CHAPTER 36 #3
“Is this water safe to drink?” I ask, still catching my breath.
“Yeah. You could bottle it up and sell it.”
Edmund’s eyes wander over my flushed face to the strands of hair that have come loose from my bun, damp with sweat, and suddenly the dryness in my throat feels unbearable.
I dismount with a swing of my leg and move to the creek bank, where I splash my face and neck with cool water.
The horses stomp and stir up mud, so the shallows cloud quickly.
I edge over to a patch of reeds where the water runs clearer.
As I crouch to drink, Edmund dismounts, his boots clapping against the rocks behind me.
I scoop up a handful of water, about to drink, when two sounds hit me at once: Edmund’s voice, rough with urgency, shouting for me to get back. And beneath it, a low, chilling rattle rising from the reeds. My horse startles, rearing with a terrified whinny before bolting into the forest.
The reeds shiver as a rattlesnake slithers forward, its slit-pupiled eyes locking onto me an instant before it strikes, jaws gaping, fangs gleaming with venom.
I stumble back as Edmund lunges. His hand shoots out and seizes the snake below its head.
The reptile thrashes, its coils lashing the air and its rattle buzzing in fury.
He adjusts his grip to pin the snake tighter, but it whips around and sinks its fangs deep into the back of his hand. Edmund bares his teeth, his face flashing fiercely, and for a terrible moment, he looks like an animal, too, arching toward the snake with his mouth wide open.
Then, as if suddenly remembering I’m here, his eyes widen.
“I—” Edmund quickly lowers the snake from his mouth. “Excuse me, Miss Waldsten.”
He wrenches his hand free of the fangs and tosses the rattlesnake into the reeds, where it disappears beneath an outcropping of rocks.
I edge closer, staring at him in shock. “Were you going to bite its head off?”
He flexes his bloodied hand and clears his throat. “I was… mad.”
I study the wound, and my shock turns to fear when I notice the skin already swelling across his knuckles. We have no anti-venom, and calling a medic will take at least ten minutes. My mind races, searching for a helpful tip, until I remember a passage from a book.
I lunge forward and grab Edmund’s hand. His whole body stiffens as I set my thumbs on either side of the bite and lift his hand to my mouth.
The coppery tang of blood floods my tongue as I try to suck the poison out, desperate and frantic.
My heart hammers so wildly that I hardly notice when his other hand comes down, gently clasping my arm.
“Uh, Miss Waldsten… what are you doing?”
I pull back and spit into the grass. “I’m sucking out the venom.”
He lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Why?”
“I read that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“Where?”
My stomach sinks as my memory flashes back to the pulpy romance novel I swiped from Vivian’s room. “In a book.”
He stares at me, half-stunned, half-recovering from the touch of my mouth on his skin. “No. You’re not supposed to suck out snake venom. That can actually make it spread faster.”
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.” I drop his hand and hurry to the creek, swishing water through my mouth as I activate my Bond to call for help.
“I don’t need a medic,” Edmund says quietly.
“Why not?”
“I’m immune to rattlesnake bites. All Blues are.”
I power down my Bond, and it dawns on me how random, if not strange, that is. “Only rattlesnakes? Or other snakes, too?”
He shakes his head faintly, but his eyes don’t leave me. His response seems delayed, like it’s been dragged from somewhere far away. “No. Just rattlers.”
“Why?”
“Honestly…” His voice trails off, as if he’s forgotten the question. He leans in, his gaze locked on me, his hand lifting almost helplessly until his fingers find my arm. His fingertips trace slowly upward past my shoulder, leaving a trail of hot, blooming spots on my skin. “…I don’t know.”
“Edmund,” I whisper, trying to snap him out of it, but my voice emerges hoarse and shaking, sounding more like a plea.
He doesn’t stop. His hand slides up my neck, and as he draws closer, his expression tears wide, filled with the same unbearable, all-consuming longing I’ve been battling since the night we surfed.
“I’m the wrong color,” I whisper.
Edmund’s hand knots in my hair, shuddering with restraint. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I’m Green, and you’re Blue.”
“I like green.” His other hand lifts to cup my chin, tilting my face toward his. “And I like you even more.”
My body presses into his even as I fight to resist. I curl my toes tightly in my boots, muscles straining against the longing inside me, so relentless it makes my eyes well up and sting. “Do you really, Edmund? Enough to cross this line?”
He edges back, letting me see the certainty in his face. “Yes. And do you know why? Because I don’t agree with it. Not the line or the people who drew it.”
“Your people did.”
“I know. Which ties me to it just as much as them. If nature had decided, there’d be no line between us at all. But men decided. And the hands that built us did it for control.”
I pull away slowly as he speaks, each word taking me further.
Not because I disagree, but because his certainty makes me realize that of all the people I’ve lied to, I’ve lied to myself the most. I’ve thought Edmund’s exact words a thousand times.
I’ve raged against the laws, against the differences engineered into us by people who try to build gods without even believing in the idea of one.
And yet, through all of it, I’ve held myself back.
Only now do I let myself admit the real reason.
I’m afraid.
Afraid of punishment, afraid of loss, afraid of the Blues, who’ve done nothing but steal and destroy, twisting the world to fit the shape of their boot heels.
And I see now, with sudden, startling clarity, that fear is the only chain binding me to the rules.
I hate the system as much as Heretics do.
I hate the world that lets it stand. And in this moment, I’m just as guilty as Edmund of belonging to it.
I stop beside his horse, still drinking at the river, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts. Across from me, Edmund rakes a hand through his hair, as if flustered by the sudden break between us.
“Am I your first?” I ask.
His head tilts, confusion flickering across his face. “My first what?”
“Low-citizen.”
“Yes.”
“Then why me?”
His hand clenches at his side, tendons sharp beneath the skin. Then, as it slowly relaxes, the tension spreads up into his expression, a restraint stretched so thin it feels like he might turn and tear a tree from the ground for release.
“Because it couldn’t be anyone else but you.
I tried to stay away. I fought it every way I knew how.
But I’ve put my fist through enough walls to know how useless that is, apart from giving me a view into the next room.
” Edmund drags a hand across his face, unaware of the blood he smears over his cheek.
“Protecting you isn’t enough anymore. It hasn’t been enough since you looked at me like I was a man instead of a Blue.
” He takes a step closer, his stance hesitant, almost defenseless, as if he’s holding his heart out for me to see, and if I don’t take it, he won’t pull it back.
He’ll leave it here in the forest when we go.
“I want to be worthy of that look,” he says. “Even if that’s still a long way off—and even if you don’t feel the same.”
If I don’t feel the same?
The thought makes my blood rush to my head.
I open my mouth, desperate to tell him how deeply he’s grown through every inch of me and how hopeless the strain of resisting him has been over the past months, but all that comes out is a small, airless gasp.
His words cut straight into me, into the part of my heart that already belonged to him but that I was too afraid to let him see.
Now, as it breaks open, happiness floods me so violently it feels chemical, like I’ve swallowed a Bliss pill.
I can’t do it either.
I can’t resist him anymore.
“I’ll tell you how I feel, Edmund,” I say. “But I want to show you first.”
The need to touch him surges up all at once, too wild to contain.
Before I register the mud squelching under my boots, I’m rushing toward him, watching him close the distance with the same fierce urgency.
His hands catch my waist, his arms closing around me and lifting me high enough to reach his neck.
I hold on, pulling myself to his chest. In that instant, I feel it all: the heat of his skin beneath my shuddering palms, the solid ridges of his shoulders, the scent I can never quite remember or forget, as impossible to hold onto as a fistful of wind.
Edmund’s grip tightens, his hands bunching in the fabric of my clothes as he leans in to kiss me, his breath close enough to warm my lips.
I drag my fingers down the hard line of his jaw, aching for his mouth, so desperate for him to take my own that I barely hear the pounding hooves closing in.
Edmund’s head snaps toward the sound, his chest heaving against mine. He squints through the trees, then curses and sets me down.
“Who is it?” I ask, still dazed by the rush of adrenaline. I swing around and reach for my horse, only then remembering it bolted from the rattlesnake.
“Blues.” He grabs the reins of his horse at the riverbank. “A lot of them.”
Edmund swings into the saddle, backs the horse away from the creek bank, then rides toward me with his hand outstretched. I grip it, and he pulls me up, settling me against him, facing him straight on.
“Why this way?” I breathe, holding his waist.
“So you can tell me when we’ve lost them.”
He digs in his heels, and the horse gallops into the forest with a furious snort.
The world blurs into patterns of green as branches whip past, the creek and waterfalls shrinking behind us.
I cling to Edmund unyieldingly as he urges the horse faster.
I lean sideways in the saddle and see the Blues stopping to water their mounts at the creek, their figures breaking apart in the trees until the shadows swallow them whole.
Relief tumbles through me, breaking into laughter.
“We lost them,” I shout.
But Edmund doesn’t slow down. He drives the horse onward, pushing until the trail bursts open, spilling us into a vast meadow where the grass stands tall around us, swaying in the bright, vivid blush of the setting sun.
Only then does he ease the horse into a smooth canter.
The wind blows coolly across my face, blending my hair with his, stealing the breath from my lips as we cut across the open stretch, Edmund’s heart pounding wildly against mine.
The rhythm of it jolts through me, the same as that night on the surfboard, when I told myself it was nothing more than adrenaline.
But now, after everything he’s said, I need to be sure.
I pull open the top of his jacket and run my hand along the folds of his shirt, pressing it flat against his chest. His head tips forward, a sharp breath tearing from him as his heartbeat kicks against my palm, so fast and forceful that the very feeling seems to roar.
The impact rattles through me, scattering every thought until I can only look up.
When I do, I see Edmund’s face turned toward mine, strained and flushed, burning for me as fiercely as I burn for him. I push upward in the saddle, breathless. His hand closes at the back of my neck, tangling in my hair as he drags me into him, past the last slanting rays of sun between our bodies.
When his mouth touches mine, it’s startlingly soft, as if chosen for my sake, as if he hasn’t forgotten he’s my first. The gentleness undoes me.
It rushes through me with the shock of a beginning, so transformative it feels like the first true touch of my life.
My hand lifts on its own, my thumb brushing in a slow, trembling glide across his lips.
Edmund’s eyes haze over briefly, then sharpen and fix on me with sudden, focused heat.
He catches my wrist and pulls me closer, and my whole body responds, my fingers curling into his jacket as I rise again to meet his mouth.
This is more than a release. It feels like a door opening, one that will never close again.
And I don’t want it to. I race through it headlong into what lies beyond, every part of me unmoored as our kiss deepens, hot and relentless, as though, if we weren’t clinging to the horse beneath us, racing forward together, we might burn straight through each other.
My hands slide up Edmund’s chest, over his neck, and into his hair as the kisses intensify, growing harder, wilder, until restraint finally gives way and the world collapses into nothing but the feverish movement of his mouth on my gasping lips.
The horse gallops beneath us, hooves drumming the earth, the meadow blazing gold in the last fire of the sun.
Edmund’s hand glides to the small of my back, holding me fast, while the other tugs the reins as we tear through the windblown grass.
Our kiss slows, softening again toward its end, just as the trail pulls us back into the forest’s shadow, the meadow falling away behind us.
But unlike that night on the surfboard, I don’t cling to the experience in fear of losing it.
I know it’s inside me now, in the part of my heart that belongs to him, where even a single moment can last and live forever.