Solstice (12 page)

Panic shot through me, and I pulled away from him. He was learning too much about me. Had I really failed the tests? “I don’t see how I failed; I only answered the questions.”

“Exactly,” he said. “When they showed you a red peony, you selected the color of ‘blood’ as the best descriptor.”

“It
was
the color of blood,” I said, thinking hard. Sol had described a valley of blood red flowers. I had merely repeated his description. Did that mean I’d given something away? “I still don’t understand how I failed the tests.”

Rueben reached out and took my hands. I flinched. The only other person who’d held my hand was Sol. But I knew Sol felt nothing in return. Rueben was unsettling, his words and actions unpredictable. Emotions practically burst from him, reaching out and touching me. I pulled away, but he wouldn’t let go. “What do you feel when I hold your hands?”

My face felt hot again. “I don’t know—”

“Don’t try to analyze it. Just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“Nervous.” I dared a glance at his face. “Warm.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “That’s what I thought.” He stood, still holding my hands, and drew me against him.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

His arms slipped around me. I tried to wrench away, but he held me firm, and my attempt was only halfhearted. “Now what do you feel?” he said in my ear, the warmth of his breath spreading to my fingers.

I tried to breathe, tried to move, but his grip only tightened. I hadn’t realized how strong he was. “Let me go,” I said. Something like fear grew inside of me, and I felt a scream bubble in my throat.

His was breath hot against my skin. “Kiss me first.”

My entire body shook with astonishment, with anger. I made one more effort and got a hand free. Then I slapped him as hard as I could.

Rueben jerked back

I looked around frantically for something to use to defend myself, but there was nothing.

I moved against the wall and braced myself, expecting him to yell, to strike back. I imagined him becoming violent. Stories of rape and pillaging in the Before ran through my mind. My hand throbbed, but I’d be ready if necessary, using my fists.

But he didn’t move. “That, my dear Jezebel, is why you were sent here.”

My breath left my chest, and I stared at him, my hands still clenched. “Are you finished?” I ground out between my teeth. I used everything I had to hold back the avalanche of anger. I wouldn’t let him get me into trouble. Not here, in this place. I had to get out and make it to the University. I had more important things to do than let this boy get under my skin.

He took a step toward me, and when I shrank back, he stopped. “Every other girl would have begged me to stop breaking the rules. But you . . .” He chuckled. “You hit me.”

“You had no right to touch me, to . . .” He had no right to laugh at me. The trembling in my body reached to my toes. Maybe this was a game in the Lake Towns, but in the city, it meant Demotion or Banishment.

“I know,” Rueben said. He stepped forward again, his eyes intent on me, one side of his face red from my mark. “And it made you
angry.”
His lips moved into a smile.

I blinked, adrenaline still pulsing through me, but I was starting to realize Rueben wasn’t really going to kiss me. “I’m not angry,” I muttered, still seething.

He gave me a look that plainly said he didn’t believe me. “You saw an injustice and reacted.” His sounded . . . proud.

I shook my head. “I don’t need any more trouble.”

“You stood up for yourself.” He touched my clenched hand, and I forced myself to relax it, forced the emotions to retreat, to be calm. “The scientists would love to put a stop to these kinds of reactions before they wreak real havoc.”

“I wasn’t . . . I’m not . . .” The breath left me, and I moved around him and sat back on the bed. There was no hiding from him. He’d seen my emotions firsthand. I needed his help, even if he was a part of the test. “What now?”

There was something like regret in his eyes. “They’ll experiment. Alter your implant.”

My entire body went cold. I had worked so hard to suppress my emotions. How would it feel not to fight them anymore? To feel and act like everyone else?

Rueben sat across from me this time, watching me closely, and giving me the space he’d stolen from me earlier. “I’m sorry, Jezebel. You’re too much of a risk.”

“I’ve never broken a rule—at least not intentionally,” I said.

A small smile returned to Rueben’s mouth.
“Never
intentionally.”

“It’s true.”

“I believe you.” But his expression said otherwise.

“Are you part of my test?” I asked.

His brown eyes held mine. “I hope you can believe me on this—I’m in the same test that you are.”

“Then why did you say all those things to me, and why did you try to . . . ”

“Kiss you?”

I nodded, my face hot again.

“I wanted to see what you were made of,” Rueben whispered. “I need an ally.”

“I thought the testing was over, and I’d have my assignment by now,” I said to Dr. Matthews a few mornings later. His trembling was back—it seemed to come and go. The testing was taking place earlier in the day than usual so that everyone could go above ground for the Summer Solstice.

His permanent frown deepened. “Your dreams weren’t tracked last night, just like the previous two nights.”

I suppressed a yawn. I hadn’t slept much over the past few days. After Rueben’s kiss test, we’d stayed up whispering during the nights. And the times we weren’t whispering, I was worrying about the freckled-faced girl, Grace. Had she recovered or was her brain permanently altered?

On one of those nights, Rueben told me he’d been integrated into C Level when he first arrived at the city, but by the age of eleven, there were signs that he wasn’t fitting in. He tested into B Level every year, but every year elected to stay in C. “I guess it became obvious that I wasn’t exactly ‘normal,’ and when I refused to move up a level after passing the last series of tests, I was assigned here,” he’d said.

“Why didn’t you want to move up a level?” I asked.

“I blame it on the Solstice,” he said. “Whenever I felt the sun on me, it reminded me of my family in the Lake Town, because that was the last time I was happy. And I thought about all the people who’d lived in the Before. I liked the freedom living in C Level gave me; there weren’t as many expectations.”

I was the opposite. I wanted to get as much education as possible, to find a way to save this city. How could Rueben just want to spend his days doing nothing? We had to prepare for the future and think about the next generations.

But, I did admit that the approaching Solstice made me forget my responsibilities just a little, as my body craved the sun, its natural warmth and golden light. I wondered if the doctors would bring Grace to the surface. Maybe it would help her.

Dr. Matthews’s voice brought me back to the present. “We’ll conduct the dream test again tonight.”

I folded my arms on the desk in front of me. It felt like I’d spent my entire life in this small round room, surrounded by blank walls, with electronic images flashing before me. “Can you tell me what happened to Grace?”

Matthews kept his gaze on his tablet, but that didn’t hide the tremor in his hands.

“Is that what’s in store for me?” Perhaps I was feeling bolder because the Solstice was only a few hours away. Rueben said that it was the one time we’d all be allowed to go to the surface, under strict supervision. Even Matthews’s frown had seemed softer today—perhaps he was looking forward to the sunshine as well.

“Will she get to go above ground for the Solstice?” I asked when he stayed silent.

He raised his head. Finally. “She doesn’t concern you.” His hands tightened on the side of the tablet.

“Maybe it would help her—”

“The sun won’t make a difference,” he snapped.

“Would it hurt to try?”

He ignored me and continued typing into his tablet. My hands clenched and unclenched as I tried to stop the tingle of anger growing in my body. I’d been in this place less than a week, and I’d already lost control of my emotions several times.

I remembered Rueben’s warning about what they might do to me. To him. To all of us.
Altering.
Weren’t we supposed to be finding a way to preserve future generations? Not destroying the one we already had?

I breathed out. I couldn’t stand it anymore. The silence. The frowns. The unanswered questions. “Am I going through all of this testing only for you to
erase me
?”

His eyes lifted, and it felt like it was first time he really looked at me. Really saw me. I was struck again by how young he was, maybe nineteen or twenty. “Is that what you think we’re doing here?”

My face reddened, and I tried to swallow the words that forced their way out. But I knew I could no longer stay silent, no longer pretend I was all right with all that was going on in Phase Three. The seeds of anger that had been growing inside me, suddenly sprouted, and there was nothing I could to do control it. “I saw what happened to Grace. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s only a kid.”

I was afraid he wasn’t going to answer at first. “You don’t know what you are talking about, Miss J. I advise you to keep quiet.” His voice had a hard edge to it.

I stood and moved toward the door, knowing I couldn’t get out on my own, but wanting to be as far away from him as possible. “And if I don’t keep quiet, you’ll alter me as well?” I knew this was a mistake, but the emotions were a flood now. “Maybe you should just alter me right now—save me from all these idiotic tests.”

Matthews moved to my side with lightning speed, his hand flashing toward my shoulder. A stab of pain shot through it, but it was too late to react. Matthews stepped away, his face grim, an injector in his hand.

“I see you’ve been talking to Rueben,” he said with a ferocious snarl.

I opened my mouth to respond, but my body went numb. Off balance, I tilted back and collapsed against the door.

There was a time when all I wanted to see was the sun. But now, I’d take the thick gray clouds, the cold rain . . . anything but this.

Without moving and without opening my eyes, I knew I was in a blacked-out cell. The floor was as cold as the wall I leaned against.

My shoulder throbbed where I’d been injected, but my head hurt even worse. I pulled my knees to my chest and cradled my shoulder. How long had I been here? Minutes? Hours?

Holding my breath, I listened. For any sound.

But I only heard my heart thumping as my pulse throbbed in my ears. I exhaled, letting my own rush of warm breath ripple over my hands.

Tears threatened, and in the blackness I let them fall. Shame followed. I’d let my anger surface at the worst possible time, to the worst possible person. Dr. Matthews had no doubt reported it, and I had lost all chance of an early release from this prison. If I’d had a chance at all.

Sol and Chalice were a fading memory; even Rueben seemed remote.

I leaned forward, away from the cold wall. My head was spinning—whatever Matthews had injected me with was making me dizzy. I had to get out of this place. I had to apologize to Matthews. I had to pass the tests. I had to go to the University.

I had to see the sun.

How could you be so stupid?
I wanted to scream it, but only let it rebound within my head.

It would be six months until the next Solstice. If I missed this one . . .
I can’t miss it.

I struggled to my feet, bracing myself against the wall as a jolt of dizziness engulfed me. I took a step, ignoring the pulsing against my temples. My hands glided along the smooth, malleable walls until I found the metal door.

“Dr. Matthews!” I shouted. Then I started to bang on the door. “Dr. Matthews! Please let me out!”

I don’t know what I expected—maybe the door sliding open and a guard waiting to shock me, or a scientist with another injection. But I didn’t expect silence.

“Dr. Matthews! Someone! Please!”

Nothing again. I slid to the floor in exhaustion.

I closed my eyes and thought of the last Solstice, when Sol and I spent the whole day in the school yard with the other kids. We had left our raincoats in heaps on the concrete ground, turning our faces upward and spreading our arms, welcoming the yellow rays.

Wrapping my arms around my knees, I pretended the warmth was from the sun’s heat.
Right now,
I thought,
right now, the sun might be out.

“Please!” I croaked, my voice not much more than a whisper. I had no strength to stand, none to call out or to pound on the door anymore.

I had no strength to cry.

I’d been forgotten.

I didn’t move when the door opened. A square of yellow light settled on my legs and I peered through my lashes at the two men who stood there. Guards or scientists, I wasn’t sure.

They spoke in low voices, but their tones vibrated through my ears and made my head throb again. One of the men leaned over and took my wrist, pressing against my skin to feel my pulse. Then he lifted each of my eyelids, shining a small light in my eyes.

I remained motionless—not by choice. My limbs felt as if they had been shackled to the floor.

Apparently, the men standing over me realized the same thing and lifted me. I was carried unceremoniously through the corridors and dumped onto a bed in the dormitory. The light was dim and several silent forms occupied various beds. The day was over, and night had come.

I had missed the Solstice.

The sun wouldn’t appear for another six months, and I would be underground for three of them.

One of the men draped a blanket over me, and after checking the flat monitor above my bed, they shuffled out.

A tear formed beneath my half-closed lids, but it was so small, it didn’t even have the strength to move down my face. It, like me, was depleted.

I wondered how long the sun had shone today. Did the kids in our prison cast off their jackets and dance around in the gold and white rays? Did their fair skin turn pink? Did anyone wonder where I was? Had Rueben missed me?