My mother shifts her eyes between the two of us. “You sneaks.”
“Let me make it up to you. What would you like to drink?” Jase asks her.
“Bubbles, please.”
“Right away.” Jase and my father turn toward the bar.
My mother shakes her head at me. “To think you were going to cancel on us tonight.” I shrug and take a sip of my martini. I may have tried to avoid this, but she wasn’t having it. Especially when I told her who I had plans with tonight. “And why are you drinking liquor? You were always a wine drinker.”
“It’s been a day, Mamá.”
Jase hands my mother a tall flute of sparkling wine, and she takes his arm leading him off to their box.
I take my father’s arm. “Good thing for my slippery memory, or you two would have been stuck with only me tonight.”
“Don’t be silly. You know she gets excited about these things. You look lovely, by the way.”
“There are expectations when the Wards go to the theater.”
“And you exceed them all every time.”
We reach our box, where the four chairs are arranged in an arc to make it easier to converse. My mother allows no detail to fall through the cracks. As we take our seats, I attempt to head her off from her inevitable interrogation. “Mamá, how have you been? What film are you working on now?”
“Oh, some silly romance. They’re all the same now, honestly. Real-life romance is so much more interesting. Speaking of which, how long have you two actually been seeing each other? Were the rumors always true?” She cuts past my diversion masterfully. I should have known I never stood a chance against her.
I cut a sidelong glance at Jase in silent reproach for putting me in this situation. “A couple of months.”
Her eyes shift up to the left as she tries to remember something. “Was it the Symphony Gala like everyone thought?”
“No, Mother.” Through my teeth, I say, “I was with someone else that night.” For most of that night anyway.
“You know, Jase, you aren’t as slick as you might think. Aurora could tell you had a soft spot for Serenity from the start.”
His cheeks tinge red as he takes a sip of his drink. “My mother is always quick to believe such things.”
“She wasn’t far off this time.”
Jase’s eyes meet mine. “She and the rumor mill were bound to get something right eventually.” He holds my gaze for a moment more before diverting to my mother.
Fortunately, they can chat away with ease. I’m doing a terrible job of acting my part—instead obsessing over whether Jase’s affection is genuine. That didn’t feel like an act, but maybe he’s a better liar than I’d thought. But he said he wasn’t acting… Before our spur-of-the-moment kiss, did he have an interest in me I didn’t notice?
Finally, the lights dim, and the show starts, silencing my mother and Jase. His shoulder tenses under my hand as I lean close to his ear. “I think there are some secrets between us.” He takes my hand in his and gives it a light squeeze as he rests both of our hands on my knee. His gaze remains on the stage.
I love Dvorák’s From the New World, but I can’t pay attention to it. I spend the entire first movement shifting my gaze between my mother, who regularly peeks toward Jase and me with a content look on her face, and Jase, who refuses to look back at me. He’s perceptive, so I’m confident he can feel my eyes on him, but he won’t turn toward me. That is the kind of willpower I do not possess. I can’t keep this up all night. I need explanations.
At intermission, I turn to my mother. “Mamá, I have a bit of a headache. I hate to cut our night short, but I’d like to go home.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not a problem. Let’s go.”
“No, you can stay.” I turn to Jase, “You’ll take me home, won’t you?”
“Of course,” he says with a smile.
My mother looks at us with a combination of suspicion and joy. “Thank you, Jase.”
We all stand to say our goodbyes and give hugs, then Jase and I walk out hand in hand. He smirks as he says, “I don’t suppose you actually have a headache?”
“My head might have exploded if I kept waiting to talk to you. Does that count?”
Chapter Forty
SERENITY
We don’t speak as we walk to the station or as we board the monorail. As we approach our stop, a flash of lightning cracks through the sky, and thunder resounds through the air.
“Think we’ll make it before the rain starts?” Jase asks.
I shrug. “I guess we’ll find out.”
When we get off, he starts to walk in one direction, but I pull him another. “Not mine. I don’t need Vogue to hear every word of this.”
“Trying to get me alone? I think you may have the wrong idea about me, Miss Ward.”
I roll my eyes at the jest. We make it one block before the sky opens up, and the downpour begins. He takes my hand as we hurry down the last two blocks, but we’re drenched when we arrive.
“Well, that’s perfect.” I slough water off of my arms and shake out my hair in the elevator.
Jase smiles. “I’ll get you something dry to put on. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable while you’re yelling at me.”
“How very thoughtful of you.” My frustration with him is difficult to retain when I feel so ridiculous in a sopping wet evening gown.
He disappears into his bedroom and comes back out with a towel, a t-shirt, and some soft house pants for me. I thank him as I take it into the bathroom.
My reflection is laughable. My dress clings to my body, makeup runs down my face, and the braid that crowned my head is a flat mess. I unzip myself and drag my arms through the wet fabric. It falls heavily onto the floor with a sloshing sound. I pick it up and put it in the sink before I dry myself off. The disparity between my evening gown and the oversized cotton t-shirt and pants is comical. I wipe my face off with a tissue and unpin my braid, combing through my damp locks with my fingers. My parents and Vogue are the only people who have ever seen me look like this. I can’t believe Jase is going to now too.
When I come out, he is sitting on the sofa dressed similarly to me. Except the clothes fit him, so he doesn’t look ridiculous. In fact, the short sleeves hug his arms quite flatteringly. I fold my legs up under myself and sit facing him.
“Much better,” he says.
“Oh, clearly.” I gesture to my less than elegant appearance. “Well, if we can’t be on the same page, at least we can dress the same.”
He rests his arm on the back of the sofa and props his head on his hand. “What page would you like to be on?”
“The one where we’re upfront with each other. Do not make me drag this out of you.”
He shifts before rolling his shoulders back with a sigh. “So what if I have a crush on you? You should probably assume everyone in the city does.”
Upfront. Good. “That’s ridiculous. But even if you were correct, anyone else who might think they fancy me doesn’t know me at all. I don’t care about that, but I do care about where I stand with you. Have you always…?” The idea of befriending someone who happened to already be harboring feelings like that makes my stomach quiver.
“No, not at all. Remember, I’ve known about the Establishment for two years, and you always seemed like the stereotype of an affected Kaycian.” He stops and winces. “That sounded horrible.”
“Not really.” That’s exactly what I was supposed to look like. At this point, I might be disappointed in him if he was attracted to me then.
“Well… I thought that’s all you were.”
“Would you like to know my secret? I thought that’s all I was, too.”
His eyes soften, warm and sweet as the honey they match. “You’re so much more, though.”
“Why not tell me so?” Warmth spreads through my core.
“You did have a boyfriend,” he points out. “Then you were fresh out of that, and the next thing I know, you’re leaping
into my arms and kissing me outside of the train station.”
There’s the condensed version. “A lot more happened in between there.”
He shrugs. “But you had just gotten out of a relationship, and you’re obviously out of my league…”
“Why am I out of your league? Because I’m Serenity Ward?” I need everyone to stop talking about me like I’m made of gold. My last name does not automatically put me out of his league.
“If you mean to ask if it’s because you present awards and float through the most prestigious events in the city in dramatic gowns, no. That’s not why. That’s not what I think of at all when I hear the name ‘Serenity Ward.’ I think of the witty girl with the easy smile and untamed optimism, laughing on her sofa with a small group of friends. I prefer the version in front of me right now to the glamorous socialite.”
The warmth of a blush rises into my cheeks. I want to look away, embarrassed by his brazen compliments, but I can’t pull my eyes from his face. My heart leaps up to my throat. Could it be that while I was trying to find myself, Jase found me too?
“And somehow,” he continues, “this girl is selfless enough to want to take a world where she has everything and flip it upside down to make things better for other people. That is why you’re out of my league.”
My heart flutters, rearranging things and finding a new place for this boy who sees me differently than the million eyes which have always watched me. Where were we going with this? The generous description of me distracted me.
Jase remembers, apparently, and resumes the narration. “Anyway, there you were, risking yourself to rescue me, and though that situation was mostly awful… I’m kind of glad it happened.”
His eyes glance away as if to that memory, and he smiles. “Since we aren’t going to have secrets, I don’t think your method was the only plausible option for getting us away from the train station. Care to explain?”
I wince. Has he hoped I was attracted to him all along and saw this as my chance to initiate something? That would be the romantic version, right? “I don’t care to explain, but I will.” I take a breath. “Adwin was there, and…” His gaze drops, and his lips press together. It makes my heart sink. I’ve never been proud of my behavior that night, but now guilt rushes over me, tightening my chest as I shift on the sofa.
“Do you know what?” I say, taking his free hand. Holding his hand doesn’t feel casual anymore. My heart speeds up as I go on. “I may be ashamed of my motives, but maybe I’m not sorry that I forced us into this relationship.”
The world beyond his eyes drops away. Amber eyes, like pools of honey. Eyes which saw my actions last weekend as courageous and selfless. Eyes that see the world the way I do.
“I’m pretty sure we aren’t being watched here,” he whispers. “You don’t have to keep acting.” His face is inches from mine. When did we get this close?
I bite my lip. “I’m not that good of an actress.”
My lips find his like they’ve forever been searching for a home and finally found the perfect one. He kisses me back firmly, his hand releasing mine to slide up my back. From between my shoulder blades, he pulls me closer, leaving no air between us, and I melt into his arms.
This isn’t simple and safe, like my relationship with Adwin was. Jase and I live in a different world now. A world that’s deceptive and uncertain, and we’ve fallen into a dangerous course through it. With that alone, we have more in common than I ever had with Adwin. I didn’t even realize I needed this connection, but I was a candle waiting to be lit, and Jase is the match.
I wrap my arms around his neck and breathe him in as our mouths move together. I pull my lips away, tilting my head down, so our foreheads and noses lean against each other lightly. My eyes are still closed as I breathe, “I really wasn’t trying to get you out of the theater for this.”
He reclines back. “No secrets?” I nod. “I wouldn’t be upset if you had.”
I curl up to his chest, and we shift our legs to lie down together. He traces my hand with his fingertips where it lays on his chest. How did I get to this point? This afternoon I was dreading a fabricated date with Jase, and now, what are we?
“I guess I have one more secret,” he sighs. “It isn’t really, but… I wanted to give you a terrible gift.”
“You have to be bad at something. You could do a lot worse than being bad at gift-giving.”
“Well,”—he runs a finger over my bracelet—“I’m not always awful at gift-giving.”
“This is from you?” I ask, touching the silver words on my wrist. He smiles shyly. “Have you heard of a tag or a card?”
“I didn’t want to be forward.”
I shake my head. “Okay, so now are all of the secrets out?”
“Here’s the bad one. I was thinking, as a precaution, we might both want to carry amnesia shots for ourselves, in case we’re caught.”
“How much time could we wipe out for that to be useful?”
“The length of time we’ve known about the islands.”
I prop myself up on my elbow to look at him straight in the face. “I’m seven months into this. I can’t lose this year.” How can he even suggest that?
He sits up and pulls me up to sit facing him. “I certainly don’t want to lose two and a half years, but I think it would be safest to keep that as an option.”
My mind races through everything that has happened this year. Last year seems like a dream. I thought we were alone in the world, I didn’t know anything, I was with Adwin. I don’t want to be that girl again. What are people without their memories? The Establishment destroys the marshals’ memories, and the result is that they aren’t even human anymore.
“No, that’s too much.” I shake my head—a little frantically.
“Trust me, especially today, I don’t want to do it, but if they take us in, they won’t just ask us nicely. Krisalyn and I have found research to develop a truth serum. I don’t want to have anything they want to know.”
“They could force the truth out of us?”
“If Tevin is successful, yes.”
So that’s how the Director of the Department of Health spends his time. It sounds impossible, but nothing surprises me anymore. “What would be left of me without this year?” I say it out loud, though it’s really to myself.
“I had an idea to pre-record the new memories we want to have. Tell ourselves what we want to know, so if we have to take the shots, we can listen to it and be on track with what the Establishment knows about that time, and we keep a version of the memories that are important to us. We could keep them on ear pods and pop them in before we take the shots.”
Hmm. “What would yours say?”
“That I met Sophos in the Establishment, broke up with Lanelle, what I’ve worked on for the past two years, some things about my family, that I know Serenity Ward, and somehow we started dating.”
“It wouldn’t be real, though. We wouldn’t have tonight anymore.” Tonight, which has escalated madly, and is leading us down whatever road we’re on, and may be the foundation for something, and it would be gone.
His lips turn up on one side into a crooked smile.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I’m just glad you think tonight is so important.”
I blink slowly as a blush rise in my cheeks. “But it wouldn’t be anymore.” It’s premature to hang expectations on tonight, but if he doesn’t think I’m crazy for it, then oh well. “It would just be a night we went to the theater with my parents if that. It would fall under a heading of ‘we went on dates,’ and we wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“I know, and I promise I wouldn’t even bring it up if I didn’t think it could save us and the uprising.”
I press my hand onto my forehead. “As a last resort?”
“Absolutely.” His kiss calms my fears while simultaneously exciting every nerve in my body. “I don’t want to forget this.”
Chapter Forty-One
BRAM
“I don’t like being seen coming here.” Serenity taps away on the back of her hand. She didn’t think twice when I dragged her into Jase’s rescue mission on Saturday—the potential danger didn’t faze her, but today she is nervous about being in Sophos’ office.
Sophos tries to soothe her concerns. “It would look worse if you suddenly stopped. I am still your program mentor. Also, I want to keep our friends in technology at a safe distance, and you are the logical go-between.”
“There isn’t much to tell about them,” she says, shrugging. “They’re working on it.”
“When you had access to the trains, did you, by chance, stumble across any other methods of traversing the tracks?” he asks. “I’m looking for a way to get one or two people down the tracks without using a train.” Setting the explosives will take Tori and me days if we have to walk the whole way.
She considers for a moment. “Not that I know of specifically. There is the service station on the east side, at the end of Kessler Road. If there is something, it would be there.”
“Thank you, I’ll look into that. And how are you doing?” Sophos’ forehead wrinkles. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’ve landed in trouble.”
“I’m okay.” Her tone is bright, which is surprising, but I believe her. It doesn’t make sense, but she looks relaxed now that the topic is on her.
“Good,” Sophos replies.
“I should let you know,”—she twists her fingers together—“Jase is setting us up with a failsafe in case we’re arrested.”
“What would that be?” I ask.
“We’re going to keep doses of amnesia shots to eliminate our memories of the uprising if the need arises.”
My eyebrows pull together. “You’d have to wipe out your whole year.”
She sighs and grabs her hair at the base of her skull. “I know.”
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