This time when I get back to Abel’s, I’m less whirlwind and more cautious breeze. I have no idea how Hunter is going to handle what happened between us yesterday. Somehow lightheartedly seems foolishly optimistic. I catch myself all but tiptoeing down the hallway and have to make myself walk normally.
Of course, he’s already here because, of course, I am twenty minutes late. The sight of him knots my stomach. Tonight he’s sitting on the other side of the dining room table, putting a good few feet of table between us. The chair I sat in is even drawn out a few inches in invitation, as if to say, “Sit here. No closer.”
“Greetings.” The word is so coolly polite, I’m not sure whether to feel annoyed or remorseful. I want to make things right between us. I want to show my somewhat stuffy but mostly decent amigo that he can trust me not to morph into an egotistical monster.
“Hey.” I smile back, dropping my bag to the floor. “How are you?”
“I’m well. And you?”
“I am also well,” I reply. I pause at my chair, placing a hand on it gently. I cock my head at Hunter as if to say, “Is here okay?”
He inclines his head, almost gracefully. “Please.” As I sit down, he’s quick to add, “Abel is in his study.” It almost sounds like a warning. The idea that Abel might be here to protect Hunter from my lecherous advances makes me smile, and I have to bite my lip. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing.” I shake the smile away, and meet his eyes with perfect professionalism. “Should we start on sustainability?”
For the next hour, I do a wonderful impression of a model student. I recite which materials go into which upcycling bins, how compost works, how much water a five-minute shower uses, and how to lower, restrain, and reduce consumption. I stumble a little over some of the specific bylaws of allowances—having never had a pet, I can’t remember if dog food falls under Goods or Pleasure—but on the whole, I do pretty well.
As the dark blue of the evening sky deepens to black, Hunter begins to soften. His posture loses its rigidity. At first, I feel like we’re performing some sort of formal interview, but after a while things become slightly more casual. I begin dropping a few sarcastic observations, which in turn invoke a flash of amusement, a smile, and then—victory!—an actual chuckle. Abel wanders in and out of his study a few times, ostensibly to get a glass of water from the kitchen, but obviously to check on us. Each time he passes, Hunter retreats into cold professionalism, but after Abel disappears, I’m able to tempt him back into behaving more normally. By eight-thirty, I feel I’ve definitely weakened the infrastructure of Hunter’s wall of protection. Not dismantled it entirely, but caused a few spidery cracks.
“Very good work tonight, Tess,” Hunter says, deftly folding the thin gold scratch into a neat square.
“You sound relieved,” I say lightly.
“Do I?” he murmurs.
“I don’t blame you.” I shoot him a smile that’s somewhere between mischievous and self-deprecating, and am relieved when I get a smile back.
“Yes. Well. I, uh . . .” A quizzical half smile, half frown tugs at his mouth as he continues in a low, confessional voice. “I never really know how you’re going to behave.”
I burst out laughing. I can’t help it. There’s something so endearingly honest and old-fashioned about him. His genuine confusion at my wild and wacky ways is undeniably cute.
Hunter sits back, bewildered. “See? That’s what I mean. I have no idea why you’re laughing. Was that funny, what I just said?”
“This whole situation is kind of funny,” I say dryly. “Look, for the record, I’m honestly really sorry about yesterday. That won’t happen again.”
“I don’t know. You seemed pretty confident,” Hunter says, and I’m surprised to realize he’s teasing me. “Maybe you know something I don’t.”
“No, I seemed pretty insane, as you astutely pointed out.” I plant both palms flat on the table and look him right in the eye. “Can we just . . . be friends?”
Hunter’s face is perfectly calm. “All right,” he says. “Agreed.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
I exhale loudly and close my eyes for just a second. “Thank you. I just—I just really need that right now.”
“Need what?”
“Just—I don’t know. Someone to talk to, maybe. Someone normal.”
“And you think I’m normal?” I can’t tell if he’s pleased or offended.
I scratch my fingernails against the tabletop and choose my words carefully. “I’ve started working out at this Longevity Hub, right? And the people there are great; really cool and nice. But . . .”
“But what?”
“They’ve all known each other for ages, so it’s hard to fit in. I feel like a bit of an outsider. And they’re all so much better than me.”
“Because they’ve been doing it longer,” he says. “Which is why they know each other so well.”
I sigh. “I guess. I mean, yes, that’s right. But it’s not just that.” I drum my fingers on the table. “We’re all training for this . . . triathlon. And I’m not sure if maybe I’m getting in over my head. I mean, I said I’d do it, and it’s sort of like a team thing, so if I pull out, I let everyone down.” I look up at him. “I’m really pushing myself. And I’m not one hundred percent sure if it’s the right thing to do.”
Hunter sits back in his chair, eyebrows drawn in thoughtfully. The tips of his fingers tap lightly against his mouth. He looks like he’s musing over something a lot more serious than my concerns with the “Longevity Hub.”
“Do you trust the people at the Hub?” he asks.
I blink fast. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I think so.”
“They’d tell you,” he says, “if you were in danger of hurting yourself? Doing something your body wasn’t ready for?”
I have to swallow, and clear my throat. “Yes. They’d tell me.”
“And you want to do the triathlon? You like that sort of thing?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly done one before,” I hedge. “But so far I like it. I like the training. And it seems important. Healthwise,” I add quickly.
“Then I think you should stick with it,” Hunter says. “It sounds like your biggest obstacle is your own insecurity. But I bet if I asked your friends at the Hub, they’d tell me you absolutely fit in and you’re absolutely ready.”
He’s right. Kudzu have shown nothing but faith in me. Naz is prickly, but she’s only one person out of a couple dozen. Everyone else just wants to help. “I just hope it’s as important as I think it is,” I say cautiously. “It’s a lot of work for something that ends up being”—life-threatening?— “a waste of time.”
“But only you can be the judge of that,” he says. “And you strike me as someone who has a good grasp of what’s important and what’s not.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. You’re smart.”
The hairs on my arms prick up a little. “Thanks,” I murmur, smiling self-consciously. “I, um—I liked the way you said that.”
He tips his head to the side, smiling at me quizzically.
“Sometimes when my best friend—or maybe, former best friend—used to say that, it sounded more like an accusation than a compliment. Even though I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way.”
“Former best friend?”
I wince, although a part of me knows I said that because I knew he’d ask about it. “Her name’s Izzy. I caught up with her a few days ago, and it didn’t end well. We had a fight.”
“What about?”
I regard him, sitting very still in my chair. I’m not about to break the law again. I choose each word with precision. “About Eden,” I say. “And the Badlands. We used to be the same. But now . . . Now things are different.” I pinch my fingers on my forehead, pressing them into my skin. “Maybe I overreacted,” I say with a frustrated groan. “Maybe it was stupid to fight. It’s just—she’s just—”
“Different,” he supplies quietly.
“Yeah.” I sigh heavily. “But we were friends for so long. How can that just change?”
“Because people change,” Hunter says. “And friendship is based on shared values. It sounds like you have more in common with the people at the Hub than with Izzy.” His voice softens with kindness, eyes bright with genuine compassion. “You’re being too hard on yourself. People change, and a year in the Badlands would change anyone. You’ve had experiences your friend will probably never have. You see things differently now. Take, for example, the scratch.” He gestures at it, in front of us both on the table. “What is it to a regular Edenite?”
I shrug. “I don’t know—an everyday thing. Something you think you can’t live without but you actually can.”
“And what is it to someone in the Badlands?”
I finger the thin gold scratch, raking my fingernails over its surface to produce a soft vvvvvv sound. “Something you’d fight for.”
“Exactly. The meaning and value you’ve assigned to things has changed,” he says.
His face is open and warm, displaying no judgment whatsoever. People do change. I’d changed. I didn’t mean to hurt Izzy. I wrap Hunter’s words around me like a cozy blanket.
“I have to go,” he says, glancing at the clock. “I have to go over some notes with Professor Rockwood before I leave.”
I’m surprisingly disappointed when he gets up. But before he disappears into Abel’s study, I say, “Hunter.”
He turns to face me. In the glow in the living room light, I can see the finest spray of freckles across his nose, only noticeable because his skin is so pale. I’m not sure why I called after him, and in the absence of anything planned, I just blurt out, “I really like talking with you.”
He smiles, a warm and almost delicate smile. “I like it too, Tess.”
For a moment the air around us feels twenty degrees hotter. Then his expression undergoes a complete metamorphosis. A myriad of emotions seems to flash across his face at once—confusion, embarrassment, nerves. He spins around and barrels straight into the wall with a muffled crash.
“Are you okay?” I gasp.
“Fine. I’m fine,” he stutters, stepping back. After another awkward glance in my direction, he turns and darts into the study.
Hunter’s advice stays with me. I resolve to have faith in myself, and it makes the next few weeks of my life some of the best ever.
I love spending time at Milkwood. I love the muggy hike at the beginning of each day, and the way my boots start to find the path that Ling knows so well. I love the first glimpse of Moon Lake, and how the clear morning light makes it shine like a diamond. I love the looks of genuine enthusiasm my arrival inspires in Benji and Lana. I love being part of a mission team. I love watching Achilles work on cracking the Liamond system and listening to Bo play the guitar. I even love how much Naz doesn’t like me.
The messy shared bedroom, Achilles’ darkened tech room, the unwieldy veggie garden—everything about Milkwood feels more and more like home. By comparison, the clean streets of Eden seem unimaginative and sterile. As Ling puts it, we live how we want to live at Milkwood, like the rabbits that run wild in the woods.
One day I arrive to find everyone choosing code names; Kudzu never uses real names on missions. “What’s yours?” I ask Ling.
“Samurai.” She grins, miming a sword fight.
Benji and Lana pick each other’s; Benji is Monkey. Lana is Angel.
Naz picks Bulldog.
Achilles wants to be Big Daddy.
“No,” Ling says flatly.
“Why not?” he protests.
“Because it’s silly and this is serious,” she says, exasperated. “Pick something else.”
“Dr. X.”
“No.”
“Chilly Willy.”
“No.”
“Gyan’s Lovechild, Tranq ’n’ Wank, Guilty As Charged, I’m With Stupid.”
Ling smiles sweetly. “You can just be Stupid.”
Achilles sighs. “Fine. I’ll be . . . Spike.”
I pick Storm. I’ve never seen a real storm. I think I’d like them.
After a few weeks, Gem and Kissy show me the Kudzu stream. I’ve never seen anything like it. Streams are soft and pretty: pastel clouds that soothe and relax. The Kudzu stream is a shove into oncoming traffic, a wake-up call. No new life until all life is equal leaps out, demanding the viewers’ attention. A spiky black-and-red design tells the story, with names changed to protect the guilty. Diamond-shaped boxes make the connection between artilects, Simutech, Moon Lake, and the Badlands.
It’s not just the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, it’s also the most eye-opening. An uncensored, unauthorized stream. Edenites won’t know what hit them.
Naz and Ling will have razers at Simutech. I won’t. Our plan doesn’t involve razers, Ling tells me, so it’s unnecessary and dangerous to have me wielding the powerful weapons. When I push as to why she and Naz will have them, she allows that in a worst-case scenario, she only wants the two most experienced people on the team using them. She can tell I’m disappointed, so as a compromise, she’ll teach me some basic fighting. When I tell her I already know how to fight—a year in the Badlands, remember?—she just shrugs. “Then hit me.”
I shake my head wryly. “I’m not going to hit you.”
“I know,” she says, with a cheeky smile.
Okay. Challenge accepted. I pop one fist out lightly.
She whirls out of the way. “Told you.”
I laugh, impressed. But this time, I’m going to try. I lunge at her again, quick as a fox. Again, she disappears from the end of my fist, spinning behind me. With a vise-like grip, she grabs my wrist and yanks it up behind my back. I gasp, relenting. “Okay, okay!”
She lets me go. “See, the thing about—”
Before she can finish, I swipe her legs out from underneath her with mine. She lands on her butt, and instantly I’m on top of her, arm against her throat. This time, I win.
She’s laughing as I let her go. “What’s so funny?” I ask.
“You fight like Naz.” She pulls bits of leaves out of her hair, grinning at me. “Dirty.”
I grin back. “Let’s go again.”
And so I learn how to fight. As Ling puts it, it’s more about how to defend yourself or overpower someone bigger or stronger than you. I learn that if someone chokes me from behind, I’m to lean forward, pull their arms off me, then spin around to knee them in the balls. “All the power in a choke hold comes from the thumbs.” Ling shows me. “But you don’t want it to become strength versus strength. You want to use your speed and agility to get out of it.”
When I ask her if she’s ever had to do this “in the field,” she just laughs. “Of course!” she exclaims, all bravado. “Guiders think they have a right to detain us, just for breaking the law.”
I ask, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
Ling’s smile disappears. I haven’t just touched a nerve; I’ve mauled one. She glances back in the direction of the house, and makes an excuse about having to check in with Achilles.
I tell myself I’m putting up with Hunter’s tutoring sessions to score a place to crash and appease Abel. But every night, I find myself returning home to Liberty Gardens more and more eagerly.
I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I’ve also never had a boy friend.
I like how engaged Hunter is with the world. We can talk about anything. And we do. It’s easy to get us to stop studying and talk about life. All I have to do is dangle a morsel of information about myself or a particularly strong opinion I have, and he’s in. And I like this. I like being the most interesting person in the world to someone.
My favorite thing about him is his eyes. Not just the color or the shape, but the way they move. Quick and darting; I can see him thinking. I wish I could be in his head, to know the thoughts he’s examining from every angle.
And we do actually study. Abel’s right about Hunter—he’s a great teacher. We jump around: natural sciences, psychology, expression, health and longevity. I’m delighted to learn he’s terrible at drama and music. I leap on this chink in his perfect armor, and pry it apart by insisting we perform passages from Romeo and Juliet out in Abel’s tiny courtyard. His wooden rendition is hilariously bad. I find myself replaying the stiff way he read Romeo’s flowery declarations of love for Juliet, and giggling to myself for days afterward.
Even though I hate admitting it, I’m dying to know if Hunter has a girlfriend. I keep picturing her: one of those irritatingly pretty girls who always had guys and girls interested in them and doesn’t even know that’s not what it’s like for everyone. Or maybe his girlfriend is one of those quirky arty types who wears long skirts and has a stream dedicated to her own poetry and is called something like Vivienne or Rain.
But obviously I can’t ask him about any of this. His love life feels extraordinarily off-limits. Besides, he never asks about mine.
At first, I don’t know how to act around Abel, so I do my best to avoid him without seeming like I’m avoiding him. Which, for someone who should be consumed by working on making an artilect for his buddies in the Trust, is actually pretty difficult. He pins me down for breakfast most mornings. I usually recap my tutoring session with Hunter while eating as fast as I can, and this seems to suffice. The Longevity Hub I’m allegedly spending all my time at is a good cover—a kickboxing class explains any strange bruises. I’m furious at Abel theoretically, but it’s hard to maintain it practically. Ling warned me not to ask him anything or spy on him at home. I find the best way to behave around him is to believe my own lies—that I really am his returned niece, grateful to be back in the city’s protection and slowly moving toward a complete recovery.
The only dark times are the nights. Some evenings I’m lucky, and the day’s events have me asleep before my head hits the pillow. But some nights are long. Sleep eludes me for hours and in its place are thoughts of my mother. I think about how she’d feel about what I’m doing now, if she’d approve, if she’d understand. I think about Magnus, standing to attention two floors below me. And I think about what happened. I only have to touch on it—those last twenty-four hours I spent in Eden—and I’m socked with enough guilt to know beyond the whisper of a doubt that I don’t actually deserve any of this.
I don’t deserve Kudzu’s faith in me. I don’t deserve Hunter’s interest. I don’t deserve Abel’s misplaced love.
As the cold, gray light of dawn edges over the horizon, I finally fall asleep with one thought repeating itself.
I don’t deserve love at all.
“Greetings.” Hunter smiles up at me from the dining room table and my stomach does a little backflip. Seeing him makes me feel relieved and relaxed, but also strangely anxious and excited. Like I’m coming home and leaving on an adventure at the same time.
“Greetings yourself,” I say, dumping my backpack on the floor.
He’s been waiting out my habitual lateness by playing chess against himself, moving the floating black and white pieces with his eyes. But now that I’m here, he closes the scratch and instead focuses on me. “How are you, Tess?”
My hands are rubbed raw from a few extra hours of intense roping. I keep them closed so Hunter doesn’t notice.
“I am excellent,” I tell him. “Is Abel here?”
“He’ll be back later,” Hunter replies. “He’s food collecting with Kimiko.”
“So, we have the house to ourselves, eh?” I say, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Want to riffle through Abel’s stuff? Raid the liquor cabinet?”
For a split second Hunter’s face flinches into alarm; then it relaxes into a patient, if amused, smile. “Or,” he says, “we can start on history.”
“Yours or mine?” I ask innocently, and am rewarded with a stern frown.
We spend the next hour testing my knowledge of ancient and modern history, from the collapse of the Roman Empire to World War 3. I name brutal kings and psychotic politicians—all men, I point out to Hunter—who were responsible for the messed-up societies of the past. I’m not bad at history, but the year away from education has left me a little rusty on exact dates. Hunter is unsurprisingly great with them. “Let me guess,” I tease him, after he corrects me for the fiftieth time. “You’re a history buff, as well as being a science geek.”
“I find history very interesting,” he concedes. “You have to admit, Eden’s history is quite fascinating.”
“I just wonder if we’re getting the whole story,” I say without thinking.
Hunter glances at me. “What do you mean?”
Hunter and I are alone in the house. I make an educated guess that this conversation can safely remain between us.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” I begin carefully, “that Eden has maintained a virtually crime-free city for decades?”
“What do you mean, ‘odd’?” Hunter asks.
“Considering the Trust controls . . .” I’m about the say “the streams,” but stop myself—I’d have to explain how I know that and I definitely do not plan on mentioning Kudzu. “So much of our daily life, isn’t it possible they’ve manipulated our understanding of history? Re-created the streams to say whatever they want?”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Hunter says slowly. “But it seems unlikely. The Trust has no need to manipulate anything. What you’re saying sounds a little paranoid,” he adds, with the gentle assurance of someone who knows he’s right.
“Maybe,” I muse, biting my lip. “It just seems weird to me. The history of the world is this fantastically awful tapestry of wars and injustice and cruelty, and then—bang!—along comes Gyan’s grandfather’s grandfather and suddenly, the Trust is the first perfect system of government ever?”
Hunter shrugs. “That doesn’t sound weird. That sounds clever.”
“A peaceful, crime-free city, and yet we still need Tranqs?”
“Protection ensures peace.”
“No member of the Trust has ever committed a corrupt act?” I push. “No Edenite has ever wanted to revolt or question the system?”
“We’ve evolved, Tess,” Hunter says patiently. “The Trust showed everyone how to live in a cohesive harmony.”
“C’mon Hunter,” I say. “You can’t say that without addressing Mr. White Elephant in the corner.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Trust isn’t actually a perfect system, is it?”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re letting the Badlands starve to death,” I say simply. “No matter how well Eden functions, it’ll never be perfect while the Badlands is what it is.”
Hunter rubs his chin with just a hint of agitation. I can tell he disagrees with me. For a moment I think he’s going to start arguing. But then he drops his hand and his face clears. “Tell me about the Badlands.” His eyes pierce mine, seeming to drill right through me.
And so I do.
I tell him about peyote parties with moon worshippers, out near the shimmering Salt Flats in the west. I tell him about learning to gamble with the Yaquero, a foul-mouthed gang who ran a black market way down in the Valley, and how I had to skip town after losing a stupid $1,000 bet to them. I describe sleeping under the stars and waking up when the sun rose, majestic and brutal, over the horizon. I describe learning to handle a knife, dress a wound, and avoid being groped in a crowd. I tell him about learning Malspeak and how to steal and how not to get your stuff stolen.
I entertain him with my best horror stories. The night I sucked snake poison out of a total stranger’s leg, or the week I lived on nothing but ancient sweets in an old, abandoned candy factory, but then got disgustingly sick to the point where now, just looking at a piece of licorice makes me want to throw up.
And I tell him about the loneliness. The fear. The sadness. The way my life became both so small—the sum parts of a backpack—and somehow infinite and enormous.
“I’d never felt as alive as I did out there,” I say. “There was always something to do, someone to help, something going on. If anything got too much, or a routine got so easy that I had time to think too much, I’d pack up and move on.”
He nods, absorbing every word.
“But a year out there felt like ten,” I admit. “It wasn’t home.” And, I add silently, neither is Eden anymore.
“It sounds like life is pretty hard out there.”
“That’s putting it lightly.” I snort. “All the ‘problems’ I used to have in Eden seemed so ridiculous when I realized how most people were living. Or not living.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not really living out there,” I say soberly. “It’s surviving. And most people aren’t even doing that. They’re just dying.”
The words hang between us, heavy and hard in their truth.
I glance at the time, shocked to see it’s after nine. I’ve been monologuing about the Badlands for over an hour. I feel exposed, but not in a bad way. In fact, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I let out a sigh.
“So, back to history?” he suggests.
I shake my head. “I think we need to even the scales a bit first.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You know a ton of stuff about me,” I point out. “I want to know a few things about you.”
He gives me a guarded look. “What kind of things?”
Asking about a girlfriend would give too much away. I try to make my voice sound playful, like my question doesn’t really matter. “Tell me about your first kiss.”
Hunter’s face clouds over. He sits back a little in his seat, away from me. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I repeat, as if I’m surprised. I didn’t think he’d actually answer.
“I didn’t realize that was the sort of thing we’d be talking about,” he says slowly, giving me a strange look.
I’m about to tell him not to worry about it and hey, let’s get back to history, when he skids his chair around the table, right next to mine. Challenge accepted. I am thrilled.
His voice is low, that of a coconspirator. “Since you asked, Emily Anderson was the first girl I ever kissed. She had red hair and freckles—”
“Aw.” I giggle.
“She was the girl next door.”
“No!”
“Okay, she lived across the street,” he concedes.
“How old were you?”
“Ten and a half. Well, ten and eight months, to be exact.”
“You would’ve been cute back then.”
He smiles, accepting the compliment. “I guess some people considered me cute. Emily and I would swim in my father’s pool after pre-ed. And one day she decided we should play pirates and mermaids.”
“Sexy,” I say.
“Except she wanted to be the pirate and I had to be the mermaid,” he continues.
“Double sexy.” I laugh.
“I informed her I would not pretend to be a mermaid—“
“Very sensible.” I nod.
“And then I told her she was prettier than any mermaid I’d ever seen. And then I kissed her.” He smiles. His eyes are in the middle distance, looking back on the faraway memory. I can picture it so clearly: mini Hunter, adorable in his pint-sized form, pecking this bossy redhead on the mouth and surprising them both. “It was the perfect first kiss. Sun shining through the trees, beautiful summer’s afternoon . . .”
“So, what happened to her?” I’m distinctly aware of how much I don’t want this pretty little redhead in Hunter’s life anymore.
He purses his lips, thinking. “I don’t know, to be honest.”
This pleases me. “Well, you know what they say about redheads.” “What do they say?”
“Steal your heart then rob you blind,” I tell him, poking him in the chest with my finger. “You should stay away from redheads.”
“I never heard that before.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “That’s because I just made it up.”
He laughs. It’s the first real laugh I’ve ever gotten out of him. It completely transforms his face, softening it. He leans toward me, both forearms on the table. “So, are you going to tell me about your first kiss, Tess?”
I bite my lip, trying not to blush.
“Come on.” He nudges me playfully. “I told you.”
“Okay,” I relent, a little overwhelmed by how many Hunter rules he’s breaking. “But this doesn’t leave this room, okay?”
He nods, excited. “Agreed.”
“Okay.” I draw in a deep breath. This story is kind of embarrassing. “I was kissed by Joey Lucas, twin brother of the equally cute Bobby Lucas. But here’s the kicker. I was the short straw.”
“You were a straw?”
I explain the story. The boys both liked Izzy, and worked out the best way to get to her was a double date. Like an idiot, I thought Joey was actually into me. We got spicy noodles in Charity then watched a stream artist weave patterns of music and color. Sometime around midnight, when the night was velvety and the stars looked brighter than usual, Joey kissed me. My first kiss ever. Then he asked if I thought Izzy would ever go out with him.
“Joey Lucas sounds like an idiot,” Hunter observes.
I shrug, picking at my cuticles. “Whatever. Learned my lesson there. You know,” I add tentatively, “I’ve never told anyone that story.”
“Too humiliating?” he guesses, and I nod. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I can’t imagine you being anyone’s short straw.”
My cheeks start to tingle warmly. “Thanks.”
His gaze moves with uncharacteristic slowness all around my face. “You’re very interesting, Tess.”
“Interesting?”
“You’re full of contradictions.” He props his chin onto one hand, eyes narrowed in concentration. “When we met, you pulled a knife on me—” I groan with embarrassed laughter. “But you’re also quite sensitive. You love your friend Izzy, but you won’t bend to her will. You can be guarded; you can also be open. You seem determined to challenge the authority of the Trust yet you don’t break any laws. Sometimes you seem shy. Sometimes you’re the most confident person I’ve ever met.”
“What you’re saying is, I’m a mess.”
“No. No!” he exclaims. “Not at all. I’m saying you’re interesting.” He reaches over and squeezes one of my hands. I flinch and gasp in pain.
“Are you okay?” he asks, instantly concerned.
“I’m fine.” I curl my fingers inward to hide the blisters. “Just had an intense workout today.”
He leans forward to get a better look at my hands. “May I?”
Oh so gently, he turns my hands over and examines them. This is the first time Hunter has touched me. He’s so close I can smell him—a sharp, woodsy, clean smell. Like peppermint mixed with ash. Cologne? Shampoo? I’m not sure, but it’s sort of intoxicating and makes me feel strangely hungry, even though I just ate.
Hunter runs one long finger over the reddest, sorest part of my palm. I catch myself flinching both at the soreness and the feather-light touch. “How did this happen?” he asks.
“I kind of fell down a rope,” I confess. My voice isn’t much more than a whisper. “Not very graceful. They’re fine, really.”
He glances up from my palms, studying me. But then his look changes from a fact-finding mission and into . . . a gaze. His eyes soften. His whole face softens, like sunlight slowly warming a dark space. His hands shift beneath mine, as if exploring what it’s like to touch me. A surge of energy rockets between us, landing as a soft slow explosion in my chest. We’re staring at each other. My breath trips in my throat.
Hunter drops my hands. His tenderness vanishes as fast as a buzzcar.
“If you say so,” he says. The wall is back, but this time he’s thrown in a moat for good measure. “We’re done here.” He gets up and starts heading toward Abel’s study.
“Hunter!” I call after him, getting to my feet.
He turns to meet my eyes blankly. “What?”
“You don’t have to be weird about it,” I tell him hotly.
“About what?”
I roll my eyes. “Nothing, obviously. I just want to make sure we’re okay.”
“Of course we are,” he replies, in a way that makes me sure that the exact opposite is true. Without another word, he turns and leaves the room.
I sink back down at the dining room table, reeling.
What.
Was.
That?