Catalyst (7 page)

Try

/ˈ
trī/

verb

1. to make an effort to do something
   
2. to attempt to accomplish or complete something
   
3. to do or use (something) in order to see if it works or will be successful
   
4. to do or use (something) in order to find out if you like it
   

I WOKE FEELING
rested, blinking against soft shafts of pale yellow light filtering in through the wide window in my bedroom. Stretching my arms over my head, I sat up and caught movement from the corner of my eye. I opened my mouth to scream, gathering the blankets against my body and scooting backward into the headboard.

My heart had already screamed intruder. But when I saw the light catch the tiny circle of metal on his collar, I knew it was Mitis. What was he doing in my room? I clutched the blankets tight against my chest.

His head was tilted backward at an awkward angle and he snored lightly. How long had he slept in that position? He was going to be stiff when he woke up. I needed to run to the bathroom and get ready. Today was the day! We would start marking things off my list. I threw the covers back and planted my feet on the wooden floor before tip-toeing toward my dresser.

“Where are you going?” he rasped, freezing me mid-stride. I’m glad “become a ninja,” hadn’t made the final twenty items. I made my way to my dresser and grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt. Turning toward Mitis, I just smiled and pointed toward the open bathroom door. He smiled back and stretched his arms above his head, groaning, cracking his neck to the left then right. The sound made me grit my teeth.

“How long did you sleep here this morning?” I asked stepping into the bathroom and easing the door closed behind me. He never answered. I used the bathroom and brushed my teeth before quickly dressing and trying to comb through the tangled mess that was my hair. Eventually, I gave up and threw it up in a messy bun.

Stepping out into the bedroom, I began to ask him again, “How long did you—“

“I heard you the first time, Seven. I slept here all night.” My mouth was gaping open. He grinned and then lowered his voice. “I didn’t want you to be sick and not have someone to help you.”

That was sweet but unnecessary. “I would have been fine. I can take care of myself.”

He nodded and stood up, stretching his back. “I know. I just….you know what? Let’s get started on your list.”

“Do you need breakfast?” I asked him.

“Do you?”

I shook my head. If I ate, the chances were high that I would be sick. I didn’t want to spend my days in bed anymore. A slow nod and understanding look. Those are what he gave me before running to the bathroom himself.

“There are toothbrushes and stuff beneath the sink!” I yelled.

“Found them last night.”

Of course he did. I pulled a pair of pristine red tennis shoes on as he came out of the bathroom looking like every girl’s fantasy. Water was beaded on the skin of his face and arms. His cropped hair was even wet. He hadn’t even showered, just washed off and holy hell…

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah. I just need a sweater.”

He blinked but waited for me to grab a light blue one from my closet and shrug it on over my navy T-shirt. I blew out a breath and smiled at him. “I’m ready.”

He patted his pocket. “I’ve got your list.”

I giggled. “I have it memorized.”

“So do I,” he replied, sincerely. “But it’s fun to mark things off—visualize the progress.”

We made our way down the stairs and into the sitting room when two voices caught my attention.

Sonnet and Aric were arguing about something, standing rigidly across from one another. Sonnet’s arms were crossed and Aric ran frustrated hands through his hair.

“Is everything okay?” I looked between the pair, who had paused their fight in lieu of propriety.

Sonnet seethed. “We are fine, Seven.”

She looked back at Aric, but he was staring at me…no, he was staring beyond me. I looked up behind me. Mitis was perched on the step above mine.

“Is this your companion, Seven?” Aric asked in his deep voice. Aric was beautiful, if boys could be that. He wasn’t rugged and dangerous looking like Mitis, but had more of a boy-next-door look to him: chestnut hair that curled at his nape, and eyes that were a deep blue-gray.

“Yes. This is Mitis.” Stepping into the room, I motioned for Mitis to follow. Aric extended his hand first, but his expression was cold and closed-off. It was very unlike him.

Where Sonnet was terrible most of the time, Aric was usually very warm and friendly. I remembered, when I attended school like other kids and teens in Confidence, that he was smart and kind. He would often go out of his way to help tutor others, to carry items for teachers. He even carried my books and Sonnet’s when we would walk to and from school together. I assumed he still carried hers.

They started dating shortly after the physicians recommended that I stay home from school for a while and rest, to try to get better. Only I hadn’t ever gotten better. I’d gotten worse, every day losing a little more of my strength, of myself. Before that day, I thought he liked me—as more than just his friend.

Looking at Mitis and Aric was awkward. Mitis was obviously strong but not overly muscular, like his friend Cason. Aric was tall and still muscled, just in a slighter way. The two sized each other up.

Sonnet snorted, drawing their attention to herself as usual. “Nice collar.”

Mitis’s face turned red, not in embarrassment but anger. The warmth in my cheeks told me that we matched. I wanted to slap her big, fat mouth.

“It was nice to meet you, Mitis. Nice to see you, Seven. I’m out of here,” he said to Sonnet as he brushed past and made his way to the front door.

“We’re leaving, too,” I announced to my slack-jawed sister.

She recovered with a smirk. “Where are
you
going?”

“None of your business.”

I grabbed Mitis by the hand and pulled him out the front door. Aric hadn’t made it far and was pacing at the end of the drive.

I looked at Mitis, who only shrugged. “Um, Aric? Is everything okay?”

He looked surprised to see us approaching. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. What are you doing outside?” he smiled.

“I’m going to show Mitis around the city. Well, I guess I’m going to show myself around the city, too. I haven’t ventured far.”

Aric smiled and grabbed one of my hands. “Enjoy yourself. Do you need an escort?”

“Um, no. Thank you, that’s…sweet. But Mitis is with me. He’s my companion so he can escort me.”

Aric released my hand as I tugged it away from him, he whispered, “You don’t know him.” Aric’s words were true and came from a good place, a place of concern. I didn’t know Mitis. But I trusted him. I could trust him. I felt it in my gut. Mitis was a good guy.

I smiled. “I know him well enough to know he’ll watch out for me. Don’t worry about me, Aric.” I looked back toward the house. “You have enough to deal with.”

He frowned. “Yeah. I’ll see you later, Seven. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

Mitis and I watched as Aric walked away, down the sidewalk that lined our street toward his enormous estate.

When he was out of earshot, Mitis smirked and nudged me with his shoulder. “He likes you.”

“Yeah, he’s nice.”

Mitis chuckled. “No, I mean, he wants you—much more than he’ll ever want your sister.”

I gasped. “What? No way. They’ve been together forever.”

“Maybe. But I know hunger when I see it, and his stomach wasn’t growling, Seven.”

I cleared my throat and shifted the weight from tippy toe to heel and back a few times, my fists were in my pockets gripping the soft, cotton linings for dear life. Could it be true? I couldn’t imagine it, but Aric was wound up today. Maybe Sonnet had just made him mad. She was very good at that.

“So…” I glanced at him. “What’s first on the agenda?”

“Follow me.” He extended his hand, and I placed mine in it. We took off in the opposite direction that Aric had walked. I could not stop giggling. This was going to be epic.

Wall

/wôl/

noun

1. a continuous vertical brick or stone structure that encloses or divides an area of land.
   Synonyms: barrier, partition, enclosure, screen, panel, divider
   

verb

1. enclose (an area) within walls, especially to protect it or lend it some privacy.
   Synonyms: enclose, bound, encircle, confine, hem, close in, shut in, fence in
   

SEVEN’S HAND WAS
tiny and cold, but clammy. Or maybe the moisture came from my own. I wasn’t sure. The first item we were going to cross off might be risky for me, but what wasn’t. Scrubs weren’t exactly respected around here. I was going to rely on her status to get us out of trouble, but we might have to employ her sweet smile and womanly wiles, too.

I walked a couple of steps behind just to admire those wiles for a second. When I jogged up to meet her, she giggled and looked quizzically at me. Time to hurry things along a little.

Taking the sidewalks would take too long. We had a long day ahead of us, and she hadn’t eaten. She didn’t want to be sick, but even if she ignored the loud growls her stomach made, she would weaken over time. I didn’t want to risk having her faint while we walked along the top of the wall. So I tugged her through yards and alleyways. She lived close to our destination. We just had to find an access ladder. They were made of steel, painted bright red and set into the concrete of the wall itself.

Past trees, bushes, and outbuildings, we made our way. And then we walked right beside it until we came across a ladder. “I’ll go up first and check it out.”

Scaling the steel before she could cock her hip and cross her arms, I saw that it was solid and sturdy. It was tall, at least twenty feet and three feet wide at the top. We would have plenty of room walking single file.

“Come on up, Seven. It’s fine.”

She huffed but began to climb, and when she reached for me, I grabbed her elbow and spotted her. I didn’t miss the trembling of her arms. “You okay?”

She smiled and looked at me. “Yeah. Just…heights.”

I laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re afraid of heights and put this on your list?”

Seven poked her finger into my chest. “Absolutely. Now, are you going to stand there looking stupid or are we going to go for a walk?”

“Looking stupid?”

She smiled. “Yep.” With her finger, she flipped the ring on my collar. My eyes narrowed.

“That was low.”

She just grinned and used her hands to turn my shoulders around. “March, Mitis.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I chuckled.

Atop the inner wall, we walked around the Elite section where lawns were carefully cut with mowers and their bushes were hand-trimmed by workers wielding enormous scissors. Most of the homes were made of brick or stone. Their roofs didn’t leak. Their shutters didn’t need to be painted and weren’t hanging askew. Their yards were watered by tiny machines that squirted water in a circle, not from bringing buckets of water up from a nearby creek.

I realized just how differently the haves lived from the have-nots. And at that moment I realized that I never wanted Seven to see where I’d come from. She would never understand.

“I never knew there were two walls,” she admitted from behind me.

“Neither did I. From the outside, you can only see one.”

Seven grinned. “It’s the same from the inside.”

For most of the morning, Seven was quiet, just taking in everything, enjoying every terrifying step forward along the wall and around the city. She would occasionally sigh and when I glanced back at her, catching her smiling at things as simple as blue bird nesting in the crook of a tree nearby, she’d just whirl her finger at me, silently telling me to turn back around.

When I entered the companion program, I never dreamed I’d end up here, walking around the city wall with a twig of a girl who was starting to drive me crazy—in a good way.

We walked out of the Elite section and into Midtown. It was where everything else was located, including City Center, a large outcropping of sky-scraping buildings located in the epicenter of Confidence. “I want to go there one day soon,” Seven declared, staring at the tall concrete rectangles that jutted defiantly into the sky.

“You’ve never been?”

“No. I mean, my parents have a condo, but we’ve never visited.”

I wanted to shake her, to tell her it wasn’t normal or right how they treated her. “Has Sonnet been?”

They treated her sister completely differently.

She frowned and turned her face to me. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, though.”

“You aren’t close. Why the animosity between the two of you?”

Seven fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “You know, I’m not sure. It’s always been there, though. Even as children we fought.” She paused and then fired back a question that I wasn’t prepared to answer.

“Were you close with your brother?”

“Yeah,” the word came out before I’d thought of her question. But now that it was out there, I wanted to tell her for some reason. “We were close. We were best friends. Other than Cason, he was my only friend.”

“Cason is the guy who entered the companion program with you. Number nine, right?”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat.

She glanced up at me and then back down at the earth below us. “Why did you
both
enter?”

No way was I telling her what I was doing here. “We both have our reasons.”

She smiled slightly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. And just like that, it was like I had shoved a wall in place between the two of us. It was for the best. I was going to hurt her, and I would do it on purpose and without remorse.

“Let’s keep going. You’re burning up,” she tried to smile and cover her disappointment, or maybe it was embarrassment. I hated that I had put it there, but Griffin’s death would be avenged, even if it meant killing whatever this was between us. Friendship? I didn’t know. It was something.

I was sweating like a pig, but she never broke a sweat, even in her long sleeves, sweater and pants. If I touched her hand, it would have been cold.

“Are you feeling okay?” I questioned.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Seven wouldn’t have told me if she weren’t. She was hell bent on walking all the way around the city today. I’d started this, so I’d see her through it. Marching along the wall in silence, we watched the houses and homes pass by to our left. To our right, the woodland thin into fields of hay. I knew what lay beyond—knee-deep swamp water, Spanish moss that blew in the wind like the beard of an old man, and home…Griffin.

I let my thoughts wander to him. When we were half way around, we came upon a large lake, just within the wall. It was wide, and the water in it was clear and dark blue. “It’s amazing!” Seven exclaimed. The sun danced on its placid surface, in tiny waves of shimmer that seemed to excite her in a way I didn’t understand.

Confidence was larger than I thought. The sun was straight above us. It had taken a couple of hours to make it this far, about a quarter of the way around the city. Of course, we weren’t running, just taking our time. But it was still big.

We made our way around the lake and at the other side, following the sounds of laughter and splashing. I squinted, looking ahead. “There’s a beach,” I told her.

“Yeah. I’ve never been, but Sonnet goes there pretty often. She’s probably there by now.”

“Do you want to go take a look?” I asked, trying to get a read on her. She swallowed looking at the beach longingly. She couldn’t let Sonnet define her actions, so I pushed a little. “Let’s just go look for a second. We can climb back up in a few. I need a break, Seven.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. You’re in better shape than anyone I know.”

A slow smile spread over my lips. “You been looking, baby girl?”

I expected a smart retort, but that wasn’t what she gave me. Her cheeks turned pink. She looked away, trying to find the nearest escape—which happened to be a ladder. When she eased herself down the rungs, I chuckled from above her. She
had
been looking. I’d have been lying if I said that didn’t make me a happy man.