Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) (17 page)

Juvengamy.

It
was the sacrifice demanded of all the Brotherhood’s members. Now he understood
why it was so illegal.

But
worst of all, Amber’s father was an honored member like Casler, of pure
juvengamy blood and close to the potentate.

Which
meant
what
for Amber?

While
he drove home, the last sliver of sunlight smoldered behind a storm cloud,
withering away to nothing—like his dwindling hope that she would be okay.

Once
again, Aaron counted down the hours until he could see her. From his room, he
watched the trees darken across the street, denied a sunset as rain clouds
blackened the sky prematurely.

By
midnight, though, the storm had blown south. After an evening of overcast sky,
the stars were teasingly bright. Aaron parked on Loma Sierra drive and leapt
from his Mazda, and Amber appeared in his arms. Her silken hair swirled around
them.

Holding
her was euphoria. The cool feel of her skin and the hot, summery smell floating
off her body was enough to make his head spin. But best of all, she was safe.
For now. 

 “If
you kept me waiting thirty more seconds,” she whispered, “I would have left.”

“With
who?” said Aaron. “Your other boyfriend?”

She
gave him a slow, teasing smile. “Who said you were my boyfriend?”

Aaron
winked and deposited her in the passenger seat. “I have a surprise for you,” he
said. “Buckle up.”

“Where
are we going?” she said.

“You’ll
love it, buttercup.”

She
glared at him. “If you call me buttercup one more time, you lose all boyfriend
privileges.”

“Oh,
so I
am
your boyfriend?” he said.

“No.”

“Right . . . ”
Aaron felt a smile tugging at his lips. “I just have the privileges.”

Instead
of driving back down the ridge, he took them farther up Loma Sierra drive. The
street narrowed, and they flew around corners, blew through stop signs. He
yanked the wheel and they spun onto Gibraltar road—the same road they would
take to the Chamber of Halves on their birthdays.

For
a moment, they glimpsed the Chamber between two peaks, white adobe towers
drenched in floodlights, before they streaked out of view. Almost
imperceptibly, they both tensed.

Aaron
downshifted and carved his Mazda around switchbacks. As he shifted gears, Amber
played with her hair and stared out the window. He floored it after the
corners, burnt rubber, and sank the RPM needle deep into the redline. The
engine screamed. 

 “You
drive like Dominic,” she said, taking her eyes off the window.

Aaron
smirked, overly aware of her gaze, and jammed the stick into third on a
straightaway. “The road’s familiar.”

He
veered off the pavement and skidded to a stop, his headlights illuminating a
patch of grass at the edge of a cliff. His door swung open.

“That
was close,” she said

“Nah,
we had a few feet.” He got out and circled to her side to help her out. “Now close
your eyes.”

She
was completely trusting as Aaron led her forward. He held her waist and stood
her at the edge of the cliff.

“There,”
he said, and when she opened her eyes, she gasped and squeezed his hands.

From
the cliff, they could see the entire valley, the harbor, the islands—a hundred
and eighty degrees of moonlit Tularosa. The sea glittered in the moon’s violet
wake. Silver rain clouds billowed on the horizon. The city lights shimmered
below them.

While
Amber took in the view, Aaron unloaded a blanket from his trunk and spread it
out on the grass. He lay on his back and waited for her to join him.

A
breeze rustled the grass, infusing the air with the smell of sage, and a moment
later, she lay back on the blanket next to him, shivering. He hugged her until she
was warm. They watched the vast, calming reach of the constellations.

But
tonight, solace evaded him.

“Have
you ever wondered why halves exist at all?” said Amber. “I mean, why we’re even
entangled in the first place?”

“That’s
all I used to think about,” he said. “Stuff like that gets to you when doctors tell
you something’s wrong with your half. You drive yourself crazy asking why this
and why that . . . and why
me
.” The stars winked out as a line of dark birds
passed overhead.

She
squeezed closer to him. “What do you think it is?”

“Maybe
something out there.” He nodded to the sky. “ . . . or maybe we caused it.”

 “Do
you think there’s a loophole?”

“I
think we’re missing something obvious. Like why don’t animals have halves?” he
said. “There’s a simple answer . . . I
know
there’s a simple answer.”

“You
just reminded me of this quote I really like,” she said. “‘The task is not to
see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought about
that which everybody sees.’”

“Who
said that?”

“I
think it was Schrödinger.”

“Nice.
I thought you hated the guy.”

“I’m
not against halves; it’s what we chose to do with it that scares me.”

“Like
juvengamy?”

Amber
propped herself up on her elbow, then leaned in and kissed him. Her hair
shimmered against the stars, translucent. “Can we not talk about that?” she
said.

Aaron
spotted a light moving against the stars—an orbiting satellite—and waited until
it winked out before he responded. “Tell me about your dad.”

“He
thinks I’m with Clive,” she said.

“Wow,
I bet Clive’s got it easy,” said Aaron.

“I
already told you, he’s a family friend,” she said.

 “Since
when?” he said. “Since he joined the Juvengamy Brotherhood?”

She
sighed and rolled onto her back. “Are we
really
getting into this?”

“When
did your dad join?” said Aaron, taking his attention off the sky to look at
her. “Or was he born into it? Were you
ever
going to tell me?”

***

His
accusation didn’t surprise her, but it still stung. He didn’t trust her. Amber
closed her eyes, wishing they could just rewind. “Would you have told me?” she
said. “If it was your parents?”

“But
it’s not my parents,” he said.

“So
why do you care?” she said.

He
propped himself up, and moonlight revealed the concern in his eyes. “Is your
mom like the rest of them?” he said. “Is she hollow like—?”

“It’s
not like that for my parents,” Amber said quickly, not wanting to hear the rest
of his description. “It hurt their channel, but at least they both got the same
amount of clairvoyance. They’re normal, they just can’t stand each other.”

“Why
would anyone think juvengamy is a good idea?” said Aaron.

“I
don’t know,” she said, “why would anyone think meeting at eighteen is a good
idea?”

“Because
it doesn’t permanently damage you.”

Amber
felt her body tense up. “They don’t think of it as damage,” she said.

“Then
what is it?”

“The
natural form of halves,” she said, and after a pause, added, “and a sacrifice
for the potentate.”

“That’s
sick,” said Aaron.

Amber
glared at him. “Can we drop this?”

“How
do they get away with it?” he said. “It’s illegal.”

“There’s
more of us than you think,” she said. “The United States Ambassador to the
Chamber of Halves was a juvengamy baby, so are some of the Ambassadors from
other countries.”

“Jesus,
how long has this been going on?”

“As
long as everything else,” she said. “The Brotherhood was founded the same year
Schrödinger discovered halves.”

“By
who?”

“I
don’t know, Aaron. He was the Chancellor of Germany at the time . . . someone named
Adolph Hitler.”

“Never
heard of him.”

“Because
he disappeared.”

“And
what about you?” said Aaron. “How do you fit into all this?”

Amber
sighed. “Do I have to tell you everything about my life?” she said.

“Do
you tell me
anything?
”

“Why
should I?” she said, holding his gaze. “You hardly know me.”

For
a long time, he stared back at her, his eyes dark and cryptic. “Well it might
have occurred to you,” he said, “sometime after you kissed me and before you
started wishing I was your half.”

His
words hurt more than she expected. She swiveled away from him and let her hair
fall between them, hiding her face. “Actually, Aaron, you kissed me.”

“Want
to know what else?” he said, “I wish you were my half,
too.”

Her
heart fluttered, suddenly in free-fall, and she forgot she was even irritated
with him. If he wanted her to be his half—and she
definitely
wanted him
to be hers—then nothing else mattered. “That’s kind of nice to know,” she said,
catching his eye again.

He
shook his head. “I’m sorry I said that.”

“I’m
not,” she said.

After
a silence, he lifted his gaze to hers. “I meant to ask you, what’s the deal
with Clive? I heard last night there’s something screwed up with his half. Like
he doesn’t have one.”

“I
don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t there . . .
obviously.
”

“You
still think he’s your half?”

“I
only thought that because my parents and their friends said he was,” she said.
“They’ve been saying it for years. They’re wrong, though.”

“What
changed your mind?” he said.

“They
have to be wrong,” she said, “because I think . . . ” she lowered her eyes, and her
heartbeat climbed to a blur when she realized what she was about to say.
“because I think I’m falling for you.”

There,
she had said it. She peeked at his face, her pulse refusing to slow as she
waited for him to drag her down and kiss her passionately. For a moment, the
night retreated from his eyes and left them unguarded, he was
hers
—before
darkness rushed back in and made him more inaccessible than ever. He sat up,
and she saw guilt burning behind his pupils.

“Take
that back,” he whispered.

Amber
felt her heart go still. “But it’s true,” she said, “we’re only supposed to be
able to love one person, right?”

“Yeah,
so take it back. It’s not me.”

Now
she glared at him. “Then who the fuck do you think it is, Aaron?”

Aaron
tried to stroke her hair, but she wriggled away from him and he gave up.
“Look,” he said, his voice hollow, “my clairvoyant channel is supposed to
collapse when I meet my half. It didn’t collapse when I met you. In fact, it
doesn’t even hurt right now. Amber, I’m fighting not to fall in love with you
because you can’t possibly be my half. I’d probably be screaming in agony right
now if you were.”

***

The
following morning, Aaron woke to the gong from the Chamber of Halves. The air
was damp and yeasty, and beads of sweat clung to his forehead like leeches.

As
he watched, a bluish hue crept along the dark horizon. It was six in the
morning; he was due at the Chamber in twenty-nine hours.

Aaron
rolled onto his side, and Amber’s warm scent floated up from his bed. It had
rubbed into his pores and rubbed off on his sheets—and then he remembered the
previous night, how much he’d hurt her. He groaned and buried is face in his
comforter.

Supposing
Amber was right, though. Supposing they
were
halves. Everything would
make sense that way. Doctors were pessimists; it shouldn’t come as a surprise
if they had falsely predicted the collapse of his channel when, in fact,
nothing had happened.

 Aaron
closed his eyes, and for the dozenth time, he performed the calculation in his
head. With a hundred thousand people in Tularosa, there couldn’t be more than a
few thousand seventeen year olds—merely a dozen of whom turned eighteen this
Saturday. A few boys and a few girls. In reality, if Aaron and Amber were
halves, their odds of finding each other were even higher. Clairvoyance brought
halves
together like magnets.

But
the blue haze of dawn pried his eyelids apart. He already knew how it ended. He
had known since his first nauseating sniff of the sterile, bleached insides of
an MRI machine. He didn’t get to have Amber. His channel wouldn’t allow it.

Yet
hope still leaked into his blood stream, itching in places he couldn’t scratch.
And he knew he had to see her again tonight, in case it wasn’t their last night
together.

And,
in case it was.

***

At 6:25 that evening,
Amber waited for Aaron with Tina and Buff outside the gate into Pueblo’s rugby
stadium. Sunlight slanted through the trees and tinted their faces orange.
Amber had meant to keep her previous night with Aaron to herself, but she was
on the verge of tears and Tina had no trouble prying it out of her. She was
getting worse and worse at hiding her feelings.