Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) (36 page)

“He’s dead, fuckface,
they took his body.”

“Who took it?”

“It was that guy we
met. The Brotherhood’s not going to be happy about losing Dr. Selavio
and
their heir, trust me.”

“What guy we met?” said
Aaron. “Quit sidestepping and spit it out.”

“Chill. It was that priest,”
said Dominic. “Dravin, I think.”

The curtain rustled, and
Buff squeezed into the room, followed by Tina.

“Friends and family
only,” Dominic muttered.

Buff walked past him
and elbowed him in the head. “Whoops.”

Dominic spun, grabbed
Buff’s collar, and had his fist cocked behind him when Amber stirred.

Her eyelashes
fluttered. Everyone held their breath. A nurse entered to check her vitals. He
paused and watched her too.

Amber’s eyes opened.
She sat up, blinked, and stared around at her visitors.

Aaron bit his lip so
hard he drew blood. His heart thundered against his eardrums, making him wince
with every beat.

“Amber,” he said, “are
you—are you—”

Then she wrapped her
hands around his neck, leaned forward, and gave him a long, passionate kiss on
the mouth. Right in front of everybody. His lips caught fire.

The nurse did a double
take, checked his clipboard, then stood awkwardly in the corner—because he was
witnessing a girl kiss a boy who was not her half.

Amber pulled her head
back, and Aaron had to catch his jaw. Her green eyes sparkled as if illuminated
from behind. Aaron’s body felt weak and jittery, his lungs like they were
filled with helium. Relief.

“Did I answer your
question?” she said.

“No, I think you need
to kiss me again,” he said.

“In your dreams.” Amber
glanced up at the four other people crammed into her room watching them, and
she blushed furiously.

Almost as if she
couldn’t feel the hole. Aaron caught Buff’s eye, and his friend understood.

“Well, I better get off
to the fields,” Buff said loudly. “Cal trains year-round.”

“Go back to Junior
League Rugby,” said Dominic, following Tina and the nurse into the hall.

Once they were alone,
Amber locked eyes with Aaron. “So . . . neither one of us has a half,” she said.
“Does that mean . . . ”

“No idea,” he said, his
heart still in free-fall at the mere sight her—right now, a mess of tousled
hair and big bright eyes.

She bit her lip,
clearly deep in thought. “Hang on,” she said. “Kiss me again.”

Aaron kissed her, and
he realized she no longer felt forbidden. Her skin felt divine, charged. Just
touching her stole his breath, scalded his nerves, almost like—

Of course! He pulled
back, just as Amber’s eyes brightened with the same realization.

“How?” was all she said,
her jaw suspended.

“Casler unblocked my
channel!” he said. “It was supposed to kill me, but the machine severed your
channel too. We were two loose ends; we must have snapped together.”

Amber stared at him.
“So we’re—”

“Yes,” he said. “We
are.”

“You mean, you and I,
we’re actually . . . ” she trailed off, unable to form the words. “I want you to say
it.”

“Amber, we’re
halves . . . just like we’re supposed to be.”

It was obvious now. He
could feel her weighing down his heart, how close she was. He wanted to leap into
her body, memorize her. He saw it in her eyes too—her desperation to close the
gap between them. To make up for eighteen years apart.

They were two halves of
the same soul.

Plus 3
Months

“Buddy, just lift it from the back,” said Buff.

“No way—” Aaron’s
golden arms flexed against the solid brass. “You got to pull from the front.”

Aaron collapsed, pulled
off his goggles, and wiped his forehead. He gasped for breath.
The sun kissed the tops of their heads.

He grinned and high
fived his best friend.

Behind them, the
Bermuda surf was already washing away the deep gouge they had left in the sand.

Buff peered at him over
the top of the corroded brass eyepiece. “Let’s go down and get the rest of the
treasure.”

“Give me a minute,”
said Aaron.

Aaron
gazed at a cluster of
palm trees. They had grown right up to the water’s edge. Some fallen coconuts
floated in the shady shallows beneath them. Beyond the palms, the white
shoreline curved out of sight on its way around the tiny island.

Their
28-foot sailboat,
Endless Honeymoon
, was just visible around the bend—a
wedding gift meant for Amber and Clive that she had managed to hold on to.

Buff’s half,
Daisy,
scampered out of the jungle. The little redhead hardly made it up to Buff’s
biceps.

“That is
so
cool!
What’d you guys find?” she said.

Buff picked her up with
one arm. She giggled and tried to escape.

“Buddy, care to explain
our find?” said Buff

“It’s an aitherscope,
probably eighty years old,” said Aaron, beaming at them. “We found it in the
wreck.”

“Aitherscopes didn’t
exist eighty years ago,” she said.

“Yeah, Buddy, don’t you
remember that lecture?” Buff dropped her in the sand, flicked some sludge off
the eyepiece and pressed his eye to the lens. “I wonder . . . ”

“Buff, there’s no way—”

“Yep. Still works,”
said Buff.

Daisy looked through
next, and her eyes widened. “Buffy, it’s your
eye
!”

Buff turned the color
of a ripe plum and tackled her onto the beach.

Buffy.

Aaron had to hold his
nose to stop from cracking up. He tried the aitherscope after Daisy, while the
two of them rolled around on the sand. It didn’t hurt anymore, not like it used
to.

Static.

“Still
nothing,” he muttered.

Then somebody jumped at
him from behind. He spun and caught her, and she tossed wet blonde hair out of
her eyes and kissed him with salty lips.

“Want
to see what I got you?” Amber whispered in his ear, still panting from her
dive. She leaned over, exposing her glistening back, and half of a faint white
spiral
caught
the sunlight under her bikini top.

Even though Clive was dead,
the scar hadn’t fully healed. It was now a permanent reminder to both of them
of how close she had come—and how they weren’t like other halves. They had
earned the right to love each other, and for that, every second they spent
together was precious.

Amber held out a
starfish for him. “Isn’t she cute?”

Aaron glanced between
Amber and the starfish. “I do see the resemblance.”

“Oh, do you?” She
brought out a sea cucumber next. “Well this one looks like you.”

Aaron narrowed his eyes
at the slimy, spotted slug. “Good to know you’re not just with me for my
looks,” he said.

“Actually, it’s mostly
just your looks,” she said with a sly smile. She peered sideways at the
aitherscope. “You know, I haven’t looked through one of these since my birthday.”

She leaned toward the
eyepiece.

And Aaron’s heart
clawed itself into his throat. He grabbed her arm. “Amber, forget it—”

But it was too late.

“Wow,” she said,
blinking into the eyepiece. “Aaron, that isn’t your eye.”

“Whose is it?” he
croaked.

“It’s just static.”

Aaron exhaled his
relief. “Come on,” he said, grinning. “I saw an underwater cave we can
explore.”

Amber wrapped her arms
around him again. “Is it private,” she asked.

“It’s an underwater
cave.”

She bit her lip. “So
really
private?”

“That’s why we’re
exploring.”

The ocean glittered in
her eyes. “Is that
all
we’re going to do?”

***

The first sign that
something was off came late July, when they were back in Tularosa. Aaron sensed
it first. They were walking out of the Arlington Theater, oblivious of the
crowd—when he felt a gentle tugging at the back of his skull.

Then he saw him.

For an instant in a
shop window’s reflection. Across the street, standing in the shadows. A gray
hoodie, pale blue eyes.

Aaron spun, but there
was no one.

Just shadows.

Aaron took a deep
breath and squeezed Amber closer to him. It was only his imagination.

People didn’t live on
after half death.

Only Aaron did that.

THE END

A Message from Dan Rix

It’s my turn to thank you. Whatever it is that
brought you to
Entanglement
, I am honored to have you as a reader. In
asking you to come on this journey, I’ve taken some of your time, and that’s a
debt I won’t forget. My sincere hope is that I’ve given you something in
return. Something to remember and think about. Maybe a little truth.

If I have, then you and I have something in
common—and I want to offer you this challenge: Let’s not part ways.

Because the truth is, you and I co-authored
Entanglement
.
My part was minor; it was you who brought the world to life, you who made the
characters speak, you who stood by them to the end.

I’m asking you to take pride in that. So before
anything else, I need you to do something. Hop on your laptop and give
Entanglement
a review on Amazon. You will make the difference. Do it now, while the story’s
fresh. After you leave a review, come join me at
danrixauthor.blogspot.com
. And let me be a part
of your life.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

Dan Rix

Following the advice of other writers, I kept
this book a secret for four years. At least I thought I did. Right now as I
write this Acknowledgement page and think back on all the names, I am humbled
by the many people who gave me their unquestioning support and encouragement,
and in so doing, gave me my strength. 

Below is a list of
people who had no cause to believe in me, yet did.

I owe my success and
happiness to my beautiful girlfriend, Laura Carlson. She is my constant
inspiration, and this book is a product of her unconditional faith in me. I
also have the good fortune of being in love with the best damn independent
editor in the world. Almost every big breakthrough I had in creating
Entanglement
is a result of her (if you’re a writer, she’s at www.americaneditingservices.com).

I am indebted to my
parents, Ann and Paul, for never teaching me the word “impossible.” Because of
them, going after my dreams is a given, not a wish. They were also my two most
loyal readers throughout.

I need to thank my brother,
Steve, for coining my pen name and for encouraging me to ditch the nine to five
and go after this thing with everything I had. It paid off like he said it
would.

I must thank my friends
Sukhee Basetti and Noah Lehman for reading the book and giving invaluable
feedback. They went above and beyond the call of duty. I have to thank my
friend and roommate of many years, Keith Salvado, for his infectious excitement
for the book. He made me feel like I had an accomplice.

I want to thank Tamra
Carlson, for knowing I would succeed and supporting Laura and me with Costco
runs when money was short. I want to thank Brian and Teresa Carlson (who also
supported us during hard times) for their generosity, and for being proud of me
before I had anything to show.

I want to thank my
former agent, Kim Perel, for her valuable world-building edits that gave the
book the final edge it needed.

I also want to thank
everyone who approached me at the 2012 San Francisco Writers Conference.  Your
words of encouragement and excitement for
Entanglement
(then titled
In
Half
) fuel me to this day. I wish I could thank each of you personally. I
also need to thank everyone on Agent Query who edited my query letter and told
me they couldn’t wait to read the book. I printed out those comments and taped
them up on my wall.

And I want to thank
you. For taking a chance on me, for investing a few days in this book. For
making this all worth it. I hope you enjoyed the story.