by Frankie Rose
******
She was lying on top of the bed, her hair spread out in a black fan around her, sleeping peacefully. Her long eyelashes looked like the drawn-on kind you found on china dolls, and her lips and cheeks were kissed with a delicate pink that made her look indescribably fragile. Her fingers twitched like she was reaching out for something, then curled back in on themselves, the way fingers do when they are relaxed in sleep. For a frightening moment I thought she was going to wake up. My palms broke out into a disorientated sweat, and I couldn’t decide what to do: whether to jump up out of the chair and disappear into the shadows, or stay and face her. It didn’t matter now, since she’d visibly sunk into a deeper slumber, but the panic was new and left me feeling worryingly out of control.
No, I decided. I should go. I tossed aside the scrap of paper I’d been busying my hands with and rose, heading for the door.
“Hey, bro.”
The unexpected voice had me instinctively drawing my fist back, ready to swing in a heartbeat. I paused when I caught sight of the blond boy in the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. There were splatters of paint, green and blue, smeared up his forearms, and a few perfectly round flecks of white speckled across his forehead and the bridge of his nose. I kept my fist raised. Would I get away with hitting him, claiming the guy had surprised me, now that we’d made eye contact? Probably not.
“What do you want?”
“It’s wonderful to see you, too, Daniel.”
“Cut the crap. You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed. I let my fist fall, but my hands remained clenched. A moment ago I had been so utterly lost in a sea of confusion, yet now here I was, submerged head to toe in a feeling so familiar I considered it an old friend.
“There’s no need to be so angry,” the other guy pouted, pulling his hands out of his pockets. He picked absentmindedly at the paint caked around his fingernails. “I thought you might be pleased to see me. It’s been a while, after all.”
“Kayden, eternity wouldn’t be long enough.”
“Ooh. Words hurt.”
I whispered, “Not as much as my fist,” and stalked towards the door, shooting a business-like glance over my shoulder at Farley, still sound asleep in the tangle of her bed covers. I ushered Kayden out of the room and pulled the door closed with a gentle click, enclosing us in the impenetrable gloom of the corridor.
I could see the other boy perfectly. My night vision was impeccable, and I knew Kayden’s would be better. Just one of the benefits of being the Quorum’s whipping boy. “Why are you here?”
Kayden blew on his fingers then fixed a firm look on me. “They want to see you.”
“Now’s not convenient, I’m afraid,” I shot back, but the news threw me off guard. The Quorum? Why the hell would they be calling me to see them?
Kayden’s smile twisted, like he’d swallowed something bad, but that didn’t change the fact that the guy looked like a Greek god. Yeah, Kayden was good looking. Even I could acknowledge that. Kayden didn’t seem to realize the effect his near-perfection had on others, though. He made normal people wary, subconsciously suspicious. I’d heard the whispers too many times to count—genetically modified freak. Super soldier. The truth was a little more alarming. Kayden smiled that winning smile that made me want to knock his teeth down his throat.
“Sorry, bro. They didn’t send me out here to wait for your R.S.V.P. I have to take you back with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Fine by me. But they told me if you wouldn’t come, I had to take her instead.” He gestured to the closed door at our side. My blood ran cold.
“You can’t.”
Kayden shrugged his shoulders. “It’s one or the other, bro.”
“Damn it, stop calling me that! I am not your brother. Fine. I’ll come with you. Just leave her alone, okay. She’s not well.”
Kayden smiled again. The look would have disarmed anyone else, had many times before, but I had known him too long. I didn’t trust him for a second.
“Sounds like a plan…” Kayden trailed off, indicating that he had obliged me in my request not to call him bro, and reached out his index finger.
I flinched, and a hard light glinted in Kayden’s pale blue eyes.
“There’s something really interesting in the way you shy away from virtuous touch,” he said.
“I don’t mind the virtue part. It’s you I mind.”
Kayden gave an exaggerated sigh and placed his fingertip in the center of my forehead, filling me with a wave of warmth that surged from my toes to the tips of my hair. The irritation vanished, to be replaced by a blissfully deep sense of peace.
“That’s just it, bro,” Kayden said. “Me and virtue, we’re one and the same.” But I was beyond hearing. My body had slipped away. I felt myself tumbling, floating, falling; a slow, powerful breeze blew through me, down to my very soul. As it pulled through me, it carried particles of me away with it, carrying me to a better place.
