People, everywhere. Thinking about it stole his breath, not in a good way. His skin crawled. He wanted to run. So he turned his attention on Dara. It was easy to block everything out when he was with her. Every inch of her fascinated him.
She still wasn’t aware. At least, she didn’t realize the way he looked at her. Didn’t know he wanted to catch her, touch her. Keep her, that was the one she’d never pluck out of his head. It was a thought. Only a thought, one he didn’t dare to let grow.
“All right,” she said. “I’m just going to start shooting, and if you end up in my pictures, great. Wander around or something. Just, you know. Chill.”
Whatever that meant. He guessed it was something like relax. So he grabbed the lowest bough of an oak tree, and hauled himself into it. At home, the cliffs and the cave and the fire kept him safe from predators. He relaxed there easily.
Away from it, he could only settle when he could see everything. When nothing could slip up behind him. Sometimes he’d end up sharing a perch with a rat snake, but they were harmless enough. They only wanted to find nests with eggs, or better yet, baby birds in them. Cade was far too big to digest.
Dara snapped away, her camera tick-tick-ticking as she went. Beneath that, there was an unpleasant whine. It bored right into Cade’s brain, like he’d trapped a mosquito in his ear. He watched her lean into flowers, then swing around wide. Suddenly, she pointed the camera right at him.
“Ignore me.”
“No thank you,” he replied.
He didn’t expect her laughter. Once it came, he wanted more of it. Testing the strength in his arm, he reached for the next branch up. Then suddenly, he shot up the tree. The sneakers didn’t let him grip, so he had to pace himself. But the oak shook with his weight, a few leftover acorns raining down.
Did she see him? He heard the ticking all the way up here. Looking out, he saw the neighborhoods. Matching houses, long rows of them, all the same. Then past them, a few taller buildings that must have been the town. Up high, with the wind on his face, he saw all of Makwa. It reminded him of the mining town. The grids on the ground, the houses spaced just so.
Laughing again, Dara sounded a little worried. “Get down from there!”
This wasn’t his forest. The trees didn’t grow so thick or wide as they did there. But he wanted her to see him. To admire him, or at least get the picture she wanted. He could be exactly what she wanted. Dropping a few feet, he smiled when he landed on a good, thick branch.
He didn’t hesitate. He ran down it, leaping when the branch became too thin to bear his weight. Dara’s gasp filled the air, and he flew through it. Panic shot through him, he had to land on his good foot. Catch with his good hand. This wasn’t something he usually thought about.
The maple bowed when he landed on it. Green leaves hissed around him. Seed spinners cascaded down, fluttering all around Dara on the ground. She was beautiful down there in a storm of them.
Clinging to the trunk of the tree, Cade finally caught his breath.
She looked up. She saw him.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTY-SIX
Today, they weren’t staying in. After trading afternoons in her bedroom and his, with quick, sneaking trips to the park, Dara was ready to show him something new.
Spring threatened to turn to summer. The trees had unfolded all their buds, and daffodils waved from their neat, front-yard beds. Finally warm enough to ditch the hoodies, Dara wore hers anyway. The minute Cade turned up at her back door, she slipped a pair of sunglasses on his face.
“Come on,” she said. They followed their intricate map, over the fence, across the alley. Then Dara led him down a new street entirely. Heading for the corner, she grabbed his hand and beamed back at him. “You’re going to love this.”
Today was the day she finally planned to show him the ultimate.
Hustling Cade along, she glanced at her phone. Then, the bus turned the corner. She couldn’t remember ever being this excited about public transportation, and yet, there it was. Bouncing a little, she nudged Cade along. Hydraulics groaned, the whole bus sinking like it was exhausted.
“Get on,” she said as the bus doors folded open. “Put these quarters in the black box by the driver.”
Unfortunately, Cade didn’t understand quick. He wanted to look at the fare box. Listen to it. His face lit up when the coins slipped in, and the digital face suddenly changed, counting the money. When the transfer ticket popped up, he laughed.
Plucking it from the box, Dara slipped it in his hands and (gently!) pushed him into the nearest seat. After paying her own fare, Dara dropped next to him and smiled when the bus rumbled into motion again.
“This,” she told him. “Is the County Access Express. It’ll take you anywhere in town. Here, grab a map.”
To be fair, the buses in Makwa weren’t as impressive as, say, the New York City subway system. But it was still grander than anything Cade had ever seen. Smoothing open one of the maps, Dara hung over his shoulder. She traced their route on the green line, and secretly, got a little high on the scent of his skin.
“See, we’re going to pass Clayton Park in a few minutes,” she told him.
Curling her hands on his shoulder, they both turned to look through the tinted windows. Her nose brushed his hair. A thrill ran through her; he smelled like a campfire. Just a little, sweet and warm. Her fingers tightened and she made herself smile when he glanced back at her.
“What’s wrong?”
Dara smiled. “You’re missing it.”
Clayton Park appeared, that same pack of feral middle schoolers roaming its borders. Today, they slumped on the climbing castle. Shoelaces untied and disaffected smiles, they were as tough as a bunch of kids with an eight o’clock curfew could manage.
Cade said, “I think they live there.”
“I think you’re right.”
When he turned, he caught her face too close to his. Their noses almost touched, and he didn’t shrink away. Instead, he teased with dark, dancing eyes. “They wouldn’t be the first.”
Smoothing the map, Dara tried to keep it on her lap. She failed, a little. Her fingers skimmed the curve of his denimed knee. There was too much adrenaline in her system for something as simple as a bus ride to the mall.
Hanging on him like a thrift store coat, she told herself sarcastically. Rearranging herself, Dara backed off—but not all the way. “Okay, coming up is downtown. There isn’t a lot of it, so don’t get too excited.”
“Too late,” Cade said, amused.
For the rest of the trip, she pointed out landmarks. The sailor’s monument sulked in bronze. The courthouse had a tree growing from the side of it, a seedling sprouted in an accidental planter. A block away from that, two benches and a tree memorialized a couple of seniors who’d died in a car accident. In the fifties.
It was a small town, and soon they were on the other side of it.
“Grab the string,” Dara urged Cade. She pointed at the grey cord in the window.
Though he looked confused, he did as he was told. A loud ding rewarded him, and the digital sign at the front of the bus shifted to read “Next Stop Bear Creek Mall.”
Spilling into the parking lot, Dara laughed when Cade stopped to thank the bus driver and shake his hand. As he stepped into the sunlight, he reached for his sunglasses. Dara held him back.
They were lucky to get out of the house unseen. And it was easy to stay unseen when there weren’t any people nearby. But Bear Creek Mall was the opposite of deserted.
“We don’t want anyone to recognize you,” she explained.
She savored the excuse to slip her fingers through his. And she let him walk slowly through the parking lot. She wasn’t sure why row after row of completely ordinary cars intrigued him so much. But they did, and she may have had something to buy, but this trip was for Cade.
>
Even with the warm-up, the cool blast of air that greeted them when they walked into the mall was completely unnecessary. Except as advertisement. A waft of cloying, saturated sugar washed over them. They’d come in near the caramel corn store and the cookie outlet.
“What’s that?” Cade asked, slipping away from her.
Bolting straight for the caramel corn store, he stopped by the popper. He watched it spill fresh corn into a bin. It was obvious from the way he stood that he was sniffing the air. Since he couldn’t touch the food, he backed away. The novelty store flashed, beckoning.
Though he was curious, he refused to step inside. The strobe light ball at the front door made him blink and jerk his head back. Dipping down, he stared at a basket full of rolling, mechanical ferrets.
They banged into the bin’s walls, and into each other. Raising a hand, Cade steadied himself. Then he plunged into the bin and pulled one of the toys from it. It still twisted in his hand. Tethered to a ball, the artificial fur flapped like a weirdly desperate flag.
Reaching for her purse, Dara started to laugh. “Do you want it?”
“No.”
Cade watched the toy flail for a moment more. Then he dropped it and backed away. He seemed almost disgusted by it. The bin of battery-powered puppies disturbed him even more. Their wheezing barks, so exact, unnerved him.
Hurrying away from them, he turned to Dara. “Don’t people keep pets anymore? Real animals?”
Poor thing. Dara took his hand again, squeezing it gently. “Yes. Those are just for fun.”
“I wasn’t having fun,” Cade replied.
“Then we’re definitely skipping the arcade.”
She’d kind of planned to anyway. It had a lousy selection of games, the floors were sticky, and everything cost fifty cents. She didn’t mind wasting a quarter for two minutes of hard-core blinking action, but she drew the line at half a dollar.
“Down there is the good movie theater,” she told him. “There’s an indie theater upstairs in an old Hot Topic.”
Cade looked at her blankly.
“It’s a clothes store.”
The look didn’t dissipate. Unsure which part had lost him, Dara added, “Like, art movies. Black-and-white stuff in other languages. Mostly about French women who smoke cigarettes and die in tunnels. It’s weird.”
Still skeptical, Cade nodded. Drifting toward a plate glass window that displayed tablets and phones, he told her, “According to Ms. Fourakis, you can see the exact moment they fall in love in The Notebook. That’s a movie, by the way.”
He said it so earnestly. Dara wanted to throw her arms around him, and pet him. She reminded herself to tell Sofia later. It was too good to keep to herself. Fixing the exact tone of his voice in her head, she repeated “That’s a movie,” to herself for mental safekeeping.
Then, aloud she said, “Come on. I have a surprise for you.”
Reluctant to abandon the brightly glowing gadgets in the window, Cade anchored himself and held on to her hand tight. She could take a few steps away, but he wasn’t following just yet. He asked, “What is it?”
“I want you to see it first. I want to see if you recognize it.” When he seemed unmoved, she tugged his hand and added. “Please?”
When he relented, it seemed like a much bigger victory than it was. Peeking over at him, she was startled to see hints of copper and bronze in his brown eyes. The bright mall lights stripped away his shadows. His face suddenly had new dimensions, unexpected details.
If she’d been looking at him with her photographer’s eye all this time, she would have noticed. But it turned out she’d been looking at him with something else entirely. Though he held her hand tighter than ever, each step felt light. Almost like floating; almost like flight.
She couldn’t wait to show him the surprise.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTY-SEVEN
It was extraordinary.
Skin tingling, Cade stood at the bottom of an enchanted staircase. It gleamed in silver and glass, rising gracefully to the second floor. When he concentrated, he could block the mall from his senses. With his focus steady, he heard the whisper of a hidden machine. Smelled oil and warmth, the same scent he noticed when he passed a still-warm car.
Dara trembled behind him. Her excitement crackled. He felt it leap between them, and he turned with a huge smile.
“Escalator,” he said.
Suddenly, Dara was in motion. She herded him onto the steps. The mechanicals vibrated gently. It wasn’t audible. It was a physical hum, one that tuned through him as they glided upward.
“Step off, step off,” Dara said when they reached the top. She laughed nervously, all but leaping to the landing. “You don’t want to get your shoes caught. It’ll eat them, seriously.”
Cade didn’t ask how a machine could eat anything. He didn’t want to know. All he wanted was another ride. Bounding to the down side, he grabbed the rails on both sides. It was just as smooth sliding down. Faster than he expected, but he could admit he didn’t know what to expect.
When he hit the first floor, he got back on. Dara came down at the same time. It was thrilling, realizing they would meet in the middle. Nearly there, she leaned on the inside rail. A glow warmed her face. There was a brand-new light in her eyes. And for once, no shadows at all.
“Okay, so this is how an escalator works,” she said, talking fast before they passed each other completely. “There’s an engine under there, connected to two gears, one at the top, one at the bottom. A chain connects both gears . . . get back on!”
Racing down again, he laughed when she started up. The anticipation was sweet, and he held a hand over the gap. They’d touch in the middle, and she was already talking.
“All the steps are separate! They have their own wheels! They roll on the chain that’s looped at both ends. When they come out at the bottom, they’re right side up.”
Their hands met, warm fingers slipping together, then apart. She passed him so swiftly. He expected to see her hair flowing behind her. Though it washed her shoulders when she turned to look at him, there was no wind to touch her face. To tease color into her skin, to carry her scent to him.
Dara stopped on the landing, and waited for him to catch up. “And when they go back inside, they turn upside down. The handrail is made out of rubber. It has its own drive, timed to match the stairs.”
Hands spread, Cade stood in the middle of his step. Even though he knew it was just a machine, it felt like ancient magic. The ground moved for him, raising him to the heavens. It was such a small thing. A metal contraption that lifted him between two floors. Inside a building, no less, one with steel beams stretching its length.
But he couldn’t help remembering what his mother had said about the Egyptians and the Maya. Two cultures, both building pyramids to lift them to the heavens. People were beautiful . . . Dara, waiting for him at the top, was beautiful.
The machine carried him to her. Seamlessly, he stepped off the escalator and caught her face in his hands. His only guides were a few books and instinct, but they were enough. He caught her mouth beneath his. Like a bird, she startled. Then she gentled, pressing back against him. Plush lips parting, she twisted her fingers in his shirt.
Everything was heat. He felt liquid and fierce, branded with all her details. The soaring sweetness of her kiss sharpened his hunger for the next. This fit. It was the perfect fit, and both his worlds fell away. For that moment, there was no wild. No mall, no police, no social workers. No bee hollow or horseshoe falls. No questions, no confusion. No lies.
He murmured her name; she whispered his back.
They belonged.
If the power pack in Channel 43’s remote camera hadn’t blown out, it never would have happened.
The only place in this backwater to get a replacement was the mall. The reporter, camera op
erator, and producer flipped a coin because none of them wanted to schlep to the other side of Greater Makwa.
In fact, they all wanted to head back to Knoxville. The State Police weren’t talking, the Primitive Boy was apparently a ninja, and they could only run so many freaking interviews with kids from the local high school. They’d burned out their weirdo ration when they interviewed an old woman who claimed the boy was her long-lost niece.
Without anything new to cover, they were wasting their time. The nationals had more resources. They’d sprung for helicopters and hiking experts to try to find the Primitive Boy’s secret forest hideaway. Turned out that was a lot like parachuting into Death Valley and trying to find one particular cactus.
So the producer from Channel 43 trudged into the mall with a station credit card. They’d do one more stand-up in front of the sheriff’s house, then pack it in.
Texting home, he stopped to check the directory and headed for the escalators. He had to dodge a couple of kids goofing off on them. That’s how small the town was. Riding the people mover at the mall counted for entertainment.
Four hundred dollars later, the producer left the camera shop, phone already in hand. Texting with just his thumb, he was halfway through a message to the station director when he stopped. At first, he thought he was hallucinating. Too much motel coffee and not enough sleep or something.
Slipping out of sight, he peered at the escalator kids. He was sure, he was almost freaking positive . . . He raised his phone and took a picture. Sending it quickly to his reporter back at the scene, he added a quick text. I’m not crazy am I?
The chirp came back instantly.
THAT’S THEM STAY THERE WHERE ARE YOU?
Dara paid for her panoramic lens, clutching it to her chest.
Though she wanted to look up, a shy weight kept her from looking at Cade directly. Not that she needed to look at him. When their elbows brushed, they sparked—flint against a stone. Her stung lips distracted her. The slightest touch stirred the sensation of the kiss again. Even when she spoke, she felt a low, luxurious buzz.
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