CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #3
‘Hey. Hey! Listen up now! This isn’t why we gathered!’ Mr Moorehouse called out, trying to restore order. He locked eyes with me, then with Leo. ‘Go.’
Leo yanked me up by my borrowed jacket. ‘Come on!’
Nova yelped as people shoved forward, and the three of us ran.
The crowd’s anger followed and I tripped up the steps.
My chest tightened, my pulse raced. I’d never experienced anything like this before.
Their hate permeated the air. Leo shouted for us to keep going once we made it outside, then shut himself inside with the others.
I pulled Nova down a side alley, both of us jumping a fence. We ran another block before I finally checked behind us to make sure no one had followed us. I turned to her and cupped her face, checking over every inch of her. ‘Are you hurt? Did anyone touch you?’
‘Cas, calm down. I’m fine.’
I could barely breathe, adrenaline burning through my veins. Those people in the basement of that food pantry hated me. Hated my family. So much could’ve gone wrong if Mr Moorehouse hadn’t done what he did to defuse the situation, if Leo hadn’t stayed behind to hold off anyone at the door.
Panting, I rested my forehead against Nova’s.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do.
They were so mad at me.’ Not just me – my family.
The Freedom System. My hands still shook as I went to hold her face again.
‘That’s not … My family wouldn’t allow any of those things to happen. They – they aren’t monsters.’
‘Deep breaths.’ She pressed a finger to my lips and hummed softly.
‘Starlight’ by Lila Blooms. She was calming me.
What about her? Everything she’d endured the last twenty-four hours.
And what that man implied? I didn’t deserve her.
That was all I could think. I came to console her and here she was, consoling me.
Without thinking, I kissed her. She pulled back, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have –’
‘You weren’t there. When I needed you, you weren’t there. That hurt me. You hurt m–’ She cut herself off, but everything she didn’t say was written in her eyes.
I should’ve tried harder to reach her. I should’ve gone to Perla sooner – anything. She’d gone through so much without me. ‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she whispered.
She curled her fingers through my hair and pulled me to her.
I lost myself in her embrace. The kiss was desperate.
We kissed like we needed each other to breathe.
I needed us to be OK. I needed for nothing that man said to be true.
And for a few seconds, nothing else existed.
We were back to being Castor Cas and Hot-Pink Seven-Speed.
Back to that first week, when I fell for her harder than I ever had.
She was my air. We were each other’s escape from lives we’d been drowning in for too long.
And when we finally broke apart, that bubble of bliss between us popped. I felt her tense and let her pull away.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.
‘I kissed you,’ she countered. ‘But yeah, we should stop with that. I can’t think straight when I’m around you. I need to process the fact that I’m your Pain Carrier.’
I sighed. I hated how defeated she sounded. We could get past this. Our Giver–Carrier status didn’t have to mean anything. There was nothing wrong with it. Pain Carriers couldn’t feel their Giver’s pain.
‘I’m going to ask you something,’ I began, already knowing my next words could ruin everything. But I had to know – for us to have any chance of making it through this. ‘And I need you to talk to me the same way you did Yvonne Meadows – be blunt.’
She tried not to smile. ‘OK?’
‘How do you experience my helical disease?’
The question burned in my core. She can’t feel it. It’s impossible. That man had to be an anomaly – a false positive on his tolerance test.
She stiffened. ‘Why would you ask me that? You know your grandfather’s research and accomplishments. His Freedom System. The pain a Carrier experiences will never intensify past minor discomfort.’
‘I’m not asking you to recite his research,’ I said. ‘I’m asking how you actually feel.’
She searched my gaze, and I held hers steady. She reached for my face, then stopped, shaking her head. ‘It isn’t a problem. I can barely feel it.’
Now it was my turn to search her eyes. They’d gone unfocused, distant. She was holding something back.
I sighed and rocked on my heels. She wasn’t the only one I thought might be lying to me.
I’d never heard anyone speak about Dominion the way I had in that basement.
There was such vitriol in their voices – so much it sent a shudder up my spine.
My family wasn’t corrupt. The Freedom System wasn’t targeting poor people.
It wasn’t targeting Black and Brown communities.
No one knew why one person had a higher pain tolerance than another.
‘OK, then. I believe you,’ I said.
I wanted to. I needed to.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘We should find Leo.’
She slid past me, our kiss forgotten.
I shut my eyes, trying to hold on to it, but something else surfaced instead.
The trash can full of past-due bills now marked PAID.
Her six-month plan to be debt-free, sitting in that folder in her living room.
She’d done that herself, with her Pain Carrier payments.
Would she lie about the pain to stay in the Freedom System, the same way she’d agreed to the interview?
What would she endure for her family to finally stand on their feet?