Under the blanket of a thousand stars, Digory leans against the railing, gazing out at the coastline that’s just beyond the entrance to Infiernos. The sparkling ocean is kissed by the shimmering rays of the full moon. Digory’s uniform seems painted on over his broad shoulders and narrow waist; his hair is combed back and glistens like spun gold.
When he notices me, blue dawn blooms in his eyes. His mouth melts into a smile that almost blinds me with its brilliance.
I simmer in his warmth, which is as comforting as a pot of broth on a cold wintry night.
“You clean up nice, Recruit,” he whispers.
“You don’t look too shabby either, Tycho,” I whisper back. “Guess you made a full recovery after our encounter with those Fleshers.”
“Feeling much better … like I could fly right now … ”
I chuckle. “Probably all those enhancers they loaded your blood with in the Bio-Pool.”
He closes the gap between us. His smile disappears, replaced with a look of burning intensity, like comets ripping through the atmosphere. “I don’t think that’s the reason at all.”
The radiance of his eyes … the moon … the stars … overwhelm my senses. I feel lightheaded. “I didn’t see you inside … was wondering where you were … ”
“Sorry. I got tied up. My Incentive … we had a lot to talk about.”
My eyes risk blindness and find his again. “Your family? You’ve seen them?”
He seems surprised. “Why, yes. Haven’t you seen your brother and Mrs. Bledsoe yet?”
The simmer in my blood starts to bubble into panic. The Warricks. The Junipers. Cypress’s twins. And now Digory. Everyone accounted for except Cole and Mrs. Bledsoe. “No. I haven’t seen either of them.” I can feel the color draining away from my face.
“I’m sure they’re okay.” His hands grip my waist and pull me into him. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
I nestle my head against his chest. My ears are filled with the deep sounds of our pounding hearts, beating like a hailstorm until they synch into one strong, steady rhythm.
“I’m scared, Digory. And not just for them … the others too. Cypress, Gideon, Ophelia. I saw them inside, with their families … it hit me just how real this all is … how much they’ve all suffered … everyone … it’s just like you told me when we first met, but I was too wrapped up in my own situation to see it … it has to end … ”
“It will. But we have to be strong.” He tilts my head up with a delicate touch of a finger on my chin. “No matter what.”
My heartbeat ratchets ahead, leaving his trailing like its shadow. “What do you mean?”
“Please. Let’s just have this one moment, just you and me, no one else … one moment where we don’t talk about any of that … where none of it exists.” He pulls me close again and nuzzles his head against my collar. “Where we can pretend tomorrow is a lifetime away … ” His voice is burdened with a deep emotion that I haven’t heard before, and it makes me wonder just how much he’s been bottling up inside.
For the first time, I feel that it’s him who needs me.
I clasp my hands around his back. We start to sway.
He sighs against me. “Our first dance … ” His breath is warm and soothing against my neck.
I laugh. “All that’s missing is the music.”
His lips graze my ear and it’s like fireflies are buzzing around my heart. “If you close your mind to everything else and listen, you can hear it.”
My eyelids sag, giving way to the hypnotic lilt of his voice. The only time that exists is now. Nothing before, nothing after.
Soon the night’s a symphony: our hearts beating like percussion in time with the chirping crickets, the wind whistling through the trees, the branches twanging as they bend in the wind’s wake, the pounding surf crashing onto the shore like powerful cymbals …
We spin around the terrace, our cheeks pressed against each other, holding onto each other so tight I can’t tell where I end and he begins. Soon I’ve lost track of how much time’s passed. All I know is that I don’t want it to ever end …
But it has to. This is much bigger than Digory and me. Bigger than our families. It’s about the right to live … the right to dream … the right to hope …
To have a future to look forward to.
Our dance slows to barely a sway, and finally we’re just standing still. When I open my eyes, he’s staring at me, his face a mask of sadness as if he’s read my mind. We stay like that for a few minutes, drinking each other in like men dying of thirst, not knowing when or if another sip will ever come.
He caresses my cheek. “Thank you.”
“What’re you doing out here with me? Shouldn’t you be inside with your family?”
Now it’s him that looks away. “I needed a few minutes to myself. To clear my head.” His eyes connect with mine again. “There’s so much I wanted to say to you … I needed to say to you … before … ”
“Before what?”
“Before the Trials.”
My blood cools to lukewarm. All this time Digory’s avoided talking about his family, who his Incentives even are, although he risked everything in being open with me about his involvement with the resistance-to the point where it put him in this mess right alongside me. My muscles twitch. As curious as I am to know what he’s been holding back, there’s a part of me that’s afraid to know what secret could possibly be darker than treason against the Establishment. I’m not sure I can handle whatever it is he has to say, especially when I’m running out of things and people to believe in.
His fingers interlace with mine and he leans in close. “You’re going to hear certain things tonight, but you have to trust me.”
The sound of my heart spatters through my ears like raindrops kerplunking off the gutters back home. Every second of wondering is a prolonged agony.
“Just tell me,” I whisper.
The doors to the terrace burst open. “You two. Get inside,” Slade grumbles from the threshold. “Ceremony’s about to start.”
“But I haven’t seen my brother or Mrs. Bledsoe yet.” I take a step toward her. “Where are they?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” She avoids my gaze, fixing her eyes on Digory instead. “Your husband’s been looking for you.” Then she pivots on her boots and disappears inside.
Husband?
twenty-one
Digory has someone already? Of course he does. Yet how could he let me think … make me feel …? You’d think after everything that’s happened, I’d be numb to anything else by now. But between my missing family and this latest reveal, why does it feel like my heart’s been shoved into a grinder and sliced into thousands of bloody clumps?
My fingers slip away from Digory’s. “Your spouse is one of your Incentives.” My voice sounds foreign, as if it doesn’t belong to me.
He reaches for me, but I pull away. “Lucian, you don’t understand-”
I swipe a hand across my eyes. I’m boiling over with pain and I want to scald him, too. “You don’t owe me an explanation. Especially after what I did to you.”
Confusion clouds the stars from his eyes. “What you did to me?”
“You honestly don’t believe it’s a coincidence that we both got recruited, do you?”
He takes a step toward me and I back away. “What are you talking about?”
“Cassius had you recruited because he heard about what you were involved in back at the Parish-from my own lips.”
And though it’s technically true, my not mentioning the part where Cassius planted the transmitting device on me paints a whole different picture.
My words are like a brand that sears his face. Instantly, I regret what I’ve said, but the damage is done. His stance goes rigid. The muscles in his jaw and cheeks stiffen. “I trusted you.”