“Don’t stop,” I whispered. I wanted this, wanted him, and I was so, so afraid that he’d change his mind. That I would be judged and found lesser, not enough. Or that he’d have an attack of good-guy conscience, worrying that I was making a decision under duress. When, in my life, hadn’t I been under duress? But this wasn’t about that. This was about what I wanted, what we wanted. A tiny piece of freedom of our own making. And I didn’t want to leave without this memory…
“Ariane,” he murmured against my throat.
…I wanted to have this to take with me, when I was gone. Maybe I wouldn’t have the memory for more than a few hours before I no longer existed. But I wanted it for those minutes.
“Ariane,” he said again, more urgently, pulling himself up on his elbows, and holding himself over me until I looked up at him, my eyes stinging.
He framed my face with his hands, brushing my hair away from my flushed face, his gaze searching mine. “I won’t. Unless you say so, I won’t stop. I promise, okay?” Even without being able to read my thoughts, he knew what I was worried about, and his eyes were asking the question that was really at the core of all of this, which was: Trust me?
And I did.
ARIANE WAS TUCKED UNDER MY arm, her skin bare against mine, and it was an amazing, unreal feeling. I’d never felt that close—literally or otherwise—to anyone.
She was quiet, her breathing was slow and even, but the high from that moment kept me from completely dozing off.
So I was mostly awake when she slid out from under my arm, taking care not to jostle me.
She hadn’t been asleep, then. Her caution might have read as concern for my well-being, an attempt to let me rest. But there was a furtive quality to her movements as she got dressed.
The faint clutch of dread that had started when Ariane first suggested her plan of splitting up grew more intense in my gut.
I waited, but she didn’t wake me. Didn’t run a hand over my shoulder or whisper my name.
That’s when I knew. She’d wait until the last second to tell me she was leaving, so I wouldn’t have a chance to ask many questions before she disappeared for good.
I listened to the soft sounds of her feet on the carpet, hoping, praying I was wrong. But when the whispers of fabric moving gave way to the faintest squeak of hinges on the bedroom doors, I couldn’t stay still any longer.
I sat up, fury making my pulse pound. “Were you going to tell me? Or just let me figure it out when you never showed up?”
She froze in the doorway, the truth written in her stiffened posture.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said, turning to face me.
“No, but you’ve got a good guess. You promised. No self-sacrifice.”
“I promised I would try,” she corrected gently. “And I will.”
But she didn’t believe she’d succeed. And that right there said it all.
I should have known. I grabbed my clothes from the floor and got dressed, motions jerky with anger and hurt.
After all we’d been through, together and separately, this was how it was going to end. Her death would facilitate my life (for a little longer, anyway) and perhaps I’d get a chance to prevent GTX and Laughlin Integrated from doing to someone else what they’d done to her and the others. But for the size and scale of the sacrifices we’d made, particularly Ariane, that payoff was a joke.
It was just wrong.
But I knew what she would say if I pointed that out—life isn’t fair or balanced, especially not where she was concerned. Because of who she was and the circumstances of her creation, she had even fewer expectations of the opportunities the rest of us took for granted. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, all of that.
And maybe that assessment was accurate, but that didn’t mean it was right.
Gritting my teeth in frustration and to keep all my angry but useless words in, I grabbed the remote from the bedside table, clicked on the television, and found one of the local stations, which was on commercial.
“Zane,” she said quietly as she moved toward me, her hand raised in a pleading gesture.
I braced myself in anticipation of her touch, her cool fingers against my skin, and she must have read that because she stopped abruptly.
“It’s after six,” I said. “The news is on. I’m going to check to see if there’s more from my mom.”
“I have to go, but I don’t want to leave it like this,” Ariane said, sounding helpless but resolved. “I don’t know what to say to make you believe. That’s why I—”
“It’s back,” I said, nodding at the television, where the news had returned from commercial. I didn’t want to hear any more explanation, another round of rationalizing. I got it. This was for the best, and nothing I could say or do would convince her otherwise. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t hate it with every cell in my body.
I knew what she was looking for; she wanted me to be okay with it. To say that I understood and I was okay with the actions ahead of us.