“I’m sorry for yesterday. I shouldn’t have lost my cool with you, Kaia,” he murmured.
His eyes held honest regret, with perhaps even a tinge of nausea over the whole thing, and holding grudges had never really been my thing. It took too much energy, not to mention I’d always been a big fan of the old adage about keeping enemies as close as friends. “It’s fine. Thank you.”
Oz lowered his voice to a whisper. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve got to stop seeing him. I don’t want to report your use of Jonah’s cuff—”
“Then don’t,” I hissed back.
He stepped on my already pinched toe, and I winced.
“Sorry.” Oz’s cheeks flushed red, but he quickly shook off his embarrassment at his truly horrendous dancing. “Like I said, I don’t want to turn you in but I will if it comes to that, in order to keep you safe. You have to trust me.”
Irritation spiked my blood, speeding my pulse until it throbbed in my forehead. I started to pull away before I caught Elder Truman’s eye over his son’s shoulder, and his cold, narrowed gaze kept me in place. I forced my eyes back to Oz’s and gritted my teeth, squeezing my fingers tighter around his. “People keep saying that. I don’t want to be safe, I want to know. Being kept in the dark pisses me off.”
His fingers gripped my waist with more force, and he swallowed hard. His gaze softened until it almost pleaded. For a brief moment, the quiet, nonconfrontational Oz reappeared, painting the changes in him over the past couple of weeks in a harsher light. “I know you as well as anyone, Kaia, and your curiosity isn’t a well-kept secret. As your friend, I’m asking you to leave this alone.”
When I didn’t answer, he ducked his face until I couldn’t avoid his gaze. “I know what you’re thinking. But you can’t save him.”
My heart stopped. The fingers on my free hand went to the necklace hanging against my chest, some kind of tick, or tell, though of what I couldn’t be sure. I swallowed two times, and then again, struggling to find a response that didn’t sound defensive or like a lie. Nothing emerged, and the song ended. Oz turned me loose as though he’d been burned.
“Thank you for the dance.” He left me standing there, unable to make my brain cooperate as far as words.
Determination simmered to a boil, because although his ability to read my desires unnerved me, it didn’t change the annoying fact that both he and Jonah assumed they knew what was best for me. “Whatever you’re mixed up in, Oz, I’m going to find out what it is. I double dog dare you to stop me,” I muttered under my breath.
*
Oz and Sarah steered clear of me for the rest of the night, mostly dancing on their own, sometimes hanging around with some of Oz’s older friends from his reflection-intensive study group. Analeigh had gone to the bathroom when I noticed the congregation of Elders had split up. Some of the overseers moved around the room, speaking to their apprentices, congratulating the older kids getting ready to join their ranks, and others had excused themselves. But four were huddled together and headed for the rear door, three of whom had questioned me yesterday. Quiet warnings that had blipped on my radar since talking with Jonah escalated into pealing bells.
Zeke’s hunched figure shuffled toward the exit. Maude stood at his elbow, supporting him lightly. Minnie and Truman followed the head Elder’s subtle nod, and a moment later, Oz slipped out behind them. Without thinking too hard about the consequences, I waited a minute and then followed.
The hallway loomed, empty and lit by energy-efficient lightbulbs. One flickered overhead, in need of a tightening or a change, and cast an eerie pall over the scene as I pulled off my heels. I didn’t know what I was doing, only that if something secretive was happening at the Academy, like Jonah said, I’d bet my one and only set of pretty teeth that Oz knew what it was. If he was sneaking off to some kind of private Elder meeting about the past being the future or whatever nonsense he’d spouted earlier, I wanted to hear it, too.
The hallway went two directions. One led toward the rest of the common areas, the dormitories, and the mess hall, the other toward the Archives, Research facilities, and the offices. That was the direction I chose.
Voices echoed back at me after only a minute—for once the stark metal and glass design of all the buildings on Sanchi offered something other than a constant chill. I stopped at the next branch in the hallway, unwilling to turn the corner until the voices moved farther away. They definitely headed in the direction of the Archives, which didn’t make much sense. All of the Elders had table comps in their personal offices, along with smaller versions of the holo-walls. They weren’t as elaborate as the ones in the Archives—more like a chart as opposed to a map, and there were no running scenes being observed, but they were functional.
As I took a step forward, intent on continuing to snoop until they arrived at a destination and settled in for whatever discussion they were about to have, a warm hand clamped down over my mouth.
Chapter Twenty-One
I struggled, elbowing my captor in the gut hard enough to knock the wind out of him and loosen his hold, then whirled around to find Oz rubbing his stomach.
“Are you following me?” I hissed, trying to remember that the sound-bouncing hallways worked both ways and the Elders hadn’t gone far.
“I’m pretty sure you were following me.”
“And you were following the Elders. Don’t let me stop you.” I turned and continued my trek, silent in my bare feet, but the pant of his breathing told me he followed. I ignored him, intent on my mission. Hoping he’d get annoyed and give up.