Unravel (16 page)

“Yeah, I got you. C'mon, guys.” Samuel flashed a quick grin at Elissa and Lin. “See you in the morning, okay?”

Five minutes later, Elissa was climbing into the highest of the triple bunks in the room she, Lin, and Felicia were to share, and Lin was giving her face a hurried wash in the tiny corner basin. The seamless join of walls and floor and the bases of each bunk, the smooth roundedness of every corner, were other indicators of the nature of the accommodation they were in. The whole apartment had been molded in a single piece, then slotted into the shell of the tower block. Apartments made that way were cheap, characterless—and quick and easy to both empty and scour clean if the occupants were convicted of one of a whole host of possible anti-social crimes. Practically all of Elissa's life she'd been aware that the lower your rung in Sekoian society, the more likely
you were to be convicted of an ASC. For the first time it came home to her that this housing, created for the absolute lowest classes, had been built, not with the knowledge that the occupants might commit crimes, but with the expectation that they
would
. The people Mr. Greythorn had meant by “the criminally predisposed.”

That's not okay. I never bothered to think about it before, but it's not okay. It's like declaring the Spares nonhuman, and then treating them in a way that does its best to get rid of their humanity. It's assuming people are one way, and acting like they're only ever going to be that one way. . . .

That's how we thought. That's how we all thought. Like Felicia said—most Sekoians think everyone's divided into two groups: decent people and criminals. No wonder people are so angry that IPL's treating
everyone
like criminals.
Then, with a shock, something she hadn't thought before:
No wonder we fell into chaos so quickly.

At least, after all the blank walls in the rest of the building, it was a relief to see that this room did have a small window, set into the smooth surface of the wall opposite the bed. All it showed her right now was the bed's reflection, three pale stripes of mattresses and covers, off-white against the off-white wall.

Lin scrubbed her face dry with a square of paper towel from the dispenser and clambered into the bunk below Elissa. “Shall I turn the lights off?” she asked, and the overhead light blinked out.

Despite fatigue and what felt like a million different things to worry about, Elissa laughed out loud at Lin's cross, surprised exclamation of, “I didn't mean— It was a
question
.”

“I think the programming must have just recognized that
phrase anyway,” said Elissa. “Look at everything else—it's all pretty basic.”

Lin huffed out an irritated breath. “Well, fine, it can stay like that now.” The last word disappeared in a yawn.

For a moment Elissa hesitated. They were sharing with Felicia—at some point she'd want to see where her bed was. But exhaustion dragged at her eyelids, and her thoughts came slowly, like treacle pouring. Felicia would work it out.

Below her, Lin said, “More twins.”

“Yeah, I know,” Elissa murmured, hearing her words slur.

“Is it weird?” asked Lin.

I don't know yet.
She might have said the words out loud, or she might not. Dark and endless, sleep swallowed her.

ELISSA WOKE
to heat and light. She opened her eyes into sunlight flooding through the window, and familiar desert heat, concentrated in the tiny, unair-conditioned bedroom. Even for her, it was almost too hot. She wriggled, kicking the cover off. But the light was wonderful, and the bed just that bit bigger than the bunk she'd had on the
Phoenix.
She stretched, enjoying the unaccustomed space, and for a moment there was nothing but warmth and light and peace.

Then, like cold stones thunking one by one into her stomach, everything from the day before came back to her. Hearing what the Spares were being threatened with, what Lin had done, the way Cadan's parents' faces had changed . . . Other things too. Sofia's voice saying,
You must have known that, right? You must have known you couldn't keep your identities secure from everyone?
The marks on Zee's face—on his lip.
It's been weeks since the takeover, and he looks worse than Lin did when she first escaped.

She sat up and leaned over the side of the bunk. Lin still slept, spread-eagled across the bed, her face buried in the pillow, a bare foot poking out from under the cover.

Elissa climbed carefully down the ladder, noticing that Felicia, too, was still asleep, and washed as quietly as she could. Cadan was an early riser, she knew. If she could just talk to him, find out what impression he'd gotten from his parents, maybe get reassurance that she was just being paranoid . . . It would only be one out of a whole list of anxieties in her head, but anything was better than this feeling of being buried in them so deeply that she felt as if she would smother.

The door whispered open, and she slid out into the windowless corridor. She couldn't go looking for Cadan in his bedroom. Even if he weren't sharing with other people, if his parents saw her doing that . . . But if he was up, maybe getting breakfast? The kitchen was that door, wasn't it? The one Mrs. Greythorn had pointed out last night?

She got it right. The door opened on a long narrow room, complete with the familiar appliances. A window at the far end threw sunlight onto every shiny plastic surface.

Cadan stood by the window, coffee cup in hand, fair hair gleaming in the light. As he saw Elissa he broke into a smile, put down the cup, and strode toward her. “Hey, I hoped you'd be up soon. I've been hanging around in the kitchen waiting for you.”

“I'm sorry. I just woke up.”

“No, that's okay. You must have been wrecked.” The smile lingered in his eyes as he put his arms around her waist, looking down at her. “I was missing you, that's all.”

He kissed her, and she shut her eyes, aware of the scent of his skin, his lips warm against hers, the heat of the sunlight
lingering in his hair when she slid her hands up into it. For a moment, again, there was nothing but warmth and light, and heat building like electricity where his body touched hers. After just a few weeks, the feel of his hands, his mouth, had become familiar—wonderfully familiar, like a safety she hadn't known she wanted—but, too, every time he touched her it felt new, as if in between times her body didn't know how to remember something so intense.

After several long, golden minutes he lifted his head, but only so he could pull her closer to him, his face against her hair, her cheek next to the smoothness of skin above his shirt collar. “Yesterday was all kinds of crazy,” he said. “How are you doing now?”

All kinds of crazy.
Yeah, she thought that pretty much summed it up. She laughed a little, the sound mostly smothered in his shirt. After wishing desperately, last night, for just a tiny bit of time with him, here she was, and he'd just given her the perfect opening.

All at once, though, she didn't want to ask. What did it really matter? Nothing had changed between them,
nothing
. Cadan had been out from under his parents' roof for years—he didn't need them to like everything he did. Elissa was way younger, and it wasn't like
she
cared about getting approval of their relationship from
her
parents.

Yeah, like that's the same.

Oh, whatever.
She didn't
want
to ask. Didn't want to spoil this moment with being insecure and demanding—the needy schoolgirl he would have looked down on.

She might have left it, might have shrugged, said
I'm okay
, and reached up to kiss him again, if she hadn't suddenly been struck by last night's memory: the memory, not of the
expression on the faces of Cadan's parents, but of the expression on Cadan's own.

She pulled back a little so she could see his face. The smile was still in his eyes, a smile that he gave only her, a smile that, like his touch, seemed new every time.

“Cadan?”

He ran a hand up her back, fingers spreading between her shoulder blades. “Yes?”

And now she didn't even know how to
say
it. “Um, your parents . . .”

His face changed. The smile froze and disappeared. “What about them?”

Elissa pushed loose hair behind her ear. “They . . . Last night, I . . .”

“Look, Lis, like I said, last night was crazy. Give them a bit of time, okay?”

Frustration—and an edge of resentment, that he
had
known there was something wrong and that he'd made her
ask
—stiffened her spine, pulled her out of his arms. “Give them time for what? What is it?”

His eyes moved just a little so they no longer met hers. “They . . . Look, they weren't expecting us—you and me—to be together, that's all.”

She'd known it, but all the same she went cold. “They don't like me.”

“No.
No
, Lissa. It's not that. Not at all.”

“Then
what
?” Frustration took over. “For God's sake, Cadan, just tell me! This is so unfair, leaving me guessing. I was freaking
out
last night—”

“I'm sorry about that. Last night—there wasn't a chance to talk to you by ourselves—”

“And now there is and you're
still
not talking.” She only just stopped herself stamping her foot. “Tell me what's going on!”

“Okay. Okay.” He put up his hands, looking so deeply irritated he might have been a different person from the one who, five minutes ago, had kissed her. “It's not that they don't like you. It's that . . . the way you and I used to think about each other, the way I, you know, misjudged you . . . ?”

Oh. Of course. Back before she'd known the source of the head-splitting pain, blackouts, and weird visions, Bruce, embarrassed by his freak sister, had let Cadan believe she was suffering from nothing but the occasional headache—and Cadan, who already saw her as pretty but shallow, had assumed the mysterious illness that had made her give up swimming and driving lessons, and sent her grades sailing further and further down, was a combination of laziness and attention seeking.

She should have realized he'd have said something of that to his parents. Should have realized that was what they'd be thinking of her too.

She and Cadan hadn't been together then. He'd thought of her as spoiled, and she'd thought of him as arrogant. They'd both made mistakes, both misjudged each other—it shouldn't feel like a betrayal to find this out now.

All the same, it did.

“Did you tell them?” Her voice came out small, a voice that belonged to the girl she'd been years ago. “Did—did you explain that I—I'm not really like that?”

“Lis, trust me, they can
see
you're not like that. They know now where the pain came from—they know you saved your sister. What my mother said to you—she wasn't making it up. It still stands.”

Elissa wrapped her arms around herself. “But she—they—they're still not pleased we're together.”

Cadan shrugged. He looked tired, and years younger, like he always did when something smashed the confidence that normally seemed so untouchable. “It's just . . . for them, it's come out of the blue. They never got any hint that I might fall for you. I mean, even you and I—we both know it happened so fast, from the moment you came on board the
Phoenix
to when I knew I'd fallen for you.”

“So?
Everything
happened fast. One minute Lin and I were getting kidnapped by pirates, the next minute the hyperdrive was broken and SFI were attacking us—”

“That's why.”

“That's why
what
? Your parents—” She broke off. Realization came to her. “They think it happened because of that,” she said, and her voice wasn't quite steady. “They don't think it's real. They think it just happened because of the . . . the situation, because it was all, like, heightened emotion and danger and stuff.”

“Yeah.” He leaned back on the counter behind him, hands braced on its edge, looking down, his voice heavy. A cold weight fell into Elissa's stomach. It was bad enough that his parents thought that, bad enough that they didn't approve. But if now
Cadan
was thinking that as well . . .

She'd thought he'd been as clear as she about what had happened. She'd never expected anyone else's opinion—even that of his parents—to instill doubt in his mind. But there it was.

“You think they're right.” Her voice came out harder than she'd realized it would.

He looked up at her. “No, I don't. I don't think they're
right. It's just”—he rubbed a hand up over his face—“they're not thrilled I let it happen. When everything's so crazy anyway, they . . . they think I could do without the distraction.”