The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Don't ask me why, when all I've done is cause problems, but Ronaldo still takes me out on the next day's second session circuit. I'm running it hard, so hard he struggles to stay with me, ahead of the others, slippery with sweat, music busting at my ears, and in the plaza, dodging through the people milling, I slip the rest of the pack, almost lose Ronaldo too, but then he has me by the arm.

'What are you doing?'

I pull my earphones out. 'You don't understand. I have to see Dom; it's urgent.'

'Suarez?' he says. 'Impossible.'

'Ronaldo, please,' I pant, spitting it a bit, bending double, too out of breath to speak. 'Just . . . please . . . I need to see him.'

He takes his bag off, reaches into it, pulls out a flask of water and hands it to me. I take a drink from it without taking my eyes off him.

'Please,' I say afterwards. 'Five minutes is all I ask.'

'Where is he?' he says then.

'I don't know,' I say.

He laughs. 'Then I can't help you, guapa.'

'Lend me your pod.'

He shakes his head.

'Please. Just . . . please . . . this one thing.' And he must see it, must see the deep, dizzying horrible fear of it all right there on my face, because he hands me his pod.

'Come to me,' I say when Dom picks up. 'I need you. Five minutes, please.'

He's totally blindsided but catches on quick. 'I'm with my parents. Let me just . . . I'll meet you, OK? Where are you?'

'Plaza.'

'How about the cinema? That's within the limits of West. Go in, get a seat, over the side near the back. I'll be there, as soon as I can.' He hangs up.

Ronaldo and I walk into the cinema still panting, still sweating. Thankfully the only people here are pretty much all in the middle seats towards the front so this whole back right-hand section is empty. I sit about three rows in and Ronaldo sits at the back, watching the screen. It's some superhero thing that is so noisy it vibrates your skull plates. Dom arrives minutes later and slips from the aisle into the seat next to me, sliding low and wedging his knees up to the seat in front, pulling me down and in against him.

'What's happened?' he says, pushing my hat off and moving sweaty hair off my face. 'Are you OK?'

'I'm fine; I'm OK. Are you?'

And as he nods and smiles, we are nose to nose and it is so weird because how is it possible to be so happy to see someone and so scared and so sad all at the same time, and to know that they feel all those things too. So maybe this is why, when I'm supposed to be talking, supposed to be explaining, supposed to be using the precious time we have to make him understand something that is just so NUTS, so all-out insane he may never actually get his head round it, instead of all this I am kissing him. I am kissing him and he is kissing me back and it is deep and wet and I am pulling at the front of his overalls and he is smoothing the sweat on my face with his fingers and we are both breathing hard, and no amount of close is ever going to be close enough.

In the end it is sheer force of will that lets me pull away, that makes me push on his shoulder until he does too, and when we're apart enough for me to look into his face I see how serious he is, see the frown he wears and press at it with my fingers until it eases a little.

Then I say, 'You have no idea how scared I've been for you. I heard about Lucas Brent.'

'Yeah, it's . . . ' He nods, swallows, shakes his head. 'He had two little kids.'

I take his hand, hold it in my lap, run my fingers across the back of it, notice the way it is bruised all along his thumb and forefinger, carrying down his veins, and then look back at his face. 'We have to go. We have to escape. We have to get out of here, back to Huxley-3.'

I watch the light play on his face as he blinks a few times, taking it in, then glances around, pulling his hood up. 'But we . . . we can't do that. Deserters get shot, you know they do. And even if we didn't, would we even make it there?' And when I look at him, even though I can barely make him out, he is watching me, watching me the way someone does if they think you're going crazy, and I have seen that look a lot in my life, but never from Dom, and this makes me hesitate. But I push on.

'We can work it out. I know we can. I think Ezra could get us access to a shuttle.'

He just watches me, doesn't move, doesn't even seem to breathe, shell-shocked I guess, while some kind of chaotic battle scene plays out on the screen so that the whole room rattles, and then he realises I am waiting for him to say something and says, 'Why would he do that? I'm pretty sure he only acts in his own interests. Only ever has.'

'Exactly why he will do anything to get us out of the picture. I mean, come on, he'd be delighted to help us fly off to meet an almost certain death.'

'Wait, is this why he called me four times this afternoon?'

I hear myself gasp at that. 'He did? Ezra called you? What did he say?'

'Nothing. I didn't answer. Speaking to him is in violation of my parole. I figured he was messing with me.'

'But he's . . . Dom, every passing second takes us further away from Huxley. You need to find a way to meet him.'

I look at him, at his sad mouth, which is the only part of him visible since he has his hood up and is partly turned away from me.

'You spoke to him about this already, then?' he says. 'You spoke to him before you spoke to me?'

I push his hood down, lay my palm against his jaw. 'They took me to Fertility. He . . . he had to be there too.' I feel him tense up, before I say, 'Dom, we need to get out of here. Soon.'

'But even if we did do this,' he says. 'What about . . . your dad, and . . . and my parents. And just like . . . everyone. Even if we survive we'll never see them again.'

'I can't – we can't – think about that. We just can't think about that. We're not safe here, you know we aren't.'

He looks at me and I see some of the fear that he's been hiding from me, so I take his face against mine. 'Tell me what they've done to you. Tell me what's been happening.'

But he doesn't. Instead he kisses me, breathing me in while I stroke his hair and the back of his neck, his warm skin that carries the promise of sun within it while my own sweat near freezes to my body, bringing on a shiver. And when he stops kissing me he says, 'All I know is when you and I are together it feels like we can do anything, even things that seem impossible,' and his voice cracks a little.

And it is right now that Ronaldo appears, standing in the aisle right next to us, above us, looking around over our heads. I step over Dom's lap and while I do he has his hands on my hips, my face, pulling me into one last kiss, and Ronaldo says, 'Mira, hombre,' exasperated, as Dom speaks against my ear: 'I'll try and work something out, OK?'

Ronaldo traps my arm with his and walks, with me only able to glance back, fingertips slipping out of Dom's, as he stands slowly and watches me, getting smaller, face in darkness, turning away before I do but in a way that suggests that it's hard to do and I am dragged onwards, back to my cell by Ronaldo.

'Your music,' he insists, and I put my earphones in but maybe they are silent and maybe not, I wouldn't know; I am too far inside, or maybe outside, to notice.

More coming later this week for Seren and Dom! If you enjoyed this chapter, please don't forget to vote – thanks.

The Loneliness of Distant Beings has been published, but to get it in front of as many people as possible I'm posting it to the lovely Wattpad community. The plan is to have it all up before the publication of my second book - The Glow of Fallen Stars - in August.

If you can't wait to read the ending, or just love the feel of real pages, then you can purchase Loneliness from your local bookshop or online retailers!