Ignition Point (6 page)

How can you even think about this? Go get Meredith and
run
!

The sound of a raised voice brought him out of his reverie, and he lifted his head. Blinking, he looked around. He’d left the building by the rear door that emptied into the wide square with barracks, stable, and storage. He must have turned off into the alleys beside the administration building, because he stood in a narrow passage.

Lucas glanced either way. There was no one. Had he heard a voice? He’d heard his name.

Now there was the sound of frantic, hoarse voices. They pulled him forward. He eased up to the corner of the nearest building and peered around the edge. Two men held a furious, low conversation as they huddled back against the far wall.

One of the men was a Spark. Lucas could see the faint halo of power that hazed out the air around him. Only other Sparks could see it. It was a reminder of Lucas’s difference.

The other man was hidden behind the Spark for several moments. When he finally stepped around the other man, making an emphatic gesture with his hands, Lucas sucked in a breath. Edgar.

The man Lucas’s grandfather had told him was conspiring against them. The man Lucas was meant to punish. Meredith’s father. What was it Grandfather had said?
He is consorting with Sparks.
Lucas’s gaze moved between the two men. They certainly seemed to be conspiring, whispering in a back alleyway.

You asked for a sign
.

Lucas swallowed.

No.

Just as he was about to pull his head back into his own alley and slink away, Lucas heard his name again. This time, there was no question. He listened hard to hear the hoarse words that followed his name.

“—don’t know how you can be sure. I’d
see
it. There’s no sign at all,” the Spark protested.

“I’m telling you, he’s a Spark. I don’t care what the old man says, he’s not going to move against his grandson. Once we have Lucas, we can move. It’s our time.” Edgar’s words were filled with confidence.

Lucas felt a chill.
He knows I’m a Spark. How does he know?

There was only one way—Meredith had told him. Lucas rejected the thought, pushing it whole from his mind. He wouldn’t consider it. He had told her she could not share his secret. He’d told her how important it was. She would never betray him.

There was no sign, merely coincidence. And Lucas was no weapon.

He hurried away from the alley, moving as silently as possible until he was sure he’d not been heard making his escape. Then he ran. He had to see Meredith.

Lucas made a beeline for the Council Administrators’ Housing Area. The three concentric rings of small houses were testimony to the importance and purity of the families that lived within them, just as the immaculate roads and buildings within the walls demonstrated mastery over the wild, lush growth of the rainforest that crept over the old cities outside.

Lucas, newly returned from Zone Six, lived in the family compound at the center. Meredith’s family lived in the first ring surrounding the center. It meant they were, literally, inner circle. Those who lived there were the most trusted of those tasked with assisting Councilor Four. They should have been the most trustworthy.

What do I
do
? How was it I got lost and wound up right there, right then? How did he know about me?

It was too much. Betrayal. Murder. Signs. His future assignment, so far away. And the one thing he wanted, the only thing he wanted for himself, possibly tainted. How did it all get so mixed up?

His mind circled back around to the horror of his most immediate mission.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

He pounded on her door. Meredith opened it, her little sister hovering behind her.

“Hi.” Her round face spread with a broad smile, dimples appearing. The dimples had caught his eye and done him in. Well, the dimples and assets just south. “We’re just about to go—”

“No, no. Come with me.” Lucas reached out and took her hand. “Come with me.” He drew her out after him.

“But where—? What’s wrong?”

“It’s a secret. Just come with me.” He knew that he’d have to do a better job of planning if they were to actually make it away.

He wasn’t a murderer. He couldn’t do what Grandfather wanted. He’d run away to another Zone, hide in plain sight doing whatever it was that Sparks did for a living. He could learn to work a power plant as well as he could learn to be an agent, couldn’t he? If he had to, he could even pretend to be normal. If he didn’t use the Spark—if he never, ever reached out to the Dust—then he’d never show the latent energy-signature that other Sparks could see. No one would ever know what he was, not even another Spark.

They could do it. He just had to convince her. But for now, he needed to know that she’d marry him.

Meredith glanced back over her shoulder at her sister. “Tell Mama that I’ve gone with a friend.”

“A friend?” Her sister’s sing-song question was cut off by the door slamming shut behind Meredith.

He pulled her away from her home, away from the compound at the center of the circle, and toward the Northern gate. He needed to be free of the city, and anyone who might be watching or listening, before he spoke to her.

The closer they came to the gate, the more they had to dodge those on bicycles, horses, and horse-drawn carriages of refashioned old combustion-engine car frames. Unlike in Zone Six, there weren’t electric cars in the mix. Sparks weren’t permitted to own vehicles here in Zone Four, and the Councilor made certain that his upper-level administrators shared his world view. The use of Spark power in the zone was to be severely limited. Lucas’s grandfather would not have his people dependent upon aberrations.

Unless the aberration is a weapon of God?

His breathing increased, hitching in his throat with his panic. He wasn’t a weapon. He wasn’t a sword.

Lucas led Meredith through the gate for foot traffic. They followed the road out for fifteen minutes, through the area that had been slashed and burned back from the city wall for visibility. Finally, the road entered the forest, and they were plunged into twilight coolness as they wound deeper, away from view of the gates. He stepped off the road, circling around a large, unruly hedge of wild roses that bordered the road.

It was cool under the canopy of evergreens and wide, leafy, deciduous trees. Meredith laughed behind him now as he pulled her through the ferny undergrowth. They wove between trees, slipping on bright mossy growth, and wound down deeper into the forest. Finally, when he figured they were far enough from the road and any other humans, he pulled her behind a stand of honeysuckle-tangled maple and turned to her.

“Marry me, Merry,” he blurted.

Her eyes went wide. “What?”

“Marry me. I just—I spent this morning talking to my grandfather. And I—” Lucas shook his head, trying to put it all into words that she could understand, that wouldn’t terrify her. He couldn’t. “Marry me.”

“You talked to the Councilor?” Her eyes had gone wide and soft. A little hopeful smile lifted her lips and lit her face.

Did she think he meant that he’d talked to Grandfather about her? That he’d asked permission to marry?

Lucas didn’t have it in him to hurt her. He didn’t want to see the disappointment and pain in her eyes. Instead of telling her that the marriage was his own idea and that they’d have to run to be together, he took her hand and pulled her to him. He loved the feel of her lush body crushed against his thin frame and the contrast of her darker skin and hair against his uniform paleness.

They tumbled to the ground together, arms and tongues and legs already tangled. He shouldn’t. He had no real plan to get away. He had nothing but the hope that he could convince her to come with him before his grandfather realized Lucas was too weak to be a holy weapon and decided to send Jacob to finish Lucas and the job he should be plotting. Lucas shouldn’t be here, with Meredith of all people, indulging in the comfort of her soft body and gentle touch.

Even if he hadn’t been hiding from his responsibility, shame would still coat him with every touch. The pleasure of the moment washed it away for now, yes, but they’d both pay for it later. They’d each have had to spend time in seclusion, repenting.

But knowing that hadn’t stopped them on any other night they’d stolen away to be together since they’d met. Lucas slid his hand inside her loose shirt to trail up her soft skin until he was cupping the heavy, warm flesh that had caught his attention in the first place. He lifted and kneaded the flesh that overflowed his hand, and his own body responded. He used one leg to spread her thighs apart so he could reach between and pull up on her skirt and then settle between the softness of her thighs. They wouldn’t be stopping today, either.

Lucas lifted his mouth from Meredith’s to look down at her. Her hands, busily unfastening his pant buttons, finished. She slid one hand inside to stroke and play while she brought the other up to cup the back of his head. She tried to draw his head back down to hers, her lips parting again, but they continued the movement to a grin instead of a kiss when he resisted her. He wanted to look at her. He lived for looking at her.

“Can’t help it, Merry,” he told her, voice rough in his own ears as he whispered to her, “I love the way you look.” He spread her shirt apart so he could feast his eyes and give her a soft, breathless laugh while he skimmed the fingertips of one hand over her wide, peachy nipple. “I love
you
, Merry. I love you.”

And he did.

They weren’t just words. They hadn’t been from the beginning. He’d never loved anyone like this, with this depth. With…such devotion.

Except Grandfather
. The whisper of thought made him shiver. His hand stopped.

“Lucas,” Meredith stopped, her hand curving around to his cheek, “what?”

His eyes had filled. He blinked back the moisture. “I love you,” he said, his voice rough.

Meredith’s lips curved up in a smile, but her eyes filled with tears, too. “I love you, too,” she managed to choke out. “And I will marry you, Lucas.”

Lucas’s head swam. He lowered his head to rest his forehead against hers in gratitude. She was meant for him. It was the only explanation for the instant connection they’d both felt when they’d met on his first day back in the Zone. Grandfather always spoke of the divine hand touching lives.

Meredith was proof of that touch in his life. She was his reward for not giving up after being abandoned by everyone else. He could make this work. He had to. But first, he had to finish. Lucas closed his eyes so he could focus on what he was doing.

When he lay next to her again, gasping and puffing, he managed, “Okay. Okay. We’re getting married.”

Meredith laughed beside him. He joined her, giddy and happy. The sound died away, leaving just the two of them curled around each other in the leaves. Long before he was ready, she pushed at him, sitting up with mischief on her broad, happy face. She buttoned her shirt and straightened her clothes, nudging at him with her hip to do the same.

“Come on, lazy bones. Come on.” She jumped up. “If we’re going to be married—”

“Wait.” Lucas sat up, buttoning his pants. “Merry, it’s—this is a secret for now. This is just for us.” He had to tell her. They needed to make their plans to run. They’d have to go soon. Maybe in the morning?

How long do I have?

Instead of being upset, she just laughed and nodded. “I know. But you’ve trusted me with so much. Telling me about your Spark. Talking to your grandfather. If we’re going to get married, it’s time for you to know
our
secret, too.”

“Our secret?” They had a secret? He racked his brain. Was she pregnant?

“No, silly. Not
our
secret, you and me.
Our
secret, my family.”

Lucas went cold. Her
family
had a secret?

Pay attention, Lucas. This is important.

The voice in his head sounded different. Deeper, heavier, like Grandfather’s voice, but more solemn. His breath slid between his lips like the last gasp of a dying man.

Meredith took his hand and dragged him deeper into the forest.

The world went silent. He was certain she was still talking. She turned back to him as she led him through the trees and brush. Her lips were moving. She even laughed, but he didn’t hear any of it. He didn’t hear the wind or the insects or the sound of their feet moving through the undergrowth.

He tried to focus again on that inner voice, to call it back. He needed to question it.

Instead, all he heard was the memory of Grandfather’s words, “You mustn’t disappoint me, Lucas. So much is riding on you.”

I have to pay attention.

He stared at Meredith’s back. She’d spoken of a family secret. Was she a traitor?

How did her father know about me?

There was only one way. He tried to find calm. He failed. “What secret?”

What does it matter? We’re running away together.
The thought was like a desperate scrabble inside his head, so different from the authoritative boom of moments before.