CHAPTER TWELVE #2
“Some of the projects I’ve been working on lately have had me thinking about Outside,” I began slowly. “About the people trying to survive out there. About the people who don’t survive. It’s really…weighing on me, I guess.”
Zander seemed to realize then that he was still gripping my arm because he abruptly let it drop. “I know what you mean,” he said, running a hand through his cropped hair. “Even though they’re out there for a reason, you still feel bad for them, you know?”
Something flickered in me. “They’re not all out there ‘for a reason.’ There are several generations of people out there who didn’t have the luxury of living in a city like Cyllene when The Awakening hit.
There are also generations of people descended from the citizens we’ve exiled, who themselves have done nothing wrong. ”
Zander was studying me again. There was something in his face, a slight shifting, that signaled that he had shifted from concerned-friend mode to Enforcer-assessing-a-situation mode.
“That’s true,” he said finally. His words were an agreement. But something in his tone wasn’t. Not quite.
I should’ve just accepted his polite acknowledgement and moved on. Yet I couldn’t let that note in his voice go. “I’m sure as an Enforcer, you probably feel differently about them.”
“No, I agree,” he said quickly. “It’s just…it’s complicated, you know?”
“In what way?”
Now Zander didn’t look like he was trying to understand me.
He looked like he was openly wary of me.
He shifted on his feet, his tell when he was uneasy.
“Sometimes we have to make hard decisions to keep Cyllene safe. If there were no rules, where would we be? If we let in every person who wandered up to the gates, where would we be?”
“It’s not that simple, though.” Why was I pushing this?
Why did I care what he thought? But I couldn’t stop myself.
“You can have rules without kicking out every person who doesn’t agree with you and leaving them to die.
You can have restrictions on who can come and go without keeping literally everyone out.
You can choose to care about other people, instead of always putting yourself—your needs, your safety, your well-being—first.”
If Zander was wary before, he looked flat out horrified now. His amber eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open slightly.
“You’re an Enforcer. You’re aware, I’m guessing, of the man that The Council exiled last week?”
I was met with silence. It was my cue to shut up. At least, it should have been.
“I had to help Cato sort and catalogue his books. He said that Enforcers were coming the next day to move everything out of his house. Were you one of them?”
The question was so beyond inappropriate that Zander would have been justified in turning on his heel and walking away. I was the one who had asked the question, and still I could barely believe it when he actually answered it.
“Yes, I was.”
“Did you know that he’s an elderly man?” Somehow it was crucial to me, in this moment, if he did. “Do you know if anyone even tried to give him other options? An alternative to being thrown out of the city and left to die?”
“I don’t know details,” Zander said flatly, fully in his Enforcer role now. “Only The Council knows, which is how it should be. For all our sakes.”
“Should it, though?” I challenged. A group of people passed on our left, clearly oblivious to the traitorous, blasphemous words that were being uttered only a few feet away.
Zander shifted his weight again. “How did you know he was elderly?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Cato told me,” I said quickly. I may have been willing to risk my own well-being with this conversation, but I sure as hell was not willing to risk the Strangers’.
I visualized the heat that had risen in me dissipating, schooling my features into a nonchalant expression.
“Speaking of Cato, I’d better get to work. ”
“Hold on.”
My legs were practically twitching to walk away. But I paused.
“Maila.” He was still saying my name in full. “There was another reason I wanted to catch up with you.”
I waited.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
The question should have shocked me. Especially considering what we had just talked about.
The deeply concerning things I had just said, out loud, in the middle of the Knowledge Center atrium.
But it didn’t. In fact, for some unexplainable reason, it felt like the most predictable thing he could have asked in that moment.
What did surprise me, though, was the sickening pang that I felt in my chest when I answered honestly, “No.”
“Got it.” He looked over my head for a moment. When his eyes snapped back to mine, they were full of resolve. “You’re not seeing anyone. But you don’t see me that way, do you?”
I forced myself to do him the courtesy of looking him in the eye when I answered, “I’m sorry, Zander.
There’s nothing about you that I would change.
And I’m sure any woman in Cyllene who could hear our conversation right now would think I’d lost my mind.
But I’ve…honestly, I’ve tried to see you as more than a friend. And for whatever reason, I just don’t.”
“Got it,” he repeated. His eyes flashed with something like anger, and for a split second, I thought he would ease the guilt in my chest by lashing out to protect his pride.
But the expression was only there for a moment, and then he was smiling that easy smile of his.
“Well, I guess we’d both better get back to it, huh? ”
“I guess so.”
As I headed in the direction of the Library again, listening to his footsteps recede in the opposite direction, I knew.
At lunch, I had been trying to assess what felt different about Zander. But he wasn’t the one who was different.
It was me.