True North

Chapter Nine

Overcome with dark and anxious thoughts, I make my way to the doors leading to the gardens out back. A prickle runs up my neck. I'm being watched. The shaven-head mercs guarding the doors survey me with dull eyes but they don't stop me, don't say a word. I race through watery moonlight, panting, and get lost in a landscaped garden lit with paper lanterns. At least I'm blessedly alone. I tug at the flowing drape of my dress over my right shoulder and wish beyond anything that I could snap my fingers and bring back my former life. The minute I think of Margot, the dam of tears I'd been holding back so carefully breaks. I sob my way deeper into the garden.

I haven't been there for more than a minute or two when a red handkerchief dotted with white polka dots appears before my blurry eyes. I halt mid-sob and hiccup. The arm attached to the hanky belongs to none other than Jared Price.

"Go away, Jared," I snarl. But I take the handkerchief and dab at my eyes anyway. Surprisingly, the cloth is perfectly clean and in good condition, if a little wrinkled.

"You're welcome," Jared replies as I blow.

"I said go away."

"Where my hanky goes, I go." He sounds so cheerful I want to throttle him.

He's painfully handsome by moonlight, his hair near silver. The planes of his face hollow out until he looks more like the sleek beast whose face he sometimes wears. Tonight he's opted for a faded tuxedo T-shirt, complete with a red bow tie at the neck. Before we left Storm's keep, he called it his "undercover Upper Circle" look, which had Torch laughing like a hyena.

It's so easy for Jared to mock, I realize. He's not trapped as I am. And at that, my anger explodes.

"Can you not follow me for five seconds?" I snap.

"'Fraid not. Kind of in the job description." He looks down at my strappy emerald shoes as though appraising their value. I make a strangled sound and stomp away. I hear nothing, not a squeak or a whisper, but I can feel him ghosting me as I slip deeper into the garden.

When I'm as fed up as I can be, I turn to confront him. And stare at an empty garden path.

"You think this is funny?" I call to thin air. But I know he can hear me. I know he'll not be far. "You enjoy watching girls cry?"

A few beats later, his voice floats out from the darkness and brushes my ears like a kiss. "Why are you crying, Lu?"

Even if I were inclined, I don't have enough breath in me to tell him all the reasons I'm crying. "Does Storm know that you're here?" I call out, surprising even myself.

There's silence from the darkness. Then, a soft, "No."

"I thought so. Does he know...?" I end with a dangling question, not even sure what I was going to say. Does Storm know that you've kissed me? Does he know we can't seem to leave each other alone, even if we fight like cats and dogs?

A beat, and then another soft "No" reaches my ears.

I march deeper into the garden, knowing he'll not be far. A small footbridge arches over a trickle of a stream and ends in a lovely, softly lit seating area. The evening is still fresh enough that the area remains undiscovered, so I sink down on one of the stone benches. It's hard, in moments like these, to remember that we're in Dominion. Less than a mile away, the drones record the lives of the rabble. People lay dying in their stacked cars, on the streets, in back alleys. Dying of the Plague or starvation or any number of the diseases that will kill you when you live hand-to-mouth with no help from anyone.

It makes me feel even sicker to think of the pettiness of my own problems, however cruel and large they seem.

A mosquito buzzes next to my ear. I swat at it and it flies away. Not a mosquito, I realize, but some type of miniature security drone. It circles back toward my ear with a high-pitched whirr when a small snap silences it forever. Jared's closed fist hovers next to my ear. He climbs over the bench and sits next to me, tossing the tiny metallic body he's crushed onto the ground.