The 13th Continuum (Book 1: The Continuum Trilogy)

Chapter 4: Teach You A Lesson

Myra's first instinct was fear driven—the 'Trollers had her! 

But she forced herself to relax and take stock of the situation. Her heart rate slowed and the rational part of her brain sparked to attention. She breathed in through her nostrils, and that's what did it. She'd recognize his scent anywhere—spice and sweat with a hint of perfumed soap underneath, the kind that only the Plenus could get.

At his smell, her heart pitter-pattered in her chest. Traitor, she thought. She was referring to her heart, but the term could have just as easily applied to him. Before she could enjoy his embrace too much, she twisted away and stomped on his foot. It had its intended effect.

"Holy Sea, what'd you do that for?" Kaleb yelped. He released her to tend to his wounded extremity. She could tell that he wasn't hurt that badly.

"You can't just go around grabbing people in the corridor like that," she said. "Somebody has to teach you a lesson."

He massaged his foot gingerly. "Point taken . . . but did you have to use so much force?"

"It wasn't that much. Force equals mass times acceleration. I used just enough to make you release me, not enough to break a toe."

He tried to look aghast, but it was terribly adorable. "Break a toe? What kind of monster are you?"

"The nice kind," she shot back. "Otherwise, I would have actually broken it—not just considered it. Don't be such a wimp. Pretend you're Factum for one second."

Kaleb put a little pressure on his foot, testing it out. Just as she had guessed, it bore his weight easily. He didn't even flinch. The only thing damaged was his ego.

"Good as new!" he proclaimed.

The smile was back on his face now, the one that he'd probably been wearing behind her back while he held her captive in his arms. It lit up his face, enhancing each of his highborn features, from his glossy black hair, to his sharp cheekbones, to his deep, emerald eyes.

Even now, after everything they'd been through, she still wondered why he chose to share it with her. Kaleb was Plenus with a father on the Synod. He could have had any girl in the colony, but for some inexplicable reason, he had picked her. It was maddening and infuriating and perplexing and—worst of all—it defied all rationality.

But it hadn't ended well.

Sure, it had started out great. For two glorious years they courted until The Trial put a stop to that—and every other good thing in her life. After she got expelled from school, Kaleb abandoned her. All of her friends from school did. That was really the only word for it.

They abandoned her.

Kaleb stopped talking to her. Stopped kissing her. Stopped coming by her compartment. Stopped everything. Just stopped.

The heartbreak that followed was worse than every- thing else that happened during that dark time. It kept her up at night, sobbing into her pillow, and haunted her like a ghost during the day, turning up when she least expected it and scaring her half to death. It got so bad that for a while she didn't even recognize herself anymore. Who was this creature with dark circles under her eyes who cried at the drop of a hat?

But time had a funny way of changing things. Slowly, but surely, over the last few months, Kaleb started talking to her again. All of her friends from school did. Eventually, she let them back into her life, just as they let her back into theirs.

But not all the way.

The Trial had changed her. It had made her more cautious with her affections. And she'd sworn a sacred oath to herself that she was done with courting, done with kissing, done with Kaleb Sebold. Being lonely was better than nursing a broken heart.