CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
“Are you going to ask now, Moonlight?” His warm breath danced across my skin, and I shivered. Our lips were a heartbeat away.
A long whistle filled my office, startling me.
Hal groaned and pulled away, standing. “I have to go.”
“Why? What is that?”
“An annoyance,” Hal retorted, running his hand through his hair. “A signal from one supporter to another. It means Elite are present.”
The whistle sounded again—impatiently. “You’re a supporter? Why a whistle?”
“Their cameras don’t recognize a person whistling. They register out-of-place movement. The person only whistles, and we know to find safety.” Hal looked out the door before turning back to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Is it safe?”
“Yeah. I’m just late. I seem to lose track of time around you. I’ll see you soon, Moonlight.” Hal flashed a quick smile and slipped away.
I sat alone for the rest of my shift, sorting art and making notes in my report. Nothing I saw or typed took precedence over my racing thoughts. I wanted to understand. I was tired of being stuck in the in-between. When my screens finally went dark, I shuffled onto the elevator.
I pressed myself into the wall as the elevator slowly rose and more women in gray climbed on, staring at me. I had forgotten that I wasn’t in gray.
I pushed through the doors the moment the elevator stopped and darted through the atrium, beelining for the Pods. Whispers accompanied the stares. Her eyes don’t match. How can she be in color?
A buzzing filled my ears, my body too hot and cold at the same time. At some point I had begun to run, weaving amid the gray until I spotted sunshine hair. I skidded to a stop before Lo.
Shock radiated from her. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but you’re not in gray.”
“It’s a long story,” I muttered. “I’ll tell you everything. Let’s just get out of here.”
We worked toward the front of the line. People in gray stepped out of our way. I started to ask Lo about her yearly, but a whistle filled the air like the one I had heard in my office—a signal from one supporter to another.
I turned to find a man in gray staring directly at me. His eyes flew from my wrist before piercing me with a glare. He whistled louder, as if warning someone about my approach. My heart began to pound.
“Come on,” Lo urged, pushing me onto the waiting Pod.
I recognized the way the supporter had looked at me. People were rising up against the Illum. The Illum controlled the Press. The Illum assigned roles, status, Mates. The Illum controlled everything. And I was an Illum’s Mate.
He had looked at me like I was a threat.
ONCE I REACHED THE SAFETY OF MY LIVING QUARTERS, I RESTED my head against the door, closing my eyes as tears attempted to gather there. The loneliness of belonging nowhere was crushing.
A soft knock sounded on my door, and I let in Lo, who carried a sad plastic mush container, but she was beaming.
“I’m approved, Emeline, I’m approved,” Lo exclaimed, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Lo! That’s amazing. How do you feel?”
“Like I’m floating in the clouds,” Lo gushed, spinning. “No more gray. I’m going to wear the most glamorous gowns and dance at balls.”
I laughed as she waltzed around my room, the plastic tray her soon-to-be dance partner. Relief coursed through me. I wouldn’t be entirely alone in the clouds. I retrieved my meal from the black box and returned to Lo, scanning my room. For one wild heartbeat, I thought Hal had left something.
“So where should we eat?” Lo asked. There were no tables or chairs. I had always assumed our rooms were bare due to shortages. Having seen the Elite’s living quarters, I knew it was to deter us from this, from forming connections.
We sat on the floor, and I ate quickly, my body still screaming for sustenance after my run.
“Start from the beginning,” Lo instructed. “I need to know everything.”
I told Lo about last night. How one of the Starlings had gone missing, how Collin couldn’t make it to the dinner with my birth family, the mysterious blue dress, how my father had told me he would eliminate all Defects if he could, to which Lo gasped in horror.
My run and my meeting with Collin this morning.
I told her about Collin urging me to run to him.
How Nora, his twin, Phillip, and Gregory were there.
“Nora said Phillip was like a brother to her,” I confessed, my appetite disappearing. “It hurt. My birth family has a life up there, and they have deep relationships.”
“I won’t pretend to know what that feels like,” Lo said.
“My birth mom was a Minor as well, and I was her only offspring. My birth father’s an Elite, but I’ve never met him.
He didn’t want me when I was deemed a Minor.
I was a failure. My birth mother ended up in the Sanctuary due to my defects.
Then she ended up in blue after me. She told me I had failed her.
I was her ticket up, and I messed it all up.
Her last words for me were that she hoped I was Mated and my offspring was exactly like me so I would know the shame. ” Lo fell silent, staring at the floor.
Sadness and anger squeezed my heart. “Lo, I didn’t know.”
Lo shrugged. “I don’t like talking about it. It’s not fun being a failure before you ever got the chance to try, you know.”
I did know. How many women in this building had the same story?
Maybe we could find comfort in one another if they didn’t pit us against one another from the beginning.
If we were taught to be one another’s allies instead of competition.
How different would these halls be if we cared for one another?
“It’s why a contract matters so much,” Lo confessed, unwavering determination in her stare. “If I could just have a successful mating, then I can prove her wrong.”
I looked at Lo, truly seeing her for the first time. I reached out, grasping her hand. “Let’s show her what she missed out on.”
Lo smiled at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Tell me what to expect up there, Emeline.”
So I did. We talked about everything I had experienced in the clouds, including the Press and the article, until it was almost curfew.
Lo stood, stretching, and made her way to the door. “Thank you, Emeline, for everything.”
A confession slipped from me, halting her. “You were right, Lo. It is better to go through this together.”
Lo smiled. “I knew you would come around.”
After she left, I threw away our trash and collapsed in my bed, my mind unsure how to make sense of everything. So I did the only thing to quiet it, allowing sleep to claim me, stretching my glowing wrist out to the empty side of the bed.
TWO DAYS PASSED. MY BIRTH FAMILY REMAINED AS SILENT AS they had been for the previous twenty-seven years, which suited me.
I didn’t hear from Collin. I didn’t know if the Reaper had resurfaced.
If that was why he had been silent or if he had achieved what he wanted with the Press and there was no reason to talk.
Collin did send me flowers again, which sat in my office. I didn’t bother to read the card.
I had two lessons with my HI, whom I had named Frida, after an artist that occasionally came up in the Archives.
Both mornings, Frida announced that I had entered the luteal phase of my cycle, whatever that meant.
My stats recovered after my run. Certain nutrients and minerals struggled, but my dopamine stayed elevated.
The first lesson addressed etiquette again before launching into my duty as a fertile vessel. My stomach twisted at how Frida’s words echoed my time at the Academy, dragging up horrible memories that all ended with a freckled face disappearing from my life.
The next day, I started dance lessons. Frida would briefly describe the dance and then play a short video showing the dance before footsteps appeared on the floor for me to follow.
I felt utterly ridiculous dancing alone in my room as the sun rose.
Still, I let the music chase away any insecurities.
The music was beautiful, with peaks and valleys of sounds that I couldn’t help but move to. I was left breathless and eager for the next lesson when the music ended. It wasn’t the same as running, yet I felt that welcome calm take over as I danced.
Lo had brought her meals up both nights, claiming my floor was more comfortable for dining.
We discussed her upcoming initial meeting.
Thankfully, she had received a message stating that her first meeting would be in public tomorrow, the same night I would have dinner with Collin, Nora, and her Mate, William, at the Pond.
Maybe we would truly go through this whole experience together.
While we discussed all things procreation, I kept Hal to myself. Twice, I almost told her about him, but fear stopped me. Perhaps it was more shame than fear. But those were thoughts I locked away.
Hal had come to see me both mornings. He didn’t mention the Press or my Mate.
He didn’t mention the flowers’ slow decay either.
And I didn’t ask about the supporter who had sent a warning whistle when he saw me.
We talked about art, teased, and danced around the truth we both knew—that this, whatever this was, had an expiration date.
It was approaching, and there was nothing we could do about it.
I thought of the painting of the couple embracing goodbye while I lay in bed alone.
I thought maybe I was starting to understand their desperation.
That terrified me, but like all things that scared me, I ignored it.
Ran from it. We should have discussed it, but we didn’t.
Instead, we looked at art like we had all the time in the world.
I stared at Hal like he was my own personal sunset.
Let it captivate me, distract me, and make me appreciate him all the more because it was fleeting. I found myself unable to look away.
But, like the sunset, it must end.