I TEAR MY PALM AWAY and shout, “Morati.”
Emilia’s eyes grow wide at the same time mine do. I squeeze my hands into fists and wince as my fingernails cut into my palms. I did it. I exposed one of the Morati. Her pupils dart back and forth, as if she’s looking for an escape route. But then she laughs. “No. That’s not the image Furukama gave me.” She shakes her head like my accusation is crazy. Like I’m crazy.
I’ve seen into her hidden memories, seen her in Morati form, and I’m certain she’s one of them.
Quicker than a heartbeat, Brady is at my side, issuing commands. “Wolf! Moby! Help me pin her down.” The tournament is forgotten. It is no longer top priority now that a suspect has been identified.
Wolf and Moby spring into action immediately, grabbing Emilia by the arms to immobilize her. She struggles against them. Furukama strides over to where we’re standing, Emilia still protesting that she has no idea what I’m talking about. “Test me yourself,” she cries to Furukama. “She’s wrong!”
“Everyone outside except these five.” Furukama indicates me, Brady, Wolf, Moby, and Emilia.
The trainees don’t need to be told twice. They rush out of the gym like it’s on fire.
“I trust Felicia,” Furukama says. “A stay in the brimstone jail should clear this up.”
Grunting, Emilia kicks at Furukama, but he glides out of the way before her foot can connect.
We arrive at the entrance of the jail, Emilia fighting us the whole time. The two daytime guards open the heavy stone door for us. Furukama dismisses Moby and me, and enters with Wolf and Brady. Furukama can handle Emilia’s interrogation, but I wish I could be there. I wish I could do more to help. If I had the chance, I would ask Emilia so many questions. Who are the other Morati? Where are the rest of my memories? Why did they take them? What is their plan for me?
Moby excuses himself, claiming he left something back at the gym. I walk back to the dorms in a sort of daze. Is it my imagination, or has the low constant hum of the Morati’s presence grown louder and more insistent within me? Now that I have exposed Emilia, the other Morati may strike to protect themselves.
When I reach my hallway, Neil leans against his door, waiting. He’s alone; there’s not a single fan in sight for the first time since the night I fled from his bed. He gives me a tentative smile, like he doesn’t know what to expect from me, and all at once I’m done with this distance between us. He’s here and I’m here, and a storm might be brewing outside and everything could change tomorrow or in fifteen minutes, but I have right now. And right now I want Neil. I push him up against the door in a desperate kiss.
He turns the knob behind him, and we stumble backward into his room. I kick the door closed. We fall onto his bed, our hands all over each other and our mouths unable to get enough.
I pull at the buttons on his shirt. To be close to Neil is all I’ve ever wanted, and with our bodies entwined, I can’t fathom what kept us apart.
My lips find his earlobe, and my teeth can’t resist biting down. He shudders under me, and his muscles go taut. I kiss him at the base of his jaw, which is his Achilles heel, and he jerks his neck. “Wait.” He pushes against my shoulders, gently, and sits up. “Before we do this, I have to tell you something about me.”
Neil’s words bring me back to reality, to the secrets between us, to all the broken promises I want to forget. I swing my legs over the side of the bed so that they dangle next to Neil’s. “What?”
“Every day I wrestle with myself. Every day I say, ‘Today will be the day I tell the truth.’ ” He stares at the door. “But then I chicken out, and I go back to living this lie.” He sniffles and then beats a fist on the bed.
I put my arm around him gingerly. “You’re the most generous, good-hearted person I know. How can that be a lie?” Too good for me, for sure.
Neil wipes at his wet cheeks with the back of his hands. “That’s just it.” His voice trembles. “I’m not good. Not at all.”
“What—” I start to ask, but he cuts me off.
“Don’t.” He draws in a shuddering breath and then crawls back onto his bed and curls into himself. “Can you . . . please . . . I need . . .”
I stare at his shaking body. What does he need? For me to leave or for me to comfort him? All I know is what I need. I lie down next to him and hold him as tightly as I can.
What could Neil have possibly done that he thinks is so bad? He’s not like me—easily corruptible. He’d never have kept all the memory globes to himself. He’d have turned them all in. He certainly wouldn’t have one under his bed right now, taunting him, whispering to him. But whatever he has done, it must be a big deal if he’s so upset about it that he’s crying.
After a while Neil shifts to face me. “Thanks for staying. I’ve missed you lately.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“Would you mind sharing a sleep memory with me? One of our naps back on Earth?” He holds up his palm tentatively, as if I might refuse him.
“Of course not.” Should I tell him about Emilia? No, not now. Not when we’re finally connecting again. I won’t ruin this moment with talk of the Morati. The Morati have already ruined enough.
We slip under the blanket, and then I reach up so our palms can connect.
I let him choose and we end up in one of my favorite memories—an abnormally chilly late spring day after school when we huddled together under the down comforter in his bed.
“Did you like the strawberries?” Neil whispers into my ear, his warm breath sending tingles down my spine.
“Yum.” My lips find the hollow right below his ear where his jaw meets his neck, and he jolts, like every time I kiss him there. I want to explore his entire landscape and find the other sensitive spots on his body, but I’ve been barred from most of the regions under his clothes.
“We could go get more.” He shifts beside me, moving the blanket and letting cold air in between us.
“Are you crazy?” I push the comforter up over our heads so that we’re buried under it, all traces of chill gone. I unbutton his shirt and press my cheek against his chest, so that I can listen to the thump of his heart. I swirl my fingertips down the bare skin of his sides and stomach, and his heartbeat speeds up, and dances erratically.
My own heartbeat thunders in my ears as I inch myself lower, tasting the ridges and planes of his body as I go. Until I come to the hard copper button of his jeans. I start to undo the button, but he laces his fingers through mine and pulls me up again.
“Felicia,” he says, his voice cracking. “Look at me.” His eyes are intense, his curls cling to his forehead, and his bottom lip is stained red from the strawberries. My breath catches in my throat. The way he squeezes my hand tells me that his self-control might not last too much longer. Maybe I’m not as ready as I think I am.
I kiss his forehead, and he closes his eyes. Our heads emerge from the blanket.
All that’s left of the fire are embers, but for now they’re enough. Because Neil settles behind me and rests his arms around my waist, tucks his legs in behind mine, and tickles the wisps of hair at the base of my neck with his soft exhales of breath. I love the contrast between the cozy heat under the comforter and the cold air of the room on my face. It reminds me of being outside in the winter, immersed in a hot spring in Japan, catching the swirls of snow with my tongue while my body toasted in the hot spring.
My eyelids grow heavier, and I slowly lose consciousness and start to dream.
Memory me is sleeping, and most of the me reliving the memory is too. Only a tiny sliver, like a pilot light, stays alert.
In the dream I have during that after-school nap, I stand on a highway in the searing sun, and the asphalt melts around me, causing me to sink like I’m in quicksand. But before I’m buried alive, the scene changes.
I’m in Neil’s bed, inside his dream, and the bed is slightly blurred around the edges. I am looking out from Neil’s naked body, which is entwined with someone else’s, his fingers running through long dark hair. He opens his eyes, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at some other girl.
I’m dumped out of the memory, a memory of a time when Neil had a racy dream. And I was somehow able to hijack that dream during our viewing of the memory. Neil backs away from me, and I can tell by his horrified expression that he knows what I saw.
“Felicia, why are you invading my dreams? I trusted you!”
As upset as I am about the content of Neil’s dream, his accusation forces me to go on the defensive. “I didn’t mean to! It just happened. I swear . . . I’d never . . . I didn’t even know I could do that.”
“I can’t believe it.” Neil gets up and paces the room. He shakes his head and wrings his hands, and he looks everywhere but at me. “Here I was, working up the courage to tell you. But you couldn’t wait. You had to poke around my mind and take it from me.”
Neil’s words slap me out of my stupor, and I sit up, wriggling out from under the blanket. The fact that he’s freaking out this much confirms my suspicions that he has been hiding something big from me. And now I really, really need to know what it is. “Neil, calm down. I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t trying to pry.”
He stops and twists in my direction, glaring down at me between heavy lids. And for the first time I’m seeing flashes of a Neil who doesn’t want to be with me anymore. This recognition is the scariest and most heartbreaking I’ve ever had.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It was only a dream, and you have no control over what you dream.” I say it as much to convince myself as I do to convince him. And then, because I can’t help myself, I say, “Was that Gracie?”
“Yes. That was Gracie.”
His admission stabs me in the chest. Why was he dreaming of Gracie when he was sleeping next to me? A deadly cocktail of anger and mortification flows through me, and I jump up, run through the door, cross the hall, and push into my own room so that I can hurl myself onto my bed.
“Wait!” Neil calls behind me. Chasing me.
“Get out of my room!” Reaching my bed, I whirl around to face Neil, and as I do, my foot catches on something underneath. I kick my leg to free it and accidentally catapult the metal wire and the memory globe it holds straight at Neil. I reach out my arm to deflect it at the same time Neil does, and after a brutal squishing sound, I realize with absolute horror we’ve both touched it. And then we’re sucked in.