I drummed my fingers beside the screen set into the wall of our room, staring at the shining black rectangle, trying to decide if I was paranoid or not.
I tapped the button to call Miranda. The computer only dinged three times before our guardian appeared.
“Lanni,” Miranda said my name like my calling was a welcome surprise. “How are you?”
“Fine.” I took a breath. “I was wondering if Mari could come see you for a while tonight. I have an assignment in the atrium, and I don’t want her spending the whole evening alone.”
“Of course.” Miranda nodded. Her brown curls bounced gently around her face like she’d grown them just to highlight her smile. “Send her on over. Did you want to eat dinner here, too?”
“No thanks. Can I come get her when I’m done?”
“Sure. See you soon.”
“Thanks.” I tapped the screen to turn it off.
“I’m fine here by myself,” Mari said from her seat at our table.
“I know. But it’ll be good for you to spend time with Miranda.”
“She smiles a lot.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
I looked at Mari. “I do smile. I smile all the time.”
“Not for real.” Mari laid her tablet down on the table. “Are you okay?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I dug my nails into my palms.
“Because you don’t look okay. Are you sick?”
“Of course not. We’re in the domes, people don’t get sick here.”
“But you don’t eat as much as you should. And you don’t sleep. And your skin is getting paler. And you’re getting skinnier. And I don’t like any of it.”
I started to say something funny about not liking all the dome food, but her eyes were wide, and tears shimmered in the corners.
“I don’t want you to waste like Mom.” Mari bit her lips together, like she was afraid she’d said something wrong. “If you’re sick, you should go see the doctor. You can do that here.”
I swallowed, making sure my throat could work before daring to speak. “I’m not sick, Mar. I’m just not as good at life here as you are.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not.”
“You could be.” Mari got up and hugged me, pressing her cheek against my side. “You don’t have to worry here. I know you have to take care of me, but I can take care of you, too. We’re going to be okay.”
“Thanks, Mar.” I kissed the top of her head.
“But you have to eat.” She took the apple from her dinner plate and pressed it into my hand. “You have to promise.”
“I promise.”
Mari glared at me until I took a bite of the apple.
The texture and sweetness of the fruit didn’t seem real. I might as well have been chewing on a daydream.
“Go on over to Miranda’s.” I tried to hand her her tablet.
“I can stay here alone.” Mari crossed her arms.
“If I send you to Miranda’s, she’ll be impressed that I’m asking for help and making sure you’re supervised.” I tucked Mari’s tablet into her arms. “Seven-year-old kep don’t stay at home by themselves. Go let her coo over you, and don’t tell her I’ve been letting you stay here alone.”
“You better eat that whole apple.” Mari headed for the door.
“Be good, Mari,” I called after her.
“Eat your dinner, Lanni,” she called back.
A smile, a real, genuine smile, touched my lips before panic crushed my chest.
Mari was doing well in the domes. I couldn’t let anyone ruin it for her.
I pulled one of the knives out of our kitchen drawer. The blade hadn’t been made for fighting, but at least it had a sharp edge.
“What are you going to do with it, Lanni?” I whispered. “Where would you hide a body? You can’t even find an escape route.”
I put the knife back in the drawer and slammed it shut.
“You okay in there?” Walsh called from the hall.
I dragged my fingers through my hair, trying to smooth it out so I wouldn’t look like I was losing my mind, before opening the door.
“Sounded like a cutlery drawer.” Walsh leaned against my doorjamb. “Did one of the knives offend you?”
“The problem wasn’t with the knife,” I said.
“Where’s Mari?” He peeked around me.
“Not here.”
“Sent her away before I could see her? I even got here early so we could visit.”
“Good thing I sent her away early then.”
We stood in the doorway for a moment, both of us refusing to move.
“Are you ready to go now?” Walsh said. “There’s something in the atrium I wanted to show you before our appointment with Mr. Strand.”
“There’s nothing you could show me that I’d want to see.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But I definitely have some things you need to hear, and I think it would be better for us both to be out where we can be seen.”
“What does that mean?”
“Finish your apple, and I’ll tell you while we walk.” He glanced at my waist. “And for your sake, don’t try to stash a knife.”
“Afraid I’ll gut you?”
“Nope. Just looking out for you.”
I took another bite of my apple and left the rest on the counter.
I wished I had grabbed a knife as I followed him down the hall.
He didn’t speak again until we were outside and on the tree-lined path.
“You should have finished your apple.”
“Do you want me to go back and get it for you?”
“Nope.” He nudged his shoulder against mine. “It’s time to see and be seen.”
“What does that mean?” The itch of people watching me prickled the back of my neck.
“I’m not your enemy.” Walsh nodded to a woman in a doctor’s uniform.
The doctor nodded back.
“And why should I believe that?” I asked.
“Plenty of reasons.” He turned to walk backward as he counted off on his fingers. “One, it’s true. Two, I could have done plenty of damage by now if I’d wanted to. Three, you’re not my enemy, so why should I be yours? Four, I have something very valuable to offer.”
“What’s that?” My fingers itched for a knife or a rock, anything to defend myself with.
He stopped at the top of the concrete stairs. “You’ll have to wait. Hallways carry sound.”
A child’s cry flooded the stairwell as a man carried a screaming toddler up into Bloom Dome.
Part of me wondered if Walsh had somehow made the child cry just to prove his point.
We walked side by side down the stairs and through the corridors. Walsh kept his hands in his pockets, like he was relaxed and confident he wouldn’t need his fists to fight. He kept humming to himself, not a full song, just a handful of notes at time, like he wasn’t even meaning to make a sound and the tune just came out naturally.
“What song it that?” I asked when he went through the refrain for the sixteenth time.
“Do you know a lot of music?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t know it.” He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the atrium. “Maybe someday I’ll sing the whole song for you.”
“No thanks.” I started up the steps without him.
“Careful, Lanni. There might come a time when you’ll regret rejecting my singing.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Not at all.” Walsh ran up a few stairs to walk beside me. “More like a hopeful premonition.”
“You’re such a―”
“Charming young man?” Walsh grinned.
I chewed my lips together, picturing Mari’s face as I swallowed all the things I wanted to shout.
When we reached the top of the stairs, I went to turn right, toward the benches where I’d met the elders for the rest of my assignments.
“This way.” Walsh headed left, toward the denser trees where the tiny branches of the stream all bubbled along as they flowed down to join the rest of the water.
He didn’t stick to the path. He cut across the moss, weaving between trees. Before we’d traveled a hundred feet, I couldn’t see anyone around us. Or anything really, besides the branches dripping with perfect green leaves and the foot-wide stream that gurgled as it raced between rocks.
Walsh turned in a slow circle, eyes closed and head tipped to the side. “Perfect. Have to be careful about couples sneaking around back here.”
“I’d be more concerned with guards.”
“A Dome Guard lurking in the trees just waiting to overhear us?” Walsh raised an eyebrow. “Not likely. The Incorporation values its citizens’ right to privacy. Random spying isn’t their style. The only security cameras in the Arc Domes watch the weapons locker, vehicle bay, and entrance to the Incorporation Headquarters. The only eyes and ears the Incorporation has in the atrium are human, and I haven’t done anything suspicious enough to warrant a guard being assigned to trail me. Have you?”
“What do you want, Walsh?” I dug my nails into my palms.
“It’s not what I want. It’s what you need.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You need to calm down, Lanni.”
“You have no right to tell me to calm down.” I leaned closer to Walsh. “You’re half the reason I’m fucking panicking.”
“I get it.”
“You get needing to protect Mari?” I spoke through my teeth to keep from screaming. “You get having someone tell you they hold your life and your little sister’s life in their hands and not knowing when they’re going to decide they’re sick of playing and just get you both killed? No, Connor Walsh. I don’t think you do get it.”
Walsh’s face shifted. Softened. I don’t really know how to describe it. It was like the only face I’d ever seen him wear was a mask, and the person beneath broke free for just a second.
“I would never out you or Mari.” He took my hand and stepped closer to me so we were almost standing cheek to cheek. “I don’t give a shit about anyone else in here. But you and Mari, you’re not like them. You’re innocent in all this. I’m sorry if I’ve made this harder on you. I didn’t have a choice. Just know they will never find out about you from me. You have my word.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I want to make a trade.” He laced his fingers through mine, leaning even closer so our cheeks brushed together. I didn’t back away. “A truth for a truth.”
“No.”
“I’m not your enemy, Lanni.”
“I don’t know if I can.” I closed my eyes.
“Why not?”
“A truth is a big thing to ask for.”
He gave a soft laugh that rumbled in his chest. “Then I’ll go first as a show of good faith. I can’t turn you in, because I shouldn’t be here, either. I don’t belong in the glass. Someone made a hole in the domes’ computer system to sneak you and Mari in. We found it. I was added to the database using the same flaw. You, me, Mari…we’re all in the same boat. They find one of us, they find all three of us.”
I pulled away enough to look at him. The softer face I’d seen before was gone, but there was only truth in his eyes.
“Your turn,” he whispered.
“There’s not a lot of truth that’s mine to tell.”
“Pity.” He stepped away from me. The air around me suddenly seemed cold without his arm pressing against mine. “That wasn’t even the thing you needed to know.”
“I can’t tell you how I got here. I can’t even tell you where I’m from, not without putting people in danger.”
“What sort of danger?”
“If someone finds out about us, I don’t want to bring decent people down with me.” I looked into the trees, just waiting for a guard to come storming through, gun drawn and aimed at my neck. “I don’t want anyone to suffer because they helped Mari and me.”
“I didn’t think you’d be so sentimental about people from the domes.” Walsh shifted sideways, making me look at him instead of the trees.
“Not all kep are equally evil.”
“Huh. Shall we go meet Mr. Strand?” He took two steps away from me before I grabbed his arm.
“You haven’t told me the thing I need to know yet.”
“You’re right. I haven’t.” He moved back toward me, not trying to get me to let go of his arm.
“Well, if we’re in the same boat, don’t you think I should have whatever information you have?”
“I already gave you something for nothing. I can’t keep doing that.”
“There’s nothing I can tell you.”
“Of course there is.” Walsh took my free hand. “You’re just not thinking hard enough.”
My mind raced back to the start of it all. I lived in the city, but telling him where I’d come from implicated Harper and Alec. Being half-kep put Amery in danger, and even though I didn’t give a shit about the father I’d never met, anyone finding out about Amery would definitely implicate Harper and Alec.
Everything else I knew didn’t matter now that I’d been locked in the domes. My life was trapped in impenetrable glass, and the fact that I’d stolen syringes to sell was useless.
“One of the sets of domes fell,” I whispered.
“You already told me that at the depot.”
“I heard about it over a handheld radio. I don’t know who was talking, I’d never picked up an actual signal before, but she said the domes had fallen. I think it must have been true. They’d been cracking down on the vampires where I was, and that night the kep lit the vampire district on fire, slaughtered the best workers they had. The guards wouldn’t have done that unless they were afraid.”
“Interesting.” Walsh furrowed his bow, looking over my shoulder like he was reading something in the trees.
“But it wasn’t the domes near me that fell.” I squeezed his hand. “That means the signal came from far away. I can’t be the only city scum in the world who managed to hear the news. Other people have got to know someone fought the domes and won.”
Walsh slid his arm free from my grip. He touched my cheek, his thumb grazing my neck. “Never call yourself city scum, Lanni. Living outside the glass doesn’t make you filthy or vile. It makes you stronger than the Incorporation understands.”
I wanted to lean into his touch, to see if the warmth of his skin against mine would make me feel safer, even for a moment.
“Did I earn my truth yet?”
“Sure.” He looked down at where our hands met. “You’ve got to settle in and make friends.”
“What?” I pulled away from him.
“That’s what these assignments are all about. Meeting new people.”
“You can’t be serious.” I paced beside the tiny stream.
“Not just people. You’ve got to meet someone special.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mrs. Hale has been sending you up here with every eligible young man in our class.”
I froze. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. She’s playing matchmaker. You need a boyfriend.”
“Why is my personal life any of her damn business?” I dug my fingers into my hair as I started pacing again. “What the hell does she think she’s doing?”
“She’s helping you adjust to your new home.” Walsh tucked his hands into his pockets. “You haven’t been making friends. You haven’t been socializing. We’re in a closed community. The only potential partners for you are locked inside the glass. Honestly, it’s pretty nice of her to make sure you have a shot at finding someone who will make you happy.”
“Happy? What would make me happy is being left alone.”
“Which isn’t going to happen. So you need to pick a guy and start dating him.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You don’t have a choice, Lanni.” Walsh stepped into my path. “You have to at least start to seem happy and well-adjusted.”
“I get good grades. I take care of Mari.”
“You look like a girl who’s grieving.”
“Maybe I am.” I hated myself for saying it. I shouldn’t have opened up that tiny tear in my armor, not to Walsh.
“I’m sorry for that.” Walsh laid his hands on my shoulders. “But you can’t let anyone see it. If Mrs. Hale is worried enough to start playing matchmaker, how long until she tries to talk to someone in the Ice Domes to find out more about you? Our computer files are ironclad, but there’s no teacher for anyone to ask about Lanni Roberts.”
“Shit.” I dug my knuckles into my eyes. Somehow, my forehead ended up against Walsh’s shoulder.
“You just have to date someone. Spend a couple weeks pretending to be happy, have a bad breakup, and then you can go back to silent and lonely while you mend your broken heart.”
“So, just pick one of the guys and pretend to care about a kep?”
“Gideon would jump at the chance, but I would probably be your best bet.”
I coughed out a laugh.
“I’m making you a genuine offer here.” There wasn’t a hint of teasing in Walsh’s tone. “You’d have to, at the very least, spend some significant time kissing Gideon. You and I could just sneak into the trees and let people assume things.”
“Is that what we’re doing now?” I looked up at him. My face was close enough to his, if anyone found us, they would think we were about to kiss.
“This is just a safe place to talk, but we could play it off as more. Added bonus, you wouldn’t have to lie to me about who you are. Pretending to be someone else is exhausting.”
“And what would you get out of it?”
“Pretending is exhausting for me, too.”
“I know less about you than you do about me.”
Walsh leaned down, kissing my cheek before whispering in my ear. “But at least you won’t press me for answers about why I transferred to the Arc Domes alone. Just think about it.” He stepped away from me. “And don’t take too long. Mrs. Hale is going to run out of guys to send you up here with. And if she gets desperate―”
“Then I risk all of us getting caught because I suck at adapting to life in a glass cage.”
“Come on.” Walsh offered me his elbow. “We’ve got to go meet Mr. Strand. I can’t wait to hear all the wonderful things he’s got to say about his contributions to the early days of the domes.”
“The bench is sturdy.” I took Walsh’s arm. “Just grip it really hard when you want to scream.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Walsh led me back out of the trees and onto a well-manicured path. “Lanni, that was nice. To actually talk to someone.”
“Yeah. I think―”
The blaring siren and flashing red lights drove what I was going to say from my mind.
A little girl by the pond started screaming.
The screaming and the sirens and the flashing lights, all of it seemed obscene against the atrium’s façade of beautiful perfection.
“Why are the sirens going off?” Walsh shifted my grip from his elbow to his hand.
I didn’t have an answer for him.
There were plenty of kep guards around, but none of them seemed to be attacking any of the people fleeing the atrium. There was no smoke. I hadn’t felt an explosion. The only one screaming was the little girl.
“I need to get to Mari.” I ran to join the fleeing crowd.
Walsh stayed beside me while we weaved through the kep running for the steps that led out of the atrium.
Two guards in black uniforms flanked the top of the staircase.
“What’s going on?” A woman stood by one of the guards, her hands on her hips as she glared tiredly at the man, not seeming to care about the gun on his belt.
“No idea, ma’am,” the guard said. “I only know all citizens are to report to the nearest bunker.”
Bunker.
I’d vaguely known there were bunkers in the domes―there were arrows painted on the walls displaying directions to safety―but it hadn’t occurred to me I’d ever see the inside of one.
“Where’s Mari?” Walsh asked as we hurried down the stairs.
“I sent her over to our guardian’s house. She lives at the back of Bloom Dome.”
At the bottom of the steps, everyone turned left.
I started to run straight ahead, along the quickest route to Miranda’s.
“Get to the bunker.” A guard held out his hand, blocking my path.
“I have to get to Bloom Dome.” I tried to step around him.
He grabbed my arm, holding me in place. “To the bunker. Now.”
“My sister’s there. She’s only seven,” I said. “I have to make sure she’s safe.”
“I will not ask you again.” The guard shoved me back.
“Lanni, she’ll be okay.” Walsh gripped my hand.
I broke away from Walsh. I didn’t register any pain in my hand as I swung and punched the guard in the jaw, but as I sprinted down the tunnel, I did hear the pop of his gun as he shot a silver dart into my neck.