“I’m not asking you to,” he reminds her. “And if you want to report the party, be my guest. In the meantime, enjoy your evening.” Then his hand wraps around my elbow and he is pushing me through the crowd in the direction of the swing set.
Briefly, I wonder, though, if she is right. If I am nothing more to him than a tool for revenge, a way to strike back at his mother. Addison can’t be trusted; I know that. But she has known Wren for much longer than I have, and in ways that I can’t, in ways that I don’t. Intimate ways. Knee-high-black-leather-boot ways.
The thought makes my lips pucker with dissatisfaction.
Maggie and Connor sit side by side on the swings, and behind them, Emerald talks with Erick. She is laughing at something he says, and she looks lighter than she did earlier.
A bottle is wedged into my hand, and the glass feels cold against my skin. “Drink up,” instructs Maggie. “Before Connor here drinks all of it.” She nudges him in the arm, and they grin.
I have a sip and notice as I do that Wren’s eyes slowly sweep the room. I elbow him. “Looking for someone?”
“Just wondering if your good friend Daniel decided to show,” he says, his voice vaguely threatening.
Before I can respond, Maggie’s head snaps in our direction. “He’s not here, but that’s only because Eve did something to him yesterday and now she’s being super cagey about it.”
“Thanks, Maggie,” I say with a grimace. “Thanks for sharing.”
“No problem!” She winks, then turns back to Connor. I watch as she grabs his swing and pulls it so they bump into each other. Wren, meanwhile, is watching me.
“What’d you do?” he says evenly.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Eve.”
“I roughed him up a bit, okay?”
He squints as he eyes me. “No, I don’t think that’s all you did. Because fighting is a way of life for you down here, remember? You wouldn’t be cagey about something like that. What really happened?”
I hesitate, but not for long. There’s no sense in hiding it from Wren—not when I have shared so much with him already. I lower my voice so the others can’t hear. “He got in my face in the cafeteria. Told me he was coming for me. So I followed him. I waited until he was alone…”
“Yeah?”
I shrug. “I attacked him.” My gaze casts down. “With my knife.”
He leans forward. His eyes are deadly serious. “Did you…?”
I shake my head. “I slashed him. His face. I didn’t kill him.”
I think Wren is going to ask why I didn’t, but instead he straightens his back and wraps his hands around my head, pulls me to his chest. He already knows why.
His lips brush against my forehead, and we are still.
“Think he’ll leave you alone?”
“Now that he knows I carry a knife? Yeah, I’d say so. For now, at least.” I close my eyes and see the blade slice apart his skin. I see red, and part of me winces. The rest of me cringes at my weakness. At my inability to kill him. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“This reminds me of when you were hiding from that guard,” he murmurs eventually.
“Yeah. Before we fed the Noms.”
“Back when you were still resisting my charms.”
“Mmm. Is that what you call it? Could’ve fooled me…”
He smiles. “In my defense, you weren’t all that pleasant yourself. And you did give me some killer bruises, I might add.”
“So then why were you trying to charm me?”
His face is suddenly serious, and I feel his rib cage expand and contract under my grasp. “When I saw you upstairs, after you broke into the Oracle, your eyes were so…alive… They were like nothing I’d ever seen before.” He pauses, and his gaze finds mine. “Besides, it’s kind of hard to get a girl out of your head once she sucker punches you in the face. Never a dull moment with you, Eve.”
He kisses my forehead, and I lift my lips to his, and he kisses me there instead. My eyes open once I remember where we are—surrounded by people.
He laughs softly. “Relax, Eve. I don’t think you’re in any danger with this crowd. Besides, everyone’s too drunk to notice, and if I’m wrong, who cares.” But even as he speaks the words, I feel someone staring at me. Hunter. It makes my stomach squeeze painfully into itself. When I glance at him, he turns at once back to his kitchen friends.
“Looks like everyone’s up to speed,” says Wren quietly.
I swallow. “Looks that way.”
Before I can digest the look on Hunter’s face or the feeling in the pit of my stomach, a bright voice shouts over my shoulder. “I knew it!”
I grin at the sound of Jules’s voice. “You did not.” I pull away from Wren and shove her.
“I totally called it as soon as I saw you guys, didn’t I? You remember, right, hottie? By the way, Eve, this”—she points her finger at my face—“is totally doing it for me. You look like a sexed-up warrior princess or something.”
“Told you, Eve!” Maggie shouts from the swing. “You need to trust me with this makeover business, okay?”
“Very funny.”
“It’s no joke,” she insists, though she is smiling. “What do you think, Wren? Can you even contain yourself?”
“Hmm. I have notoriously found it difficult to do that around Eve,” he says as he pretends to examine me. “Tonight is no exception.”
“What about when you beat the shit out of her?”
I turn quickly and see that Hunter stands there, arms folded. He is staring at Wren with a menacing look on his face. “Could you contain yourself then?” he continues.
“Hunter,” I begin, but Wren lifts a hand.
“Let him finish.”
“What—you’re telling her what to do now? Because you wouldn’t be the first upper-floor asshole with control issues sniffing around my friends.”
“Hunter,” I say.
Wren, meanwhile, smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “An asshole with control issues. Is that what you just called me?” He takes a step closer. Hunter is tall and no weakling, but still, their difference in strength is devastating, and I remember Wren’s vengeful words: I could kill Hunter with my eyes closed. Wren isn’t cruel, but I know he could kill a person, and I know he doesn’t like my friend any more than my friend likes him.
“Not just a controlling one,” Hunter replies levelly. “An abusive one. One who likes to slap girls around. One who enjoys it.”
Wren’s body is still—too still—but then he laughs. “You think I’m like that?”
“Tell me how I’m wrong.”
“I’d sooner die than lay a finger on Eve outside the Bowl, that’s how. And if you want to think I’m an asshole, fine. Go ahead. Better that than a manipulative coward like yourself.”
Hunter shakes his head. “She might trust you,” he spits, “but I don’t.”
Wren takes another step closer and dips his head. “That’s funny, because I was about to say the same thing to you.”
Hunter’s face flushes with anger, and then he grabs Wren around the collar. I’m between them in a heartbeat, even before Wren can react. “Cut it out!” I yell as I pull at Hunter’s hand. “Both of you, cut it out.”
Hunter stares at me, and all at once, the anger in his eyes dies. Something new shoots through them—something bare and unprotected; something that makes me feel bare and unprotected, too. Then he shoves off through the crowd. Wren touches my arm, but I shake my head, and that is when I notice someone I don’t want to see.
Kyle.
I spot him before Maggie does. She is distracted, deep in conversation with Connor. The two of them sit so close that their knees touch, and I don’t want Kyle to ruin the moment for her. I don’t want her to have to think about him ever again.
I
start forward through the crowd to head him off, but it’s too late. Already he moves quickly in her direction.
I manage to get myself in front of him before he can reach her. “Get out of here,” I say loudly in his ear. “You guys are over. She doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
Kyle’s eyes, usually so smug, are filled with heat. He glares at me. “Let’s hear it from her own mouth.”
I am about to refuse—I made her a promise, after all—but then I hear her voice from over my shoulder, and even through an abundance of alcohol it is perfectly clear. “She’s right, Kyle. I told you we were through. I told you to leave me alone.”
“Come on, Maggie. It was just a fight—and don’t think an Upper Mean’s going to get down on their knees and grovel. I’ve given you some space. Now it’s time to move on.”
“I have moved on.” Her voice is calm. “Just not with you.”
Kyle’s eyes dart around her and land on Connor. They shine with anger.
Maggie shakes her head. “Not with him, either. Not with anyone. I’ve moved on by myself, for myself. You and I are through.”
“Don’t do this to me, Maggie.”
She inhales at his words, and her voice shakes. “You crossed a line many, many months ago. Maybe it was my fault for staying, but I don’t think so. All I know is that I am not doing anything to you.”
He starts toward her, but I place a hand on his chest. “Don’t even think about it,” I say. “She’s made herself perfectly clear.”
“Get your disgusting, Lower Mean hand—”
I punch him in the mouth, a single shot, one that draws blood from a slit in his lip. It isn’t quite the ass-kicking that Bruno had hoped for, but still it is enough to distract him from Maggie.
He dabs at the blood, and then his eyes harden into beads. He readies himself to punch me back…but his gaze lands on something over my shoulder, and he goes still.
“I dare you,” Wren quietly taunts from behind me.
Kyle looks one last time at Maggie, then turns, his shoulders squared against the crowd that he pushes through. When he’s gone, I grab Maggie by the hand. “Are you okay?”
“Me?” she laughs. “You’ve got a mean right hook, you know that? Maybe you could teach me a thing or two.”
“Next time we’re at the Bowl,” I agree. But a knot forms in my stomach. If I go, I can’t do that. If I go, I can’t do a lot of things. I feel Wren, still close, and push my fingers through his. I turn, pull him tight to my body. “Thanks for having my back,” I whisper.
“Mm. Like I said—never a dull moment with you, Eve.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I butter my piece of toast and spread jam on top of that, the way my mother used to prepare it for me when I was young. Across the table, Maggie chats loudly with the others. She has been chipper since the party, much like her old self. Maybe it was standing up to Kyle, maybe it was spending time with Connor, maybe it was both.
I have been in a good mood, too. I shouldn’t be. There are now less than two weeks until I am expected to pick a job, to leap into adulthood while trapped in Eleven, to dedicate my life to serving the compound and its commander. And with every strike of the clock, it becomes less and less likely that I will taste true freedom, that I will reach that famed oasis—or Jack. That leaves the tunnels, the ones to other compounds. A dangerous journey, and one with a question mark waiting at its end. So I’m not sure why I’m in such a good mood, frankly.
Maybe it’s the fact that my friends know about Wren—even Hunter, which means one less secret standing between us. Or maybe it’s that Addison also happened to spot Wren and me holding hands at the end of the party… I smile over my toast as I think about it.
“Let’s go to the Bowl,” I say suddenly. I push the rest of the toast into my mouth and look at them. “It’ll be fun. I can show you how to throw a punch,” I add to Maggie.
“Right now? I just woke up!”
“So? We’re finished eating, and besides, we’ve got nothing else going on this morning. There are no job tours today, right?”
Maggie shrugs. “I guess we could…”
“It’ll be fun,” I say again.
Emerald clears her throat. “I’ve been kind of avoiding that place since, you know…”
“All the more reason we should go. Come on, we never do anything besides sit around here and mope about stuff.”
They stare at me.
“Okay, that’s not all we do. But seriously, it’ll be fun. Now, how many times are you going to make me say that?” I stand, and—slowly, reluctantly—they stand, too.
I lead them out of the cafeteria, excited about the prospect of spending the morning with my friends like old times, teaching Maggie how to fight. The thick Mean crowds that clot the hallway can’t even dampen my spirits.
Then I hear my name shouted from over my shoulder—or at least I think it’s mine. The noise of the people swallows it immediately up, so after a cursory glance around, I walk on. But my arm is grabbed, and my right fist clenches just as it always does when I am surprised. Just as it should in Compound Eleven.
Wren, and my hand relaxes. Except that I know immediately something is wrong. His eyes are harder than usual, and there is a crease between his eyebrows. His jaw is clenched.
“What?” I ask and take a step closer. Bodies push around us. “What is it?”
He stares at me for a second like he’s lost in thought, then shakes his head. His gaze drops to my collarbone. “It’s nothing. Just…listen, this is going to sound weird, and I don’t have time to explain, but—” He leans his head down to my ear and lowers his voice so nobody else can hear. “You should invite Jules up. And that other friend of yours. Monica. Her kid, too.”
I pull back and stare at him. “I should what?”
But already he is drawing away. “I’m late, Eve. Connor’s waiting. Just trust me, okay? Have them up. Now.”
“Right now?”
“Now.”
And then he disappears through the bodies, and I am standing there, staring at the empty space he left. The others crowd around me.
“What was that all about?”
I shake my head. “I’m honestly not sure.”
“I thought he was supposed to be with Connor this morning.”
I turn to Maggie and wait for her to catch her balance after being sideswiped by an Upper Mean. “How do you know that?”
She shrugs. “Connor told me. The Preme jobs work a bit differently. You have to pass certain tests before you can even apply to some positions. Today is one of the main tests for the computer jobs. Didn’t Wren tell you?”
Hunter and Emerald are staring at me, and I feel almost foolish shaking my head. No, he didn’t tell me. I shift my weight from foot to foot and try to ignore the sound of a child wailing a few steps away.
“Listen,” I say slowly. “I think we have to take a detour on the way to the Bowl.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the feeding dock.”
“Care to elaborate, Eve?”
“Not really.”
Then I lead them silently down the stairs and push through the dimly lit Lower Mean corridors until the crowds thin and we are close. Broken glass underfoot crunches loudly with every step and wedges into the sole of my boot. I barely notice. When I pass over the place where Wren hid me from the guard, my stomach clenches uncomfortably.
“You guys wait here,” I mumble over my shoulder. “I shouldn’t be long.”
The door is open, and the lights are on. At the bottom of the stairs, a short man with thick-rimmed glasses and black tattoo sleeves passes out portions of bread through the partition. His eyes narrow when they see me.
“I’m looking for someone,” I say. My voice is even. “Do you know the Denominators well?”
“Visitors aren’t authorized,” he says instead. “Get out or I’ll find a guard.”
“Look, I do this gig, too. Lunches. I’m looking for a girl named Jules. And a woman named Monica. Do you know them?”
He gives me a cold look. “I don’t do names.”
“One’s my age. Bleach-blond hair. Spunky. The other’s a bit older with a young boy glued to her side.”
He shrugs.
“Mind if I…?” I gesture to his spot directly in front of the open partition. “I’ll pass out the food.”
He stares at me for several seconds, then shakes his head. “You think I do this out of the goodness of my heart? I don’t. Consider it my sentence for a meaningless crime. If I let you barge in and stop me from doing it, who’s to say they don’t make me do dinner duty, too? Sorry. Can’t risk it.” He shoves bread to several faces that come and go, none of them my friends.
My fingers, meanwhile, ball into fists. I don’t have time for this, and I don’t like to be told no. But my options are limited. He looks vaguely dangerous, for starters, and I have been working toward less violence in my life, not more.
“Fine,” I sniff. “I won’t interfere with you doing your job. Happy?”
“You’re going to stand over my shoulder the whole time instead?”
“What’s the difference,” I snap. He turns and looks at me, and I raise my hands. Keep calm, Eve. I force my voice to relax. “You won’t even know I’m here.”
He passes more bread through the partition, and my eyes scan the dark room for signs of blond hair and eyes that shine with laughter. A mother and son, hand in hand.
Why did Wren say to have them upstairs? Why now? Why was it so important he risked missing a test that could determine his entire future? I try to ignore the question of why he didn’t tell me about the test in the first place.
I stand there for several minutes before I finally see one of them—Jules—and she looks confused as she approaches the partition. “What are you doing here? You never do breakfast duty.”
“Um,” I begin. Too many secrets, too many lies. I just eliminated a major one that was standing between me and my friends—do I really want to start another? Maybe the whole thing is ridiculous. Maybe Wren wasn’t being literal, or he was messing around, or he was mistaken. I stare at her and frown. “Grab your breakfast and meet me at the closest stairwell. We’re headed to the Bowl, and you’re coming, too.”
Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy) Page 27
