I give a grimacing smile. “Even if that were true, the analogy follows. He’s probably sharpening his butchering knives right now.”
“And you’re joking.” He almost laughs, but doesn’t move away, looking me straight in the eyes. “Most of your life has been balanced against an ax, and yet you still had a joke to tell or someone to cheer up.” He looks away, discomfort creeping into his voice when my brows begin to furrow with questions about how he would know one way or another from his pedestal up on the Steppe. “Dr. Yang made me promise to stay away from you back in the City, but I knew you. I wanted to, anyway.”
She’s the only one like me. That’s what he said the first night we met. I still don’t know what that means, but I don’t know how to ask. It feels too close, as if asking what he meant will sound like I’m asking a very different sort of question.
Our noses are almost touching, and I have to look down. Something stirs inside of me and I want to reach out, to let all this electricity out of my body. He’s so close, the static air humming in between us.
“Why?” he asks. “When everything is wrong, why are you still smiling?”
I think for a second. “I never thought feeling sorry for myself did much. Knowing that things are hopeless and lying down for the ax are two different things. My life has always been mine, even back in the City when I didn’t have any control over when it ended. No one can tell me who I am or what I am capable of. Not my mother, not the Firsts, not even you.”
The silence feels heavy, as if what I said should be offensive. Or laughable. But instead, Howl brushes a hand across my cheek.
“That’s why I like you.” Slowly, very slowly, his arms fold around me, pulling me up against him. I freeze, knowing that this is what I wanted two seconds ago, but now that it is happening, it frightens me. He smells like spicy Mountain soap, cinnamon, and nutmeg. One hand runs up my arm and brushes my jaw, softly turning my face up toward his. His breath is warm on my cheeks and nose, waiting. My mind races, wondering how this could happen to me. Is this a hallucination? Am I staring off into space under the stars with my lips burning?
I don’t care. I lean forward a breath. And his lips brush mine. Again. A shiver runs through me, and my hands curl in his hair, brushing his stubbly cheeks.
His fingers trail under my ear, down my neck, as he whispers, “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d follow you out of this place. I just can’t figure out why you want to take me with you.”
CHAPTER 26
SHING. METAL RINGS AGAINST METAL above my face. My head presses hard into my lumpy pillow.
Again.
It’s a knife, Cale’s face shadowy in the dark of our room. I keep very still as the blade lashes out again, a brush of air rushing down to dust across my eyelashes. I’m afraid to even try moving, knowing I’ll not be able to twitch a single finger in the midst of this nightmare. Terrified I’ll find myself trapped inside my own skin, Asleep again and living in a constant stream of hallucinations. The knife’s keen edge strikes again, even closer. Cale’s bone bracelet scrapes across my cheek.
“Stay away from Helix.” Slam. The bed shakes with the violence of the blow. My lungs won’t inflate.
“And stop running. We’re going to take it,” Cale whispers, blue eyes almost amused, as though she knows I cannot move. “Not even Howl can stop us.”
The knife comes slower this time, tracing across my forehead.
A hand on my shoulder jerks me awake. Mei doesn’t stop to make sure my eyes are open, jumping down from the side of my elevated bed as a gasp rips from my lungs. I put a hand up to my forehead, searching for evidence of Cale’s blade.
“Inspection!” Mei hops on one foot, trying to tie her boot while opening the door with her elbow. “Put your clothes on before Captain Lan comes through, okay? Cale is already out for your blood.”
Out for my blood? The comment drills deeper than it should, my heart still racing from the nightmarish hallucination of Cale’s cold blue eyes hovering over me in the dark. I jump out of bed, bumping into one of the support beams in my haste to comply, my hand scraping against loose paint as I grab the bedpost to keep from falling over. I am just pulling on my socks when Helix’s slicked head pokes through the door.
Helix smiles as he looks me up and down, but he doesn’t say anything, just nods once and pulls back out of the room.
Cale’s face flashes by the doorway, shadowing Helix’s leisurely check in each room down the hall. I meet her eyes as she passes, but I hate the way my heart races. I’m not going to be scared today. I’m done with fear.
I try to let my mind go to happier things. To last night, just the thought of Howl starting a smile on my face. I finish pulling on my shoes, untangling the laces with cold fingers, wondering where all the flakes of paint decorating the leather came from. White paint. It’s all over my hands, too.
When I give the room one last check, my eyes fall on my bedpost. A series of lines cut into the metal, paint scraped away in places where I grabbed it in my haste to get out of bed. White paint.
Was it not a hallucination? Was Cale really testing her knife blade on my bedpost? I jerk with surprise as the door slams open again, ready for Yizhi white or Cale or worse. But it’s just Mei, ducking her head as she comes back into the room.
I let my lungs empty, willing my heart to slow. “No training today?” What did Cale mean, they were going to “take it”? Take what?
“Our unit is on active patrols tonight. No training.” She looks at the wall, one hand up against the side of her face. As if she’s hiding something. “How about some breakfast?”
Howl promised to bring me some breakfast up by the maintenance grid. “I don’t know, Mei. I was going to . . .”
“To what?” She looks up, smile stretching her wide mouth. But it’s broken. Both of her eyes are dark with bruises, and her lip is split. She ignores my look of consternation, speaking over the question I start to voice. “Come on. Eat with me.”
“Mei . . . what . . . ?” I touch my own eye, and she flinches.
“I . . . messed up yesterday.”
“What do you mean, you messed up?”
She shrugs uncomfortably. “Helix really wants our unit to be chosen for some operation they’re working on upstairs.”
“Helix might as well give up now.” A male voice intrudes, making me jump again. It’s Kasim, slipping into the room and closing the door. “Because my unit could bend yours over backward. Can I trick you two ladies into sitting with me for breakfast? I haven’t seen our little celebrity since she first got here.” He doesn’t even look twice at the bruises decorating Mei’s face.
Mei doesn’t bring it up either, grinning back at him, but flinching when the crack in her swollen lip breaks open. “Kasim, if they catch you on this floor again, General Root is going to bump you down a rank.” She gets up to check the hallway. “Come on. I think it’s clear.”
Kasim offers his elbow, but I put a hand up. “I’m supposed to meet someone.”
“Got something special planned?” He gives me a knowing grin. “Because I happen to know that all of Nei-ge is locked up in some meeting.”
“Why would meetings in Nei-ge interfere with Sev’s plans . . . ?” Mei’s shadowed eyes go back to me. “You’re . . . involved with that guy? The First?”
A blush creeps across my cheeks, the clear memory of Howl’s arms around me last night a warm glow in my chest. “I . . .”
“Yeah, look at the way she’s going all red.” Kasim’s smile is too wide, and he lazily drapes an arm around my shoulders. “You’ve got me all curious. Howl never had much to do with girls before.”
Mei goes to the door again, her characteristic smile turned downward. “I don’t know why they let him in here. He’s never gone a day without a bath and a shave, walked straight into a cushy job up in the Heart . . .”