Play at Soul's Edge

by Sophia Amador

  She placed her hand over his on the stick shift. Warmth and strength flowed over her entire body. “Adrian, I’ve spent the last three days doing nothing but lying in bed. Let’s go.”

  He drove so calmly and gently on the way to the lab she had to remark on it. “Aren’t you wasting all of this car’s excess horsepower? Not that I’m complaining.”

  He smiled. “I don’t need to drive like that anymore.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe Mario did something good for us after all?” she teased.

  “It’s more like something about you seems to have filled a part of me I didn’t even know was missing.”

  She squeezed his hand more tightly. “We’re a good team.”

  He signaled a left turn. “Mmm. I’ve never been on a team before.”

  Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead. This was the guy who never used to go anywhere, even the school cafeteria, without his entourage. “Um … didn’t you run a criminal organization?”

  “That wasn’t a team. It was an extension of my will.”

  She cocked a brow at his arrogance, and he shrugged. “I have a lot to learn. This is a whole new world, and I hope you’ll teach me.”

  He turned his palm upward and their fingers linked. No matter what, she was looking forward to it.

  The lab appeared surprisingly peaceful compared with the last time Elisa had seen it. No flashing lights, no alarms blaring, just a few people in white lab coats scurrying around, their voices hushed. She wasn’t surprised Adrian had no trouble getting her a visitor pass. The security guard seemed positively deferential.

  The lab where he’d been working was cluttered with chemicals, open laptops, and scribbled-in lab notebooks. She wandered over to check his progress. “What are you working on?”

  “Do you know how addiction works?”

  Easy question. After all, she was planning to be a chemistry major. “When dopamine floods the brain and shortcuts its reward system.”

  He beamed. “Exactly. Rapture is even worse than most opiates because it activates both the amygdala and the hippocampus. Worse, in some cases, it causes a cascade reaction within the brain that essentially poisons you, even if you’ve only been exposed to a minute dose. Your synapses lose cohesion, and you can revert to childhood. Your brain ends up with fewer neurons and much sparser connections.”

  “Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t sound good at all.”

  He rubbed an eyebrow. “I’m trying to develop a chemical analog to methadone that focuses on breaking the glutamate bonds within neurotransmitters and returns the amygdala to normal.”

  “Doesn’t methadone just lessen the physical symptoms of withdrawal?”

  “Rapture works differently than heroin, and this analog I’m creating is much more than merely an agonist. It’s more like an antidote.”

  Her skin began to tingle. “That would be fantastic,” she said. “You could actually heal all those addicts permanently.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not quite there. I’m close. I’m so close! I thought I had it yesterday, but then it all went wrong. I had to start over completely.”

  “What happened?”

  “I created a molecular simulation on the computer, but when I tried it for real, it got stuck in the middle of the synthesis. The precursors I’m using have a tendency to explode.”

  Elisa scanned the room. “You’re being careful, right?” A few char marks streaked the sides and top of one of the benches.

  He shot her a brief smile. “When have you known me not to be?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Only when you’re breathing.”

  He laughed, but his expression immediately became earnest. “The reaction has to occur at a low temperature to keep it from exploding. I’m using an antipyretic gel. But it’s below the gel’s freezing point.”

  “So the problem is that your substrate melts?”

  “If I freeze the gel, the reaction stops. If I allow the gel to turn to a liquid, well…” He rubbed his chin, and she noticed for the first time that his stubble looked a little singed.

  He swiveled the laptop so she could see his calculations. “I need new precursors, but none of them are effective to get to the final synthesis.”

  She frowned. “Have you considered using a different substrate? Like some kind of cellulose?”

  “What good would that do?”

  “Sounds like you need a reversal in the physical properties of your base. Normal chemicals become liquid at higher temperatures and turn solid at lower temperatures, right? Ice melts at 32°F as it gets warmer, and if you take chocolate or butter out of the refrigerator, they get softer and more liquefied as they get warmer.”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “Some carboxymethyl cellulose compounds behave like eggs.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Eggs?”

  “You know, when eggs sit in the refrigerator, or at room temperature, they’re liquid. But they’re unusual. Eggs are one of the few substances that turn solid at higher temperatures.”

  He looked thoughtful. “But that’s actually a chemical change, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but some of these compounds behave similarly. They melt at cooler temperatures. If you heat them up, they turn solid.” She waved her arms, getting excited. “That way, if your chemical reaction becomes exothermic and gets ready to explode, this stuff would solidify and shut it down.”

  Adrian rubbed his chin, pensive. He opened his laptop and typed furiously. She peered over his shoulder. He scanned rapidly through a series of articles in an online chemistry journal, reading at his usual blinding speed.

  Then he slammed the lid shut. His eyes were bright. “That’s it!” He put both hands around her waist, his fingers and thumbs girdling her midriff. A current zipped through her from one of his palms to the other, as though her own body was becoming exothermic, boiling like a reaction gone wild.

  He lifted her effortlessly into the air, and spun her around in a dizzying circle, round and round, laughing. She had never seen his face so carefree before, his eyes gleaming with pure delight, all the calculation and playacting gone from his expression. His muscles flexed under her hands and they flowed together like perfect dancers, hand to shoulder, fingertip to fingertip, soul to soul.

  The lab whirled around them. Sunlight winked through the half-open blinds as they spun, a glittering tracery of gold like a whirling kaleidoscope that seemed half-familiar. His beautiful features filled her vision as all the shadows faded away.

  Their faces were only inches apart. She licked her lips and the grin on his face suddenly became more feral. She wound the fingers of one hand through his warm and messy hair. His long lashes dipped. She leaned into him and pressed her lips to his.

  His lips were warm satin and toasted almonds; that slightly burnt aftertaste from his singed stubble only rendered him more savory. She smiled against his mouth. He was delicious. Tasting him felt like risking a conflagration. But what was life without risk?

  If she was playing with fire by choosing Adrian, so be it.

  Let it burn.

  Fire could be dangerous, but… it gave lifesaving warmth. Roasting over a cook fire made food nourishing — and delicious. Baking, heating, burning could change the very structure of a substance, transmuting it from poison into elixir. The subtle chemistry of sustenance was nothing without fire.

  Every cook knew that.

  She combed both hands through his hair, and enfolded his head in her arms. She wrapped her legs around his torso, her inner thighs molding to his hips, and the sun swathed them in golden light.

  34

  Elisa

  ALL THE WINDOWS in the school cafeteria had been thrown open. The sweet smell of wisteria sprawling over the south wall mingled with an aroma of freshly cut grass from the field and wafted into the room full of chattering students.

  Chloe dropped her tray on the table. “Elisa, you’re back! Are you doing okay?” Her eyes glittered with excitement.

  Sumiko rolle
d her eyes. “Nothing makes you more popular than being a kidnap victim,” she commented dryly.

  Elisa managed a sarcastic grimace. “Well, I’m fine now. No problems.” She dug into her lasagna.

  “So,” Chloe said, leaning close. “You have to tell us. Every. Single. Detail.”

  Elisa shrugged. She’d been practicing the shorthand version. She wouldn’t lie, but she sure wasn’t going to reveal everything. “What’s there to tell? I got kidnapped by a dealer who got shot by the police. A SWAT team shut down the drug manufacturing plant and freed all the people they were using for experiments. And the gang responsible got apprehended. End of story.”

  Chloe frowned. “It’s a good thing you’re going into chemistry and not journalism, because storytelling is definitely not your forte. I’ve read juicier reports in the local paper.”

  “I’m just glad they kept our names out of it.” Elisa bent her head to her food. Deflection. That was going to be her new skill. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my senior year fighting off reporters.”

  “You’ve got more important things to do,” Sumiko said, waving a fork. “Like how did your college applications go?”

  She’d hoped they wouldn’t ask that. “I got accepted to MIT, but they didn’t give me enough financial aid, so I guess I’m not going.”

  Sumiko dropped her fork. “You’re what? Girl, you are so going. Congratulations!”

  “My parents aren’t going to help me, and my EFC’s too high.”

  “Call up the MIT office of financial aid. Tell them your situation.”

  “I know about the internet, Sumiko.” Elisa ticked off the conditions on her fingers. “I don’t count as an emancipated minor, there’s no documented abuse in my family, I’m not in the military, and I’m neither twenty-four nor married.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’ll keep working at the bakery, save money, and when I turn twenty-four, I’ll apply again. It’s only about five years.”

  “What’s only about five years?” Adrian squeezed into the seat and wrapped an arm around her.

  “She got into MIT but won’t go. She’s got the most pathetic excuse ever: no money,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.

  Adrian smiled. “You know, there are quite a few private foundations that offer scholarships to students that meet their criteria.”

  “I’ve got no problem waiting.” She’d come to peace with her decisions.

  He eyed her and tipped his head to one side with an all-too-familiar smirk. “I believe we need more fairness and justice in the world. That’s what these philanthropic foundations aim for.”

  Elisa shoveled in more lasagna and spoke around a mouthful of pasta. “A laudable goal, but nothing to do with me.”

  He leaned into her and whispered. “We’ve got a few key tasks for our team. Bring Schwartz to trial and get you into MIT—all legally and ethically.” His eyes glinted. “I love a challenge.”

  She shook her head, but she had a feeling there were going to be more than a few challenges ahead for them to face together. But interestingly enough, they no longer filled her with dread.

  Her dread had usually come from wondering what those voices in her head would say about her life. She hadn’t heard any of them since that day they were trapped in the lab.

  Maybe the oxygen deprivation had suffocated them.

  Her mother had called—she was going on another extended retreat. She told Elisa not to expect her back for at least another year. Elisa told her she was moving out, and she seemed supremely uninterested.

  Good. She didn’t want to talk with her mother about her new life. Sleeping with a former gang leader after all those times her mother had insisted on dressing Elisa in white because it ‘symbolized purity’? Ugh. Elisa wasn’t sad to be moving on and away from her.

  Adrian held out a small wrapped box. “I’ve got a present for you.”

  “What’s this?” Elisa asked, turning it over in her hands.

  “Don’t just sit there, open it, silly,” said Sumiko.

  She unwrapped it. Inside was a pair of brand-new glasses, very similar to the pair she had lost so long ago and couldn’t afford to replace. Slowly, almost reverently, she unfolded them and placed them on her nose. Instantly, the world sprung into crystalline focus.

  Scalloped wisteria clusters dangled over the windows, magnolias swelled with pure white blossoms, and new green buds enveloped the birch trees at the far end of the field. In the further distance, fine lines of branches pierced the pale blue sky, all the tiny details of the vast world suddenly clear and rich and full of promise.

  Could she tell Adrian how vivid and beautiful and alive the world was now?

  “I donated my own glasses to charity,” he said softly. “Now that I’m with you, I’ll never hide again.” His words had the ring of a solemn promise. He took her fingers in his, and slowly, with his eyes never leaving hers, he brushed his lips over the back of her hand, launching an array of sparks up her arm that warmed her as though she stood before a blazing fire.

  He gazed at her with such intensity she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Without his glasses, his face was intensely vulnerable. A thrilling rush swept her from head to toe, and she laced her fingers more deeply through his, wanting only to press herself against him, skin to skin, heart to beating heart.

  This man had opened himself fully to her. Trusted her completely. Loved her.

  She almost couldn’t breathe, overwhelmed with the magnitude of his trust. She would protect him with her life.

  And she knew, as surely as gravity held twin stars in each other’s orbit, that he felt the same.

  A couple of weeks later, Elisa visited Ben at the clinic. She peeked into one of the rooms and saw a healthy-looking boy lying asleep in the hospital bed. He looked familiar.

  “Is that Pete?” she asked, astonished at the change in his appearance.

  “Yeah,” Ben huffed. He rolled his eyes. “What a jerk.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He wasn’t so bad when he was really sick,” Ben groused. “Hell, when I thought he was going to die I almost felt sorry for him. Now he’s just been making a nuisance of himself, harassing all the female patients and nurses.”

  “He looks kind of peaceful,” she began.

  “Heh,” Ben snorted. He put a hand behind his head and gazed off into the distance. “I may have put a sedative in his IV.” He eyed her sidelong, but she only shrugged. Her slavish, rule-following days were over.

  “I heard that you’re also treating Kim Lugo.”

  Ben jumped up, finger to his lips. “Shhh! She’s here anonymously.” He lowered his voice. “The clinic could get in trouble for not reporting bullet wounds to the police, but my dad, well, you know what he’s like.”

  Elisa mimed zipping her lips shut. “No one’ll hear anything from me. But I saw your other ward was practically empty. How’d you get the treatment for Rapture? I thought the mayor had shut down your funding.”

  Ben grinned. “It was the damnedest thing. This private foundation actually reached out to us. There’s a new development in Rapture treatment, and they got fast-track approval for clinical trials. They offered to pay for all our medication and treatment for our patients.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “A foundation? Do you happen to know the name?”

  “My dad knows, but they wanted to remain anonymous. But who cares? Whoever they are, they’re brilliant. The treatment works. Everyone’s going to make a full recovery.”

  Rory’s funeral was held on an early morning at the Sunset View Cemetery. The line of cars and hearse wound slowly up the hill toward the A-frame mortuary. The air smelled cool and fresh, sweet as cut flowers. It was a long walk across the wet grass to a stand of white lilies and blue ribbons, where a man in a black suit stood holding a leather-bound book, greeting people in hushed tones.

  Adrian and Elisa stood at the back of the crowd of mourners, holding hands. Sierra sobbed in the front row, and a crowd made up of mostly
high school students, uneasy in rented finery, shuffled from foot to foot. A few adults were also in attendance, those who had heard the tragic love story on the news. Rory was being hailed as a hero for helping rescue all the homeless people who’d been victimized by Eric Holman, now in jail pending multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, and various other crimes. Sierra’s story had gone viral on social media, and a college fund had been set up for her. Donations were still pouring in.

  “He would’ve liked that,” Elisa said.

  Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Only his heroic deeds remembered? Of course.”

  “That Sierra’s future has been taken care of.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ll watch over her.”

  The funeral director wrapped up the ceremony, and news cameras whirred as the mayor stood up to make a speech. Adrian’s lips tightened. “Will you come with me?”

  “Anywhere,” she said.

  He pointed around the back side of the hill. “Let’s go to Area D.”

  They walked through damp grass studded with brass plaques set flush with the earth. Clusters of lilies, peonies, roses, and other multi-colored flowers dotted the ground.

  Adrian’s hand enfolded hers. They neared the crest of the hill, the wet grass swishing against their shoes. Reaching the top, she inhaled sharply. The dewy earth fell away from them; trees coated in the pale lime-green of spring splayed irregularly into the bright sky. Beyond, hazy in the distance, the city spread out like a vanishing checkerboard, downtown windows gleaming like diamonds in the morning light.

  Adrian scanned the ground nearby. “Here,” he said, stopping at a row of plaques beneath a bower of wisteria. Mounds of lilies draped the ground, and Elisa dropped to her knees to read the names.

  Armando Salas, 1964-2003

  Elizabeth Salas, 1969-2003

  Emma Salas, 1995-2003

  Adrian stood, hands in his pockets, looking down the hill and out at the city.

  “She would have liked this,” he murmured almost to himself. Elisa joined him and gazed out over the vista. “My mother loved views.”