Now my heart is beating too hard for an entirely different, equally perplexing reason.
“Why?” Why would he be willing to take such risks for me? If it had been one of my identicals trapped with him in that elevator, would he have gone through so much trouble to talk to her, or would he and that hypothetical identical simply have parted ways after the elevator incident and gone about their separate lives?
Why are Trigger and I still thinking about each other six weeks later?
“Because you spoke to me.”
“Because I…?”
“In the elevator. You were as scared of talking to me—of breaking a rule—as you were of plummeting to your death. But you did it. A lot. You’re like a pretty little hydroponic flower, but you have wild roots. Dahlia, you look like a gardener, but you feel like a fighter.”
Something deep inside me stirs. Something…hungry.
We’re only a couple of feet apart—even closer than we were in the elevator—and I have a sudden inexplicable urge to close the distance between us. To touch him.
I’ve never wanted to touch any of the boys in my union. That impulse seems very strange. Yet it doesn’t feel wrong.
“What?” Trigger has noticed me staring. “Is there something on my face?” He runs one hand over his jawline, and it makes a soft scratching sound against the short stubble on his chin.
“No. Well, I mean it looks like you need to shave, and I…” I can’t look away.
One corner of his mouth turns up and I suddenly feel like he can see right through my skull into my most private thoughts. “You want to feel it?”
“I don’t…I couldn’t…” If there are rules against talking to members of other divisions, there must be rules against touching members of other divisions. Yet I can’t think of any, probably because it never occurred to Management that we would try.
I mean, we’d have to be looking for trouble, right?
“I can’t…”
Trigger takes my hand, and my heart leaps into my throat. I’ve never touched a boy before. His hand is warm but not really soft. There is a thick bit of scar tissue on his thumb, and I can’t resist moving my finger over the smooth lump.
I look up and his gaze captures mine. All the warmth from his hand rushes through me and settles into my face. Touching him is one thing, but watching him while we’re touching feels somehow both prohibited and familiar. Forbidden and intimate in a way I’ve never considered before.
Trigger lifts my hand toward his face and I suck in a deep breath. He smiles as if the sound means something to him. Something he likes very much. He presses my fingertips against the back of his jaw, just below his ear, and I’m surprised by how stiff the stubble is there. How coarse.
He drags my hand slowly down his jaw toward his chin, and the sensation is prickly but warm. The combination is strangely enthralling. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever felt. So rough and—
My fingers slide over his bottom lip, and the transition between rough and soft is so jarring I’m almost startled by it. So startled that I don’t even realize at first that his hand is gone. I’m in charge of my fingers, and they seem to have found his mouth on their own.
I look up until my gaze meets his again. I can’t make sense of the intense look in his eyes, but it makes my flush deepen. His pupils are dilated. His breathing has become slow and deep.
Then I realize I’m still touching his lip.
I jerk my hand away and smooth my hair back from my forehead, trying to disguise my embarrassment.
“So?” Trigger asks. “Does it feel like you expected?”
“I don’t know what I expected.” I don’t know how to look at him anymore after having lost control of my own hand.
“It will feel different in the morning. After I shave,” he says, and despite my ironclad certainty that it will never be possible, I want to feel that too.
“We have to go. I have to get back before…” Before I lose all ability to function. “Before someone figures out what we’re doing.”
What are we doing? Is it so terrible to want to know what beard stubble feels like? Is this more evidence of a genetic flaw, or would any girl do the same thing, given the opportunity?
It’s easy to follow the rules when you’re never given an opportunity to break them.
Maybe I’m not flawed. Trigger attributes his misbehavior not to a genetic flaw but to experiences he’s had that his identicals have not. Could that be true for me?
No. Cadets are designed with different genetic traits than laborers are. He’s supposed to react differently in any given situation than I am.
So why do I understand everything he’s told me? Why do I not just comprehend it but feel it?
There is something seriously wrong with me. I am dangerously flawed, and every moment I spend here with him is another moment I’m putting my sisters’ lives at risk. Poppy’s life.
“Trigger, I…”
He steps closer, and his proximity steals the words from my tongue. If I inhale too deeply, we will be touching. “Yes, Dahlia?”
I can feel the heat radiating from his body. He’s so close that I have to look up to see his face. “We have to go. Promise me you’ll never do this again. For both our sakes. For our identicals’ sakes.”
“You’re really scared.” His smile fades with the realization, and the heat in his eyes cools. “I was very careful, Dahlia. No one will know about the hacking, and unless you tell them, no one will know about this stairwell.”
I believe him. I can see that the last thing he wants is to put me in danger. But things are different for me in a way he clearly can’t understand. I am rarely ever without the company of my classmates, and every moment that I am draws notice. Management doesn’t want laborers to know things we don’t need to know, because that will distract us from our purpose. I’ve seen that very clearly over the past few weeks.
Management is right.
This is wrong.
“Promise me, Trigger 17.”
Finally he nods. “I promise. But I can’t promise I won’t look for you.”
I don’t argue, because I can’t promise him the same thing. “I think looking is okay, as long as no one notices. But this is not.”
He nods again and takes a step back, putting more air between us. More distance. But his gaze has snagged on my mouth. My attention is drawn to his lips too, just as my fingers were. I’m not surprised by that, but I can’t articulate why. I can’t explain my growing fascination with his mouth.
“We should go. Separately.”
He looks disappointed, but he agrees. So I take a deep breath and try to swallow my own disappointment over how very final my exit feels. Then I step out of the stairwell and close the door at my back. And I walk away from Trigger 17 again.