The Girl With Green Scales: A Gen M Novel

Chapter 8: Run

After school, Anton and I walk home hand-in-hand. Protectors stand watch at most street corners, a precaution after the mutagenic attack in case the spider was part of a pack. Three hovercrafts with auto-rifles zoom by.

We're almost at Anton's when a flatbed truck rumbles past. It's going intentionally slowly. On the back of it is the giant arachnid. It's covered in patterned hair and spikes. Its eight red eyes are dull, and its mandibles look frozen. The carcass is covered in plasma burns. A hole gapes where Captain Light's photon spear pierced its chest.

Anton stares. His breathing quickens.

"Come on," I say.

He stays put, gaze unwavering. Could Anton be right? Could this have been a person? I shake my head at such foolishness. He's not thinking straight, plain and simple. The truck drives away in a trail of exhaust to show off the trophy to the rest of the borough.

"That's not going to be you," I say.

"There's something I need to show you," he says.

He leads me into an alley. Is he going to kiss me? Amidst all of this, I still think about his lips pressing into mine. He leans against a crate and jerks up his sleeve.

I gaze at a patch of raised, burned flesh on his wrist. It's red and fresh. I don't think it was an accident. The wound is too perfectly symmetrical, in the shape of a star.

"I did it in the mechanical shop," he says. "Used a blow torch to heat up one of my acrobatic awards then pressed it into myself."

"Why?" I ask.

"Scarification," he says. "Just in case."

"In case of what?" I ask.

"In case you need to identify my body."

I open my mouth to protest, and he does the one thing that can silence me. He kisses me; the pads on his palms press into my back, and I soak up his heat like a sponge. A contented purr builds in his chest and throat. I forget his Manifestation, his paranoia, and everything else.

Bliss now means pain later.

The thought comes unbidden. I shove the proverb back into the wisdom jar in my head and crazy glue the lid shut.

In the following weeks, Anton's secret thickens the bond between us. I fool myself into believing we can get away this—until one day when we're in class working on a project. It's been three months since Anton first sashayed into my life in a whirl of pink feathers.

He's kept his head shaved and clothes plain since the spider attack, but the topaz choker is back around his neck. From time to time, he lets slip a "bon mot" and my belly warms when he unthinkingly calls me bae-bé.

One day in class, he demands, "How can Mrs. Cranberry claim this is an artiste assignment? This is kindergarten craft at best. It's rédiculous!" He glares at the pots of finger paint in front of us.

A boy in another borough has Manifested glowing rainbow hands and has been sent to Jupitar City. In a symbolic show of solidarity, we're dipping our palms into colored paints and making handprints on pieces of paper.

"Hurry up!" Mrs. Cranberry says.

Anton and I jostle for space with our classmates as we tape our multi-hued handprints to the wall.

"I'll put mine next to yours," Caitlin says to Anton.

I roll my eyes. She is crushing hard. Anton's so out of her league, I can't bother to be jealous or to put her in her place.