Divided

by Alycia Linwood

  "No, you're not," Adrian answered for me, and Alan looked at him in astonishment.

  "That's not your decision, I'm afraid," Alan said through his teeth.

  "For the first time in history magic disease carriers have a chance to do something." Adrian got up, the temperature in the room dropping as he clenched his fists. "I don't want you anywhere near that project because I know you'd do what suits you the most. You'd be on our side for a week or two, then change your opinion with the wind. You are a risk to our project and if it takes my life to keep you away, so be it."

  "Ria?" Alan gave me a questioning look, ignoring Adrian. "What do you say?"

  My mouth was sealed with invisible binds while I tried to form a coherent thought. Apparently, Adrian was ready to die for what he believed in, but I wasn't ready to let him do that. I didn't want anyone to die. Could the vice president really do much damage to the president and the carriers? Yes, he could, if he exposed us or told our secrets to his friends, but...

  "Ria? You can't be actually considering it!" Adrian looked at me, his gray-blue eyes full of fury. "It's my life! I can do with it whatever I want!" His voice boomed like thunder in the small space, and I wanted to cover my ears and block him out.

  "Sorry, Adrian." Alan flashed him a mock smile. "The selfish princess won't respect your decision because she wants you for herself. She doesn't care about the carriers, and why would she? She's not one of them. I'm not even sure what she's doing here."

  I fought a small smile of victory because Alan's mole hadn't told him anything about me having the disease. Whoever it was that had contacted him wasn't close to us or high in rank in Lily's group, or maybe he or she hadn't had enough time to send the full message to Alan. Besides, Alan had only one goal, so he might have asked the wrong questions.

  "Ria?" Adrian repeated, his breathing ragged.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, chewing on my lip. Finally, I looked at Alan. "Do I have to give you an answer now?"

  "You have a week," Alan said, getting up and straightening his suit. "If your father decides to come back earlier, then you have twelve hours before he returns. But this time you better contact me or every single person in the world will be looking for your murderous lover." With an irritating smile, Alan headed for the door. "I'll leave you now. You clearly have things to discuss." He left the door ajar as he walked out in the hall.

  But instead of feeling relieved that he was gone, I had to deal with Adrian's anger first. It definitely didn't help that the only thing I wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sleep for ages. Adrian stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that bits of plaster fell down. Just what I needed. What was I supposed to do now? Run after him?

  After what seemed like an eternity, the door swung open and Adrian glared at me from across the room. He closed the door behind him and leaned on it, his arms crossed defensively in front of him.

  "I hope you're just buying time because you have a good plan," he said, shaking his head. "Otherwise..."

  "Do you have a death wish?" My voice quivered as I said it, and I hated it that I wasn't strong enough to keep it steady.

  "No." Honesty shined in his eyes as he looked up at me. "But... I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew that magic disease carriers passed up a chance to stand up to the government because of me."

  "It wouldn't be because of you! There are so many things that can go wrong, with or without you. And I'd rather have you with me when shit hits the fan. Alan probably has another trick up his sleeve which he can use if I refuse, so sacrificing yourself won't mean a thing."

  "Maybe you're right. We should think this through first and decide what to do." He sighed, running his hand through his black hair. "Will you tell me something?"

  "Tell you what?" I was glad that we were back on the same page. Alan knew well how to provoke Adrian, so I hoped we were done talking about Alan's plans because I was way too tired for that. Who knew what could happen in the next few days? Alan sort of had a bad luck because he was always late for something. I hoped the bad strike would continue.

  "Do you... " He licked his lips nervously, suddenly looking shy. "Why do you want me to stay with you?"

  I opened my mouth, and closed it. Tried it again and failed. Somewhere deep down in the sea, fishes were proud of me. "What do you mean?" I managed to say.

  "There are people here who can help you more than me. If you would just meet some of them..."

  "What?" I sat up so fast the room ended up spinning around me.

  "I..."

  "Are you trying to get rid of me?" I yelled, not caring who could hear me.

  "No, Ria. That's not what I meant." He let himself slide down the door until he was sitting on the floor.

  "What did you mean?" I took a deep, steady breath, but my heart kept ringing in my ears.

  "I need to know this one thing." He drew up his knees to his chest, staring at his fingers. "Are you with me because of the disease?"

  I rubbed my face with my shaky fingers. We had finally come to the point where I'd find out the truth about what had been bothering me for so long. This was hardly the right moment to talk about our relationship, but it never seemed the right moment. "No."

  He stole a quick glance at me and returned to playing with his fingers, the tension leaving his shoulders.

  "The first time we slept together... " I said, trying to swallow past the huge lump in my throat. Whatever he said, I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't. Damn it. "...was I simply another girl on your list?"

  He shook his head, black strands falling into his eyes. "No."

  "Then why did you have to make it look that way? Why did you have to make a scene in front of Michael and the whole fucking university?" I raised my voice again, remembering the morning after when Adrian had let Alan come into his room and see me in his bed. And as if that hadn't been enough, he'd had to start a fight with Michael and inform the whole university about our get-together. Of course, later everyone thought the whole thing was only a rumor, but that didn't change a bit what Adrian had done to me that day. "Do you know I still haven't forgiven you for that? I might not have mentioned it or wanted to think about it, but now... I think I deserve to know the truth."

  "I was stupid." His gray-blue eyes met mine, warmer than ever. "I couldn't stand the thought of you being with him. It was the only way I could think of that would separate the two of you. Of course, I never imagined Michael would forgive you and blame the disease for your actions."

  "Wow." I let out a nervous laugh. "Didn't you think you'd hurt me by doing that?"

  "I only wanted you to be mine and I didn't know what to do. We've been spending a lot of time together and I really liked that." His eyes were unfocused, a sad smile hovering on his lips. "But you were your father's daughter and Michael loved you. Back then, no one knew you had the disease except me. It was our little secret. I only knew that your perfect life would fall apart if you started dating me, so I figured you'd never be with me anyway. I had nothing to lose, or so I thought. I was angry with you. Angry that you could just go back and pretend nothing had happened."

  "Do you realize that I probably would have left Michael immediately if you hadn't broken my heart into pieces that day? I thought you only wanted to ruin my life. I was desperately clinging to Michael's love because I didn't want everything to fall apart."

  "I didn't trust you and you didn't trust me." He lightly banged his head against the door. "Hell, we even hated each other."

  "We pretty much suck at this whole 'let's talk about our feelings' thing." I shrugged. "Who knows what we would have said to each other."

  "I know it's too late, but... I'm sorry."

  "Maybe I'll forgive you someday." I extended my hand to him, wishing to touch him. He inched closer until he was resting his head on the bed, his hand on my thigh. I tried to get him to climb in the bed with me, but he remained seated on the floor, his gray-blue eyes meeting mine.

  "How do you know if you
love someone?"

  My eyes widened at his question. "I don't know." If anyone was an expert on love, it definitely wasn't me. "We could send that question to one of those fancy teen magazines. Maybe they can help us."

  He laughed. "You think? That doesn't sound like a bad idea, but aren't we too old for that?"

  "Nah. We can pretend we're twelve-year-olds." I stroked his hair, enjoying its softness and silkiness.

  "Twelve-year-olds might know more about it than us." He grinned.

  "Maybe we'll figure it out one day." I shrugged, remembering all those times when I'd been hundred percent sure I was in love. As I looked at Adrian, I knew I had strong feelings for him, but was that love or something else? "So, are we in a relationship or not? Because I'm sick and tired of not knowing how to introduce you to people."

  "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" His voice was low, his eyes boring into mine.

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Then I'm your boyfriend." He smiled briefly, then looked away, an unidentifiable emotion swirling in the light blue depths of his eyes.

  "You think our relationship won't work." I threw myself on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  I heard rustling of the sheets and then he lay down next to me, his gentle fingers caressing my cheek. "No, it's not that. But all of my relationships have been more or less fake, so..."

  "Wow, you have some serious commitment issues." I chuckled, pressing my lips against his. "Nothing changes between us if you're officially my boyfriend."

  "I hope not."

  It was almost comical how we were both afraid to fully trust each other. Part of me was always afraid Adrian would break my heart again, tell me he was just playing with me or find someone else. But it seemed like he was afraid I'd do the same thing to him. Maybe we didn't have anything to worry about after all.

  "I don't want to lose you." He parted my lips with his tongue, exploring my mouth. My hand ended up underneath his shirt as I tried to find a comfortable position so my wounded shoulder wouldn't suffer. I rolled on top of him, throwing my head back to get my hair out of the way, but a few strands still ended up in Adrian's face. He laughed - a soft and rich sound - and placed his hands on the hem of my shirt. I let him slowly pull the shirt over my head, careful of my shoulder. Thank God I didn't have to wear a cast or I would have never gotten the damn shirt off.

  "You won't lose me." I whispered as I bent down, trailing kisses down his jaw and neck.

  "You promise?" He breathed, stroking my lower lip with his thumb.

  "I promise." I caught his hand, taking his thumb into my mouth and sucking lightly on it. His eyes widened as he watched me, mesmerized. A few moments later, he kissed me like his life depended on it, trying to drink me in. If I didn't have magic disease, I'd have thought he wanted to take my element.

  I tugged on his shirt with an urgency that I'd never experienced before. He half sat up so I could pull the shirt off him. Throwing the shirt on the floor, I put my arms around his neck, my lips crushing against his. Pain shot through my shoulder, but the sweet little shocks Adrian's lips created on my skin made me forget everything. Adrian was mine, completely mine, and I liked that.

  Chapter 15

  "You need to do some damage control," Lily said as soon as she saw me in the hall the next morning.

  "Why? Did Alan do something?" I had no idea why Alan would do anything before he heard back from me, but I couldn't read the bastard's mind.

  "No, it's not Alan. Your father asked for his pension and it was approved, so everyone knows he's leaving forever." A pop melody blasted through the pocket of Lily's blue jeans, and she quickly pulled the phone out and silenced it without even checking who it was. The whole compound was in the state of panic and hurry because Lily wanted to move everyone out before the night. The other problem was that she also had until the night to find the mole. Not to mention the police was investigating the murder my brother had committed, and now my father was added as the cherry on the top.

  "I thought he'd wait after the holidays to file for the pension." I hadn't only thought about it; I'd been certain of it. "He must have changed his plans when he found out about the murder." Maybe he didn't know the murder had anything to do with me or magic disease carriers, but he didn't want to risk it. Once the pension was approved, there wasn't much anyone could do to take it away from him.

  "Too bad they didn't include the policy which says that he can get the pension according to the time he's been the president and not just get the maximum sum," she said bitterly, no doubt upset by the fact that the government members always received the best paychecks and pensions while doing a lousy job.

  "My father had been in the Council for years. He'd have gotten a huge pension anyway." But whether my father would get a huge paycheck every month or not wasn't our problem. "So, do I have to assemble another of those boring meetings?"

  "Yeah, but our secretary has taken care of that. We've taken the contacts from your phone and sent the message in your name." She seemed pleased that at least something was going right.

  "Oh," I said, surprised. I'd given them my phone so they could listen to the last meeting, but I wasn't comfortable about them sniffing through my contacts, messages and God knows what else. The last thing I needed was that some techs laugh at the silly photos of Paula and me trying out clothes. However, I wasn't about to complain to Lily because Adrian and I were partly the reason why she had to move. Alan wouldn't have tried so hard to find her compound if he hadn't been looking for me. But then again, she wouldn't have discovered she had a mole, and that would be far more dangerous.

  "The meeting is in three hours, and you need to think what you're going to say and how you're going to say it. There will be too many questions and a lot of pressure on you to resign." Lily gave me a sympathetic look.

  "Great." I wasn't looking forward to the meeting. That much I was sure of, but then again, I never liked the stupid meetings. "Don't they know my brother is an even worse option for them?"

  "Actually, they'll probably request you to hand over the presidency to your mother."

  Oh, I hadn't thought about that. I supposed my father couldn't transfer the presidency to my mother because she wasn't related to him by blood, but she was my mother and I was the president now. "Awesome. Whoever made rules for the transfer of presidency wanted to make sure all options were open. One family member disappears or something, they fake a document and someone else can rule."

  "Yeah, that's why you need to convince them you can handle things despite your young age." Her phone rang again and she let out a frustrated huff. "But first tell them you'll think about stepping down in your mother's favor. We need to stall them until after the holidays. It is our priority that the press doesn't find out."

  "The press always finds out everything. Too many people know. I don't think we can contain the info."

  "They won't leak the Element Preservers' secrets just like that. If they were a talkative bunch, the whole world would know about element collectors. They don't want to get you on their bad side because you could tell everything to the public." Lily tucked a black strand of her long hair behind her ear, glancing down the hall to see if anyone was coming.

  "Ok, I'll tell them to wait for my decision." They'd been talking about the holidays the last time, so I couldn't imagine why they would want to stay in the conference room and try to bully me into resigning when they could do that after they came back, relaxed and with full stomachs. "Anything else?"

  "Yes, send someone to investigate Azzurro's death and tell them how you think that is important."

  "What?" I gaped at her as I recognized the last name of the guy Oliver had killed to get into the Pandora's Box. "But if I do that, they'll really send someone. If they figure out Oliver is involved..."

  "Don't worry about that. They won't find anything, but you need to look convincing. Blame the carriers all you want. That's what most of those people want to hear anyway. Your father made sure people closest to him have the
same opinion. He might have shaken hands with his opponents and made agreements, but didn't let them too near," she said confidently.

  "Right. But do you really think anyone will have patience to listen to me when we're only a day away from Elemenitas? Shouldn't they be buying gifts and food, and filling crystal balls with their elements?" Seriously, no one wanted to run around the town at the last moment looking for the things they wanted. The shops were usually crawling with people because everyone wanted to spend the perfect Elemenitas with their family.

  "Oh, someone probably does all the shopping for them." She scoffed. "Have your parents ever gone shopping for the holiday lunch?"

  "Umm, no. The cook does that." I couldn't even picture my parents in the grocery store. "But my mother spends hours searching for a perfect dress and make-up, and my father buys her some jewelry." A wave of sadness and regret overcame me as I realized my parents wouldn't invite me for the Elemenitas Eve dinner like they had done last year. I wouldn't see them light up the Elemenitas ball that had been in our family for centuries. If I had known we'd be on the outs this year, I wouldn't have stayed at the University and completely ignored the whole holiday last year. Hell, I couldn't even remember last year's Elemenitas because it had been overshadowed by numerous parties I'd been to.

  "Huh. Maybe they do need to buy some things." Lily toyed with the plain silver ring on her left hand. I hadn't seen the ring before, so I wondered whether Oliver had bought it for her. "Who cares? Just buy us some time. We need to think about these element collectors and gather the data from environmental organizations."

  "Sure." I was glad Lily wasn't power hungry, impatient and impulsive like my brother.

  "I have to go." With a small nod, Lily jogged down the hall, her phone wailing again. Running a hand through my hair still wet from the shower I'd taken earlier, I returned to Adrian's and my room. I had two hours to pick a perfect outfit for the meeting.

  "I don't understand what happened to Richard!" a blonde with perfect red nails said, her voice full of disbelief. "Why isn't he here to explain this to us? We're partners after all."