ARC: The Almost Girl

by Amalie Howard

  “His house burned down. Electrical fire, they’re saying. His aunt was in there. Everyone’s talking about it. Where were you this weekend? Under a rock?”

  “I was sick,” I repeat. “Did they find her aunt?”

  “No,” Charisma says. “But she’s missing. They’re assuming the worst.”

  I say nothing. It’s likely that June’s body will never be found in the hidden basement room. My guess is that the Vectors who tracked us into the tunnels torched it completely once they figured out where we went. “How’s Caden doing?” I say.

  “He seems really out of it, but I guess that’s to be expected. He was at a travel meet when it happened, I think. I don’t even know where he’s staying. Maybe at Sadie’s.”

  I try to resist even thinking about Caden being in that frosting-colored room or lying on that pink ruffled bed covered in frivolous throw pillows, but it’s useless as a sour feeling invades my stomach. I crush it with a hiss and make my mind blank. What Caden does with Sadie makes no difference whatsoever to me.

  Mrs Taylor walks back in and announces that the rest of us should make our way to the lab. In the hallway, I see Caden a split second before he sees me. His eyes widen as they glance from my face to my boots, and I can hardly hide the answering scowl overtaking my face.

  “Nice dress,” he says, echoing Philip’s earlier words as we brush shoulders.

  “Yeah, if you’re homeless,” Sadie says, standing next to him with narrowed eyes. She’s dressed in a pair of white pants and a pink sweater. I’m actually breathless with anticipation to see if she will recognize the dress as hers, but of course, she doesn’t. Still, I can see her brain ticking over, considering the fact that somehow – as impossible as it seems – we own exactly the same dress. “It’s hideous.”

  I can barely hold back the truth that stings my lips. Instead, I smile sweetly at her and say, “Like you would know anything about fashion. I think it’s from New York. It’s designer.”

  She shoots me a look that would incinerate a building. “Well, you should stick to pants. Dresses don’t really suit dykes,” she says nastily.

  I bite back a grin and shrug. “Takes one to know one. And I’d rather be a dyke any day than look like a frosted cupcake without any imagination.”

  I won’t admit it to anyone, but it actually feels good to have a pissing contest with Sadie – if anything, to take the edge off everything that’s happened during the last few days. In a weird way, it feels normal, and just the feeling of being able to flay Sadie with my tongue instead of my blade gives me great satisfaction.

  Caden’s eyes are burning through me, even though he’s remained quiet during the entire exchange. I feel his arm brush against the sleeve of my jacket, and then their group is past us. As we walk into the lab, I pull a piece of paper from my pocket. Shae must have given him a heads-up that I’d be back.

  Meet me in the boys’ bathroom in ten minutes, it reads. I crumple it and tuck the paper back into my pocket.

  I fumble my way through the experiment, but Charisma is as good as her word, picking up my considerable slack. Philip doesn’t volunteer anything, but I can see from his expression that Mrs Taylor will undoubtedly hear about it at some point. Although I’m familiar with the subject matter, I am too distracted to pay attention, which is probably for the best. I’d rather be noticed for being brainless than for knowing far more than I should. Refraction is something we learn as part of our weapons training, since some of our more advanced laser weapons harness refraction technology. Philip’s eyes would likely bug out of his head if he knew that our technology could bend lasers around corners.

  After eight minutes, I excuse myself and bolt to the bathroom. It’s empty but I wait in the last stall until I hear the outer door open and close. Caden is dragging the trashcan against the door as I step out of the stall. His eyes are clouded, and his face is tired. The last two days must have been a whirlwind for him.

  “You OK?” I ask.

  “Is Shae OK?” Our words merge into each other’s at the same time.

  I nod. “She’s fine. She told me to meet her in the gym after school.”

  “Yeah, she texted me the same thing. Is she hurt? That thing almost got us. She told me to go, and the last thing I saw was her running toward it.”

  “She took care of it,” I say.

  Caden stares at me awkwardly. “Look, Riven, I’m sorry for what Shae did. I don’t know why she did it. She didn’t explain anything to me. But I wanted to say that I was sorry.”

  “It’s OK. She did what I would have done.” I tug with strangely clammy hands at the skirt of the dress. For some reason, being in it with Caden looking at me is making me feel edgy and uncomfortable. When I’m wearing my own clothing, it’s like armor. I’m a soldier first and a girl second. Now the reverse feels true. I don’t like it.

  “I’m still sorry.” Caden’s voice is quiet and my heart is thumping like it’s going to jump out of my chest as he steps closer until he is so near that I can see the downy fuzz on his cheekbones. I stop breathing as goose bumps break out along my arms. Thank the stars my jacket is covering them. “I was really worried that one of those things would have gotten you.”

  I clear my throat, the rough sound gritty in the short silence between us, and swallow. “Don’t you know? I can take care of myself,” I say, desperately trying to sound nonchalant and only succeeding in sounding breathlessly weak.

  “I know.” Caden’s fingers are soft as they trail down the side of my head, and it’s all I can do to not lean into them. The soft caress is more than I’ve felt in a long time, and pressure builds behind my eyes and across my cheekbones.

  Get it together, I tell myself angrily, and step backward, only there’s a sink in the way and there’s nowhere else I can go. My eyes slide to Caden’s chest and focus on a button, as I will myself to toughen up. Don’t even think about crying!

  But it’s like trying to stop a dam that has too many cracks, and my tears are no match for Caden’s aching gentleness. And so they come, hot and earnest, as I lean my head against him and feel his arms wrap around me. For the first time, I forget what I am and give in to just being a girl… not a soldier, not a grown-up, just a girl.

  I cry for myself, I cry for Shae, and I cry most of all for Caden. Deep down inside I know that no matter how much I love Cale and where my loyalty lies, there’s no way that I could ever be the one to take Caden’s life from him… even to save Cale. It’s a realization that leaves a part of me numb. It’s also one that terrifies me, because for the first time I’m confronted with some of the feelings I know I’ve been hiding. Shae’s right – I do care about him.

  And it will be a problem.

  Caden’s arms are tight, holding me so close it’s as if we are one body. I hadn’t realized that my arms are twisted around his, my fingers gripping his shirt. There’s not even room for breath between us, and even though my tears stop, we still hold each other close. Truth is, I don’t want to move, because I know that the moment I stir, things will be different. They have to be. There’s no way I can let this thing blossoming between us get in the way of what I have to do… of who I am. But for one moment, I can pretend that we are somehow more than we are, that we are in a universe of our own making, that we are in love and the world is ours.

  Caden’s breath brushes against my skin, and I feel his lips press into the hollow of my temple. It feels as if my entire body is disappearing into the imprint of his touch against me. My body tenses automatically, rejecting the light caress.

  “Just let go,” he whispers against my hair. “You don’t have to be strong every single second. Let go, Riv.”

  For one millisecond, it’s the only thing I want to do, as I let my eyes find the deep green vulnerability of his. I can’t even think around the knot in my chest at what I see there, and I know he’s waiting… waiting for me to say something… to agree, to do something to make it all real. But I can’t.

  Love is weakness, my
father’s memory hisses in my head. It infects your will.

  I close my eyes as the lessons of my childhood overwhelm me with barbed cruelty. We’re taught early on to curb our emotions and to make decisions with sound logic. Love isn’t something that’s valued in Neospes. Families are engineered based on survival abilities and genetic compatibility, not love. It’s a useless emotion that causes people to do stupid things in its name. Emotion is the seed of weakness, and making any more of this thing between Caden and I will lead to nothing but loss or pain.

  “Riv?” His voice is gentle and so beautiful that every cell in me bends toward it. But I can feel the cold chill of reason battling within me. Nothing good can ever come of this.

  “I can’t,” I whisper, and push myself away with all the strength I can muster, the cold edge of the sink grazing against the small of my back as I twist past it. It hurts more than I can imagine to even look at him. “I just can’t… not with you. Not with anyone. I’m not built like that. You’ll only get hurt, Caden. I don’t know how…”

  My words trail off and I press my hot palms to the cold porcelain of the neighboring sink, my eyes falling away from his. My face is unrecognizable in the mirror above it – puffy eyelids and flushed cheeks. My hair is mussed, and I fix it automatically, sweeping away any evidence of Caden’s fingers. I splash cold water on my face and feel better, more like myself. But I still can’t face him, so I dart a look at his reflection.

  He’s standing quiet, his face open and vulnerable. The fleeting thought that Cale would never be this way flits through my brain. He’s always been unreadable, the master of all emotion. Some call him cold, but I see it as a gift. Hardly anyone ever knows what Cale is thinking. In the same breath, I understand that maybe this is what gets to me about Caden – he’s so different, so unguarded.

  Our eyes meet and he smiles, a deep gentle smile that unhinges any resolve I have. “Don’t shut down, Riven. Please. I know what you’ve been taught to be, but there is something real between us. I know you feel it, too.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” He’s standing right behind me again, his gaze impaling mine in the mirror, daring me to lie. I don’t answer. Instead, I swing around and shove my hands into his chest so hard that he crashes into the metal doors of the stalls behind us. I resort to the only response I know: combat.

  “You’re going to fight me, Riv?” he gasps, hugging his chest with one arm.

  “If I have to,” I say. “Just stop. Stop right there.”

  “What if I don’t?” he says, advancing once more toward me, one step, then two.

  “You won’t like what you get, Caden. I don’t want to hit you.”

  Another step. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  “I’m not,” I say, and drive a closed fist into his shoulder. But either I’m not committed to the blow or Caden’s gotten faster than I’d given him credit for, because he deflects my strike with an easy dart to the right and grabs my arm, my own momentum spinning me with considerable force into the wall at the end of the bathroom. Caden’s right there with me, his breath warm in my face. “Let me go,” I seethe through clenched teeth. I twist my knee up, but he presses his body into mine so hard that my limbs are glued to the wall behind me.

  Irritation courses through me in violent waves. But something else flows hotly too, and I feel my breath falter. The truth is, I don’t want to move. The only thing holding us in place is the length of his body against every inch of mine. Something unfamiliar stirs in my chest. I wrangle my free arm up under my jacket to pull out one of my weapons, but Caden grabs it with his hand. My breaths get shorter and shorter, and suddenly his mouth is crushed against my lips.

  Every thought in my brain fizzles into shocked silence. And then I’m kissing him back, following his lead, with an intensity that has our teeth grinding together. I don’t even know where he begins and I end – my lips are part of his mouth, and his part of mine. My hands, now free, are twining in his hair, and his arms are locked around me. Every living part of me is caught up in him.

  The grating sound of the trash bin grinding across the floor pierces through the fog encasing us both, and I open languorous eyes to see Sadie, her body shaking with rage.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  SCARS

  “What the hell happened to you?” Shae blurts out as we meet her in the gym parking lot after school. Shae, for her part, is looking a lot better. She’s clean and has on a pair of dark jeans and a green sweater. Most of the blood is gone from her face and she looks semi-normal.

  I, on the other hand, am a completely different story. After a trip to the school nurse and principal, the rest of the day had passed in relative quiet, despite the occasional censuring look from students and teachers alike. I touch the three claw marks on my face and grin. Caden stares at the ground, but I can see that the corner of his lips is twitching.

  “Sadie happened,” I say.

  Shae’s eyes narrow, jumping from me to Caden and back again. “Caden’s Sadie?”

  Even though I bristle inside at the comment that Sadie was Caden’s anything, I shrug. “She’s a little high-strung, if you hadn’t noticed. Anyway, she attacked me for no reason,” I say. Caden launches a hot look in my direction, but I ignore it. “I took care of it; don’t worry.”

  “What do you mean, you took care of it?” The suspicion and patronizing edge of Shae’s voice irritate me. I know that this isn’t Neospes, and apart from what she may think about me, I do have half a brain in my head. I throw my hands into the air in exasperation.

  “I drowned her in a toilet,” I say, and then after seeing Shae’s expression, “Kidding! Look, Princess Pinkalicious is fine. She’ll have to go to the salon to fix those curls, but a little toilet water never killed anyone.”

  “Don’t look at me!” Caden says as Shae turns the force of her glare on him. “I got punched in the face. And I think she broke up with me.”

  The brief flutter of elation I feel at Caden’s words disappears under the heavy weight of reality as Shae herds us toward a green car parked in the lot. Deep down, I know that Caden will probably be a hell of a lot better off with Sadie than with someone like me. Despite letting my guard down in the bathroom, I don’t know the first thing about being anyone’s girlfriend or letting someone get close to me.

  “You’re better off without her,” Shae says, catching my attention. “There’s something about her that rubs me the wrong way, like she’s too perfect. I never got why you liked her. She just didn’t seem like your type.”

  “And yet you let me date her for a year?”

  Shae shrugs. “I only protect you. I don’t smother. If Sadie was your idea of a girlfriend, then that was your choice. Out of curiosity, though, why’d you go out with her?”

  Caden flushes, embarrassed at the direct question, but he answers Shae. “Because it was easy. I didn’t have to think about anything. And you’re right, she isn’t my type. I didn’t even know I had a type until recently.”

  “So what is it?” Shae asks. She sounds as if she’s only making conversation, but I’m listening very carefully.

  “Not her,” Caden says. His glance slips to me, and then falls to my lips before looking away. An immediate response sears through me, but I refuse to think about the kiss and the way it’d made me feel like a live electrical wire. I’d never even kissed anyone before, and now I can’t look at him without my ears flaming or my pulse racing. I hate it. I hate how unpredictable it makes me feel, like I can’t depend on myself anymore, like a part of me is caught up in someone else. It’s unfamiliar and unwelcome territory.

  “Where are we going?” I snap gruffly to Shae.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  I nod to the dirt bike I left parked on the right side of the green car. “I’ll follow you guys.”

  Not that I don’t want to go with Shae, but I like having my options open, especially if I need a getaway ride. I also don’t want to be in such
close proximity to Caden. He makes me agitated for obvious reasons, and I need to have all my wits about me going into this blind. Shae’s expression remains calm, but she flicks a raised eyebrow in my direction.

  After a couple seconds, Shae jumps into the car, and nods for Caden to get in. Instead, he walks over to me sitting on the bike. I tense immediately at his soft touch on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  I can feel Shae’s heavy stare through the car window. Sighing, I look Caden full in the face, steeling my voice and my heart. “It never happened, OK? This thing with you and me. It can’t happen. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Why? What do you mean?” His voice is wounded, and my eyes fall away from his, unable to bear the pooling hurt there. “I thought–”

  “No, you were wrong, Caden. I didn’t feel anything. I was testing to see how far you would go,” I say without inflection. I know the words are like daggers to him, but I don’t care. I have to end it before it grows into something worse, something that could endanger the both of us. So instead, I deaden any emotion inside of me with practiced ease. “I’m sorry you thought it was something more. It wasn’t. I just don’t feel that way about you.”

  The pain in his voice is worse than I could imagine. “You were testing me? For what? To lead me on? To see me make a fool of myself?”

  “Yes.” The word is like a gunshot, but it fulfills its purpose. Caden backs away, his eyes wide and angry. I can feel my betrayal eating away at him. And even though my insides feel like a pulverized mess, I know what I’m doing is right. Maybe in a different time, we could have been more, but not now… not with everything at stake. Wearing Sadie’s dress has made me weak. It has made me just as selfish and as self-indulgent as she is.

  “Shae was right, wasn’t she?” he whispers. “I thought she was out of her mind when she called you the ice queen. But you are, aren’t you? You’re heartless, Riven.”

  I flinch at his words, but I shrug, nonchalant. “I’ve been called far worse. You’d do best to keep your distance from me, Caden. I’m no good for anyone,” I say quietly. My voice is barely a whisper now. “Shae knows me better than most. I don’t know how to love. Just ask her. She’ll tell you.”