The Body Market

by Donna Freitas

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That seems like a waste of a favor.”

  I took a drink of the whiskey. The cold made it so much more palatable. “It all depends on how long the consideration might take.” The breath from my words turned to vapor. The wood in the stove was nearly gone already. “What if I’m able to get your sister back for you? Without you handing me over to Jude in exchange?”

  A cloud passed across Kit’s face. With great effort, he nodded. “I’m listening.”

  Kit’s resolve was faltering, despite his obvious effort to hold it steady. He’d been so confident about his plans for me at first, but our time together was punching holes through it. He wanted an excuse to let it fall away completely. I could see it on him, the hope that we could find another way. “I have friends,” I began. “A lot of friends. All of whom are united against my sister and want to dismantle her gruesome market.”

  “Is one of your . . . friends the person you’d like to make jealous?” Kit asked.

  This startled me. It wasn’t the first question I expected from him. I nodded. “I think I know a little bit about how you feel. There’s someone I need to save from the Body Market, too. It’s my fault she’s in this situation, therefore my responsibility to fix things. If the entire market comes down in the process, so much the better.”

  Kit’s lips were pressed together. He shook his head. “I don’t care about taking down the entire market. I only care about Maggie.”

  I shifted in my chair. Leaned closer. Looked Kit straight in the eyes. “I don’t believe that. I think you care about more than Maggie, but you just don’t want to admit it.”

  His gaze back was steady. “Oh, do you?”

  I suddenly felt the weight of two worlds on my shoulders. I had a feeling Kit did, too. “I don’t think you’re that cold a person. I think you’ve done what you’ve needed to survive, just like I have. Just like all of us do.” Both of our hands were perched on the cooling iron of the stovetop, and I noticed how close our fingers were. “As part of your . . . consideration . . . I’m asking that you return me to where I’ve been hiding out and to the people plotting against my sister. In doing so, I promise to find a way to get Maggie back.”

  Kit’s composure faltered. “That’s too much to ask—” he began.

  I didn’t let him continue, refused to let him deny me. “And if I fail, I’ll turn myself in to you and we go back to your original plan. I told you it was a real favor,” I added quickly. “There’s also one other possibility,” I went on, getting to the part that made me hesitate, the part that maybe revealed more about what I was feeling than I wanted. “You could join us,” I said. “If you did, then you would no longer be . . . so alone.”

  Kit took in a long breath, then let it out, the heat of it clouding the air.

  “I’ll give you my decision in the morning,” he said softly.

  11

  Rain

  beautiful

  I STOOD UP, careful not to wake Lacy.

  She was still sitting on the floor, sleeping upright, her back resting against one of the long glass boxes, her legs outstretched in the aisle. Her red hair flowed along her shoulders and down past her elbows. It nearly touched the concrete ground. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t want to wake her either. She looked so peaceful. There was the trace of a smile on her face.

  I wondered if she was dreaming about what just happened between us.

  I watched her there, her chest slowly rising and falling. After I’d kissed her, she kissed me back, and didn’t seem to want to stop. We spent the night listening to the sounds of the storm outside, talking and kissing, Lacy with this happy smile on her face that thawed out my heart. But occasionally I’d see a gleam in her eye, a familiar one, and I was reminded exactly what I was doing and that I was doing it with Lacy Mills. It occurred to me to wonder if she was imagining Skylar in that moment, and how Skylar would feel if she saw us here.

  Lacy loved nothing more than to win. I had a feeling she’d consider winning me against Skylar her greatest triumph.

  Skylar.

  Her name drifted through me like snow caught in the wind, harsh and cold and piercing.

  I always thought Skylar would be my first real kiss in this world. But instead I gave it to Lacy.

  My heart clenched, like there was a fist wrapped around it.

  What was done was done. I made my choice, fully aware of what I was doing. But now that the repercussions were staring me in the face, so was a bright flash of regret. If I ever got to a place again where Skylar and I might have some sort of romantic possibility, I would have to tell her about this night with Lacy before she and I could move forward. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

  I turned my back on Lacy.

  Where was Skylar anyway? Was she all right? As these questions pounded at me, I realized Lacy and I weren’t alone. Someone was standing at the end of the aisle. She raised her hand in an awkward wave. Quietly, I went to her.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to act casual. “Zeera, what’s up?”

  Zeera’s eyebrows were arched. She gestured at Lacy behind me. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  I shrugged. “You weren’t.”

  Her eyebrows arched higher. “That’s not what it looks like to me.”

  She and Lacy had become friends over the last couple of months. They were the least likely people I imagined connecting, but somehow they had. I don’t think Skylar even noticed their friendship, she’d been so out of it. But Lacy and Zeera spent a lot of time together now.

  I sighed. “I’ll let Lacy give you the details if she wants to.”

  Zeera’s smile was a bit smug. “You two? Finally?”

  “I don’t know, Zeera,” I hissed, trying not to raise my voice and wake her. “Yes. Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “Don’t hurt her, Rain Holt,” she scolded.

  I tilted my head to the side. “Really, Zeera? Did you come here to judge me, or for some other reason?”

  She frowned a little. “Follow me.”

  Zeera led me to the weapons room, a place I’d been avoiding because Lacy was there a lot, visiting Zeera, whispering about what, I didn’t know. Zeera punched in the code and pressed her hand to the touchpad on the wall. The great vault of a door opened to let us inside. The room was full of screens, big and small, but only one of them was turned on. The biggest one, a gigantic, thin rectangular panel against the back wall. A single image shone from its surface.

  I went to it, transfixed. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

  Zeera came over and stood next to me. “You are.” Her voice was hushed, as though we could be overheard on the other side of it.

  The two of us stared. “Is that . . . is that live?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said.

  “How did you get this up?”

  Zeera’s smile was full of pride. “I finally hacked in. I think this storm turned out to be good luck. I haven’t worked in such a concentrated way in ages. I caught the one feed that’s active and this was what I found.” Zeera paused for a breath, the smile dropping from her mouth. “I can’t figure out the location for where it’s coming from though.”

  I took this in, then returned my attention to the monitor. “So who is that?”

  On the screen a girl was pacing back and forth across a beautiful room. She moved at such an angle that I couldn’t get a clear look at her face. But her hair was striking. Long and blond and wavy, buttery like silk. She wore only a slip of a dress, her skin pale, her frame tiny. It wasn’t Skylar, that was for sure.

  Zeera was shaking her head. “I have no idea. But I’ve been watching her long enough to know that she’s a prisoner, which means she must be important to the New Capitalists. Like, Inara important, like . . .” Zeera trailed off.

  Skylar important.

  These unspoken words hung in the air.

  We were both thinking them.

  Cold pierced my heart as another thought fol
lowed.

  If Jude didn’t have Skylar, then who did? I should have felt relieved, but somehow I didn’t. I swallowed as the reason came to me.

  That Skylar had simply left us for good.

  I took a step closer to the screen. Everything around the girl was decorated in shades of blue, patterns of blue, the couch, the rug, the wall hangings, the bedspread. “Doesn’t that seem like the room Skylar described, where Jude held her?”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Zeera said.

  “Whoever she is, you’re right,” I said. “She’s not there of her own volition.”

  The girl froze, midstride, like she’d heard something that startled her. Like maybe she’d even heard us.

  Zeera picked up a nearby keyboard and began typing frantically. She shook her head in frustration. “I got the image up but I still haven’t figured out the sound.”

  The girl turned around slowly and for the first time I saw her face.

  Her eyes were big and blue and bright, long blond-tipped lashes fanning out from them to match her flaxen hair. Her cheeks were flushed red, the same color as her lips.

  She was beautiful.

  Zeera’s fingers were flying across the keyboard, but still no sound emitted from the speakers. “Come on, come on.”

  Just then, a second person stepped into the frame. Her back was to the camera.

  Zeera stopped typing and looked up. “Is that . . . ?”

  The two of us stared at the screen, side by side.

  “Yes,” I said. “Jude.” I took in the sight of them talking, wishing we could hear. The woman kept her back to the feed, but it didn’t matter. I was certain it was her.

  “You think?” Zeera asked.

  “Yes.” I pointed to the girl’s face on the screen, which told us everything we needed to know. “Don’t you see her eyes?” I went on. “The look in them is of terror.”

  12

  Skylar

  good-byes

  I WOKE TO find my legs tangled with Kit’s, my body slumped against his.

  I jumped up, startled. I yanked at whatever was encircling my neck and pulled away Kit’s scarf. Every part of me shivered.

  Kit didn’t move. Didn’t stir. He slept like the dead. I wondered if he was hungover from too much drink. I draped the scarf over him.

  Then I noticed a change in the cottage.

  No. Outside of it.

  The wind no longer howled. A different-colored light crept inside.

  I went to the window.

  The storm was over. Pale yellow sunshine crept through the icy glass. The snow was piled higher than I ever could have imagined, but it would rise no longer. When I finally turned around I saw that Kit was in the process of waking up. I waited for his first words of the day, for his decision about what I’d asked of him, but he said nothing about our night.

  “We need to get to work,” was what he said instead.

  “Clearing the snow from the doorway,” I surmised.

  “Clearing a path so I can chop more firewood. It still may be days before we can get farther down the road than a mile or two. The snow will cover everything, and many feet deep.”

  My heart sank. Days more, trapped in this cabin? Alone with Kit?

  A knot pretzeled in my stomach.

  A lot could happen in a few days. My relationship with Kit had changed dramatically already, and I wasn’t sure what I thought of it changing any more, or what those changes might entail.

  I took a deep breath. “How long do you think it will be before they can reopen the market?”

  Kit was rummaging through a closet off the side of the kitchen and pulled out two large shovels. “A few days, maybe.” He tossed one to me and I caught it. “Not long.”

  I nodded. A few days was better than nothing.

  We went to the door and for the first time since my midnight excursion, we opened it. I thought we would encounter a great wall of snow, but luckily the banks had sloped away from the cottage walls and there was little more than a few inches that covered the ground in front of the house.

  The world outside was quiet and soft, asleep under a thick blanket of white. We could see all the way to the ocean, which shimmered under the sun, only the barest of waves rippling the water. I squinted against the bright glare, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn away. “The Real World is beautiful,” I said in a hush.

  “Sometimes, yes,” Kit agreed quietly. “It can be many other things, far less pleasant, but it’s important to acknowledge when it’s beautiful, I think. It’s what helps me remember why I’m here.”

  Maybe I was caught up in the stunning magic of this snow-covered wonderland, or maybe our night of confessions still pulsed in my veins when I professed what came next. “I am going to trust you, Kit,” I said. Kit had kidnapped me, but he still had never betrayed me. He’d never masqueraded as something he wasn’t, however unpleasant it had been at first.

  Unlike Rain. Rain had lied.

  Kit turned to me. “I am going to trust you as well, Skylar,” he said.

  There. I had my answer.

  I would get my favor. I knew his answer was yes without him having to tell me directly.

  Without another word, shovels in hand, we got to work.

  It took two days before we were ready.

  Two days of shoveling, of clearing paths, of chopping wood and warming up by the stove, of sipping the terrible-tasting whiskey in the evenings that with each glass went down smoother than the one before, of dressing and redressing the wound on Kit’s shoulder, which burned him now, but not with infection, only the soreness of torn skin and muscle. An easy truce settled between us, one full of patience and something else, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what, or maybe I didn’t want to. A new Kit emerged during this time, someone quick to smile and quick to laugh, who once, when I was in the middle of a sentence, pelted me with a ball of snow and marveled at the way our footsteps made fresh imprints on the landscape, as though no one before us had ever traversed our path on this earth. I wondered if this was the Kit he’d been when his sister was around, or if he, too, was relieved that the burden of trading one body for another was lifted from his shoulders, even if only temporarily.

  The time it took for the world to open itself up to our leaving was shorter than Kit predicted. The sun burned bright and hot from the moment the snow stopped, melting rivers through the drifts all the way to the dirt below. Icicles hung from the trees, the water drip, drip, dripping onto the ground, creating circular basins where tiny winter sparrows took their baths. The sky shone a brilliant cold and endless blue and the ocean beyond the cottage shifted and sizzled as the waves washed away the banks of snow they reached. I found myself leaning against the handle of the shovel now and then, sighing at the landscape the storm had brought with it. As Kit and I worked during the daylight hours clearing what snow the sun didn’t take on its own, my body reveled in the use of its muscles, enjoying how the movement warmed me to my still-weak fingertips and toes, my face smiling toward the light in the sky. When, at the end of the second day, it was evident that tomorrow we could make our way back toward New Port City, and from there out to Briarwood, I realized something.

  I didn’t want to go.

  I wasn’t ready for this . . . vacation to end.

  “What’s the matter, Skylar?” Kit asked me that same evening.

  It was late, darkness had fallen, and the iron stove burned warmth throughout the cottage. Kit and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table, the bottle of homemade whiskey between us, our glasses half full. I was the one who’d gone searching for Kit’s stash under his bed, returning to the kitchen and plunking our drinks for the evening in front of him, seeing how his eyebrows arched in surprise at the gesture.

  “It’s been strange to be so cut off from the rest of the world.” I looked around the room. The couch with the blanket thrown over its arm. The black stove pumping heat from its belly. The table and chairs, the kitchen, the remnants of dinner, th
e creaky wood floor and the windows, now clear of snow. The tiny house felt like more of a home after less than a week than any other place in the Real World, more even than the Keeper’s quarters.

  “This storm was unusual,” Kit said. “The longest I’ve ever known.”

  “But it was more than the storm,” I said. “Being here is so solitary and quiet. There’s . . . peace. In the App World, you’re always connected to other people. You’re never alone. You don’t even have to be alone with your own thoughts. Ever.”

  “And what are your thoughts telling you now?” Kit asked.

  “I don’t think I should share that information,” I said, then regretted that I didn’t take more time to consider my answer.

  “I think you should.”

  My hands cupped my chin, elbows on the table, if only to keep myself from guzzling the honey-colored liquid in my glass too quickly. “For a while I’ve forgotten who I am,” I said finally. “And tomorrow it will be time for me to remember.”

  Kit studied me. The end of his scarf escaped the tight wrapping around his neck. He wore it nearly always, sometimes even in sleep, even when the cottage burned with warmth. Tonight he wore a short-sleeved shirt, and I could see the bottom edge of the tattoos on his arms, of birds taking flight and stars reaching for the moon. “For a while I’ve forgotten who I am as well,” he said darkly.

  His tone pierced me. Had I been wrong to trust him these last few days? Would he go back on his promise? Would I? We were both playing a dangerous game. A part of me longed to go back to those fleeting first days in the Real World when I thought my escape on the cliff was a dream and my only objective was to strengthen my colt-like jittery legs so I could find my mother and sister.

  “I haven’t forgotten who you are, Kit,” I returned, just as darkly.

  “Maybe you should.”

  I shot him a look. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged, but his eyes betrayed sadness. “Maybe you should forget me altogether. Forget this ever happened.”

  It was my turn to study him. The boy I saw in front of me now was so different from the blank-faced bounty hunter who grabbed me off the streets. His hand lay on the table next to his glass, and I found myself wishing that I could take it. “How could I forget?” I replied, intentionally leaving my words open to various interpretations.