Idols (28 page)

“Something I should have done a long time ago,” I say.

I pull myself to my feet, holding my hand out to Lucas. “Come on.”

We slip through the crowded classroom and out the door before anyone can say a word. Tima doesn’t even look up from an old carved abacus.

We keep our heads down and the book hidden from sight between us.

The heat almost knocks me over within the first few steps out into the sunlight, but I don’t stop, and neither does Lucas.

We don’t even look at each other until we reach the end of the muddy canal and turn the corner out onto the broad, busy boulevard.

“There’s nowhere we can go.” I turn in every direction, but it’s all the same. People and
tuk-tuks
and animals, as far as the eye can see.

“For what?” Lucas slides his hand onto my shoulder, and I can feel from his touch that he’s as relieved to be out of the Educated Pig as I am.

“To find a place where we can be alone,” I say, weighing the book in my hand. “Before anyone notices that we’re gone.”

“Alone? I like the sound of that. But I guess it’s hard to find, especially in an island colony.” Lucas looks down the streets past me.

Then I feel his hand squeezing my shoulder. “Found it. Come on.”

“You don’t spend your childhood as the Ambassador’s son and not pick up a few tricks,” Lucas says.

We’ve wedged ourselves onto a muddy bank of weeds beneath a boat mooring, a tiny slip of land jutting out between two run-down apartment buildings. Only a ledge of jagged concrete hides us from the busy street behind us—but the wooden dock over our heads is protection enough.

Our view of the bay and the curving coast beyond it, on the other hand, is sweeping and bright.

Almost idyllic.

If you didn’t know.

My feet dig into the dirt beneath me, and I feel the edge of the water seeping into my sarong.

No one can see us now.

Lucas pulls me close in the warm shade, and I feel his breath along my bare shoulder. “Now that we’re alone,” he whispers, lowering his head toward mine, “what did you want to do?” He smiles at me—until I hold up the worn, frayed book.

“This.”

His face falls as I pull it open—and we begin to read.

THE ICON CHILDREN–SEA COLONIES LAB DATA–WEEK 42

S
PECIMEN
O
NE:
RNA
INTERFERENCE MINIMAL.
F
URTHER STUDY OF PROTEIN EXPRESSION REQUIRED
.

N
OTE:
I
MYSELF WILL TRACK THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SPECIMEN
.

S
PECIMEN
T
WO:
G
ENE TRANSFER
. G
ENOME SEQUENCING TRACKING AS PER CUSTOMARY NORMS
.

N
OTE:
W
ILLIAM IS SUPERVISING
.

S
PECIMEN
T
HREE:
N
UCLEIC ACID A FACTOR
. B
IOINFORMATION DATA TO FOLLOW
.

N
OTE:
H
AVE ASKED
Y
ANG TO RUN SAMPLES
. E
ARLY RESULTS COULD BE AVAILABLE AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK
.

S
PECIMEN
F
OUR:
E
PIGENETIC ANALYSIS UNDER WAY
.

N
OTE:
E
LA WILL CONFIRM
.

N
OTE:
F
OR THE FIRST TIME,
I
MYSELF FEEL SOMETHING CLOSE TO HUMAN.
T
HE IRONY IS NOT LOST ON ME.

“Something close to human? What does that mean?”

I look up. Lucas is still reading over my shoulder. “And Ela? Who is that?” He sounds as confused as I am.

I put the journal down. For the first time, I see that small, gold-flecked letters are embossed in the corner of the front cover. It looks like an
E
, or maybe an
L
. And then, more clearly, an
A
.

Not an
F.

I wonder how Fortis came to have this book in his possession. Before the Padre.

I look up at Lucas. “Fortis is—a complicated human.” I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t know what else to think.

“Not the kind of human you’d leave to settle the fate of the world?”

“Not so much. No.” I weigh the book in my hands. “I mean, this is all my fault, isn’t it? I’m the one who brought him to us. Maybe we were wrong to trust him. Maybe I was.”

Lucas moves his hand to my hair, tucking a loose strand of dark curl behind my ear.

“Dol. This isn’t your fault. Any of it.”

His thumb traces the edge of my jaw, moving down to the base of my neck.

He reaches back, taking a handful of spindly blossoms from the blooming bank of weeds next to us, tossing them into the air. Red flower petals, red as rubies, red as kisses, fall across me.

He pulls his mouth to mine, so slowly it seems he is savoring every bit of air between us. My own breath is caught in my throat.

And then I’m caught.

I’m caught and I’m his
, I think.

This isn’t about Ro. Not anymore.

I’m not about Ro anymore.

The scent of the blossoms is heavy in the warm afternoon, as heavy as his kiss, as heavy as the fire that still burns between us. I wish I could stop. I wish I wanted to stop. I know, logically, that there is more to read in the book, before Fortis finds us. Now is my best chance. Our best chance.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

I can’t stop myself and I don’t want to.

You have to choose
, I think.
You have chosen
, I think.

Choose Lucas.

Slowly, I pull the tie on my binding.

We’ve never finished this. And I want to be with him. To bind with him.

I want to feel like I am more than one person. I want my heart to feel warm again.

I don’t want to end up as gray powder on the floor of the hawker center.

I don’t want to be ash. Not before this. Not before now.

Some things never change.

I learned that long ago. Everything else does.

That much I learned today.

My binding drops.

I lower the book into the dirt next to me and turn to Lucas, holding out my bare wrist.

“Lucas.”

He looks at me, and his eyes are somehow different, dark and full. He knows what I’m thinking. He knows what we’re doing.