Chapter Twelve
Vivian spent the rest of the day and a sleepless night tense and agitated.
How could the Intelligence match two people so ill-suited for each other?
Over and over in her mind, she replayed Xavier’s words from their walk at the Hayes Estate.
The Intelligence cares nothing for the quality of life of one Earther woman.
What had Miranda meant when she’d warned that her parents were in danger? Were the Rinaldi brothers trying to shake them down for cash or valuables? Surely, surely, they wouldn’t kill her mild-mannered parents, who’d never made trouble for anyone.
If her parents were murdered, Vivian would spend the rest of her life knowing she could have accepted Wim and prevented their deaths. She would have to live with that knowledge forever.
When Wim returned the next day, he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Instead, he turned his attention to Luz, who listened patiently to him.
Vivian was relieved and grateful to her friend for providing a buffer.
Luz led Wim out to the courtyard, where he spoke with a furrowed brow, droning in an endless monologue.
She couldn’t have accepted him, she told herself. She would have been miserable. For years.
Vivian touched the spot at her throat where Max Rinaldi’s shank had pierced her skin.
Had he killed Evie with that weapon? Or had he simply used his stronger muscles to overpower her and choked the life from her with nothing but his bare hands?
Evie had been thin from years of malnutrition.
Frail. Like Vivian before she’d left for Mars.
She remembered what Shiloh had said. It’s easier if you don’t fight back. With the blade at her throat and Max Rinaldi’s bulky, well-fed body pressed against hers, she’d been rigid with terror. It hadn’t even occurred to her to attempt to fight. If she’d tried, she’d be dead.
Like Evie.
A knock at the front door startled Vivian out of her dark thoughts.
Vivian opened it to find Silas, dressed in a full soldier’s uniform, his hat pressed to his chest. He gave her a slow, lazy smile that made Vivian’s heart speed up.
This is what she needed. A handsome gentleman soldier to distract her. Someone not on Wim’s approved list.
“How did you get over the walls?” she hissed, stifling an unexpected girlish giggle and pulling him inside. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Called in a few favors.” He reached out a hand to cup her cheek. “Vivian, I can’t get you out of my mind. I had to see you again.”
Vivian leaned into his touch. Silas had come to see her for the pleasure of her company, not for the child she could carry.
Under his admiring gaze, she felt young and carefree.
More like Delilah than herself. What would it be like to be as vivacious as her sister?
To believe falling in love was possible?
“Wim Adair is in the courtyard,” she said. “We can’t let him spot you. Come on.” Vivian led Silas to the only private space available—her bedroom—and shut the door firmly behind her.
Silas’s sapphire eyes sparkled as he looked around the small space. “How very spartan. This room nearly resembles our barracks. I was under the impression Yarrow was treating the Red Mothers like people of importance.”
“I’m not sure Secretary Yarrow and the Intelligence see us as people at all,” Vivian said bitterly. “Just bodies to be dressed up and paraded around until we’re impregnated. I think the Intelligence gave us a shared dorm to encourage us to choose a partner faster.”
Silas closed the curtain on her window. “Will it work?”
“Hardly.” Vivian stretched out her arms to enjoy the feeling of openness. “Living in safety with my sister and a fully stocked kitchen? This house is paradise.”
How could she say such a thing when her parents still lived in their one-room tent in Sumter? Vivian abruptly put her hands down.
Silas picked up one of the charcoal sketches Delilah had left scattered on the bedside table and examined it with a little smile. “There are those of us who believe that the Intelligence should not have such a prominent role in our society.”
Vivian glanced at the ceiling. “Should you say that out loud? Aren’t you worried the Intelligence will overhear you?” Was the Intelligence watching them right now? She gave an involuntary shudder.
Silas shrugged and returned the drawing to the table.
“Why should I care what the Intelligence hears? We do not yet live in a society that blocks all speech.” His eyes glittered.
“I believe the Intelligence is stifling our ability to live as free, independent Martians. The AI was designed by the First Families to protect their offspring by any means necessary, and it cares nothing for the rest of us not born into privilege.”
His attitude toward the Intelligence was so much like Xavier’s. What would Xavier think of his boyhood rival in her bedroom? She pictured his rich dark eyes smoldering with jealousy. A tempting image. She smiled flirtatiously up at Silas. “You’re quite the radical, aren’t you?”
Silas grunted. “Some may think so. But you must already see what it feels like to move within the Martian oligarchy without being part of it. I know they must treat you with condescension and disrespect, the way they’ve always treated me.
And the Intelligence refuses to share this new reproductive tech.
Why should the Founding Families be the only ones able to populate Mars?
Why should they be the only ones with access to the Red Mothers? ”
“Access? You’re here with me now, aren’t you?”
“You know what I mean. The ability to have our own enhanced children.” Silas walked closer to her. “Is it true the partner you select will share your bed?”
“True enough.”
“What a waste. Those stuffy aristocrats will have no idea how to please you.”
“And you do?”
Silas ran a single finger along the line of her jaw. “I do.”
She could believe it. He was handsome enough to have his pick of lovers. She thought, suddenly, of Xavier at the luncheon on her second day on Mars, leaning toward the bartender in that tight-fitting brocade vest. Silas wasn’t the only one who was good-looking enough to attract anyone he wanted.
“Wim warned us to refrain from—from sexual congress.” Vivian ducked her head, torn between curiosity and shyness. Should she tell him to leave? No. This might be her only chance to be with someone outside of Wim’s approved list. Someone who wasn’t interested in her for her womb.
“Did he indeed?” Silas’s voice had gone low. His large hand wrapped around the back of her neck, and his thumb came to rest on the faint scar at her throat.
Vivian looked up at him. She was forever looking up at Martian men. Silas’s eyes were a mischievous azure blue, and his lips looked warm and inviting. He bent his head low and kissed her.
At twenty-two, Vivian had never allowed herself to be alone with a man before.
She’d never been kissed.
Until now.
Silas’s hand gripped the back of her neck as he explored her mouth with his tongue, barely giving Vivian a chance to breathe.
Her head was bent fully backward to accommodate their height difference.
This was how it was supposed to feel, Vivian assured herself.
She wasn’t trapped. As an experiment, Vivian tried to pull away slightly, and Silas tugged her closer against him.
She could get away, if she tried. She could. This was nothing like being pressed against Max Rinaldi. She was stronger than Silas. Her bones were denser. Hadn’t Wim warned her on her first day on Mars that she could crush Martian finger bones with her bare hand?
I’m not trapped.
Silas guided her down onto her bed and moved his lips down her throat to the swell of her breasts. With one hand, he reached up her skirt.
Her skirt.
Vivian’s head spun. Everything was happening so fast.
Don’t let yourself be alone with a man, her mother had told her the day they’d arrived at Sumter. If you get pregnant in here, you will never get out.
The Martians may receive contraceptive implants as teenagers, but no one had offered one to Vivian. Why would they? She was to be a Red Mother and bear the future hope of Mars.
His hand was between her legs now, probing with long, calloused fingers. “You aren’t wet yet,” he muttered, his face tensing, and spit into one hand. “We’ll have to do something about that.” He shoved two fingers deep inside her, and Vivian winced.
Was she supposed to be wet? All she could think about was keeping still. Waiting for it to be over. Remembering shaking under Max Rinaldi’s blade as his big hand cupped her hips to press her bottom tighter against him.
The door burst open. “Viv baby, I need to talk to you.” Vivian looked up to see Luz standing still in the doorway, her face frozen in shock. “Who the hell are you?”
“A thousand pardons,” Silas said, leaping to his feet and adjusting his trousers.
Vivian’s hands were shaking as she sat up and smoothed down her dress.
“You need to leave,” Luz ordered. “Now.”
Silas bowed to them both and grabbed his hat. “Vivian, I— I’ll come back another time.”
Vivian looked up to meet his beautiful blue eyes. Did she want to see him again? Why had she been so cold and disconnected? She’d wanted him too, hadn’t she? At least until it had actually happened.
“No, you won’t.” Luz’s mouth was pinched as she spoke. “Vivian isn’t going to fuck up her future for you. Leave.”
Silas gave Vivian one last look and fled from the room.
“It was nothing—”
Luz held up one hand. “We’re at peak fertility—that’s what Dr. Chavez said. You were really going to throw everything away to fuck some pretty Martian soldier? You’re smarter than this, Viv.”
Vivian winced. “We weren’t going to have sex. I was curious, that’s all.” She touched the back of her neck, where Silas had bent it at an odd angle. What would have happened if Luz hadn’t interrupted them? Would she have found the words to tell him to stop? And would he have listened?
Her hands were still shaking. Could she have gotten pregnant today?
After all the care she’d taken. Stupid. She had just wanted, for a moment, to forget about the fate bearing down upon her.
To just be a young woman spending time with a charming, handsome man.
Why had she assumed Martian men were different from the men at Sumter? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The door opened again, and Delilah walked in. Vivian felt some relief to be spared Luz’s lecture until she caught sight of her sister’s tear-streaked face. “What’s happened? Is it Mom and Dad?”
Her nightmare had come to pass. She’d been too selfish to save them. She should have accepted Wim’s offer when she had the chance.
“Caspian sent me a letter.” Delilah brandished a sheet of paper the same cream color as the brief note that had accompanied Vivian’s reader.
“He and Ivey have left Arcadia with Xavier and are on their way to visit the far domes. He says that Xavier wants to see his sister who is studying music in another dome.”
“Fucking Xavier,” Vivian muttered, relieved for the chance to replace her muddled mix of emotions with pure anger.
“He found an excuse to take Caspian away from you. He only needs to keep you apart for six weeks.” And maybe he needed to find an excuse to keep himself away, a treacherous part of her mind wondered. She pushed the thought away.
“I didn’t—Vivian, I … I didn’t think I cared. I have so many suitors.” She sank down beside Vivian on her bed. “Why does it hurt so much for one to leave me?”
Vivian tucked a lock of hair behind her sister’s ear. “I’m sorry.”
“I should have told him that he was the one I wanted. I should have made him feel special. I thought—” Delilah hiccupped. “I thought he’d be waiting for me when I was ready.”
Still standing, Luz crossed her arms. “You both need to cut the crap. Pick someone. Anyone. Do it as soon as our eggs are harvested. There’s no reason to draw this out.”
“I haven’t seen you pick anyone,” Delilah shot back. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Luz had an odd look on her face as she replied, “Watch me.”