To kiss Shay and paint her and smell her and drown in her eyes of burnt umber quicksand.
He pressed his hands over his face. They were trembling, and he stayed that way, standing in her room, covering his face, trying to remember, his cheeks and head tingling, his heart racing, his vision blurred.
Something tickled his arm. Bugs. Crawling on him. He swatted at his arms, trying to brush them off, but Shay was there and she grabbed him and held his arms down at his side and he could smell her honey sweetness and he wanted a sandwich or a beer or hair … honey that smelled like hair. He tried to pull away, but she hugged him.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “Calm down.”
So he did. He closed his eyes and stood in her arms, his forehead resting on the top of her head where he could smell her honey hair. And he dreamed he was eating bread with honey and butter and it tasted good and he was rocking and then he lay down and was so very warm.
A moment later he opened his eyes, panicked. The enforcers. He was in the health clinic, tied to the bed. They were going to operate. He broke free from the restraints.
“You should rest, Omar.” Shay was sitting on the foot of his bed.
“We have to get out of here.” Omar’s arms shook as he searched the room. Someone was in the bed beside his, under the blankets. Someone big. “He’s there,” Omar whispered, pointing to the lump on the bed. “Otley.”
Shay frowned. “That’s my aunt Mary, Omar.” She picked up something from the bed and held it out to him. “Here’s the wetsuit. You wanted it, right?”
The wetsuit. Yes. It would make the perfect disguise. He took it from Shay and shook it out so that it lay on top of him. He kicked off his shoes, leaned back on the bed, and pushed his feet through the legs. Then he slid out of the bed and jumped, pulling the suit up until he could put on the arms. It was tight over his clothes, and he wrestled with it until he got it on. He spotted his Wyndo tangled in the blankets and tucked it into the top of the suit, then zipped it up. “We have to go,” he said, running out the door and into the corridor.
“Omar, your shoes.”
He cranked the hatch wheel on the bunker door, and it squeaked. Otley would hear it. He had to hurry. The door banged when he broke the seal, then squeeeeeeaked open, and Omar stepped out into the tunnel. He turned back and waved Shay to follow. “Come on.”
She shook her head. “Stay here, Omar. Please?”
“Otley is going to catch us,” he hissed. “We have to go.”
“I’m going to get Levi.” She jogged down the hallway.
“Traitor!” Omar turned and ran. He should never have trusted Shay. She was on Otley’s side now, and he’d have to forget about her quicksand eyes and honey hair.
His foot hit something sharp, and he cried out. Where were his shoes? Why couldn’t he see? He fumbled to get his Wyndo out from the wetsuit and tapped the flashlight add. White light lit the storm drain around him. Better.
“Omar?” Levi’s voice.
Omar spun around and saw lights in the tunnel behind him. Walls! Otley must have tricked Levi into helping him.
Omar turned and ran, splashing through the water and not slowing down until he got back to his street. He still felt like he was being followed, but when he noticed he wasn’t wearing his shoes and that he was wearing the wetsuit, the thought occurred to him that he’d vaped some dirty juice.
The stim store was still open, so Omar went in and complained about the cocktail.
“Grass will help you come down,” the barkeep said. “Want me to switch your juice to grass?”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Anything to feel normal again. To stop shaking.
Omar vaped grass the rest of the way home, still wondering if someone were following him. No more cocktails for him. He got home at 1:57 a.m. and tripped again on the dumbbells he’d left by the door. Stupid chunks of metal. He turned on the lights, too excited to sleep. He wanted to paint his costume. He took off the wetsuit and dug out all the fabric paint he could find. He started with the torso, since the wetsuit legs were soaked. Feathers of gray and black and brown — burnt umber quicksand eyes.
Shay. He’d left her to Otley. He put down his brush and palette and ran to his windows and pulled the curtains closed. Otley’s enforcers could be watching. The curtains were too thin. He should paint the windows black so no one could see inside.
Wait. Otley wasn’t here. The stim cocktail was still messing with him. He took another drag of grass and went to sit on his couch for a minute, but the knob on his front door rattled, and someone pounded on the door.
“Omar? Are you in there? I saw your lights go on from the street. Open up.”
Red. He’d reprogrammed his door locks to keep her out — his chicken attempt at trying to wean himself of her company. The pounding continued. If she kept it up, Otley would hear. But he couldn’t risk Red seeing his costume. She might be Otley’s spy.
He took the costume off the easel and hung it in his closet, then went and opened the front door.
Red was a skeleton. Her cheeks and eye sockets were sunken in her pale face and her figure, except for her chest, was all sharp angles, the opposite of Shay’s soft round warmth. “What do you want?”
“You ditched me at the club hours ago,” she said. “And why can’t I get in?”
Omar looked away. He should tell Red the truth. End this like a man. He stepped over the dumbbells this time and walked back to his easel, though nothing was on it now that he’d hidden the costume. The aluminum owl from the Night Owl marquee was clipped to his second easel. He’d been repainting the places the glass tube had chipped and scratched the paint.
He grabbed his oil paint palette, dipped a fresh brush into the burnt umber, and dabbed at one of the feathers, thinking of Shay and searching for the words to end this mess of a relationship with Red. Go away? I don’t like you? You’re too gummy?
Her footsteps crossed the hardwood floor behind him, drawing nearer until she appeared at his side. “Is that the sign from the Night Owl club?”
“Some juicehead trashed it,” Omar said. “I brought it home.”
“Walls. Why are you painting on trash?”
He studied the sign. “Why not?”
She crossed her arms, watching his brush strokes. “Why couldn’t I get in?”
“I changed my code.”
“Why would you do that?”
He released a trembling sigh. “I can’t do this anymore, Red. It’s not really working. I think we should stop.”
“Stop what, Omar? Stop talking. Stop kissing? Stop trading paint?”
“Yeah. Stop everything.”
She changed her posture, stretched her shoulders back, straightened her spine. She stared at Omar with her neon pink eyes. “Why would we do that?”
“Because it’s … weird. It’s no fun anymore.”
She narrowed her eyes, as if getting angry might actually change his mind. “You’re such a liar, Omar. You can’t tell me you’re not having fun when we’re together.”
“I’m not. Seriously. It’s too … crazy.”
Which instantly seemed the wrong choice of words.
“I’m not crazy!”
Omar inched to the side.
“What? You’re afraid of me? Is that it?” She lunged toward him, and he flinched, which made her cackle. “I can’t believe you’re afraid of me.” But then her bottom lip trembled and tears welled. She blinked, clearing two heavy streams of tears from her eyes. “You want someone else?”
“No. It’s not that.” Though he guessed it really was …
“Then what, Omar? What is it?”
“I just … I don’t know.” He again recalled the word Zane had taught him. “It’s just too gummy. I want some space.”
She stepped close to him. “You didn’t want space when I first met you.”
He stepped back. “Well, I want it now.”
“You’re dim!” Red pounded her fist against Omar’s chest. Once. Twice. “You st
upid shell!” Then both fists, alternating, nonstop. He stood still, taking her abuse, wishing she’d stop. Otley might hear.
Why did he keep thinking about Otley?
“I hate you!” Red went to the front door, picked up a dumbbell, and came back to the kitchen. She lunged past him and heaved the weight at his easel, knocking it over, sending the old Night Owl marquee and his tray of paints skidding across the hardwood floor. The dumbbell thudded against the floor. Bottles and tubes bounced and rolled. Red kicked over the stool, then spun around, glaring.
Omar’s lips parted to speak, but he supposed she really wasn’t hurting anything. Let her get her anger out and be done with it. But then she ran toward his stack of canvasses and grabbed his painting of the owl’s shadow on the street.
“Red, don’t. Calm down.”
“Calm down?” She held the painting before her as if trying a new outfit. Then she slammed the canvas against her bent knee, ripping a hole through the center.
“Hey!” Omar grasped for her arm, but she slipped away and seized another canvas, this one of Jemma.
“No! Come on, stop.”
“You like this one, don’t you, you pathetic little boy?” Red held it up and punched her fist through Jemma’s face.
Omar lunged toward her and grabbed her arms, squeezing hard.
She screamed. “Let go of me!”
“When you calm down.”
“You going to beat me up, tough boy? That what you’re going to do? You want to fight?”
Omar released her at once. “Of course not. Just stop wrecking my stuff.”
“ ‘Of course not. Just stop wrecking my stuff,’ “ she mimicked.
“Oh, very mature.”
“So I’m crazy and immature?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She turned and ran into his living room, pulling over a floor lamp as she passed by. It crashed on the floor, and bits of glass shot across hard wood.
“Red! Come on, quit it.”
Omar followed her through the living room. She shoved a chair over, knocked over an end table, and pulled the cushions off his couch and threw them at him. When she picked up the floor lamp and ran toward his Wyndo wall screen, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back.
She bucked against him, dropped the lamp, and dug her fingernails along his arms and his left cheek, then bashed the back of her head against his face. His lip split on his own teeth, and salty blood filled his mouth.
He pulled her to the floor. They lay on their left sides, Omar holding Red’s back against his front. Her body trembled, her shallow gasps proof that she’d let her anger morph into tears.
Red’s behavior made no sense. Why would she care if they broke up? She had lots of guys. Said she liked it that way. But he didn’t know what question he might possibly ask to understand her, so he remained on the floor on his side, sucking on his bloody lip and holding this shattered human being.
Another life he’d help ruin.
CHAPTER
8
Are you sure you’re okay?” Jemma asked, sitting on the end of Shaylinn’s bed. “He didn’t hurt you?”
Shaylinn sat up and leaned against the wall. Her eyes stung from the early hour. If Levi and Aunt Mary and Jemma weren’t awake now, she might have thought Omar’s visit had been a dream. “No, I told you. He just wanted the wetsuit.”
“He wanted to go swimming in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know,” Shaylinn said. “It was scary. His eyes were all red. And he was saying such weird things.”
“Levi thinks it was because of his vaporizer,” Jemma said. “Like being drunk.”
“I suppose.” Why did Omar have to be so stupid? And if he’d been drunk, he likely hadn’t meant it when he’d said she was beautifully pretty.
“Honey, I’m sorry.” Jemma patted Shaylinn’s leg through the blanket. “You know, I need to tell you something. Mason came to see us last night after you were in bed. Before Omar’s … visit. It’s about Omar, though.”
Shaylinn already knew he was dying. She’d heard Levi and Chipeta talking about it. “It takes a while to die from the thin plague, doesn’t it?
“Oh, Shay, not that.” Jemma wrung her hands.
“Stop it.” Shaylinn leaned forward and grabbed her sister’s arm, pulling her hands apart. “You’re frightening me.”
Jemma looked up, frowning. “It’s just that … you asked Mason to find out who the donor was, for your pregnancy. Well, he found out two things, Shay. You’re carrying twins, and they’re Omar’s.”
Shaylinn’s body tingled all over. Omar’s twins … “You’re sure?”
“Mason said so. I guess Omar was the only one from Glenrock who complied with the Safe Lands demands on the men. Plus his Safe Lands ID number was listed in your medical record for the … whatever they call it. The procedure.”
Tears blurred Shaylinn’s vision. It was as if God had taken everything she’d ever wanted and twisted it into a knot. Could such a mess be untangled? But then she recalled her dream. The children blowing dandelion clocks. The faceless husband. Could he have been Omar?
Jemma hugged Shaylinn then, pulling her back to the present. She hadn’t realized she was shaking until she felt her body trembling against her sister’s. “Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
Shaylinn pulled out of the hug. “Does Jordan know?”
Jemma winced, as if there was no right way to deal with this whole mess. “Levi wants to tell Omar first, then he’ll tell the others. Right now, only you, me, Levi, and Mason know.”
Shaylinn was thankful. She could only imagine what Jordan might do to Omar. “If Omar’s drunk or whatever, what if he doesn’t show up? It’s only an hour until three now.”
“Levi went to look for him. He’ll bring him back.”
But would he be in any state to help them move? And if Levi told him about the babies, would he even remember in the morning? And if he did, what would he say? What would he do? Nausea raged in Shaylinn’s stomach, and she pressed her hand over it, hoping the pressure might calm it.
“Might as well pack now, since we’re all up. Can I help you?” Jemma asked.
“No, I’ll manage.”
Shaylinn had few belongings anyway. As she folded the last of her clothes and tucked them inside her pillowcase, someone knocked on her door.
“Come in.”
The door swung in, and Omar stood there holding a cardboard food box in one hand. His hair was flat, hanging down over his forehead like he’d showered recently but hadn’t bothered to brush it. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He smelled like minty wood and fried eggs.
Shaylinn’s eyes swelled so wide the air tickled them, and she blinked to stop the strange feeling. The smell of eggs turned her stomach. “Did you talk to Levi?” she asked.
“About what?” He gave her a small smile. A nervous smile. The whites of his eyes were red, but he looked calm, sober, and a little curious.
He didn’t know. Should she tell him herself? But she couldn’t! How could anyone deliver such news? She wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, maybe cry.
“I, uh … wanted to apologize for last night, um … I mean, a few hours ago,” Omar said, scratching his finger over the top of the cardboard box. “I don’t remember much, but I know I came here and woke you up.”
Shaylinn hugged her pillowcase. “You scared me.” And how was he even awake right now? Shouldn’t he be passed out?
He hung his head. “I’m so sorry, Shay.” He looked up, his eyes pleading. “I’d never hurt you. I swear.”
“I wasn’t afraid for me. I was afraid for you.”
“Oh, well, I’m fine now.” He smirked. “No more cocktails for me.”
Whatever a cocktail was. “That’s good.”
“I brought you some breakfast.” He handed her the cardboard box, and the eggy smell attacked and made her stomach churn.
She backed away, shaking her head.
“The smell.”
“You think it smells bad?” He lifted the box and sniffed it, and the movement sent another wave of odor to Shaylinn.
She pushed past him and ran to the bathroom, embarrassed that her stomach had ruined his thoughtful gift.
When she returned, she found Zane, Jordan, and Naomi waiting at the bunker door. Levi and Jemma were standing just inside the entrance to the main room, arguing in low voices. Aunt Mary, Chipeta, and Eliza were standing in front of Levi and Jemma’s room.
Shaylinn went into her bedroom and grabbed her pillowcase. She stepped back into the corridor. “Where’s Omar?”
“He took the eggs into the kitchen,” Naomi said. “Levi’s going to eat them.”
“I’m here.” Omar squeezed past Jemma and Levi at the door to the main room, which only increased the urgency of their whispers. When he reached Shaylinn, he rolled his eyes. “Married people, huh?” He darted a glance at Jordan and Naomi and waggled his eyebrows. “Hey, I’m sorry about the eggs, Shay. What can you eat?”
“Breads are the only thing I can keep down lately,” she said. “Meats and eggs — I can’t even stand the smell.” But Omar’s minty wood smell was nice now that he’d gotten rid of the eggs.
“Sounds mad annoying. Can I carry your, uh, pillowcase?” He smiled that smile that lit up his face, took the fat pillowcase from her hands, and swung it over his shoulder.
“Thank you.” Her cheeks burned, and she hoped she wasn’t blushing.
“You follow Shay, Omar,” Jordan said. “Make sure she doesn’t fall. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t mess up.”
“I got it,” Omar said.
Shaylinn grimaced and stared at the floor. Goodness. Why did her brother always make everything more awkward than it already was?
Finally, Levi and Jemma walked toward them.
Levi stared at Omar, then Shaylinn, and the intensity of his gaze tempted her to run to the bathroom again. “Tap me when you get there,” Levi said to Jordan.
“You’re not coming?” Shaylinn asked.
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