where Hal’s scar had been.
How had I missed it when he had sat exposed in nothing but his boxers?
But he had been wearing the technology-scrambling cuff—why had he needed it if he didn’t have a MIND?
The question I never asked hung heavy all around me. The question I would not dare voice.
Was Hal the Reaper?