Academy 7 (11 page)

He stared at her, eyes glittering. “It speaks,” he said.

Only then did she realize she had just broken her silence. “It,” she replied, “is sick of doing your share of the work.” The sudden possibility of an argument channeled her energy and allowed her to focus on something other than the target practice below.

“Well, you certainly do more than your share of making a mess.”

She sputtered, then let loose with a stream of swear words. “I wouldn’t even be here without the mess you’ve put me in. You are a lazy, selfish, stubborn snob!”

“
I’m
stubborn? You’re the one who’s been scrubbing in silence for weeks. One wonders if you’re even human.”

“You!” She added a descriptive term and hurled her rag at him.

He sidestepped it.

Both of them watched the blue cloth sail thirty feet through the air to land in the grass. They breathed without words for a minute. Then a sound rumbled from his throat. For a second she thought he might roar at her, but instead the tone changed. It bubbled up, then erupted in unexpected laughter.

It made no sense. He had no right to be laughing at her.

Well . . . she had chosen rather an odd time to explode at him, seeing as she was the one who had knocked over the bucket. And it was rather childish to throw the rag. And . . . actually . . .

He had every right to laugh at her.

She slouched against a window, not certain how to respond.

He slumped down in a corner, lifted his own rag, and gave it a halfhearted toss in her direction. It missed. This produced a new wave of laughter, and he required another minute to control himself. Then, wiping a tear from his eye, he said, “I think I’ve been called a lot of things, but not a selfish snob.”

She noticed he left out the term
stubborn.

“Well, you are,” came her response. “You’re always arguing against the Alliance and the Council, your own father. You have no right.”

“Excuse me?” The laughter slid from his face.

“You have everything: looks, money, freedom, a chance at a good education.”

“How do you—”

She pushed off the wall, not about to listen to his excuses. “Do you have any idea how many people in this universe don’t share those luxuries? No one threatens you. No one questions your right to exist. You have a future and the chance to learn at the best school in the universe.” The passion was ringing in her voice now. “And you don’t care! You don’t care about anything!”

“That’s not—”

“You risked it all, your future and mine, for nothing but a stupid prank!”

She stopped, her chest heaving.

Only then did she take in the effect of her words. Emotion swept Dane’s face: surprise, defensiveness, anger. And something else, something that did not belong.

“What do you know about me, Aerin?” he said, his voice low. Then he stepped close. “You’re not even from the Alliance . . . are you?”

The words were like a meteor shard plunging into her heart. Her life here, her place at the school, everything relied upon the myth that she was a citizen. And despite herself, she had begun to think she might succeed. The energy drained from her chest, her limbs. A sharp tingling began in her fingers, and she couldn’t stay there, couldn’t face the accusation that had just annihilated her dreams.

So she did what she always did, without thought or contemplation. She headed for the ladder, then over the edge, and down, her blood pounding in her ears. She needed escape. Nothing else mattered in the blur of the world. Nothing else existed.

Until the laser fire.

Pow!
The sound ripped through her chest.

Her foot slipped. She lost her balance, and her fingers began peeling off the rungs.

But a tight, fierce grip suddenly clenched her left hand. She looked up at the fingers wrapped around her own, the white knuckles, cracked skin, and blue veins.

He didn’t say anything, just waited for her to regain her footing. Then let her go.

Chapter Ten

SHE FLED, OF COURSE. ALL HER RESOLUTIONS TO STOP running had come apart, unraveling into a tangle as fine as shredded wire. Her thoughts were at war with themselves. How had he found out she was from outside the boundary, despite her secrets and silence, and after all this time? He could not have known before because he would have used it to threaten her.

Or would he? If he had been threatening her just now on the scaffolding, why had he caught her when she slipped? No one on Vizhan would have done that. The guards would have laughed at her own fallibility, and none of the other slaves would have risked it. To show empathy or love was to give the guards power over you.

But she had not thought of Dane as decent, not since that first day in the cafeteria when he had become her nemesis. She had not thought about that day in ages. She had just moved on, her focus on the future and facing down Dane.

Because of something Yvonne had said.

About his making fun of Aerin during debate. In fact, the gist of Yvonne’s argument had been that he could not have meant what he said because he would never really criticize the Alliance with his father on the Council.

What nonsense!
Dane had been by far the most outspoken critic of the Alliance all term. Less than half an hour ago, Aerin, herself, had accused him of failing to value the freedom he had here.

She slowed her steps, then pressed her head against the rough bark of a tree at the garden’s edge. That first day of classes she had been a pawn, afraid of everything, and based on one conversation, she had made a snap judgment about a young man she really knew nothing about. Hadn’t that also been part of today’s discussion? Dane telling her she knew nothing about him. Yes, just before he threatened her.

And tried to save her life.

Even now she could feel the intensity of Dane’s grip. If she had fallen, that grip would have stopped her. It had been that tight, that fierce. It had not been warm, or polite, or halfhearted in any way. It had squeezed her knuckles together in almost bone-cracking pain, and it would have held her up.

Maybe he had not meant to threaten her.

Or maybe he had. Maybe she should pack her bags right now and try to catch the first flight off the planet.

But she had nowhere to go. And no longer any desire to run.

 

Dane knew he had blown it. He could picture Aerin when she had left the scaffolding half an hour before, her face as drained of color as a snowbird in the moonlight. She had started talking! Five weeks he had worked at her side without so much as a “Please pass the water bucket
,
” and now she had run off, her contradictory nature rushing to the forefront. One moment she was all fire, the next flight.

He could not regret his urge to laugh at her accusation. So she thought he was a good-looking spoiled snob. That was almost as rich as the fact that she was unafraid to say it to his face. But he had not meant to frighten her. He had only blurted out his realization of her foreign origin without thinking.
Stupid.

Of course she would not want anyone to know. If she was here illegally, her place at the school would be in danger. Not that he would ever tell. But she didn’t know that.

Devoid of water, Dane left off washing the windows and fetched plywood to repair the platform instead. He was on his knees, pounding the wood onto the scaffolding, and kicking himself mentally, when a shadow stretched over him. Dropping the hammer, he winced at the thud. “Aerin,” he said.

“You didn’t mean to blame me for the tech lab incident, did you?” Her response startled him.

He twisted around.

She looked worn, shadows rimming her dusky brown eyes. Her lips were cracked, and she was shivering. He had a strange desire to comfort her, but he knew better than to make any sudden movements.

“No, I—” Dane started to answer.

“And you didn’t come to the lab that morning to threaten me?”

“Of course not.”

She ran a hand against the peeled molding of a windowsill. “And you didn’t intend to threaten me . . . that first day we were sparring in physical combat?”

Where was this going? He shook his head, now completely off balance, and lifted a knee off the plywood. “Why would I do that?”

“I’m not sure.” Her voice vibrated just a bit. “I’m not sure why you would do those things. Or why you would make fun of me in class—”

“—when you barely knew me. Or why you would break into a computer lab without taking the least trouble to cover your tracks.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

“You wanted to be caught, didn’t you?” Her words fell like glass splinters onto clean boards.

To argue would negate the truth of his other denials. His right hand flexed, reaching blindly for the hammer. Not there. Dimly he remembered that he had dropped the tool on his other side.

“Why?” She asked the question he had prided himself on avoiding.

“Why what?”

“Why try to get caught?”

He stood up, hoping the movement would give him confidence. It failed utterly. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he shrugged, providing no answer.

She was undeterred. “You must have assumed I would be blamed. You’re not stupid.”

Right.
“Look, Aerin, sometimes when I’m angry, I don’t think.” How many times had Pete warned Dane against that exact failing?

“Why were you angry?”

He was not going to answer that, not for anyone. He had assumed his father would pull him from the school. The entire point of the break-in had been to preempt that fact and attract enough attention to embarrass the General. But the press had never gotten hold of the story, and, for some unfathomable reason, Dane was still here.

He and Aerin stood for a while, each looking at the other without really seeing. For Dane, the face in front of him, the pipes, the boards, even the massive stone building and the sweeping school grounds disappeared. His thoughts wandered around inside himself, careening down hidden passages and bumping into corners.

And judging by Aerin’s eventual response, her thoughts traveled inward as well. She slumped down against a clean window and whispered, “I don’t know why I do this to myself.”

He waited, not sure what to say. Little of this conversation had made any sense, not that he had helped clarify things when given the chance.

The lull lasted another ten seconds before she lashed out at him. “I convinced myself you were the devil, you know!”

“No,” he teased, “I’d never have guessed.”

“And all the time . . .” She brought her hand to her forehead, then smoothed it back through her windblown hair. “You weren’t thinking anything about me.”

A grin clung to the corners of his mouth. That was more of an understatement than he cared to admit. “Actually, my backside has thought about you quite a bit.”

She blinked.

“After physical combat,” he explained, remembering the first time she had knocked the wind out of him. It had left him stunned. He had never met anyone who moved the way she did. But then she wasn’t from here.

He took a deep breath, then dropped his voice. “I’m sorry I frightened you earlier. You really shouldn’t worry, Aerin. You’re one of the strongest first-years in the school. Everyone knows you deserve your place.”

Doubt lay naked in her face. “Not everyone.”

He squinted at her, trying to figure out who she meant. The principal maybe, because of the trouble he had brought down on her.

Then Aerin stammered, “How . . . how did you know I wasn’t from the Alliance?”

He picked up a nail, turning it in his fingers and trying hard to keep a straight face, even though the memory brought back the same desire to laugh as before. “You were swearing at me in off-boundary slang.”

Her hands clenched into fists.

“That was just a part of it, though,” he added, feeling a sudden urge to explain. “I knew you must have learned those particular phrases outside the Alliance, but then I realized how much that might explain about you—about how you know so much about some things and nothing about others, like how to turn on a computer.”

Her face burned a brilliant red. “How did you know it was off-boundary slang?”

He opened his hand, dropping the nail and staring at the red creases on his palm. “My father’s on the Council, remember? He speaks a lot of languages.”

She closed her eyes. “Stupid.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Oh no, you don’t,” said Dane, pretending to take offense even though he knew she was deriding herself. “You told me a few minutes ago I wasn’t stupid. You can’t take it back now.”

“Can’t take it back.” The words sank like water dripping down the pipes.

“Aerin, I have no intention of telling anyone you’re not an Allied citizen.” He held her dark eyes in his gaze, hoping to convince her he meant what he said, that he was telling the truth and there were no strings attached.

Well, perhaps one string. He held out the hammer. “Of course, if you felt like coming back to work, I wouldn’t mind. This job might not ever end without you.”

The hammer waited.

She looked right past it, then stood up, dusting off her perfectly clean uniform and letting her gaze sweep the perimeter. The humming of the wind filled the pause, and her hair blew out in long strands behind her neck. Then her hands rose to her hips. “Well, we wouldn’t want to anger Dr. Livinski any more, would we?”

He cocked his head, noting the angle of her chin, the set of her shoulders, the distinct curve of her profile. At that moment, in that pose, she looked almost . . . regal. In a wild, untamed sort of way. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m starting to think this punishment isn’t all that bad.”

The brown eyes shot down to his. “It’s bad enough, thank you.” And she plucked the hammer from his hand.