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“A mistake?”
He nods. “It was a moment of weakness. We are close friends. Sometimes mistakes like that happen.”
I want to shake my head. Please stop talking. Stop saying what you’re saying. Each syllable that escapes his plush lips chips away at my heart, cracking like frozen glass. How could it have meant nothing to him? His kiss was everything to me.
I try my hardest to compose my face. To hide my pain.
“So you—you didn’t feel anything then?” I stammer.
He remains impassive. “I don’t feel that way about you.”
I stare at him. I want to look away but can’t. Without even realizing it, I move my hands up to clutch my heart, attempting to push it back into my chest.
“Did you feel something?” he asks.
“No—I—of course not.” My voice cracks. It so pathetically cracks. “It was impulsive. A mistake. Wrong. I don’t feel—” But that’s all the words I have. I. Don’t. Feel.
“Well, I’m sorry for acting without thinking. I’ll let you get changed and we can get moving again.” He leaves me a dry set of clothes and disappears into the trees.
Grabbing a nearby tree, I hold myself up for only a few seconds before I slide down its side, begging these feelings to go away. I did this to myself. I cracked open that thirteenth room and let these emotions seep in like a poisonous fog.
My eyes unclog of all prideful restraint, and the tears spring freely from their nest.
I can barely breathe as his words bite into my flesh with newly sharpened teeth. The despair is all too familiar. It’s the moment you see your sister crumble into suicidal depression. It’s the feeling of your father’s boot on your back, kicking you down a basement. It’s a sea of men and women dressed like dolls, and then there’s you. Standing alone. Starved. Scared. Not belonging anywhere.
It’s kind of like that. Except, all at once.
18. Children in The Rain
Judas.
I only have room for one thought now. How can I get Judas to open up to me? How can I coax him into telling me everything he knows?
It’s midnight and we’ve made it to the city. Since we left the Red Oaks, I have refused to look at him. The ache in my chest has taken on a new shape. A dagger of jagged edges with a rusted surface. My hurt finds a protective outer shell, a shield of anger, a dull throb of annoyance in my gut. He’s toyed with my feelings. Feelings I’ve never had before. Feelings that nudged me in his direction, into the thirteenth room, into a life of running and isolation. He didn’t have to put his hands on me in the lagoon the night we shared our secrets. He didn’t have to kiss me, giving me false hope.
It’s manipulative. And I thought Kane was different. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about those games. I have been used and abused my entire life. And now it’s happening again, but in a new form. A fishing hook to my heart, tugging, yanking until I hear the ripping sounds of my arteries being torn from my chest cavity.
Kane’s plan is to get caught sneaking around the city. He’s convinced the asylum will expect us to stay within its perimeters. The seven forests are too dangerous. Even though that’s exactly where Demechnef will be searching for us. Once caught, Dessin will quickly take his place.
The streetlights are elegant torches of rich orange flames, reflecting off the cobblestone streets and the tall double-pane glass windows on either side of the columns from the dress shops, the barbershops, the shops for beauty, the shops for perfume and home decor. They’re all lined up down Main Street, with tall mansard roofs topped, round cornices, coffee-colored bricks, and brackets beneath the eaves and bay windows.
Although the city is sleeping, we saunter down the sidewalk, completely exposed. Kane knows we have exactly twenty minutes before five city guards will do a routine perimeter check. And we’ll be out in the open waiting.
A block down the road, I hear the faint sound of water bursting from a pipe, sprinkling down over asphalt. The Chandelier Fountain Water Show. On the first Wednesday before a celebration, the show automatically goes on at night to keep the water circulated. Tomorrow is the Original Architects celebration. The day the first of our people came on boats and fought to get through the thick and deadly layers of the seven forests.
The fountains shoot up to the sky and spray over the area. There’s always the same record that plays during the show. A guitar, a violin and the faint beat of a drum. It’s upbeat and folksy, very similar to the dancing agronomists around their campfires with hands full of bottled moonshine.
I look over at Kane who is watching the show from afar. If we’re to go back to the asylum, into the mouth of hell, we need to be united. There can’t be this tension. The kiss is trying to drown me, his words are pressing a pillow over my mouth and holding me down. I want this torture to end here. If anything, I need my friend back for what comes next.
A mischievous grin spreads over my entire face. He catches the change in his peripherals and raises his eyebrows at me. “I think you need a bath,” I say.
He tilts his head in confusion, and then understanding tackles him to the ground. “No, absolutely not. We just got dry, Skylenna.”
No more honey.
But I stop listening, tossing off my boots to break out into an excited sprint. He grunts behind me and heavy footsteps lunge forward to stop me.
I’m close enough now to feel the cold mist sprinkled into the air, sticking to my skin as I enter the cloud of fountain spray. The music gets louder, just as my right foot hits the cold water, the tempo thrums to life. Dancing music. Wild and careless. And just as the cannon of water shoots up to the sky, iron arms wrap around my waist, lifting me into the air. I let go of a laughing scream that feels like it’s been waiting ages to be set free. How good it feels to have those arms around me again.
