“Doesn’t everyone?”
Neither one of them mentioned his map sketch or the monster she’d drawn across Verity, and soon an easy quiet settled over the bleachers, interrupted only by Kate’s nails, which she rapped in a soft, constant way against the metal bench, and the distant sounds of students running on the track. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this, thought August. He was sitting inches away from the daughter of a bloodthirsty tyrant, the heir to North City. He should feel disgusted, repulsed. At the very least, unnerved. But he didn’t.
He wasn’t sure what he felt. Frequency. Consonance. Two chords that went together.
Don’t push her away, said one voice, while another warned, Don’t get too close. How was he supposed to do both?
“So, Freddie,” she said, dragging herself upright, “what brings you to Colton?”
“I was homeschooled,” he said, and then, struggling to find words that weren’t a lie, “I guess my family thought . . . it was time for me to socialize.”
“Huh, and yet every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been alone.”
August shrugged. “I guess I’m not really a people person. What about you?”
Her eyes went wide in mock surprise. “Didn’t you hear? I burned down a school. Or did drugs. Or slept with a teacher. Or killed a kid. It really depends on who you ask.”
“Is any of it true?”
“I did burn down a school,” she said. “Well, part of a school. A chapel. But it was nothing personal. I just wanted to come home.”
August frowned. “You got out of V-City.” It was no small feat, with the border cities capped and the Waste in the way. “Why would you want to come back?”
Kate didn’t answer right away. Which was strange—most of the time he couldn’t stop people from talking—but she tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. It was a cloudless day, and for a second she seemed lost, as if she expected to see something up there, and didn’t. “It’s all I have left.” The words came out soft, like a confession, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze drifted back to earth. “Are those real?”
August looked down and realized that his sleeves had ridden up enough to reveal the lowest line of tallies. Four hundred and nineteen.
“Yes,” he said, the truth across his lips before he even thought to stop it.
“What do they stand for?”
This time August bit back the answer, and ran a thumb over the oldest marks around his wrist. “One . . .” he said slowly, “for every day without a slip.”
Kate’s dark eyes widened in genuine surprise. “You don’t strike me as an addict.”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I didn’t strike you as a Freddie, either.”
She cracked a smile. “So what’s your poison?”
He sighed dramatically, and let the truth tumble off his tongue. “Life.”
“Ah,” she said ruefully. “That’ll kill you.”
“Not as fast as cigarettes.”
“Touché,” she said, “but—”
She was cut off by a scream. August tensed, and Kate’s hand went straight for her backpack, but it was just some student on the field faux-tackling his girlfriend. She squealed again, beaming even as she fled.
August let out a low breath. He would never understand why people screamed for fun.
“You okay there?” asked Kate, and he realized he was gripping the bleachers, knuckles white. Gunfire crackled like static in the back of his head. He pried his fingers free.
“Yeah. Not a fan of loud noises.”
She pursed her lips, gave him a look that said how cute, then gestured to the case at his feet. “Violin?”
August looked down, nodded. He’d smuggled the instrument out of the compound this morning, slipping out before Leo could stop him. His fingers were itching to play again. He’d gone to the music room only to discover that an ID card wasn’t all you needed to use the practice space. He was halfway through the door when a girl cleared her throat behind him.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but the room’s mine.”
August hadn’t understood. “Yours?”
She pointed out a clipboard on the wall. It was a sign-up sheet. “My time,” she explained. August’s heart sank. He held the door open and let her pass, then examined the list of times and names on the sheet. It was Wednesday, and the space was booked solid until Friday afternoon. August wasn’t supposed to stay after school—Henry had been insistent, wanting him back across the Seam before the gates closed at dusk, even though he didn’t use them to get home—but in a rare moment of defiance, August had signed himself up.
“I’ve always liked music,” said Kate, picking at the metal polish on her nails. August waited for her to go on, but the bell rang and she shook her head, settling her hair back over one eye. “Are you any good?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Will you play for me?”
August shook his head, and the look she gave him made it clear—she wasn’t used to being told no.