She flutters her hand when she sees me and the Beautician leaves, but Mother continues to stare into her handheld mirror.
I go to stand next to her, my head bowed just a little and my hands clasped in front of me.
“How are you this morning?” she asks.
The answer is easy. I just have to let the programmed answer flow from my lips. “My life is just about perfect.”
She glances over with a smile. “Very good. Were you able to get any information from the Surface Dweller yesterday?”
This answer is harder, but I say, “Not much to be helpful.”
She purses her lips, then says, “You must try harder, Evelyn. We cannot afford to take our time.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Satisfied, she turns back to her mirror and touches a hand to her cheekbone. “Excellent. Now we can get on to more important matters. Tell me, what say you about the young Guard? Is he not the perfect match?”
I speak carefully, making sure my speech is impeccable. A wrong step could be fatal. “I do not know my feelings on this matter yet. I have much to learn about him.”
She makes a pssh sound. “What is there to learn? He has good genetics. He is strong. And very striking, yes?”
“Yes, Mother. He’s very handsome, but I know nothing of his personality.” Not to mention I don’t really want to couple with him. I don’t want to couple with anyone, really. Well … not anyone from Elysium.
She waves this off as she turns back to me. “Nonsense. His personality is of no consequence in the bedroom, Evelyn.” She brushes a strand of hair from my face. “I think you’ll be very happy with him. He’s different from the others and, genetically speaking, a perfect match. Won’t you give him a chance?”
“Yes, Mother,” I say, looking over her shoulder. Do I have any choice?
She pats my cheek. “Excellent. I knew you’d come around.” She glances up when the door opens behind me. “Ah. Just in time.”
I glance behind me and fake another smile when I see the young Guard. He blushes and smiles back.
Mother makes a shooing gesture. “Go. Spend time with your young man.”
She certainly means the Guard, not Gavin, but I decide to take it the way I want. I bow my head and curtsey.
“Yes, Mother.”
I exit the room and the Guard follows. He walks beside me, but doesn’t say a word. While I know it isn’t his fault, I do not wish to speak to him. I haven’t decided what to do about him yet.
The Guard lets me in the cell, where Gavin paces like a tiger. Gavin looks up when the door opens and I gesture to the floor. We both sit, my body hiding the empty spot between us from the Guards before I push my bag toward Gavin.
“It’s food. I saved it from yesterday’s dinner. I made sure to grab stuff that wouldn’t spoil so it should still be safe to eat.”
He doesn’t even bother looking at it. He has eyes only for me, and they’re filled with worry. “Is everything okay? You seem … off.”
Again, it’s easier to let the programmed response flow. “My life is just about perfect.”
He tilts his head and studies me carefully. “You gave me food, which means you don’t hate me, which means they didn’t give you anything … so this isn’t your Conditioning. What’s going on?”
Telling him won’t change anything, so I ignore the question. “I am fine. You should eat while I’m here, so the Guards don’t notice.”
He sighs, but digs into the bag and takes a bite. “Oh my God. This is disgusting. What is this? Seaweed?”
Since he’s shoveling more food into his mouth, I have to laugh. It must not be too bad. I stop laughing when it makes me question how long it’s been since he’s eaten. The state he was in when we caught him …
“How did you get all those injuries when I first saw you? It wasn’t from the Guards,” I ask.
He swallows. “A storm blew through while we were hunting. It was bad, so we ran to the closest place we could find. The rain was really thick, and I tripped. I took a header down a cliff, landing on a ledge halfway down. My partner followed me, but it was so slippery from the rain that he slid most of the way down. He couldn’t climb back up with me, and he had to drag me to the cave. Inside we found a few things that belonged to our missing people. We decided to look for them farther in the cave, but then we got lost and I kept passing out. We wandered for days, I think, before we found this weird door. By that time, we were starving and I was feeling pretty shitty, so we opened the door and…” He looks down at his hands. “Well, you know the rest.”
I don’t know what a “header” is, but I get the general picture. It doesn’t bother me he hadn’t told me the complete truth in the beginning. He hadn’t trusted me. I can’t blame him.
We look at each other then, silent.
“One question, one answer?” he finally asks. It eases some of the tension in me to realize it’s a question—a request. Not a demand. He’s willing to answer my questions, even if I don’t answer any of his.
I shrug. “What do you want to know?”
“Why do you look so sad? What happened?”
I glance behind me at the young Guard, who is watching me. He smiles, then blushes and turns back to the other Guards when one gives him what appears to be a playful punch on the arm.
Keeping my gaze on the Guard, I say, “Mother has chosen the Suitor I am supposed to be Coupled with.”
The sound of Gavin’s chewing slows, then stops. “I thought that was your choice.”
“Apparently not. Time is running out.”
“Time? You’re barely sixteen. You have plenty of time.”
“I guess not.” A lump forms in my throat.
“What do you mean?”
I stare at the ground between us, now littered with crumbs and bits of leftover food. “Well, Mother is upset that I seem to have forgotten my duty. She’s right.”
“That’s ridiculous.” His fists clench and the cracker he is holding crumbles, spreading more crumbs onto the floor.
“I have an obligation to my people to make sure there is an appropriate heir.”
He narrows his eyes. “Right this minute?”
“No, but soon.”
“Why? No one is going anywhere.”
I study the ground. “I think your showing up has made Mother anxious about me. She needs to make sure my genetics continue.”
He doesn’t say anything. I look up through my eyelashes. He’s frowning. “So this is my fault?”
“Oh, Gavin, no.” I shrug. “It’s mine. Had I chosen a Suitor before now and become Coupled this would not even be an issue.”
“How can you just take this so easily? It’s like an arranged marriage or something.”
“Yes, it is. And it’s my duty.” I shrug again. “It’s fine.”
He meets my eyes. “If that were true, you wouldn’t be so upset.”
When I don’t say anything, he sighs. “Well, whoever it is, is going to be a lucky guy.”
I give him a half smile. “Thank you.” I gesture behind me. “If you really want to know, it’s the young Guard.”
Gavin shifts his gaze from my face to the Guard. If I wasn’t watching him so carefully, I might miss the way his eyes narrow at the Guard before he lowers his gaze back to me. “He’s not good enough,” he says. “See how his shoulders are hunched and his arms swing in front like that?” I raise my eyebrows and he continues with a mischievous smile. “He looks like a gorilla.”
I laugh and feel some of the tension from last night and this morning float away. We spend the rest of the day together talking about things that make us happy. His family. My gardens. Books. Life on the Surface—including the animals, specifically apes. He seems to be taking special care not to talk about the whole coupling debacle.
I don’t know what’s changed from yesterday, but I learn a lot from him without even having to ask. I wonder if it’s his way of showing me he trusts me, and hopes I’ll trust him in return. That what he
’s said isn’t a lie.
He’s what’s considered an Outlander on the Surface, which are people that live in settlements in the Outlands—most of what is left of North America. There are cities, but they are small, and few and far between. They’re protected with gates and Guards, like my city. He and his family are not allowed anywhere near them.
Which, according to Gavin, is just fine with him. “I like my life. It’s not perfect, but I can do whatever I want instead of following a bunch of silly rules, like curfews.…” He trails off when he realizes these silly rules are probably the same ones I’m forced to obey.
I only ask more questions about his world.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks, and I raise an eyebrow in answer. “I don’t know if you’ll know the answer, but where did all this come from?”
“Of course I know that. Mother is training me to take her place. It’s my duty to know those kinds of things.” I smile. “Mother built it to get away from the Surface.”
“But why?”
I frown. “Because Surface Dwellers are bad. They destroyed their own homes. Their people. Why would she stay?” I stop myself before I can say, “Why would anyone?”
“But that doesn’t make much sense. I mean, why not a cave? Why underwater?”
I don’t really know, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. “She wanted to be completely isolated from the Surface Dwellers.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, but someone would have to go to the Surface for supplies. Right?”
“No,” I say, pride filling me. “We are completely self-sufficient. All of our food is grown here, as is the cotton for clothes. We even have silkworms to make the finer things. Like my dress.”
“But what about this glass? The metal? Where does the oxygen come from? Fresh water? Electricity?”
“We mine the metal—I’m not sure how, but there’s a whole Sector devoted to it. The glass comes from the sand. Freshwater comes from the saltwater, we just remove the salt. Electricity is generated by the geothermal energy of the volcano. The oxygen comes from two things: There is an oxygen generator that takes the ocean water and, after the salt has been removed from it, splits the hydrogen from the oxygen. The oxygen is then stored and sent throughout the facility to mix with the oxygen from the trees and plants. The hydrogen is used to fuel the heavy machinery that’s used for mining, et cetera.”
He blinks a few times, then says, “Right. Sorry I asked. I think I’m more confused now than I was before.”
I have to laugh and it isn’t long before he joins me.
When it’s time to leave, I struggle with it. I know I have to go, but I have the awful feeling I won’t ever see him again. That somehow Mother knows exactly what’s going on in this cell.
My new Suitor walks me back. And I have to stifle more than one giggle on the way back when I realize Gavin was right and the Guard does walk with his arms swinging in front of his body. It’s rude of me to keep thinking of him as just “the Guard,” but I refuse to learn his name. If I wasn’t expected to couple with him, I would just continue to call him by his designation. His name would be inconsequential. Therefore, knowing his name would be to accept what Mother is doing, and I don’t. I’m going to figure a way out of this coupling if it kills me. Which, I have to admit, it very well might.
Mother is waiting for me when I get back to the Palace Wing. She smiles at the Guard, then dismisses him. She gestures to the chair in front of her and I sit, making sure my ankles are crossed and the hem of my dress covers my knees.
“Anything from our guest?” she asks with her eyes fixed on mine.
“No. He refuses to give me any information.” My gaze wobbles. I so badly want to look away. But if I do, she’ll know I’m lying. Then again, maybe she already does.
She taps her fingers against her marble end table. “That’s too bad.”
I look down at my hands. “I am sorry, Mother. I will try again tomorrow.”
“No,” she says, and my head jerks up to look at her. She meets my eyes without wavering. “I doubt anyone followed him. The alarms would have been triggered by now. It was a miracle he was able to get here in the first place.”
Unable to stop my curiosity, I take a chance, and ask, “How did he get in?”
She stares at me with narrowed eyes, while I fight the urge to fidget. I’m sure she’ll ignore me, but she surprises me when she smoothes out her face and says, “I am not entirely sure. That is why I wanted you to get answers from him.” She smiles at me. “It is not your fault, Evelyn. You did the best you could. But his time for cooperating is up. I have no wish to waste any more time on this. He’ll be executed.”
Panic blows through me, tickling my nerve endings and causing my heart rate to accelerate. This is an entirely new sensation. And I don’t care for it.
“No, Mother. You can’t do that!” I say without thinking.
She raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”
I wrack my brain for an answer, but the only one that comes out is “I wish to couple with him.” Oh, Mother. Where did that come from? A flush creeps across me then, thinking about it. I must have only been thinking it because of the situation with the Guard. Surely she will kill him now. Just to spite me. Just to remind me who’s in charge, and that it isn’t me.
But she only tilts her head and narrows her eyes. “Why?”
I can’t back down now, and since she seems willing to at least pretend to listen, I give her the one reason I’m hoping she’ll understand. “Because I’m sure his genetics are superior to those eligible here.”
That gives her pause. “What makes you say that?”
“You’ve seen him. He’s strong. He’s tall and smart. Uh … hardworking. He won’t be a burden to us.”
She nods her head as if in understanding. “Those are wonderful qualities. For someone born here. But he’s a Surface Dweller, and anyway he’s flawed. His eyes are gray. And his skin is a few shades too dark.”
Thinking fast, I try to find every plausible excuse. “His skin color is from the sun. A few months with us will remove any color from the skin. And I don’t think that particular gray is a flaw. He says his whole family has them.” I have no idea if that’s true or not, but it’ll help the excuse I just came up with. “You and I were talking the other day about finding something to set us apart from the Citizens. Instead of something that can be copied by anyone with art sense, why don’t we do it genetically? The gray eyes could be that thing. Obviously it wouldn’t work with you or me, but my children and their children…” I clasp my hands together in my lap to keep myself from going on. I’ve already shown how much I want this. She might kill him now just because she sees how much I want to save him.
“Gray eyes to set us apart?” She purses her lips and taps a nail to them. The silvery striations in her own eyes are already the envy of most of the women. I’ve never been happier her eyes aren’t pure blue. “What was his designation on the Surface?”
I can’t remember if I’d told her before or not, but it won’t hurt for her to know. It would probably help, actually. “A hunter.”
“How interesting.” Her eyes sparkle and she nods. “I like it. We will have to make sure his genetics are appropriate. We don’t want any flaws in your children.” Her eyes turn hard. “If he is not a genetic match, he will die. Are you willing to sacrifice him?”
If I don’t do anything, he’ll die anyway. It’s not like he, or I, have a choice. I just have to hope he’s as genetically superior as his looks promise. “Yes, Mother.”
She arches an eyebrow. “If he is flawed, you will lose all ability to choose. I will choose for you, and I won’t change my mind this time. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother,” I say, even though I know Gavin can’t stay here. Won’t stay here. He’s got a family and a life that doesn’t involve me, and it’s not right to keep him. But part of me hopes he will. That he’ll decide to stay here. With me.
She smiles, but there�
�s a look in her eyes that makes me nervous. “Very well. Let’s inform our guest of his choice, shall we?”
“Choice?”
She gives me a smug look. “Well, he has to approve of you as you do him, Evelyn. It’s only fair. But if he does, he will have to choose to conform to our rules. And if he doesn’t … well.” She lifts a shoulder, then pats my hand as if to console me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
… Sweeter than the honey from a bee,
Softer than the petals of a rose,
Deeper than the bottom of the sea,
Stronger than the mightiest of foes,
Perfect is the love of Mother for me …
—FOUNDER’S DAY CHILDREN’S SONG
Twisting my hands together, I lead the way to Gavin’s cell. Each of my footsteps echo along the hallways, mocking me. Teasing me. I don’t know what to think of Mother’s easy agreement, especially since she insisted on coming with me, instead of just using her hologram. If she’s willing to risk the turrets, there has got to be a catch to this.
Gavin is sitting in that same corner he seems to favor when we arrive. He smiles when he sees me, but it falters when he notices Mother behind me.
The Guards straighten to attention. They don’t say a word as they let us into the cell and shut the door behind Mother. One stays at the control panel for the doors, his hand only inches from the release button. The difference between their behavior with Mother and their behavior with me does not go unnoticed.
Gavin’s eyes travel back and forth between Mother and me. He unfolds his long legs, and stands slowly. Standing, he dwarfs both Mother and me, and makes the entire cell seem smaller than it was. His posture is cautious but relaxed.
Mother smiles at him. “You’re a very lucky young man.”
His eyebrows jump up. “I am?”
She walks a circle around him, her eyes traveling over every inch of him. “It appears you’ve had a positive effect on Evelyn.”
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