Sugar Coated

by Shannen Crane Camp

  Brynn turned on her heel and walked toward the stairs triumphantly, feeling like she had won some small battle.

  “No insults today?” Brynn whispered under her breath with a smile.

  The first floor of the library looked much like the basement, and though the numbering system confused her, she supposed the stairs leading up to the main floor of the building technically made it the second floor.

  There were more tables and armchairs than anyone was ever going to use, and absolutely no windows. The layout was almost identical to where she had been one floor down only days before, and Brynn glanced over at the chair where Jonah would have sat.

  She wondered fleetingly if he was there now, but ignored the urge to go and check. Instead, she weaved her way in and out of the bookshelves, skimming titles and looking for anything that could suggest a history book.

  From what she could tell, most of the books she was seeing were histories of how certain objects developed over time. Not necessarily Halcyon’s history.

  “It shouldn’t be this difficult to find a history book,” she said to the empty room in frustration.

  Brynn placed her finger on the spines of the books and swiped it lazily down the long row of volumes, hoping that she’d know which book to pick up just by feeling it.

  She didn’t, of course.

  Deciding to stop exercising the willpower to leave Jonah alone, she made her way back to the stairwell and went down one level to the basement. She peeked her head around the corner curiously, scanning the armchairs and tables, but found, much to her disappointment, that they were all empty.

  Jonah wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  Brynn shook her head in embarrassment. Even though he’d said he spent all of his time in the library, he probably hadn’t meant it literally. She couldn’t believe she’d really thought she’d find him sitting in the exact same seat anytime she decided to stop by.

  “Who are we looking for?” came a familiar voice right next to Brynn’s ear.

  She whipped around in surprise to see Jonah bending over to whisper to her. He grinned at her obvious embarrassment at having been caught in the act of spying on him.

  “I was looking for that creepy lady upstairs,” Brynn said with a smile, “But since she’s not here I guess you’ll have to do.”

  “I see. And what makes you think I have all the time in the world to be at your beck and call?” he asked, leaning against the wall with a book in his hands, one dark eyebrow raised.

  He was wearing the same black fitted jeans with a grey T-shirt, and Brynn wondered fleetingly if that was his default outfit.

  “You did tell me you spend all of your time alone in the library. That doesn’t really suggest a full schedule to me,” Brynn said with a wrinkle of her nose, enjoying the playful exchange.

  “Just because I’m not with people doesn’t mean I’m not doing something important,” he said elusively.

  “And what exactly might that important thing be?”

  “Learning,” he said simply with a glint in his eye as he watched Brynn.

  “What are you studying?” she asked, looking down at the book he held in his hands, finding that she actually was curious about what this boy was interested in.

  “At the moment?” he asked, his blue eyes locked on her. “You.”

  Brynn looked up at him in surprise. That hadn’t been the answer she was expecting and she felt the heat rise up in her cheeks at his blunt response.

  “What is a girl with lots of friends doing in a dusty old library studying maps?” he asked.

  “I’m not studying maps,” Brynn said, proud that she could at least try to win whatever game he was playing. “I’m looking for a history book. Which is where you come in,” she finished, grabbing Jonah by the hand without asking and pulling him up the stairs to the first floor with her.

  She couldn’t help but notice how strong his hand felt in hers and she suddenly hoped he couldn’t feel her pulse racing as she pulled him along. It abruptly felt much too intimate to be holding this near-stranger’s hand, but it would be even more awkward if she were to let it go before reaching their destination. Brynn closed the distance to the first floor in just a few more steps and dropped Jonah’s hand, trying not to think too much about how it had felt to hold it.

  “This is where the Angel told me the history books are,” Brynn said, gesturing to the empty wing.

  “Angel?” Jonah asked, a small sideways smile playing on his face. For the second time that day Brynn felt herself blush a deep scarlet. “Did you just call that woman at the front desk an Angel?” he asked again, now laughing softly.

  “Yeah,” Brynn replied with a small pout at the fact that he was making fun of her.

  “I’d call her a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘Angel’ would ever be one of them,” Jonah said, still laughing at Brynn’s word choice.

  “I didn’t mean her behavior was angelic. It’s just…they’re so perfect, you know?” she asked, trying to salvage the embarrassment she had just caused herself.

  “Who is ‘they,’ exactly?” Jonah asked, still smiling with obvious amusement at Brynn.

  “I don’t know. Just Workers in general,” Brynn mumbled, looking down at the floor and hoping that the heat she felt in her cheeks was no indication of how red they had actually become.

  “You think Workers are perfect?” Jonah asked her, his laughter finally subsiding. Now he just wore the same sideways smirk Brynn had seen the first day they’d met in the library.

  “Actually, they all seem to be a bit rude,” Brynn admitted. “But they have these incredible violet eyes and beautiful voices. And their faces are so angular and striking,” she explained. “Don’t they seem ethereal in the slightest to you?”

  Jonah thought in silence for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as if he were trying to recall something.

  “I guess I can see what you mean about the eyes, but that’s a result of the surgery you get when you’re first enlisted,” he said evenly, actually thinking his response through. “But I don’t think they all have angular faces. This one definitely does,” he said, looking up at the ceiling in reference to the Worker upstairs. “You could cut diamonds on her cheekbones. But I’ve seen plenty of them that look completely different from her.”

  “You have?” Brynn asked, shocked by this revelation.

  Every worker she had ever seen looked pretty much the same. She had begun to assume that anyone with a job had the sharp, angular features and pale white skin that her Angel possessed.

  “Well, it’s not like they aren’t human,” Jonah said with a laugh. “They’re not all identical. They’re just regular people like us who happen to be really smart and really crazy.”

  “Crazy?” Brynn asked, not quite sure she followed his line of thought.

  “Well, they’d kind of have to be to want to work for no reason. It’s not like they get any special benefit because they have a job. We still have access to the same things that they do,” Jonah answered, sounding very much like Amber right at that moment.

  “I guess that’s true,” Brynn agreed, not bothering to bring up the fact that they had a purpose where she had none. “So, can you help me find a history of Halcyon?” she asked, wanting to change the subject away from the Angels.

  “Easy,” Jonah answered with a cheeky grin, taking Brynn’s hand to lead the way just as she had taken his only moments before.

  The way that Jonah navigated the library amazed Brynn. The building itself wasn’t exactly small, yet he moved confidently between the old wooden bookshelves, his hands always flying directly to the book he was looking for without a second thought. It was as if he had catalogued the entire library in his brain. By the time he finished his little trip around the first floor Brynn sat at one of the small wooden tables with a stack of books in front of her.

  “What are we looking for?” Jonah asked.

  “We?” Brynn repeated, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “You don’t t
hink I’m going to run all of these bizarre errands for you without getting in on the good stuff, do you?” he asked.

  “I guess that wouldn’t be very fair,” she agreed, smiling at this boy who had been a complete stranger a few days before, but was now proving to be a good friend.

  “So, what are we looking for?” he asked again, pulling a few books from the large stack in front of Brynn and placing them on the table.

  “We’re still looking for Aywon,” Brynn informed him, flipping open a book entitled A Brief History of Halcyon that she thought looked anything but brief. “I figured we might find something about it in a history book,” she finished with a shrug, looking like she didn’t really expect to find much.

  “Where did you say you’d heard of this place before?” Jonah asked, flipping his own book open and letting his eyes fly across the page.

  “One of the Angels mentioned it once,” she said, now using her term for the Workers sarcastically. “I took a trip to Central Wildwood with my parents when I was nine. The train stopped and I asked one of the Workers where we were. She said we were in Aywon.” She left out the fact that she had obsessively taken that same trip every month since she was sixteen in the hopes that the train would stop at Aywon again.

  “Why were there Workers on the train? Isn’t it supposed to be automated?” Jonah asked.

  “They weren’t running it. They were all getting on. That’s what I found so odd. It was like a city built just for Workers or something,” Brynn said, rubbing her temples as she skimmed chapter headings in books with no luck.

  Jonah was silent for a moment and Brynn couldn’t tell if he was reading or thinking. Either way, she was curious to know what his take on the story was. She was beginning to notice from the time spent with Jonah that he was a thinker. He always left long pauses before any response, as if he wanted to make sure he used the best words he could think of.

  “Have you ever gone in the ocean?” Jonah asked suddenly, catching Brynn completely off guard.

  She looked over at him without answering the question, her brow furrowed.

  “What?” she finally said, feeling as if he had somehow broken into her mind and read her thoughts.

  Jonah leaned in near Brynn, making her heart race once more at their unexpectedly close proximity.

  “I have,” he whispered with a conspiratorial grin.

  Brynn pulled away from this boy that she knew very little about and studied his face. His blue eyes and black hair were both traits that Brynn possessed, but the real similarity she suddenly saw between them was the spark of life in his eyes that was so unmistakable that she couldn’t believe she had missed it before.

  “People say that the ocean is dangerous and we shouldn’t go near it, but being a part of something that powerful is breathtaking,” he went on, talking in a hushed voice as if he were afraid that revealing this to Brynn would get him into trouble.

  Brynn still didn’t respond to his admission. She couldn’t quite find the right words to say at that moment. Though she had a million thoughts racing through her mind, the one thing that seemed to repeat over and over again was: he’s like me.

  Jonah watched Brynn for a moment before the smile started to fade from his face and the light she had seen in his eyes began to dull. He looked back down at the book in front of him and cleared his throat.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” he said simply, and though it sounded like he would say more, he didn’t. He simply turned more pages of his book, looking for a city he had never heard of on the word of a girl he didn’t know.

  “Not to me it doesn’t,” Brynn finally said, taking a deep breath and allowing the smile she had been holding inside to light up her face. “I’ve gone in twice,” she said almost proudly.

  Those two whispered sentences were enough to bring the smile back to Jonah’s lips as he looked up at her, looking the way that Brynn felt—like he had finally found someone like him.

  “That’s nothing,” he said in a way that sounded like he was bragging, “I’ve gone in about five times.”

  “Liar,” Brynn said with a grin.

  “I’m dead serious,” he said, spreading his hand wide in front of him as if to show he was unarmed. “I’ve gotten tossed around a few times, but honestly, I don’t think it’s as dangerous as everyone seems to think it is.”

  Brynn thought back on the two times she had gone into the ocean. The first time she had been shaken up, but not in any serious danger. The second time was a different story. If Ty hadn’t pulled her out she might have drowned, though that had more to do with the fact that she was so lost in thought that she wasn’t concerned with saving herself.

  “I feel like being in that cold, powerful water makes me think more clearly,” Brynn admitted, looking over at Jonah to see if he felt the same way.

  He was silent for a moment, looking into Brynn’s blue eyes with his own.

  “I think you’re different, Brynn,” he finally said.

  She decided in that moment that she loved the way her name sounded when he said it, but lodged that little detail away to take out and examine later.

  “So are you,” she said, wondering how in a city full of people, she managed to stumble across someone so similar to her.

  “It probably sounds crazy, but my favorite part of being in the waves is the feeling of being completely out of control. It’s the only time I’ve ever felt that way,” Jonah said, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling with a ghost of a smile on his lips.

  “Feeling reckless,” Brynn agreed with a nod. “I like that part.”

  “Are you feeling reckless at the moment?” Jonah asked as he turned to face Brynn. He raised an eyebrow at her as a challenge and let his smile curl up on one side. “I am.”

  Chapter 8: Reckless

  Jonah and Brynn stood on the small sandy hill that rose up just before the beach really began. The wind whipped against them and the bright orange sun hung low in the sky, slowly making its descent toward the horizon. Brynn shivered slightly in the breeze, her jacket and boots discarded on the ground. Jonah stood barefoot beside her, wiggling his toes in the chill sand and gazing out at the water with a look of pure exhilaration on his face.

  “You do realize that we’re completely insane, right?” he asked, never taking his eyes off of the water or losing the smile on his handsome face.

  “I thought you said the ocean isn’t all that dangerous,” Brynn countered, also keeping her eyes locked on the water.

  “No, I said it’s not as dangerous as everyone thinks. It’s still dangerous. It’ll probably still kill us if we keep going in,” he corrected.

  “Thank you for that comforting speech,” Brynn said sarcastically. “It’s really fun, but then you die,” she repeated in an imitation of her new friend.

  “On that note,” Jonah said, walking straight at the sea without a backward glance at Brynn.

  “Wait for me,” she called out, running to catch up to his long stride.

  They both walked confidently together right up to the edge of the dry sand, and then stopped abruptly. Jonah looked over at Brynn, questioning wordlessly if she would go in first.

  “It looks really cold,” she said, surveying the water and remembering how frigid it had been that morning.

  “You’re not backing out are you?” Jonah asked her, looking for a moment as if he didn’t believe she had ever gone into the ocean in the first place.

  “I went in this morning, for your information. I’m just not sure I’m up to freezing again,” she said with a shiver.

  “You have to just get right in. If you do it slowly you make it worse for yourself,” he said wisely.

  “Either way, you freeze, though,” Brynn pointed out.

  “Well, then I guess there’s only one thing to do,” Jonah said with a deep sigh.

  “And what is that?”

  Without a word to Brynn, Jonah walked over and slung her over his shoulder with ease, making it seem as if she weighed a
lmost nothing. Brynn squealed as she kicked and tried to get him to let go of her, a mix of terror and exhilaration coursing through her body. She had been brave enough to go into the ocean by herself before, but being carried backwards into the freezing turbulent water was a whole new feat.

  “Jonah, I’m going to kill you if you put me in that water,” she screamed, though most of her volume died on the wind.

  “You said you wanted to be reckless,” he called over his shoulder with a deep laugh, still trudging through the water that was now almost up to his waist. Brynn could feel the icy ocean reach up and touch her feet as a small wave hit them.

  “Let me go!” she yelled, trying to sound angry through her laughter.

  “Fine by me,” he said, hoisting her forward off of his shoulder so that her back hit the glacial water and she was instantly submerged.

  Brynn pulled herself up out of the freezing ocean and gasped for air, the temperature instantly taking her breath away. She wiped the salt from her eyes then looked up at Jonah who stood over her, smiling triumphantly.

  “Not okay,” she said, standing up and throwing her shoulder into his chest to knock him off balance so that he fell backwards into the water with a splash, though he managed to wrap his arms around Brynn’s waist in the process, taking her down with him.

  “What was that for?” Jonah asked with a smile as he sat up in the now shallow water after the waves had rolled back away from the shore.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” Brynn answered with a fake scowl, narrowing her blue eyes into tiny slits.

  “I was just doing what you asked,” he said innocently, right as another wave came and hit them, submerging them both briefly in icy silence.

  Brynn coughed as she surfaced once more in the knee-deep water, still crouching down so that it came up to her chest.

  “Do you want to go a little farther?” Jonah asked, a challenging smile on his face.

  “Farther?” Brynn repeated, looking over her shoulder. The farthest she had ever voluntarily gone into the ocean was up to her waist, and even then the waves had taken control. She couldn’t imagine how dangerous it would be when a wave crashed down on her in even deeper water. “Is it safe?”