A few beats of silence stretch between us. “Aren’t you kind of used to it by now?” I say, because I can’t help it.
The left corner of his mouth twitches upward: a tiny smile. He looks at me sideways.
“I guess there are some things you never get used to,” he says, and for no reason at all, I think of Alex and feel a tightening in my stomach.
“I guess so,” I say.
Later on there is a change, a shift in the silence. I have been lying on the cot, preserving my strength, but now I sit up.
“What is it?” Julian says, and I hold up my hand to quiet him.
Footsteps on the other side of the door, coming closer. Then a grinding sound, as the hinges on the small metal cat flap squeak open.
Instantly I dive to the ground, trying to catch a glimpse of our captors. I land hard on my right shoulder just as a tray clatters through the opening and the metal door bangs shut again.
“Damn.” I sit up, kneading my shoulder. The plate holds two thick chunks of bread and several ropes of beef jerky. They’ve given us a metal bottle filled with water as well. Not bad, considering some of the stuff I used to eat in the Wilds.
“See anything?” Julian asks.
I shake my head.
“It wouldn’t help us much, I guess.” He hesitates for a second and then slides off the bed, joining me on the ground.
“Information always helps,” I say, a little too sharply. That’s something else I learned from Raven. Of course Julian wouldn’t understand. People like Julian don’t want to know, or think, or choose anymore; that is part of the point.
We both reach for the water, and our hands collide over the tray. Julian jerks back as though he has been burned.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“You first,” he says.
I take the water and begin sipping, watching Julian the whole time. He tears the bread into pieces. I can tell he’s trying to make it last; he must be starving.
“Have my bread,” I say. I’m not sure why I offer it to him. It isn’t smart. I’ll need my strength to break out of here.
He stares at me. Strangely, despite the rest of his coloring—caramel-and-wheat-blond hair, blue eyes—his lashes are thick and black. “Are you sure?”
“Take it,” I say, and almost add, Before I change my mind.
The second piece he eats greedily, with both hands. When he’s finished, I pass him the water bottle, and he hesitates before bringing it to his mouth.
“You can’t catch it from me, you know,” I tell him.
“What?” He starts a little, as though I’ve interrupted a long period of silence.
“The disease. Amor deliria nervosa. You can’t catch it from me. I’m safe.” Alex told me that very same thing, once. I push the memories of him away, willing them deep into the darkness. “And besides, you can’t catch it from sharing water and food, anyway. That’s a myth.”
“You can get it from kissing,” Julian says, after a pause. He hesitates before he says the word kissing. It’s not a word that gets used very much anymore, except in private.
“That’s different.”
“Anyway, I’m not worried about that,” Julian says forcefully, and takes a big slug of water as if to prove it.
“What are you worried about, then?” I take my rope of jerky, lean back against the wall, and start working it with my teeth.
He won’t meet my eyes. “I just haven’t spent that much time with—”
“Girls?”
He shakes his head. “Anyone,” he says. “Anyone my own age.”
We make eye contact for a second then, and a little jolt goes through me. His eyes have changed: Now the crystal waters have deepened and expanded, become an ocean of swirling color—greens and golds and purples.
Julian seems to feel he has said too much. He stands up, walks to the door, and returns. This is the first sign of agitation I’ve seen from him. All day he has been remarkably still.
“Why do you think they’re keeping us here?” he asks.
“Ransom, probably.” It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Julian fingers the cut on his lip, considering this. “My father will pay,” he says after a beat. “I’m valuable to the movement.”
I don’t say anything. In a world without love, this is what people are to each other: values, benefits, and liabilities, numbers and data. We weigh, we quantify, we measure, and the soul is ground to dust.
“He won’t like dealing with the Invalids, though,” he adds.
“You don’t know they’re responsible for this,” I say quickly, and then regret it. Even here, Lena Morgan Jones must act the way she is supposed to.