She opened her eyes to see Kael’s face over hers; he was running his fingers up and down her neck, looking for something.
“What are you doing?”
“I overheard Ava talking to someone about putting some sort of device in your brain. She’ll do anything to get Aliah’s body back.”
Miya turned her face away from the boy sitting beside her.
“I don’t know anything about…whoever it is you’re all looking for.”
“That’s not true, Shai. I’ve seen you with him. If they find out…Hold still. I have to try to get this thing out of you.”
White and black dots swam in front of her eyes. She pulled in deep draughts of air, but still couldn’t seem to breathe. She gripped the sheets with both hands like she might suddenly float away.
The young man leaned toward her, his brows knitted together. Concern was written all over his handsome face. “I’m sorry. I can’t get it out. Does it hurt? Are you okay?”
It didn’t hurt. Not anymore exactly. But everything was foggy. Quickly disappearing behind a veil of silvery-gray.
Miya shook her head. “I’m not Shai. Please…go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. If I don’t get this tracker out, Ava will kill you when she finds out who you really are.”
“I…I wanna sleep.” She wasn’t sure if words were coming out of her mouth or she was just thinking them.
Kael shook her. “Shai? Can you hear me?”
CHAPTER 32
Shai
Images surged over her hot and fast as the extraction began. The boy called Kael was swallowed up in a foggy shroud of gray mist. She clung to her bed, sweating and shaking as the tracker buried itself deeper in her brain. Miya had seen an extraction before. The worst part was the removal of the tracker once all the information had been collected. The tracker was removed through the same hole it was injected into. But if any parts of the robotic spider were left inside, it would kill the person.
She squeezed her eyes shut as her unprescribed dreams were extracted from her brain and recorded. The pain radiated from her head—less physical than emotional—as she saw moments she’d rather forget. And moments she thought she’d never forget but had.
She saw Kael, remembered their kiss.
Every thought and dream unfolded as they were sucked into the tracker.
She relived the pain of one particular night in Kent with Kael. And she remembered life before the Camp.
She sat on the rocky bank of the underground river in the Core and dangled her legs over the edge. The waterwheel turned with a steady creaking sound as it poured bucket after bucket of water into the channel. The cave-like walls had been making her light-headed during the last several weeks. The room she shared with Aliah’s mother, Mara, and baby Jachin seemed too small, in spite of it being one of the largest rooms in the underground community of Kent.
She leaned forward and caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the water. Her image was broken by the churning of the water, but she didn’t have to see herself clearly to know she looked as horrible as she felt. Her blonde hair hung in greasy strings around her face. She wore the same long-sleeved yellow shirt she’d left Conley with nearly six months earlier. The dirt had worn holes in the fabric and the cuffs were ragged and black with filth.
“Be careful you don’t fall in, Shai. There’s a strong undertow near that waterwheel. You’d likely drown before we could get you out.” Mara’s soft voice came from behind Shai, on the other side of the safety fence that kept people away from the channel.
Shai shrugged, but she leaned back a little. Just enough to satisfy Mara’s motherly concern. It was almost too much, though. The way Mara hovered over Shai, making sure she ate at least once a day. Encouraging her to get out of their room and go for a walk above ground for a while. At first, Shai appeased Mara because the older woman, with the gentle green eyes, was Aliah’s mother. But now, being around her was just a painful reminder of the best friend she’d lost.
“I brought you some soap, dear. Why don’t you head to the end of the channel? If you go around the first bend, you’ll find there’s a little pool of water that collects there. Enough to bathe in, and no one will bother you there. Not this late at night.”
Shai nodded. She didn’t care how late it was. Each day blurred into the next anyway.
She climbed back over the fence and, with a careful smile that felt more like a grimace, took the soap, and headed in the direction Mara pointed.
The roar of the waterwheel became quieter the further she went around the corner. Even its monotonous creaking was hushed by the cavernous rock walls and ceiling that loomed over her. The pool Mara had described was created by the narrow channel of water as it turned a bend and disappeared deeper underground to be cleaned, then recirculated back to the waterwheel. The channel had carved a natural bowl out of the rock as it rushed by.
Shai picked her way down to the water’s edge and touched a toe into the clear pool. The surprising warmth of it encouraged her to slip off her trousers starched stiff with grime. She peeled off her underwear before finally slipping her shirt over her head. She piled her clothes within easy reach and brought the soap with her into the pool. Her body tingled from head to toe as she sank beneath the warm water and closed her eyes. She could almost imagine being back in Lael, swimming with Aliah and Remiel in the river that ran between the boys’ and girls’ houses.
A pang constricted her chest. The memory threatened to consume her. She inhaled without meaning to and slipped under the water. She tried frantically to find her footing on the slick bottom of the pool. Her toe caught the rocky side and she propelled herself to the surface, coughing and sputtering. She choked back angry tears. The bar of soap had slipped from her grasp in her struggle, and she could see its small white shape at the bottom of the pool.
“It’s not that deep. Just dive down and get it.” A familiar masculine voice spiked her pulse. She swam shakily to the opposite edge of the pool, away from the intruder. She held onto the rough edge with her fingertips and pressed her bare breasts against the rocky wall. The most he’d be able to see was her backside. She turned her head to see a handsome young man with dark hair standing at the far edge of the pool. Her breath caught.
Aliah?
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then reopened them. The familiar ache of disappointment mixed with grief surged through her. Not Aliah. Kael. He stood watching her with his hands behind his back and a bemused smile on his face.
Hurt eclipsed a rush of fury at seeing him again after all these months. She averted her eyes. Why would he seek her out now? She hadn’t seen Kael since the day she’d arrived in Kent with him and Aliah. He’d been taken by the guard at the door, as a distraction for her and Aliah to enter Kent. Then after his release she assumed he’d gone back home. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of him. She refused to spend wasted moments remembering the heated kiss they’d shared in Kael’s kitchen before she left Conley. She used to turn the memory over and over in her mind until she thought of the conversation she’d overheard between Kael and his sister, Ava. The obvious regret in Kael’s voice when he tried talking to his sister after she’d caught the two of them in each other’s arms. The anger in Ava’s tone. Ava: her only friend since Sileas’s murder. That kiss was the reason Shai left Conley. She never should’ve let her guard down. Laelite laws prevented her from responding to emotions—laws that were for her protection. She knew better.
Her cheeks blazed. Kael had trapped her in the pool. Naked. But she refused to acknowledge that. She’d sooner stay in the water and turn into a prune than ask him for her clothes.
“Shai, I, uh, I’m leaving Kent. I would’ve told you sooner, but you’ve been under heavy protection. Guards and everything.” He chuckled softly and she heard him sigh, but she kept her eyes on the reddish-gray rock her fingers clung to.
“I have to go back to Conley. Check on things in my sector. See how my brother and sister are doing.
I’ve been away from them too long. I know you need to be here with your people.”
Her people? She had yet to acknowledge the Kentites as her people. They shared the same eye color as her, but that was about it. She had been raised believing she was an orphan in Lael’s houses for girls. Other than the past six months she’d spent in Kent, she’d had no previous association with the Kentites. Except for Aliah. But he was gone.
Her eyes blurred and she blinked rapidly.
“I don’t belong here. Green eyes among all these blue ones,” Kael said lightly, but there was more truth to what he said than his teasing tone implied. The sectors never got along with one another. Temporary truces were used to complete trades, but they didn’t mix. Ever.
Shai felt her grip slipping. Her shoulder muscles burned and her fingers began to shake. Just go away!
When at last she heard the sound of footsteps, she let go of the rocky ledge and slowly turned, hands over her breasts, as she treaded water. But instead of finding herself finally alone, she saw Kael hunched over the pile of clothes she’d left near the pool. She ducked her head under the water and watched, from just below the surface, as he walked away, the bundle of dirty clothes tucked under his arm.
She resurfaced and swam to the edge to find Kael had exchanged her clothing for a clean set. She waited in the pool until she was sure she was alone, then dressed in the soft blue sweater and brown trousers he’d left for her. Since she had no shoes, she padded back the way she came, barefooted.
CHAPTER 33
Shai
Still shivering from her bath in the pool, Shai crossed the center of the Core, quiet now after the vendors and customers had gone back to their rooms. Only the sounds of the water splashing around the waterwheel broke the silence. Her wet hair dripped down her back, soaking into her shirt. She shivered and picked up her pace. She had just come to the final corner of the long corridor near her room when a long shadow angled across her path from around the next corner. She paused, shivering, and waited to see who was coming her way. The shadow stopped too.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed in the corridor. She took a step forward and gasped when a sharp pebble gouged her heel. She put a hand on the wall for support, then lifted her foot to inspect the damage beneath the dim light emitting from a wall sconce. She flicked the small stone out of the indentation it left in her heel, then tested her weight on her foot. From the corner of her eye, she saw the shadow moving. She looked up and called again.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“Shai?” A voice behind her made her spin around, clutching her throat.
“Kael!”
Kael looked sheepish as he approached her with unhurried steps. “I heard you calling out. It’s late. You shouldn’t be wandering around this cave alone.”
“I’ve been here for six months, Kael! Don’t lecture me. You don’t have the right to say anything to me. Not since…since…” Her cheeks flamed. She wanted to crawl into a hole.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. I heard what you said to Ava.” She pulled the sleeves of the soft sweater over her fingertips and fidgeted with the cuff.
“Not about the kiss, Shai. I’m not sorry about that.” Kael reached out, then dropped his hand before he touched her. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not.” A beat. A pause that seemed to stretch into eternity.
She swallowed the tightness in her throat and stared at the toes of his black boots. They were scuffed. Beaten from use. She remembered how he’d run after her just to return the key she’d forgotten under her mattress in Conley. A key he could’ve kept for himself. A key whose importance she still didn’t understand.
She lifted her eyes to his. In the half-light he resembled Aliah so much she couldn’t breathe. She hated that everyone and everything reminded her of Aliah. She missed how his mouth used to turn up a bit in the corners like he was always on the verge of grinning. And his dark hair. The way it curled around his ears when it got too long.
Even now, Kael’s green eyes locked on hers and twisted her gut into a thousand knots because the way he looked at her was the way Aliah used to look at her.
She bit her bottom lip.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Shai.” Even his voice reminded her of Aliah. Soft, as he dropped it to a whisper. Laced with concern and…something else. Something she didn’t want to name. “The key wasn’t the only reason I came after you.”
Her heart bucked. She crossed her arms over her chest.
Kael cleared his throat, and the sound reverberated back to them. He put his hand on her arm. She felt his trembling fingers.
He was afraid. For her?
She slapped his hand away. “Don’t! You can’t be concerned for me. You’re too late. Aliah did that. His whole life he chased after me, thinking he was protecting me.” A sob clogged her throat. She coughed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
Kael’s arms hung loosely at his sides. “I’m not Ace. I won’t leave you.”
“How can you say that? You just told me you’re leaving, Kael!” She shoved his shoulder. He stumbled backwards a step and caught himself with one hand on the rough rock wall.
“Shai! You need protecting! Ace knew things that you don’t. And there are things that I know too, but you won’t listen! That’s your problem, Shai, you never listen! You refuse to trust anyone but yourself.” Kael’s eyes darkened. He clenched his fists at his sides. Their voices had risen above a whisper and bordered on shouting.
“You don’t know me! I’ve been just fine on my own, thank you! Don’t forget that I died, Kael! I crossed over to another realm and came back alive. So just go back to Conley and leave me alone!” She spun around and stalked down the corridor with a slight limp. The shadow she thought she’d seen earlier had gone. It was likely one of her guards.
“Shai!” Kael’s voice hitched and Shai nearly turned back around. The pain in his voice brought back a familiar ache that tightened her chest and threatened to drown her. It washed over her with such vengeance, she thought it might engulf her in an abyss of sorrow, but she shoved it aside.
Kael was right. He wasn’t Aliah. As much as she might want him to be, he’d never be the best friend she’d loved and lost.
“Everything that’s happened is because of the Book! You can spend the rest of your life curled in some corner in this hellhole ignoring what’s going on around you, or you can choose to engage. But I’m not going to wait and watch you die a second time, because this time I won’t be here!”
Silence hung thick and heavy in the air for a minute.
“Maybe that’s what you want. To cross over to Gershom again and be with him. Is that it? You want to die so you can be with Ace?”
The tears that Shai had been holding back suddenly sprang loose. She turned around again, eyes flashing. “Stop calling him Ace! His name was Aliah!”
Kael’s face contorted into something that resembled pain; then he quickly composed himself. He squared his shoulders and looked her in the eye.
“Actually, his name was Jachin Aliah Elyon. I know who he was, Shai. Just like I know who you are. Too bad you don’t.” He turned around and walked away.
Shai watched his retreating back until he disappeared around a curve in the corridor. Her eyes stung, and she rubbed them with a fist. A surge of anger swelled when her hand came away wet.
Why did you have to die in Gershom, Aliah? I need you.
CHAPTER 34
Shai
Shai avoided the Core the following day and remained in her little room. Mostly she sat on her bed and stared at the walls, trying not to think about Kael, until she heard Mara and the baby in the corridor. She pulled the sheet over her head to pretend she was sleeping so she could avoid conversation.
“Shai, I’m going above ground to get some fresh air. Would you like to come with me?” It was late afternoon and Mara and baby Jachin had just returned from picking up their clean clothes from a laundry service in the Core. M
ara often asked Shai to join her, and usually Shai ignored her, hoping Mara would think she was asleep and leave her alone.
But this time Mara didn’t leave. Shai felt her standing by her bed. She rolled over and squinted up at the older woman.
“No, thanks. I’m tired.”
Mara sighed and shook her head. “You’re not tired, you’re depressed.” She sat down on the edge of Shai’s bed, her eyebrows furrowed. “I think after six months of hiding underground with guards posted at the door, we can safely assume the threat against your life is over. There’s been nothing but silence from Gershom ever since Aliah passed on. Samael isn’t looking for you anymore. He got his revenge on Elchai through Aliah’s and Remiel’s deaths.”
Shai rolled back over, away from Mara. Since Aliah passed on? How could she talk about Aliah like that? Without a quivering lip and watering eyes? Shai could barely say his name out loud.
“When I have something to go above ground for, I will go.”
Mara patted Shai’s shoulder and stood up. “I think you’ve forgotten what you said to me right after you found out Remiel was alive.”
Here it comes. Shai gritted her teeth.
“Eliana is still out there, Shai. She’s in the Borderless somewhere, and you said you wanted to find her. To tell her you’re all right.”
“She’ll be fine. She doesn’t even have her pendant anymore, so there’s no need to worry.” She bunched her knees against her chest and closed her eyes, willing Mara to leave the room.
“And your friends in Lael? What about them? They’ll still wear the pendants for as long as they’re told to. What happened to your plan to go and warn them?”
“You do it, if you’re so concerned.” Shai didn’t have the heart nor the energy to yell at the woman who’d been looking after her all these months. But the words still fell out of her mouth. And even though she’d spoken them under her breath, she knew Mara heard every word. Shai heard the woman speak softly to the baby, and after a few moments the door clicked shut. Shai opened her eyes and blinked back the burn that seemed to live behind her eyelids.