But I wasn’t scared enough. Not nearly enough. Because Samara is also on her hands and knees, and she is not seeing what’s in front of her. She’s seeing something terrible, doing something terrible. In her mind. She opens her mouth, and I know what kind of sound she is about to make. I’ve heard that scream.
I tackle her, like a kid in a full-out game of crush-tag, and get a hand over her mouth. She fights me, hard, and we start a silent sort of wrestling match, the only difference being that I’m not willing to hurt her, and she is very willing to hurt me. She slams my head once against the stone, and then I get on top of her and pin her down.
“Samara,” I whisper directly in her ear. “Wake up.”
She doesn’t. She struggles. I shake her head, then slap her face once, enough to make it sting. “Sam!”
The fight goes straight out of her, and I see her eyes focus. Then she closes them again and breathes hard. I let go of her mouth, and still on my knees, hold her half upright with one arm, get a hand on a door latch and push it open, dragging her through without really standing up, keeping us below the sight lines of the railing. The light from the two lamps is dazzling after so much dark. I click the door shut, and pull Sam to one side, away from the paned glass. Samara isn’t calm but she’s silent, two tears streaking down her cheeks. I pull her up high enough to look at me, get her face in my hands.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.” I think I’m telling myself we’re okay. “Are you all right?”
She isn’t. She closes her eyes and cries, still silent, or as silent as she can be. I bring her head to my neck and hold her there, like I did the first time, in the caves, only this time I stroke her hair, her heaving back, and put my cheek on her head, anything to make it better. My chest is slamming, breath still coming hard, and she smells like Outside fires and Underneath perfume. I can’t believe we’re not caught.
She cries for a long time, calming until I’m still and just holding her again. Her breathing slows, changes, the hand that was on my shoulder sliding experimentally up my neck and just beneath the collar of the shirt, feeling my skin. I stroke her hair one time. Then she lifts her head, sits back just a little, her beautiful eyes still wet, heavy-lidded. And she reaches up, and takes the glasses off my face.
I feel my pulse ramp up again. She runs a thumb across my cheek. And then she leans in and kisses me. Slow. My hand squeezes, full of her hair, and she pulls away, eyes closed, waiting. I’m not sure I’m breathing.
I say, “Will that be a good memory?”
She opens her eyes. “Yes.”
“Do you want another?”
“Yes.”
I bring her mouth back to mine and kiss her again, and again, and now she’s like she was in the cave, only this time she doesn’t hesitate, and she doesn’t stop. We’re on some kind of thick rug, and I press her into it while she pulls me down, keeping her still while she’s desperately struggling not to be. I break away from her mouth, and I like the noise she makes when I kiss her neck, breathe her smell, explore the triangle of skin left open by her collar.
And somewhere in the back of my mind I know that this is crazy. That it’s dangerous and not the time. And I really don’t care. I’ve never wanted anything this bad, and Samara’s hands are under my shirt, down my back and up my sides, fingernails stratching, and then she goes still. Like somebody threw a switch. I hold her and wait, and I hear it, too. The sharp click of a heel on stone, just on the other side of the door.
We scramble across the floor, to the far side of a gold-covered bed I hadn’t even noticed was there, lying low, out of sight if the door opens. I hear another click of a heel, and another, and then swear loud inside my head, reaching out beyond the bed to snatch the glasses off the floor. We lie side by side, listening, and I slide on the glasses and look.
I can see through the wooden door but only through the door, a hazy picture with limited scope. There’s a hallway, with occasional rugs, not carpet. And I catch the silhouette of a woman. Or what I think is a woman, from the way she moves. I hear one more click of a shoe, distant, and the closing of a faraway door.
I meet Samara’s gaze. “Gone,” I whisper. She nods, and I pull her to me, laying her head on my chest while we get our breath and our bearings. A lot of things just happened, and I don’t know which to talk about.
“Could you see who it was?” she whispers.
“A woman, with really high hair. Like it was piled up tall.”
“Mother.” She frowns. “I thought they were in seclusion … ”
Then who lit the lamps? I think. “Would the Head of Council keep your parents in their own house?”
She frowns again. “Maybe.”
“Do you need to go to her?”
Sam shakes her head against my chest, her hair tickling my nose. For all her drive to save her parents, it’s not like she’s dying to see them.
She sits up. “We have to go … ” And now she won’t look at me.
“Hey,” I whisper, catching her arm. “This is all right. You Know that?”
She Knows what I mean, and she doesn’t look like she Knows it’s all right. She turns her face from me. “You don’t understand.”
I sit up. “Then make me understand.”
“I will remember,” she whispers. “If you change your mind, or if I change, or you, I will still remember. For me, it is only … once.”
I read something about that. In her book. I can love only once. “I don’t feel much like changing my mind,” I say.
She smiles, and she doesn’t have her Knowing face on, because I can see her thought like she’d written it down. Not yet.
“Hey,” I say, “I said I don’t feel like changing my mind.” I’m surprised how mad I am about it. And suddenly I realize that if this girl has to Forget me, I won’t just be sad. It’s going to break my heart.
Sam’s up, hurrying to pull the curtain closed with a soft rattle of rings. I run a hand through my hair, find a sore spot where she slammed my head. It is only once. And by “it,” she means “love.”
And now, only now, do I really understand her risk. If I were to forget her, like people tend to do, then her heart would be just as broken as mine. Only her pain would never fade, not until the end of time. She would still live it, because she would remember. To betray her now would be to devastate her. Like a knife to the gut. And I wonder if that would make you feel like a burden. Like you’re asking too much of the other person. More than they can stand.
I don’t know what I’ve done to her. To us. I’m not sure either of us could help it.
I get to my feet. Sam’s almost running to the other side of the room, where there’s another gold curtain. I catch her hand. If this is the burden, I’ll carry it.
“It is all right,” I say. “I understand.” She blinks. “It’s not too much, and it’s okay with me.”
She looks at me, and after a long time she nods, breathing deep. Then she reaches up and kisses me once, like she wants to see what that’s like. Personally, I really like what that’s like.