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I woke up in Anna’s guest bedroom and closed my eyes against the sunlight that threatened to drag me out of my peaceful sleep. No, I didn’t want last night to end. Not yet. Not when I could close my eyes and remember every detail in blazing color.
It had, of course, come to an end when the leather jacket guy came back upstairs to tell us that the “hot blonde with the governor’s spawn” was looking for me. How he’d guessed I was the person Anna wanted to find, I didn’t ask. The glances between me and Vi were probably confirmation enough that I was the friend the girl on Trevor Ellery’s arm was trying to find.
Vi and I had spent hours kissing while I assumed Anna, Trevor, and Carter partied in the club. Kissing, and more...
I tried to recall the sensation of her hands on my breasts. She’d moved slowly, asking if it was okay to touch me. Yes, yes, so many times I’d said yes. And not out of a sense of duty or to live up to someone else’s expectations. Each yes had been out of want, out of the need to give in to my aberrant desires.
There was so much more I wanted to do with Vi, to have her do to me. But she’d given me one last kiss and whispered a time and place in my ear. That, she told me, was where she would show me everything that mattered. Everything that would end my life as I knew it.
I didn’t question her. I had less than a year to embrace the illusion of freedom before even that was gone.
Anna looked like her usual, smug self when I went downstairs to her family’s breakfast table. Who could blame her? She had made the match of the decade and now her mother was fawning over her, like she’d just figured out how to end war.
“What do you think?” Mrs. Grayson turned to me, her blue eyes shining and her smile expectant.
“She’s very lucky,” I agreed, and I meant it. Even if Anna had made it clear time and again that the match process was rigged in her favor, thanks to her father, it was easy to see she was pleased with the outcome. As her friend, I wanted her happiness. If Trevor brought it to her, then who was I to begrudge her? Especially after having my first taste of happiness with another person last night.
“Yes, she is.” Mrs. Grayson rose from the table, kissed Anna on the top of her head, and said, “Well, I must be off, girls. The first lady is having a little get-together for the mothers to find out how Match Day went. I have oodles to tell her. You two have fun today.”
She left in a rustle of fabric and a cloud of perfume. If she hadn’t said she was going to the governor’s mansion, she probably would have been on her way to meet with friends for shopping. That was what women like her did. She was also a favorite of the governor’s wife. It was a privilege I supposed my mother could have enjoyed, as well, if she chose.
I wondered if that kind of friendship was as tenuous as a position in the Governor’s Council. People came and went in those seats. I’d kept an eye on those changes since I was old enough to care about what politics meant to my future. And I’d also learned quickly that the only thing that changed was Governor Ellery’s approval of the work his council was doing. Nothing else.
In the silence that followed, I didn’t know what to say. Anna and I had become strangers to one another in such a short time. She broke the silence with a low, dark, “Kira, I know.”
I looked at her, not sure I’d heard her right.
“I know about that girl,” she clarified, our gazes meeting. “The daughter of the Separatists. I know what you were doing last night and I have to say it’s not the best way to go about things. You can feel how you feel, but keep it to yourself.”
My heart leapt into my throat. The last time we’d talked about this, she’d made her stance clear. Have fun with a Shamed, but be ready to toss them aside for the reality of life with a proper match.
Anna’s fingers plucked at her cloth napkin, folding it into a bulky square. “There are other ways you can work against the system. Ways that are more acceptable and don’t involve getting your hands or reputation dirty. I hope you understand. As the future first lady, these are things I have to consider when it comes to my circle of friends.”
What was she talking about? My entire body went tight with the realization that she saw my relationship with Vi as something more than a fling. She saw it as a threat, not to our friendship, but to my respectability.
There was nothing I could say to that. My breakfast tasted like ashes and I set my fork down, my appetite gone. Just when I’d found something that mattered to me, I was being told to choose. I didn’t know if I could do that, not even for Anna.
I had to find Vi. She would know what to do.
KNOWING THIS WAS THE third time I’d gone to a club that might be raided at any moment left me shaking with nerves as I approached the building. The cab driver had dropped me off without batting an eyelash and even my parents didn’t question where I was going. Now that I was matched, people seemed to assume I had the right to do what I wanted without answering to them.
My mother had mentioned something about meeting with Carter and not asked me to elaborate on my noncommittal, “Mmm.”
Guilt warred with the confusion and fear already swirling in my gut. Hiding the truth from my parents was somehow worse than Anna knowing it. I’d never felt so torn in my life. The only thing that was certain was my need to be with Vi.
I lifted my hand to try the door, but the handle didn’t budge.
There was laughter behind me. “Why would you come in the same door twice?”
I turned and there was Vi, bathed in streetlight. My breath hitched in my chest. As always, something about her drew me in, made me want to be near her. Whether it was her confidence or the fact that she understood me when no one else did, I didn’t know. All that mattered was her presence.
She tilted her head toward the other end of the street and said, “Walk with me, Kira.”
Once I fell into step beside her, the rest of the city faded from my mind. The sights and sounds were nothing as long as Vi was with me.
“You know, lots of things give me hope for the future.” The statement came without preamble and also without her looking at me. “Not just things going on with Operation Reunion and other Separatist activities, but people like you give me hope.”
“People like me?”
“Mmhmm.” She nodded and I caught a twinkle in her eye. She had a point, one she wasn’t ready to make yet.
I followed her through the heart of the city, to the darker, derelict southern half. The border was obvious, with construction barriers and “No Trespassing” signs posted on every building past what used to be 28th and J Streets, before the Fracture, before my great-great grandfather did what he thought was the right thing by walling in the city and asserting his word as law. No one wandered these streets anymore, except the homeless and criminals. The Shamed.
Soaring above me was the tallest building in Lincoln, what used to be known as a capitol before everything around this city had crumbled into nothing but death and destruction. I hesitated and drew closer to Vi. I’d never been near something so tall or dark.
“Come on,” she urged and approached the building.
I glanced up at it. There had to be fourteen or fifteen floors before the tower at the top. The building sprawled, taking up the entire block. Its once-beautiful windows were destroyed and it looked like flames had licked at the foundation.
“Where?” I asked.
Vi smirked and grabbed my hand. “Inside the old capitol, silly. I want to show you something.”
“It’s posted, though. We’re not supposed to go past here. You know that.”
Something in her expression shifted, sadness dampening it. “And when has a Shamed ever done what they’re ‘supposed’ to do?”
She had a point. An excellent one. But if I took her up on this daring escapade, how much closer would that push me from Loyalist to Separatist to Shamed? Now I understood Anna’s point. It was inevitable that following my heart would mean a fall from favor, and fast.
“It won’t hurt a bit, I promise.” Vi seemed to relent, because she stepped close and brought her lips to mine, whisper-soft. “No one will ever know.”
Anna would. Anna seemed to know everything. But... I moaned into the kiss Vi pressed to my mouth. It would be so worth it to see what else Vi had to offer, to understand her and her world better. Capitulating was far too easy.
“I’ll go.”
She smiled and pulled me along behind her into the building. Darkness washed over me the moment we entered. My skin prickled at the emptiness pressing in on me. The eerie effect was amplified by the glowlight Vi produced from somewhere, perhaps a pocket of her cargo pants.
What must have once been a gorgeous building was now a desolate, concrete wasteland. There were barrels with scorch marks here and there, and I shuddered at the realization that groups of homeless Shamed probably squatted here more often than not. Maybe even Vi had warmed herself by their fires. The building wasn’t secured against anyone entering and I realized I didn’t even know where Vi lived.
My reaction must have passed through my hand to Vi, because she said, “The guardsmen raided it two nights ago. You won’t see anyone coming in here for another night or two.”
It wasn’t reassuring, but if I wanted to be with Vi, I had to at least feign bravery.
She led the way up several floors. The elevators had probably stopped working long ago, back when electric power was cut off to the southern part of the city before the wall was built. My father had once told my mother our history was one of conquest and separation, of the best of intentions and the worst outcome.
He didn’t know I’d been paying attention at the time, a young teenager trying to understand his meaning. Something about it rang true now that I was on the threshold of adulthood.
After climbing more stories than I bothered to count, Vi led me through a door back outside. We had climbed so high up, I’d lost count of the floors.
“There, to the north, that’s the city as it is now.” She pointed out into the night.
I made my way to the wall of the observation deck slowly, carefully, in case something about the dilapidated building might give way. The city shimmered, a light in the otherwise bleak darkness that bordered it. Something about the view took my breath away. I’d never seen Lincoln like this, from this height.
“If you look to the west, we kept some of the original industry, but not much.” Vi led me counter-clockwise around the tower and trailed her hand along the low wall that enclosed the deck. “The east and the south, though, are where we cut off the city two hundred years ago. Governor Neville didn’t want too many reminders of its origins. He wanted to move the seat of power so people knew there was a new regime.”
I swallowed at the use of my great-great grandfather’s name. How much did she know about him? About me?
From our view looking south, all I saw was night. No buildings, no electricity. Just darkness that stretched on forever. That was where death awaited the exiles, a world with nothing to offer them. I clenched my fists atop the barrier.
“What do you see?” Vi asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure? Keeping looking out there.” She pointed and I squinted, thinking I saw a small glow in the distance. No, several orange glows, all formless and far beyond the wall.
My breath caught in my throat. “What is that?”
“Those are the fires. They burn for us, for the people they had to leave behind.” Her voice lifted on the last few words and I remembered what she had out there. A mother, maybe, somewhere in exile. If she was alive, that was. Could Vi possibly hope or believe that she might see her again?
“Why would anyone light fires out there? Who would light fires out there?”
“The people who still have loved ones in the city. The fires are there to give us hope, to guide us back to love. And to remind them that we will resist, that there will be a reckoning someday.”
The idea that a fire could symbolize something as simple as hope was lovely. I wondered if I could be a part of that hope. If I could help people the way Vi admitted to doing. Illegal or not, it seemed like the right thing to do.
If I wanted Vi, I knew I had to be part of that. To commit myself to truth and justice.
“They’re beautiful.” I turned to her, standing closer to me than I’d realized. Her lips were right there and then mine were on them.
Our bodies came together like magnets and, there in the warm summer night air, under the stars, in a place that used to represent democracy, Vi taught me exactly what I’d been wanting to learn for more years than I could remember.
After we’d used up every last bit of energy on each other, we lay undressed and entwined on the observation deck, a half moon overhead in the inky sky. I’d never thought this would happen, but now that I’d done it, I didn’t want to move. She was warm and welcoming and the most beautiful person I’d ever met. If only this moment could last forever.
I finally gave voice to the question at the edge of my hazy thoughts. “Can you tell me how you learned to do all of that?”
Vi chuckled, a throaty sound that made me want her all over again. “It’s all instinct. It just felt right the first time I did it, so I followed my feelings. Haven’t you ever followed your feelings and urges?"
Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a time, until now, when I’d done that. I shook my head and was rewarded with another laugh.
“Is that what these are, your feelings?” I traced my finger along the tattoos on one of her arms.
“The phoenix in the fire?” By the soft illumination of the glowlight, I could see the corner of her lips quirk up. “Do you know the legend of the phoenix? How it self-immolates and dies?”
“That sounds awful.”
“It does, but it’s reborn from its own ashes.” She turned her arm over and there, just above her wrist, was another tattoo I’d never noticed. It looked like a smoldering pile of black ash and there was a red-golden bird rising from it. “Someday, that will be us. For now, though, I have this to remind me of what it will take to get there.”
I snuggled closer to her, admiring her bravery and still hoping to hold onto this moment as long as possible. “And what does Vi stand for? That can’t be your entire name.”
“Violet. Violet Lee. My mother always called me Vi, but my father was a strange mix of historian and mathematician. So he nicknamed me Six.”
“V and I make the Roman numeral six. That’s pretty creative,” I said, tracing my finger along her jawline. She was somehow even more beautiful to me, despite the fact that I could barely see her features.
“Yeah, it was our thing.” Sadness tinged the words. “And I’m no Violet.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. Violets might look delicate, but they’re stronger than most people think. They just need the right care.”
“What about you, Kira Neville?” Her question made my blood run cold. I turned in her arms and she released a soft tsking sound. “Did you think I didn’t know who you really are, your family’s history?”
I squirmed, wishing then that I could cover myself. Unfortunately, my clothes were twisted somewhere beneath or beside me, not an option.
“I don’t take chances without knowing the potential cost. Losing my family taught me the value of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.” Her statement was hard, even if her voice was not.
After catching my breath, I said, “I’m not your enemy.”
“Of course you aren’t, and neither are your parents or friends.” Vi’s arm tightened around my shoulders reassuringly and I rolled toward her to bury my face in her neck, to lose myself in her softness and scent.
“I was going to say something, tell you the truth,” I mumbled against her silky skin.
“I believe that.”
Tears burned at my eyes. “Do you?”
“Kira, do you think I’d do what we just did with someone I didn’t care about?”
She was asking me to judge her decisions, her values, and more when I hardly knew her. Yet, despite that, I couldn’t stop this longing for her. Vi had unlocked a gateway to a world I’d never known was accessible to me.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” I whispered, tears pricking at my eyes.
“Shhh.” She rolled over and pulled me close, her arms wrapping around me. “It doesn’t matter how we got here. What matters is that we want to learn from the past and change the present. I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t believe you felt the same way as me.”
Vi held me until long past curfew, until she had to sneak me home again, until I knew that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want the things I always thought I’d wanted. Not the vision of the world my parents tacitly passed on to me or to follow the Tenets or even Anna. It was never Anna for me.
It was always Vi.