Steel Lily ARC (8 page)

I’d give steam every day of my life to go back to before my parents disappeared.

Please, God, if you’re there, let it all be a dream.

When I woke up, I noticed the buggy was stationary. I was slumped to the side of the carriage and Alice was curled up on the seat, her head in my lap. My neck ached from being at a strange angle for so long, and pulled myself into a more comfortable position.

“You slept hard,” said a drawling voice, “though I’ve heard near death experiences can do that to a person. Personally, I avoid those like the plague.”

I turned toward the voice, and the muscles in my neck protested. I massaged them with one hand as I drank in the figure before me.

Jaxon was much closer to my age than I imagined. Artfully destroyed jeans revealed cuts and callouses on his knees, and the hem of red plaid boxers he wore underneath peeked through the holes. The sleeves of his cream thermal Henley were rolled up and revealed muscular arms. The shirt was unbuttoned enough for me to see the top of his chiseled chest.

Where the sun beamed down on him, his caramel skin was almost luminous. He looked tense, and I could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

I’d never seen someone like him in Dome Three. His jawbone was strong, his cheekbones set high. His nose was regal and straight and when my gaze reached his eyes, my breath caught.

Stormy blue-grey eyes that reminded me of shale returned my gaze with genuine curiosity, if not a bit of humor. Strips of colored fabric were woven into his dreadlocked hair, giving it a wildly unique look that suited him. The smug look on his face made me realize he was enjoying this. “Are you finished checking me out? If you’re not, that’s okay; I allow every new woman I meet a free five-minute gawking period. After that, it’ll cost you.”

Blood rushed to my face. I tore my eyes from his magnetic gaze and watched as he took a worn leather strap off his wrist. He pulled back his dreadlocks, deep brown streaked with blonde, into the strap. His devilish grin pulled his eyes tight at the corners. He was trouble incarnate.

Trouble that I may very well want to get into, given the right circumstances.

“You’re at five minutes and thirty seconds now,” he said in a purr as he moved toward me. He leaned in, and I felt his breath against my cheek. My heart raced. “I’m going to start taking payment, and I choose how that payment is issued.”

Before I could respond, Alice stirred groggily beside me. She rubbed her eyes as she sat up. “Where are we?”

“Good question,” piped Jaxon. “One that your friend here failed to ask, but it could have been because I rendered her speechless with my good looks.”

Alice moved to get a better look at him, but Jaxon emphatically put his hands in front of his face, as though he were a vampire trying to block the sun. “Don’t look at me!” he cried, then grinned as he winked at me. “I don’t want to make two ladies swoon in such a short period of time. How would I entertain myself tonight?”

“You’re not that handsome,” I argued mulishly.

“There’s drool on your chin. Either you’re physically unable to keep your mouth shut, or I caused you to forget how. Since when I found you, you were drool free, I’m going with the assumption that it was me.” He fished in his pocket and offered me a white silk piece of cloth. “Here, a handkerchief for your trouble. You can keep it if you’d like. We have more at the academy.”

“You do?” squeaked Alice.

I looked up from the lustrous cloth in time to see Jaxon’s eyes widen. “Good Lord, you two. Riggs said you were different, but he didn’t say you were
different
.”

I put the silk against my face. It was soft, and I breathed in the clean scent.

That’s when it hit me.

I wasn’t wearing a mask.

Shock surged through my body like an electric current. “I’m breathing! Without a mask!”

If Jaxon didn’t think we were crazy before, he did now. “That’s what humans do, you know. Breathe.” He said with a laugh as he placed a hand on his chest and illustrated by taking deep breaths. His chest expanded and contracted in an exaggerated manner and all the while, his smile grew. “In and out. Like this. Without masks. You’ve done it before; it’s nothing new.”

“But we’re
outside!
”

“Yep. Another perfectly acceptable place to breathe, since the alternative would be you suffocating to death. I’d really prefer that not happen. That’s not fun for anyone involved, and it’s extra paperwork for me.”

Both Alice and I stared at Jaxon with our mouths agape. As handsome as he was, the boy was odd beyond all reasonable doubt.

And he thought we were different.

Alice’s head swiveled as she took in our surroundings. She looked up to the skies. Clouds—real clouds—reflected in her eyes and beckoned me to look up as well.

We were not in the same place we’d been when I fell asleep. This dome ensconced us just as the one I knew, but the glass was clear and polished and went on for ages. The date, time, and temperature moved across the top of the glass in a hologram, keeping the inhabitants informed. Clouds drifted along, revealing the outside world.

I’d never seen clouds of any kind, let alone fluffy white ones.

“Are…are those real?” I asked, pointing weakly to the heavens before me.

“Of course not,” Jaxon said, “It’s a hologram to depict what we hope to have some day.”

Alice sucked in a breath, scandalized. “But holograms are banned devices! They take too much energy!”

Jaxon waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t believe everything you hear from your lovely governor. We’re fine running electricity here. You two were living in the stone ages. Force-fed false information. Contrary to your previous way of life, this is 2030, not 1830.”

His voice made it clear he thought this place superior. He flourished our oxygen masks in front of us, then tossed them over the side of the carriage.

“Hey!” I protested.

“Avery, we even have clean air. No masks needed.”

He’d said my name, and I didn’t recall giving it to him. It was all beginning to crash into me. The night before. The Polatzi. Our home, gone. Running for our lives. This boy who just happened to be there, who happened to know Mr. Riggs. There were too many coincidences.

My eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

He looked around as though searching for someone he might have missed in the carriage. After a moment, he pointed to himself. “Are you talking to me? Because I’m sure I made it clear. I’m Jaxon Pierce.”

“Yes, I know that but who
are
you? How did you know where we were? How do you know us?”

Jaxon ignored my question, turned to the front of the carriage, and punched a blue button to the right of the dashboard. Suddenly a metal trap door dropped out of the middle of the buggy, revealing a rope ladder.

Jaxon turned back to us, expectance all over his face. He waved his arms in the direction of the ladder. “Well?”

“Well what?” I asked.

“Aren’t you going to get out?”

“Get out somewhere when we have no clue where we are? That’s insane.”

He rolled his head back and looked to the sky. “If Riggs sends me for one more useless person, I’m going to die.”

Alice snorted. “Are you sure you’re not being melodramatic?”

He arched an eyebrow at her, his lips curved in an audacious smile. “Are you sure you two aren’t being stupid just to test me?”

“Well, give us answers so we’re not stupid!” Alice shouted.

I’d never heard Alice shout at someone before. I was impressed.

Jaxon shook his head and then leapt down the hatch without warning. Both Alice and I leaned over the buggy’s edge to watch him. He held onto either side of the ladder and slid down, opting to not use the footholds like a normal person.

As if there were any question on him being normal.

I sighed and tugged Alice out of her seat. “We may as well go,” I said while placing one foot on the first rung of the swaying ladder. “Otherwise we’ll sit up here looking at each other forever.”

It took less time to get down than I thought it would. My feet hit firm ground, and my knees buckled.

Jaxon laughed. “You need your sea legs, sailor.”

“Oh shut up.”

He stifled a chuckle while Alice struggled down the ladder. Her dress tangled in the rungs and under her shoes. More than once I heard an unladylike expletive, which was most un-Alice-like. It made me smile.

I caught Jaxon looking at me, and I turned to him. “Are you really going to make me ask you again? Who are you?”

“As I’ve told you, I’m Jaxon. That’s all you need to know.”

He made a sweeping bow. A few stray dreads spilled over his shoulders and threatened to touch the grassy ground.

The
grassy
ground.

I marveled at this miracle as Alice reached my side. I glanced her way and giggled. Her hair was a rat’s nest of pins and bobs that weren’t supposed to be there. What was left of her chignon was smashed to the right side of her head. She looked like she’d been put through the ringer.

Jaxon took off in a long stride toward a massive skyline in the distance. It was gold and black in the sunlight, its rays bouncing off the hundreds, if not thousands, of windowed skyscrapers and plunging other areas into deep darkness.

I quickened my pace to stay close to Jaxon. When he saw Alice and I had caught up, he began what was undoubtedly a practiced script. “Welcome to Dome Seven. Don’t ask what the numbers mean, because I don’t know and don’t care. My name is, as we’ve been over multiple times, Jaxon Pierce. You can call me Jax. I’m the resident alchemist in the dome. There are —”

“What’s an alchemist?” I interjected.

He smiled at me and glanced at a tree as we walked toward the gleaming city, as though he thought someone might be sitting in a branch, watching us. His eyes darkened for a moment, and then he continued on as though I’d never spoken a word.

“There are twenty-six residents at Chromelius Academy, all here for their unique talents and abilities. Atticus Riggs protects our kind. He finds us in the other domes and brings us back here. He gives us chance to be ourselves.”

“Are you his delivery boy, then?” Alice asked with a sour look on her face.

Jaxon looked at her coolly. “I’m nobody’s delivery boy, Miss Dobson. Riggs said Avery was hesitant to trust him and needed persuasion. I was the persuasion.”

“You decided to persuade her by sticking the entire Polatzi on us?” Alice said, now incredulous. She seemed to grow taller in her irritation. Right now she looked like she might take a bite out of Jaxon.

He smiled, but I could tell Alice put him on edge. “
I
didn’t do anything, Miss Dobson,” he said defensively as he stepped away from her. “Riggs can be quite persuasive when he wants something. He told me there would be an, ah, altercation, and for me to watch for two lovely girls to be pushed from their hidey-hole like rats chased by terriers. And just as Riggs said, there you were, running wildly in the streets. No one told me the Polatzi would be involved, that there’d be so many, or that they would be as stupid as they are. One would think the governor’s special forces would possess some sort of mental fortitude. I might send him a letter pointing this out.”

“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to get a letter from the gentleman who sprung two of his people out from under him.”

Jaxon nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. “I’ll make sure to let him down easy. I’ll put some cologne on it. Seems to make my words sound better to the ladies.”

I remained silent. To be honest, Jaxon intrigued me. I would never admit it to Alice, who already made it clear she found his company as enjoyable as a hugging a leper. Personally, I found him to be an enigma — a puzzle to be pieced together. An intricate puzzle that probably was missing a few pieces, but I was still curious.

“By the way,” he added as he strode on through the wild grass, his palms down against the tips of it, “an alchemist works to transmute common metals into gold or silver. Amongst other things.”

“And why would we want to do that?” asked Alice, undeterred by the boredom in Jaxon’s voice. “Iron and steel are what we need. Steam powers everything.”

Jaxon winked at me before he turned in a circle, arms extended in a simple yet grand gesture. “Ah, but how do you think this place runs? How it looks as nice as it does? Gold and silver are still the currency of the modern world, and we have it here at Dome Seven.”

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Alice and I followed Jaxon in silence after his introduction to the dome. The onslaught of new sights, sounds, and smells was overwhelming.

We were out of Dome Four. I was away from having to donate steam. I was
free.

I laughed at the impossibility of it all.

The skyline grew in size. The sun hung low in the sky, and the shadows of the tall buildings swallowed much of the roadway ahead. But the darkness didn’t hold fear like it did in Dome Four. It held promise. Dreams. Come morning light, anything was possible.

Information whizzed along the top of the dome in the holograms. It was hard to look away from the blatant use of technology. I’d never been allowed anything other than my high-end oxygen mask. I wondered what else they had here. Would they have computers? Phones? Tablets? The possibilities were endless if they didn’t run on steam.

Thousands of questions fought for the tip of my tongue, but I had to start somewhere. “Where are we?”

Jaxon’s eyes scanned the area, seeming to search for something that lay unseen. It reminded me of my adventures into the market back home, and nervousness prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. His voice was low, and I leaned closer to him to hear him. “Like I said, Dome Seven. If you want to get technical, we’re situated on what’s left of the Twin Cities.”

“The Twin Cities?”

“Minneapolis and Saint Paul. They were in Minnesota, United States of America. You do know we’re in the United States, right?”

I rolled my eyes, grateful we were behind him. “Of course.”

“Just checking,” he said without turning around. “But don’t roll your eyes again if you want any more answers.”

“How did you —”