XXXVIII

Elodie sat on the sand-covered street, folding her legs up under her as she waited for Astrid at the base of her best friend’s favorite building—the building Astrid had thrown herself off countless times, her webbed bodysuit threading from her arms to her legs like a human parachute. Loose strands of hair blew in front of Elodie’s eyes and she pushed them back and squinted up at the glittering silver building. Its spire pierced the cloudless morning sky like the point of a needle through silk.

Astrid tested the limits with everything. Almost everything. When it came to the Key and its rules, there was no pushing for this rule-following Fujimoto. She was as rigid as the paved street beneath Elodie’s feet, the same street she’d watched Astrid splat against as she tested the limits of her custom-coded suit.

Elodie couldn’t help but wonder if sometimes Astrid hurled herself off the roof just for the sake of hitting the pavement, just to feel that second of nothingness between VR and real life. The cessation of breath before the next inhale.

The first time it had happened—the first time Astrid had died in VR—Elodie had almost puked. Astrid’s body slammed into the replica Dubai street and dissolved into a pixelated mass of colors before sinking into the ground and disappearing completely. At least VR didn’t leave a lot of corpses lying around.

Booted from the sim, Astrid had been back in Elodie’s earpiece a moment later. “Did you see that?! What. A. Rush!”

Elodie had fallen to her knees. The blacktop sliced off a few centimeters of her bare kneecaps as the glitchy program struggled to interpret her sudden movement. “I thought you were dead!”

Astrid had scoffed. “You can’t die in VR, El. It’s not real.” Even now, Elodie could practically hear her friend roll her eyes. “Wait right where you are. I’m logging back in and doing it again.”

But this morning, Elodie would have done anything to know she was meeting Astrid here to talk like they used to. She’d do anything to have another chance at mustering the courage to jump from the high point of the building, following her best friend up, just to succumb to nerves at the last minute and ride the smooth elevator back down to the ground.

Everything was supposed to change when she married Rhett. Not now. Not like this. Why couldn’t she live her life, experiment with it, have fun with it, without it all falling to pieces? Her life was hers. Wasn’t it?

Navy and green-checkered shoes shuffled noiselessly into Elodie’s periphery, tearing her from her memories. Astrid’s avatar looked haggard, tired, like the stress from last night had seeped through and infected this fake world.

Elodie’s ankle started to ache and she unfolded and refolded her legs beneath her. She stiffened. Her ankle ached. Since the update, she’d only been in VR to fulfill her nursing assignments. Within those programs, it was normal to feel temperatures and textures. Those aspects were programmed into all simulations. It’s what made the virtual feel more real. But pain was different. Pain was new.

Astrid cleared her throat and scraped the toe of her shoe against the pavement. “Feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been here together.” She let out a weary sigh as she adjusted her toolbelt, another custom VR accessory covered in small silver boxes, and tucked her legs underneath her to join Elodie on the sand dusted blacktop.

Elodie brushed sparkling granules from her leggings, blinking frantically as the breeze picked up the sand and tossed it back against her lashes. “There’s more sand than there used to be.”

Astrid let out a dry chuckle. “It’s always been the same. You’re just used to watching me.” She pointed at the blanket of blue above. “You’re used to looking up.”

“Change in perspective, I guess.” Elodie felt the words so deep her chest ached.

Astrid grabbed a fistful of sand and let the golden specks drain between her fingers as she lifted her hand.

Elodie continued quickly. “I’m glad you decided to meet me.”

Astrid remained silent. Her ponytail slid off her shoulders as her head hung from her neck like an anchor.

“Look, Astrid, I know what you saw—” Elodie began.

Astrid turned to face her, her upturned eyes red rimmed and awash in tears. “I’m sorry.” She brushed her hands against her moist, pale cheeks, leaving streaks of sand in their wake. “So, so sorry.”

Elodie’s fingers were numb. Her body cold, each cell frosted with fear. She couldn’t breathe. It was all over. Aiden had said his last name would save them from any real consequences, but that wasn’t true. His last name protected him, not her. Elodie would be shipped to Rehabilitation. There was no way Rhett would be there when she returned. The carefully planned lines of her carefully plotted life would be erased. New sharp edges and stiff cliffs penciled in over the ghost of what had been.

And Gwen.

Bile burned the back of Elodie’s throat.

What will my mother say?

Astrid’s chest heaved and she buried her face into her palms. “I shouldn’t have.”

Elodie finally managed to push words past her clenched teeth. “It’s okay.”

“I’m so, so sorry. So sorry. So sorry . . .” Astrid repeated again and again.

The muffled words tumbled against Elodie’s ears until they’d lost meaning and became just another noise swallowed by the wind.

“Me too,” she said. Elodie was sorry. Not for the kiss. Never for the kiss. Aiden was right. If that’s how her story ended, she would do it all over again. A million times again. It was the only thing that she had ever felt.

At least she’d gone out in a blaze. A shooting star.

Elodie pressed her teeth against her bottom lip. “Want to know something?” she asked without listening for an answer. “I never stopped reading those banned books.” If she was going to be sent in front of the Council to have her life rewritten, she’d go without any secrets. At least, she’d go without any secrets she owned. Other secrets—Eos secrets, Aiden secrets, even Fujimoto sister secrets—they weren’t hers to tell.

Astrid’s quakes calmed, replaced by short, hiccup-laden sniffles. “I got one. My first one.” She peeked out above her hands. “My first banned book.”

Elodie’s breath stuck in her throat. Astrid’s rigid rule-following was why she’d run from the fair without giving Elodie a chance to explain. It was why they were sitting in a made-up version of a real place that Elodie would never be able to visit. And not because her family couldn’t afford air travel. No, it was now because her rule-abiding “bestie” had condemned her to a life much more oppressed than the one she’d tried to escape.

Astrid pulled a silver square from her toolbelt and set it on the ground, where it morphed into a slim black bag. Astrid was a VR-code genius. She pulled the bag onto her lap, dug through the outer pocket, and pulled out a book. Sinister clouds burned rusted orange against the cover of the worn paperback. “The image reminded me of the Zone Seven news reports.”

Elodie held out her hand and Astrid passed her the book. Its weight shocked her. It felt as real as any she owned. The VR tech improved all the time. She smoothed her fingers over the cottony pages, soft from decades of wear. The color had worn off the embossed title, but the font’s echo was still legible—Poison Princess.

Astrid inched closer. “It was my sister’s. Can you believe Thea had a banned book?”

A knowing grin tickled the corner of Elodie’s mouth as she slid her thumb down the book’s spine.

Astrid reached out and traced the cover with her fingertips. “There’s a sentence in there. Actually, it’s the first sentence I read when I opened the book to skim through it. Come, touch . . . but you’ll pay a price. It spoke to me in a way nothing has before.” Astrid balled her hands in her lap. “How could that be dangerous?”

If Aiden were there, he’d have a million things to say. But Elodie only had one. “It’s not.”

“If I were you, I’d be pissed at me.” Astrid didn’t look up as she spoke.

Elodie dropped the book onto Astrid’s bag. Her hands tightened into fists. Was the novel the reason Astrid had been so weird when they’d talked? Was this what her father was so angry about?

Elodie had nearly turned herself inside out the night before, agonizing over whether or not Astrid had told anyone about the kiss—and this is what Astrid had been dealing with? A book?

“So you didn’t go to the Key and tell them about Aiden and me?”

“I did tell on you.” Astrid’s voice was tired and lost. “Both of you. That’s where I went when I ran from the fair. Straight to the Council. What you did, Elodie, was so, so—” She shook her head. “I never thought I’d see anything like that.” She stared down at her hands. “And I didn’t think that the Key would do anything truly bad . . .”

“You didn’t think they’d send me to Rehab?”

“I was busy thinking about Cerberus.”

Elodie dug her fingers into the pile of sand that had blown up against her shoe. “The Key isn’t telling the truth about that, you know?”

“Yeah, well.” Astrid’s voice trembled. “The Key isn’t telling the truth about a lot of things.”

Elodie blinked, her jaw bobbing as she gathered her thoughts. “You agree with me?”

Astrid’s eyes flooded and her neck corded with tension. “Council Leader Darby.” A sharp, ugly wail hacked its way out of her throat. “He sentenced you and Aiden. I knew last night, but I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Elodie’s teeth ground together. “It’ll be okay,” she said, more to herself than to Astrid. “It’s Rehabilitation. Aiden and I will get through it.” She swallowed. “I’ll get through it. It’ll be okay.”

“Death, Elodie,” Astrid wailed. “Darby sentenced you to death !”

A bleat of panicked laughter escaped Elodie’s chest. “No. He can’t.” She shook her head so vigorously her vision blurred. “The Council can’t do that. The Key saves people.” Tears leaked down her cheeks. “They won’t, Astrid. There hasn’t been a trial.” Elodie sniffed and swiped her fingertips under her eyes. “You must have heard wrong. They would never. That’s not an option.”

Or had she just convinced herself it wasn’t?

She and Aiden had broken the rule. The rule that the Key had used to maintain power. The rule that they’d said insured a row of tomorrows stretched on after today.

No one had ever broken the rule.

Or maybe they had, and the Key had wiped them out of existence before anyone realized they were missing.

Astrid braced her hands against the street and leaned in conspiratorially. “I went back. When I heard the sentence, I tried to recant.” Her voice was hoarse, but she’d wrangled her sobs. “I even lied to my father and had him insist the Council needed to call an emergency meeting with me. I thought having him there would make them take what I had to say seriously.” She pressed back into a crumpled shell of herself. Her ponytail brushed her shoulders as she shook her head. “Darby wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let anyone listen. He said that my words weren’t my own and that I was being manipulated.” Astrid inhaled a shaky breath. “My father is furious.” She rubbed her puffy, red eyes. “The Key threatened his funding.” Tears dripped from the quivering end of her pointed chin. “They’re sending me to Rehabilitation. And when I come back, they’re matching me, Elodie. They’re matching me to a man. To create a proper family.”

Elodie’s heart melted into her veins. Her entire body pulsed with a rapid, deafening beat. Astrid was in front of her, all tears and pain and remorse and guilt. But to Elodie, she might as well have been another heap of sand.

“The Key is supposed to listen,” Astrid said as she scrubbed the back of her hands across her cheeks. “They’re supposed to help. They’re supposed to be just! Why should I follow their rules if they won’t?” She stared off into the distance. Her long ponytail, carried by a sudden gust of wind, struck the air behind her.

“I don’t know what to do.” Elodie felt the words leave her mouth, but wasn’t quite sure what she’d said. Astrid informing her of her fate while in VR was fitting. They were together yet apart, anywhere and nowhere, doing everything and nothing. That had been Elodie’s life—putting one foot in front of the other on a predetermined path, warmly cocooned in the illusion of choice.

The silver boxes on Astrid’s toolbelt caught the sun as she bent her legs and rested her chin on her bare knees. “Can I ask you a question?” She paused. “You have to be real with your answer.”

Elodie bit the inside of her cheek. Isn’t that how all of this started? Her wanting, needing something real. She rubbed her hands up and down her goosebump-flecked arms and mentally shook herself. Maybe she and Aiden still had a chance. Astrid and her father had both stood before the Council while Astrid took back everything she’d said. That had to mean something. Maybe not to Council Leader Darby, but he wasn’t the only Council member. It had to mean something.

Astrid dabbed the back of her hand against her nose. “What was it like?” She glanced at the sandy concrete beneath her feet. “The kiss.” The words were whisper soft, as if she’d had to force them from her lips.

Elodie bristled. “Like we were magnets.” She hugged her knees against her chest, folding herself in half as feelings too big washed over her. “I couldn’t pull away.” Elodie’s cheeks were molten. “I didn’t want to.”

Astrid stared at her, wide eyed. “Did it feel . . .” She swallowed audibly. “Good?”

Elodie blinked. She had expected disgust, but she hadn’t been prepared for curiosity. Embarrassment dragged its hot fingers down her neck.

Being lost and found and lost again. Bare and whole. Everything and more.

But that was too big, too much to lay at Astrid’s feet.

“It was . . .” Elodie breathed in the crisp air. “The most amazing thing in the world.”

Astrid opened her mouth and closed it as if testing the breeze before she spoke. “Sometimes I get this feeling . . .”

The space around them rippled, the very fabric of this virtual reality shaken out like a rug. For a moment, Elodie thought it was the power of the memory.

Astrid surged to her feet. “It’s a hack. They’re trying to get into our locked VR space.”

Elodie stood. “A hack? But who—?”

The building behind them shivered before breaking apart into perfect pixilated squares and collapsing in a heap of flashing cubes.

Astrid stumbled away from the disintegrating landscape. “El, I’m exiting. Get someplace safe. I’ll find you.”

Shadows stretched against the sand as the sun waned and a deep unsettling black poured into the sky like spilled ink.

In the real, Elodie was someplace safe, tucked into one of the many hidden rooms of the Eos warehouse she’d discovered after running to Aiden at dawn. She needed to get back to him now. Back to her body. Like she’d done a hundred times before, Elodie focused on exiting the program and bringing her hands, her real hands, to the headset resting against her ears.

There was nothing. Nothing but gusts of wind blowing sand through wild strands of hair.

Elodie tried again to exit. Her fingers scraped down her cheeks.

“Aiden!” Her voice quaked as the gentle blue sky succumbed to the black and the ground went soft beneath her feet. “Get me out!” Again and again Elodie tried to focus her panicked thoughts on escaping, on her body, on being anywhere but the haunting black, the sand stinging her face. But nothing changed. Her fingers dug against her cheeks, tangled in her hair.

This was real. The pain and the panic. The wind and the dark. Too real.

“Elodie! I can’t get out!” Astrid was still next to her, right next to her. Arms and hands against hers. Skin searching for skin, for safety.

White light burned through the dark. Elodie winced, squeezing her eyes shut against the blinding spotlight glaring down at them.

Astrid let out a gasp as a line of gun-wielding Key Corp soldiers emerged from the dark. “Run!” she shouted.

Elodie took off after her. Her feet no longer sank into the sand as the dark enveloped them and they sprinted further into nothingness.

From under his visor, the lead soldier’s voice boomed, “We have orders from the Council. Come willingly and we will not use force.”

The soldier was just a few feet away, as if Elodie and Astrid had been standing still instead of running for their lives. He pulled a scanner from his vest and waved a red beam over Elodie’s right side. “Sending Benavidez’s last known coordinates now.”

Astrid charged between Elodie and the soldier. “Your overlords let loose some code that has us stuck in here until what?” she asked. “We tell you where we really are? Then we’ll each come out to find guards waiting for us? The whole thing is a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Astrid nudged the tip of the soldier’s drawn rifle. “I mean, what’s the point in this? You want to prove you’re a big man? Break the rules and bring in a weapon? We’re in VR. Hello? This will hurt me about as much as falling off a twenty-story building—which I’ve done. Didn’t make a lasting impact.” She held up her hands and did a quick spin. “So tell whoever the fuck is in charge that they need to let us out of this freak show.” She pressed her palm against the gun barrel and pushed.

Elodie’s chin quivered. “Astrid, don’t.”

“It’s okay, El.” Astrid tossed a wink over her shoulder. “They can’t do anything to us in here except turn off the lights. Right, boyo?”

The soldier’s gear creaked as he stiffened. “You should listen to your friend.”

Astrid crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you know who my father is?”

A smirk licked the corners of his lips. “Who do you think designed the hack?” He tilted his head and tapped the black visor that shielded his eyes. “And don’t forget to smile big when I bring you in. I’m recording it all, and I’m sure Mr. Fujimoto would love to see those pearly whites.”

Astrid hid her trembling hands behind her back, and with a dramatic flourish she stepped closer to the soldier. “Guess I should put on a show. Wouldn’t want to disappoint dear old dad.” Astrid reached for one of the silver boxes attached to her toolbelt. “See you on the other side, El.”

With the swipe of her thumb, Astrid triggered the silver box’s code. It morphed into a grappling gun. The hook gleamed as Astrid aimed it toward the soldier.

“Astrid—” Elodie’s words were swallowed by the bang of gunfire. Warm liquid sprayed her face and copper flashed against her tongue as hands grabbed her biceps and pulled her back toward the shadows.

Astrid lay on the ground. Not a fading mass of pixels, but a heap of bone and muscle and skin. Astrid was still there. Still human. A pool of red spilled from her middle and glinted in the sharp light as she blankly stared at the grappling gun still in her hand.

“Get up!” Elodie felt herself screaming, fighting against the hands pulling her away from her friend. “Astrid! Get up!”

But there was no answer. Not from Astrid. Only soldiers scrambling, and blood pooling.

The grappling gun flickered in and out of focus before folding in on itself and turning back into a metal box.

The realization roared to life within Elodie and all she could do was surrender.