"I guess so."
Number One felt Number Four's excitement and happiness through the connection and felt another grin spreading over his face.
Sullha looked at him with wonder in her eyes. "When you smile like that, you look like my Yofi." She lifted her hand, and for one stupid moment, he thought that she would cup his face, but she put it on his forearm. "You need to smile more."
It was a small unconscious gesture, one she used to make when they were children, just a touch to punctuate a sentence. She had always used her hands to talk. She still touched when she talked, but only when she felt safe to do so.
Sullha felt safe with him.
Something stirred inside of him. It was a slight warming, far less sharp than what he remembered from his twelve-year-old self, but it was unmistakably in the same family of feelings. He had thought he had transcended this particular cluster of sensations, but it seemed like some of it still existed, buried deep inside, below the hive mind and separate from it.
The collective registered the response.
Sullha withdrew her hand, not because she'd noticed and regretted doing so, but because the gesture had run its course.
"Yofi," he repeated. "I forgot that you used to call me that."
She chuckled. "You hated it, but you allowed me to call you that when we were alone. You would have punched any boy who dared to use that nickname, but no one was that stupid. For a guy who didn't like to fight, you had a mean right hook."
He turned his head toward the playground because he had to put his eyes somewhere else. Tomek was on top of the climbing frame, holding on with one hand and waving wildly with the other at someone Yaaf could not see.
The boy was so small, and so fierce, and so much his mother's son.
31
AREZOO
Arezoo lay awake in bed but kept her eyes closed as she took inventory of her body. Her head was clear, her bones still ached, but not as much as they had yesterday, and the most notable sensation was that of hunger.
She was ravenous, as in give her a couple of steaks and a pile of French fries for breakfast.
Ruvon was sitting in the chair beside her bed, pretending to read a book.
She had been lying still and pretending to sleep for the last few minutes just to see how long he would keep it up, but it was getting silly, and she was hungry, and she wanted coffee.
"Good morning," she said.
His head came up so fast that the book closed on his thumb.
"You're awake."
"I have been awake for a while. I was watching you not read."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"I don't know." She yawned and stretched her arms over her head. "I was curious to see what you would do."
Ruvon put the book on the side table, leaned forward, and took her hand. "How do you feel?"
"Hungry. Like really hungry."
He smiled. "That's good."
"I want coffee. And a croissant. Make it two croissants."
"You're on a liquid diet."
"I was on a liquid diet yesterday. Julian said that if I didn't throw up, I could have something solid, and I want a croissant."
