Whispers in Autumn (9 page)

“He’s breathing, Lucas. We should go get someone right now.” My hand darts out and slips into his, tugging him toward the Cell. The strange mixture of my superheated skin and his frigid palm no longer sends shivers down my spine, instead offering comfort borne of growing familiarity. Maybe even friendship. He doesn’t resist, though he glances more than once over his shoulder.

“What are you looking at?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you keep looking back and forth between the trees and the Cell?”

“I’m waiting to see if they’ll come on their own.”

“Who?”

His fingers tighten around mine as he smiles down at me. For a second I forget the question. Okay, maybe more than one second. The world tilts, as though I’ve fallen into his dimple. My chest is tight and uncomfortable, and the solid reality of his voice anchors me in the moment.

“The Wardens, of course. The Others say they’re always watching, and ten Wardens are wandering around town. How come they aren’t here?”

Like his insistence that the fish isn’t deadly, the question implies that the Others might lie. That suggestion makes his words treasonous, blasphemous, and downright crazy. But the lingering idea that Greg’s outburst in astronomy had something to do with his demise won’t go away, and hearing Lucas voice a similar sentiment snaps me out of my winter-scented dreamland and dumps me back into real life.

No one talks that way. But I think that way.

People don’t question the Others. They rule us, maintain a pleasant society, employ us, but they are
not
us. They are Other.

“Lucas.” The word escapes my lungs in a gasp and I can’t help but shoot a paranoid glance around the empty field. “What are you saying? That the Others would lie? You can’t say that.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.” Lucas’s cheeks flush pink and he refuses to meet my gaze.

We walk into Cell in silence, our wet tennis shoes squeaking on the hard floors as we enter, the sound echoing off the empty walls. The Administrative Center is in the middle of the building, enclosed entirely by glass. Lucas drops my hand as we approach the doors.

“Let me do the talking. I still wish you’d just go to block,” he mutters under his breath without looking at me.

I don’t budge, earning a sigh. Though my outside fakes serenity, inside I’m shaking. I’ve never been to the center of any of my Cells, never met an Administrator. As far as I know, hardly anyone has met one in person. There isn’t any reason to come to the Administrator’s office unless you’re an Apprentice, and there’s only one per year. Ours is Leah.

I wipe sweaty, slick palms on my jeans and straighten my back as Lucas pushes the red button next to the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and waits for them to open. Resisting the urge to clean the perspiration off my brow takes massive effort when the camera over the door swivels our direction. Lucas appears calm, as if he barges into uncharted waters on a daily basis.

Maybe he does, what do I know?

The doors slide open in complete silence, one retreating left and the other right. Nothing greets us but a breeze that lifts stray pieces of crimson hair about my face. I secure them behind my ears as the story Lucas told in the park the other day assaults my memory and twists my heart into knots.

He said he overheard that conversation in the Administrative Center by walking past, but he must have lied. The glass is too thick to hear anything. But why would he lie to me?

My mind searches for alternatives, ways his story could possibly be true. There simply aren’t any, unless he can hear through walls or the conversation took place elsewhere. I try hard, because I want to come up with a plausible option, but there isn’t one. I want to run and hide, but at the moment running isn’t an option. I can’t go anywhere without making a scene, and there is no way I’m letting Lucas goad me into exposing myself.

I step as far away from him as possible without leaving the room, not missing the fast, questioning look he shoots my direction. We pass through another doorway and our footsteps fall silent as we stride onto a deep purple carpet. The room is empty except for the video screen, which takes up the entire wall to our left. It blinks on and we wait for the Administrator to appear. He slides into the chair waiting behind a desk, having to squeeze to accommodate his stomach again. A brief look of surprise passes over his face when he sees us.

“Shouldn’t the two of you be in your blocks?”

My mouth goes dry and my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.

Luckily, Lucas doesn’t seem to be dealing with the same issues. “Yes, sir. It’s just…one of the students fell outside during exercise. He’s cracked his head pretty good and he’s not getting up. We thought someone should know.”

The Administrator fidgets while the news sinks in, his exact reaction hard to pinpoint. A bit troubled, perhaps confused. He’s not displeased, exactly, just a bit out of sorts. This isn’t an everyday occurrence. Before he can answer, the smaller, private screen on his desk lights up and beeps. His eyes flit to the desktop display. “You may go, children. I will deal with the boy.”

A disembodied voice squawks from his video screen before we shuffle from the room. It sounds like a woman. The only Others I’ve ever seen in person are Wardens, and they’re all men. I assumed Fire represented the single exception, though now that I think about it I see it’s silly. There must be women.

“Not to worry, Administrator. Everything is fine. The boy is Broken, and a girl—your Apprentice—is also being taken for refreshing due to the incident reported after their astronomy lesson. Wardens have been dispatched to collect them.”

I gasp involuntarily, prompting Lucas to grab my hand again and tug me out of the office. Once alone, I yank my hand free and walk ahead of him down the hall, trying to make sense of what we heard. The term
refreshing
is brand new to me, but they must be talking about Leah. It doesn’t make sense; she was fine when we left the field.

Unless them taking her has more to do with what happened in astronomy than what transpired outside.

Lucas jogs to catch up, stopping beside me to stare out the second-story window, which offers an unobstructed view of the exercise field. I hardly notice he’s there, his lies and presence temporarily forgotten.

Greg is where we left him.

A large black rider pulls up to the edge of the grass, hovering right above the ground, its spinning disks a blur of movement. It gleams even though the day is overcast. Two Wardens hop out, slam the front doors shut, and lift the rear hatch before going to Greg. They wear their standard tan uniforms, complete with black hats, belts, and boots. Even from here their beauty dazzles and I squint to relieve some of the eyestrain.

Always men, always handsome, and never with a trace of imperfection. No bent noses or crooked teeth. No wrinkles. Not a freckle. It’s too far to make out whether these Wardens have the star-shaped mark on their necks.

It’s often crossed my mind, the obvious question that if I’m different—
Dissident
—does that mean I’m not human? And if I’m not…what am I? I’m nowhere near perfect enough to be Other, but the fact that I feel
everything
doesn’t make a great case for my humanity either. I glance sideways at Lucas, studying him while he watches the scene below. It doesn’t hurt to look at him but he resembles the Wardens. He is sort of beautiful.

I turn back to the windows before he catches me staring.

The Wardens reach Greg’s body and position themselves at his head and feet. Without care or concern they bend down, one twisting his fingers through Greg’s longish brown hair, the second snatching up a foot, and hoist him roughly off the ground. They make their way back to the black rider and pitch Greg’s body inside the rear hatch.

I wince, feeling the hard bounce in my bones as if they’d tossed me. Lucas reaches for me but I scoot out of range.

One of the Wardens stationed at our Cell leads Leah outside and ushers her into the rider’s backseat. Within minutes the scene returns to normal as the rider pulls out and disappears down the street. Whether Leah will return from this refreshing, whether she’ll be the same if she does, is a mystery.

We’ll never see Greg again, though. That much I know.

CHAPTER 9.

“Where are you going?”

“Block.” Lucas isn’t picking up on my hints right now, which is odd because I’m sure they’re saying
stop following me
.

“What’d I do?”

“Nothing. I just need to get to my block. So do you.”

He stops walking. About time.

As chemistry looms, my overwrought brain hasn’t come up with any plausible way to avoid him, but I get out of talking by slinking into the room at the last second and keeping my eyes on the Monitor. Questions, none of which have anything to do with chem, prod my mind until my brain feels bruised. My feelings regarding Lucas conflict at every intersection.

Sometimes, like in the field, Lucas seems a little bit like me. Or, at the very least, close to being a friend. But then there’s the fact that he’s hiding an animal, he doesn’t smile all the time, and the Wardens seem to make him as nervous as they make me. The bottom line is that I learned years ago not to be tricked into getting comfortable, and I’m nowhere near ready to trust him. Now that he lied about overhearing the conversation in the Administrator’s office, I’m farther away than ever.

As soon as the day is over I grab my things and fly out of the room, down the hall, and through the front doors. I’ve had years of practice disappearing for the hour after Cell, and tagging along with my Cellmates to the pizza parlor is as good a way as any. Lucas, and probably Deshi, will expect me to go to the park alone and I have no desire to see either of them.

The next forty minutes pass quickly; gossip about whether or not Leah will return, along with the events of astronomy, fill most of the time. No one asks for my version and I don’t offer an opinion. Nobody even mentions Greg falling in exercise. I do hear about a second blond boy, Jack, not returning from his Warden interview. That makes nine kids gone since the Wardens arrived, counting the six they took at the Outing. Ten if I include Leah.

Eleven if I include Greg.

Five weeks until my number is called. If only people remembered what happened in the interviews, perhaps I could find a way to prepare. But the more questions I ask, the less likely I’ll continue to blend in with my Cellmates, and I need the anonymity they offer more than ever. I don’t push and no one else seems the slightest bit interested in the Wardens’ purpose here or the fact that they’re focused on our year in particular.

Lucas is waiting on the Morgans’ street, standing smack in the middle of the sidewalk with his arms folded across his chest. Despite the requisite smile, he doesn’t look pleased at my earlier disappearing act. “What’s going on, Althea?”

“Nothing. Nothing is going on.”

An unfamiliar, chafing feeling rattles inside me. It must be anger, but it’s been so long since I’ve experienced the feeling toward a live person it takes me a while to place it. I want to scream, to let it out, but I know that’s not the best idea. The rage pours out toward Lucas even though expressing any emotion other than contentment is not Acceptable.

In fact, acting unpleasant never happens. Not because people are scared of the Others. Because as far as I know, no one experiences feelings other than pleasure, happiness, and the occasional instance of excitement.

Except me.

Looking at Lucas’s face, I reconsider the assumption.

“Well, something must be going on, because you’re definitely avoiding me.”

My anger bubbles over. “Maybe because you’re a liar, Lucas! A big…fat…liar.”

He takes a step toward me. His face turns a splotchy crimson, and in that instant, reason burrows past fury and fear takes a seat. We’re alone on an empty street. He grabbed me before, hard enough to leave a mark.

He stops his advance a couple of feet away and I relax a smidgen.

“Really, a liar? What did I lie about exactly?”

“About overhearing that conversation in the Administrator’s office, that’s what.”

“What are you talking about?” Despite his belligerent tone, his cheeks pale.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. To get into the office we rang a buzzer, passed inspection by the camera,
and
went through a second door—a thick, wooden one—to talk to the Administrator. Just how did you manage to hear through all that?”

“I…well, it’s not what you think!”

“I don’t know what to think, Lucas. All I know is unless you have secret superhearing or something, there is no way you ‘accidentally overhead’ anything.” The rage bleeds out as fast as it took over, leaving exhaustion in its wake. It turns out fighting takes a lot out of a person.

We watch each other, breath coming in similar erratic patterns. I refuse to let his gaze wander from mine. I’ve had it with all the double-talk, the running around, and, most of all, the secrets. Hiding secrets of my own is difficult enough; there’s no room for Lucas’s as well.