by A. B. Bloom
“You could come to mine if you like.”
All three of our mouths hung open. It was as if we’d woken up and become gormless idiots.
We’d only known Chase one day.
And he was a human.
Clearly, he was also as insane as they come.
“No, no,” I said. “You’d get in trouble.”
He looked at me like it was I who was crazy. “Well you are the one with the all-seeing prophet power.” He chuckled when I shushed him, my fingers lingering as they brushed his skin with my hand, drawing yet more curious glances at our mismatched table. “Am I, or am I not going to get in trouble with my father for smuggling three Metas into my room for some contraband goodies and music?” His clear blue eyes settled on me and I felt this wave of exposure flush over my skin. But it wasn’t exposure that he knew what I was, rather that he could see me. That when those clear eyes landed on my face, on my skin, they could see every inch of me.
Adrianna’s eyes lit up at the prospect of contraband. She didn’t even know what it was, but still she wanted it. That’s how basic life within the domes of the Complex was. Anything was better than vegetable stew, and water.
I groaned and turned my mind inward, feeling around me for tangible whispers of visions that I could chase down. Frankie was going to be in trouble with his father later, but that was nothing new, and Adie was going to leave her Uni Academy messenger bag on the Zipper…again.
I searched for Chase, with probing thoughts, repeatedly circling back around until I found him. He was grinning and twirling someone in a dance. He pulled the shady figure close, pressing the two bodies together as he swayed and led them to a low tune. I prickled a little. Not that I had any reason to be jealous, after all he was just a human I was trying to help. But the sight of him with someone else did something funny to my insides, making them twist and turn until I felt tangled into knots, like the ones Anya always needed to pull from her hair each morning. I snapped out of the vision but wouldn’t meet his gaze. I couldn’t. I felt angry, although I had no reason why. “I think you are clear.”
He smiled, a wide lift of his lips that made his eyes shine. He was rather attractive for a human. I could afford to be that generous with my evaluation of him. “See, I told you. Come on guys, have you had chocolate before?”
Adrianna practically shot out of her seat. “No! Take me right now.”
Chase looked at her in confusion, like maybe he hadn’t understood what she was saying and then he bent at the waist laughing. “Okay, Adrianna,” he said when he’d managed to control his fit of amusement. “Please don’t say that to any other human men, it could be a little misleading.” He grinned at her as she tried to work out what she’d said wrong. From my point of view, I had no clue. He held his arm crooked in her direction. “This way, Madame.” She fluttered her long eyelashes at him and I pouted and mumbled under my breath as I followed them out of the atrium.
“This way.” Chase ducked down a side passage and opened a door that clearly said No Access. I frowned. I could see this ending in an almighty punishment, and considering I was supposed to be staying out of trouble so people didn’t know who I was or what I could do, that was only a bad thing.
Leading us down what looked like a maintenance passage we ducked and dived behind Chase, dropping our heads to avoid walking into giant tubes that ran along the top of the ceiling. “What are these?” Frankie rubbed at his forehead after one unfortunate collision.
“It’s the air, this is how they cycle the atmosphere.”
“Ooh.” The three of us said in unison.
In the back of my mind I wondered just what Chase got up to during the day, or night for that matter, to find these places. Surely someone would be looking for him. He looked confident as he ducked and dived around the metal tubes so it was obvious he was familiar with the layout.
After half an hour or so he pushed through another door which I would have missed had I been by myself. “Where are we?” I pulled on his sleeve and tried to ignore the delight I felt when I touched him.
“My place. I told you.” He turned and flashed me a grin and my heart did this little flip where it almost missed a beat.
We stumbled through the door into a room that was so far removed from our own accommodation that we all stood there blinking like idiots gawping at our surroundings. If you took the three of our living quarters and pushed them together into one giant cube, it still wouldn’t have matched the size of this suite.
Billowing curtains fluttered soft strands of sheer material into the room and at first, I thought maybe there was a window open. My mouth dropped open when I spotted the floor to ceiling windows. I hadn’t seen a window, much less the fresh air outside since we’d arrived in the Complex. A giant plush seating area filled one corner of the room and the walls were lined with books on wooden shelves. I walked for them, running my hands along the rare feel of grained wood before turning to the seat. My fingers dipped into the material and my eyes widened. I’d never felt anything like it. Deep within my chest my heart was swelling with the prospect of the unknown until it felt like the texture of the soft seat I’d run my fingers over. So many new sensations were making me spin. “Where is this stuff from?” I whispered almost to myself, but Chase made me jump when he answered from directly behind me, his breath gently brushing my skin.
“Dad had conditions when we came.”
I blinked up at him. “But this is a different world away from what everyone else gets.”
“I know.” A frown creased his face and my hand lifted to smooth it away before I stopped myself. “It’s an injustice on a monumental level.” That grin warmed his face again and we stared at one another until Adrianna wormed her way between us.
“Chocolate?” she prompted. “Don’t tell me I walked all this way for nothing.”
He turned that smile onto her and I swallowed hard. “Sure thing, beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes as he walked away. “What?” she asked.
I groaned. “Nothing, don’t worry.”
Adrianna had eaten her own weight in contraband chocolate pieces and was groaning on the sofa with Frankie rubbing her hair. We’d been there for too long, and I was pacing. Mom would be looking for me, and if she wasn’t, she’d have questions. Questions I didn’t want to answer.
I had an unsettled feeling within me.
Picking up a picture frame, the only picture frame, I investigated the smiling faces within the frame. A younger Chase, his eyes vivid. A woman with brighter hair was at his side, her arm squeezing his shoulders tight.
“Hey.” He came alongside and his arm brushed mine, causing the fine hairs on my arms to stand on end.
“Sorry,” I placed the photo frame back but his eyes didn’t notice, they were staring at me, flitting over my face as if they were searching for something.
“Is it hard?” His voice was low.
“What? Seeing Adie nearly puke on chocolate?”
He smiled and I was sure he stepped a little closer. “No, pretending to be someone you aren’t?”
I shrugged a little and then tried very hard not to look as he caught hold of my fingers with his. “It strikes me you aren’t quite human, but you aren’t able to embrace the Meta within you. That must be a difficult balance.”
I shrugged again. Any words I could have found were being stolen by his touch and would get tangled into knots if I tried to speak them.
“Thank you, Delphine.”
“What for?”
He stepped closer still, our chests now only millimetres apart and my body hummed as I yearned for the human boy. “For trying to save me.”
At his words, a flicker of his future flicked through my mind and I despaired that it hadn’t yet changed. “Thank me when I do.”
He swept my hand up to his mouth and grazed his lips over the skin. “I will.”
The rest of the room—my friends who had been with me since the beginning of this ghastly experiment—faded into the
distance as I met his eyes and smiled, my heart flying with possibilities and hope.
“Ever tasted strawberries?”
I rolled slightly and stared at Chase. We were in the farming dome and towering corn provided us with shade from the glare of artificial light.
I didn’t know how I’d ended up laying in a field of corn with a human boy, but now I was there I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. First it had been the lunch, sitting under the cloud of green birds chirping away, followed by chocolate, lingering, grazing touches and dancing in his quarters. The following day he’d been waiting for me and walked me to lectures and my heart had soared at the sight of him. Since then we hadn’t been apart.
Chase was a quantity I hadn’t been expecting to arrive in my life, not in the Complex anyway.
“Strawberries?” I held my chin on my hands and cast my gaze over him. His brown hair flopped and curled, a mess of tangles that I wanted to reach over and run my hands through. I never did though. Whatever this was developing between us, it wasn’t that.
I was keeping my distance because we were in each other’s lives for a reason. For me to save his, and I knew if I wanted to keep that ghastly image of the future from happening then I couldn’t allow myself to get too close. “Never tasted a strawberry in my life.” I offered him a smile as he rolled back onto the dry earth and clutched his hands to his chest.
“Never tasted a strawberry! What sort of existence have you led?”
I pursed my lips and frowned. “Different to yours I’m guessing.” I paused, trying to keep my eyes from studying him too closely. The light was bouncing off his cheekbones, his long dark lashes casting shadows. “What was Wreston like?” Wreston was the planet the humans had made their own before the Metas had arrived and insisted on having a slice of the pie.
Chase’s dark eyes clouded and his lips squished into a downturn. “It was okay I guess.”
He didn’t seem to want to talk about what life was like before his Dad brought him into the Complex so I let it go. “Hey.” I leant forward and reached for a strand of his hair. “Did you know you have red in your hair?” The light was creating strands of auburn to burn through his coffee waves.
“My mom had red hair.” His eyes flickered to mine and centred on me and for a long moment we watched one another, silence filling the air around us.
“Where’s your mom now?” My tone lowered and I knew it echoed the way my mom talked to my dad. I tried to shut the flicker of recognition out, but it buried its way inside my head. Don’t fall for him Delly, you can’t save his life that way.
“She died, during the war.” His gaze focused on the tall leaves of corn rustling above our heads.
“And that’s why your dad is never around, because he’s still hurting?” I’d never known what was worse for my mom, having Dad not return at all, or the shell of the man she used to know being returned to her. Part of me didn’t want to contemplate what the answer to that question was.
“How do you know my dad is never around?” Chase’s expression transformed from one of melancholy into a teasing smile.
“Well you’ve been hanging around me like a lost soul for five days and I’ve never known you even speak to the man.” My cheeks lit with that pink flush that I’d never experienced until I met him. I was being bold but something about Chase made me want to be. He made me not want to hide in the shadows anymore.
Chase flashed a crooked grin. “Beautiful and observant, what’s not to like?”
He did not just say that, did he? That flush tinging my cheeks spread along my throat and chest. “That I’m a Meta?” I blurted. If there was one thing he shouldn’t like about me, it was the fact I was a Meta. Humans and Metas weren’t supposed to conduct unexpected and baffling friendships.
His clear blue gaze met mine long and hard. “Come on beautiful, I’ve got something to show you.” He jumped from the ground and reached for my hand, pulling me to my feet. With his fingers clutching mine he weaved me through the corn until we were on the outer edge of the field. The temperature was hot, and my skin became sticky with sweat and I used my free arm to brush the hair off my forehead. Chase swiped a security card, the same card that had allowed us access to the corn field, and pushed through a thick plastic sheeted door into a large vault that smelt of damp earth and a cloying sweet smell I didn’t recognise. In front of us were acres of lush green leaves. They were a dark emerald colour with jagged edges that looked like would be soft to touch.
“What are they?” Bright red jewels hung from green shoots.
“Strawberries.” He reached a hand and pulled one from a plant, offering the plump fruit to me.
“We can’t eat these, they aren’t ours.”
He shrugged and I couldn’t help but smile. The fruit dangled in front of me, tempting me with the unknown. I had to wonder if it was the boy holding it or the fruit itself that was the unknown, because both were equally unfamiliar to me. His fingers lifted the fruit to my lips. “Close your eyes,” he murmured, his voice deeper than I’d heard it the last few days.
I did what he asked, even though I knew eating the fruits not meant for me were against the rules. The smooth outer of the fruit nudged softly against my mouth and I parted my lips, running my tongue along the pitted edge, the minuscule hairs tickling the very tip of my tongue. Then I bit down and a glorious juice filled my mouth. Tangy and sweet, it drew a pool of saliva to meet it as my taste buds adjusted to the exotic flavour.
Fingers grazed down my chin and my eyes flew open to find Chase watching me with those dark brooding eyes. “Good?” he asked.
I nodded, speechless, but he didn’t move his hand away from where it held my cheek.
“Have you ever kissed someone before?” His question side-lined me. I’d never even so much as thought about kissing anyone, not here, not in the Complex where I was ferreting away my true self.
“No.” Despite my efforts the word escaped my mouth like a dry crackle.
My entire body hummed with a spark of power. It coursed through my limbs willing me to move closer to the human. I fought against it but as if he could sense my need he stepped closer to me and I found myself breathing in the generic soap smell that clung to his skin as it mingled with the surrounding odours of lingering damp earth and sweet fruits.
“Would you like to, Delly?”
How could I even answer that? My mouth was so dry my tongue didn’t want to move.
I didn’t have to. His lips swept over mine with the lightest of grazes and one hand wrapped around my arm and gently tugged me closer.
His mouth came back again, for longer this time, applying gentle pressure which made my stomach squeeze as I returned the kiss. A flame of fire shot through me and I tangled my fingers into his hair, feeling the strands slide through my fingers. His mouth kissed me harder and harder, his body shifting against mine until I could feel the hard curves of his shape fit into the mirroring spaces within my own body. My lips parted and his tongue darted against mine. I sighed into his mouth. It should have felt wrong but it didn’t. It felt delicious. Sweeter than the strawberry.
I was kissing a human. I was kissing my human. He shifted against me and a sharp flare of heat speared through my body. Unexpected, it caused me to convulse a little and he tightened his arms around me, bumping me gently with his nose and he pecked kisses along my lips.
“Who’s there?” A voice boomed out and the sound of heavy footfalls thumped through the earth. I searched for a vision of Chase, trying to read who was heading towards us, but the images were jumbled and broken.
Damn.
Before I could freeze in panic he shoved me roughly by the shoulder, sending me spinning into the green bushes. “It’s just me, Intra Officer.” Chase stepped forward, his body tall and imposing.
“What are you doing here, Walker?” The returning voice belonging to the large black boots I could see from under the greenery relaxed.
“Just getting some space. You know what it’s like u
p there.”
The stranger chuckled. “Too many of them if you ask me. Everywhere I turn I find another freak.”
“Tell me about it,” Chase agreed and my heart froze in my chest. “It’s impossible to stay away from them.”
How naive had I been? Chase wasn’t interested in me, he just wanted to save his own skin and I’d allowed him to take advantage of the situation and use me to alleviate his boredom. Chase’s shoes turned to walk away and the black boots followed, stomping through the dirt and their laughing and joking about the bane of living with Metas faded into a distant hum.
I scurried back, pushing further through the giant strawberry plants. Dropping to my knees I pushed a path through the underneath of the foliage, my hair catching and my knees stinging as they hit stones and rocks. I could just about recall the direction of the plastic doors and crawling like a baby I scurried my way towards them. Every inch of the way, the tone he’d used when he’d said them echoed in my head.
He didn’t like me.
He just wanted to know when and how he was going to die.
I found the door and pushed my hands against the plastic, slipping my way into the next field as quietly as I could so as not to cause attention to myself. When I was through I stood then ran, my heart beating wildly in my chest as I worked my way back through the labyrinth that was the Complex to my own accommodation. Once there I stopped and took a calming breath, waving my hands at my face to cool down the heated burn.
Mom would want to know where I’d been and why I was so agitated.
I didn’t have a choice though. I’d rather die myself than see Chase again. So, with another lungful of air I stepped into the apartment and let the cool of the artificial air breeze over my skin.
Mom wasn’t there, but Anya was. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she looked at me reproachfully through long lashes as I careened into the room. “What’s the matter?” My voice rose an octave but then I lowered it when I considered our father may be asleep in the next room. “Is it that Fae?” I demanded through a hissed whisper. “Has he hurt you?” I told her the Fae couldn’t be trusted, their wiles and demands were beyond the scope of our simple kind.
