Page 10 of Xantera
The sentries don’t stop, don’t notice, but I follow the arc of the glittering object as it lands on the ground between the Production Factory and the Childcare Center.
Time seems to waver in the space between my breaths as I try to tell myself to leave it alone. To turn around and hightail it back to my housing unit so that I can eat dinner with Malcolm and tell him that my day was pleasant and ask “How was yours?”
But of course, I can’t. I stay glued in place as I watch the last of Diggory and the sentries fade into the distance, until they’re no more than three dots before the Blood Moon Palace. Only after the doors open up to inhale those dots do I jump toward the place where the object glitters.
It’s… I don’t knowwhatit is.
I swear I’ve seen or heard of something like this before, but I can’t remember the name. It’s a long chain weighed down by what looks like a solid miniature vial bracketed in elaborate swirls of gold. The vial itself is red, as red as the blood moon, as red as the Guardians’ eyes, and I can’t help but think that it looks like it was cut from a heart that ended up turning to stone.
My fingers stretch out to touch it…
A noise to my left sends me into a flurry of quick movement. I jerk upward. The Production Factory doors squeak open and a stream of manufacturers flows out. One of them glances over his shoulder, eyebrows scrunching at the way I’m standing in the middle of the two buildings. His eyes flick down to the space between my shoes.
“Good evening,” I force out with a fixed smile, breezing out of the rich black of the shadows and into the shallow gray of a dying dusk.
“Good evening,” he echoes with a smile just as wide.
I walk past him, eyes trained on the road ahead. It’swaypast time for me to head back to my unit, but I force myself to move at a steady pace, to not attract attention, to not reveal how viciously my hands are shaking at my sides.
As far as I know, there aren’t any rules against picking up strange chained vials and stuffing them in the inside pocket of your cloak moments before someone spots you.
But I don’t want anyone to find out and tell me otherwise.
When I get home, Malcolm is already seated at the dinner table, waiting for me. To my surprise, he hasn’t dug into the chicken, rice, and peas that must have been delivered to our unit a good half hour ago. Both of our trays sit there, untouched and no longer steaming.
“Good evening,” he says.
“Good evening. I’m sorry I’m late. There was a commotion.”
I already decided on the walk over that half the truth would be better than none of the truth at all. Lying would be extremely rude, but my civil partner deserves at leastsomekind of explanation.
Once I’m settled in my chair and we’re both eating, therefore, I tell him all about Diggory and the sentries in between bites, and how I hope the Guardians don’t toss him to the Monster, and I wish I would have done something at the Healing Center to prevent this from happening, and…
“Are you even listening, Malcolm?”
I don’t know where my temper is coming from—maybe last night’s Choosing coupled with what just happened—but something is simmering beneath my skin. Agitated.Angry. I’ve only been angry a handful of times in my life, and all of them involved other kids on the playground at the Childcare Center. I’ve never been angry at another functional member of society before.
Today, right now, I’m angry at all of them.
“What?” Malcolm is saying, stray peas falling out of the corner of his mouth as he gapes.
I can still feel the weight of Diggory’s object in the inside pocket of my cloak, but the weight in my heart is even worse. All I want is a civil partner who canpretendto care for even a fraction of a minute. Malcolm waited for me to eat dinner, but the absent-minded wander of his attention is clear: our union is a routine for him. Nothing more.
“Would you have chosen me if the Guardians hadn’t picked me for you?” I dare to ask.
Tears burn against the back of my throat. Malcolm gawks at me as if he’s never really seen me before, his jaw slack, his pupils racing back and forth across my face.
“Well?”
“Saskia.” He clears his throat. “I can’t… this isn’t something we should be… the Guardians never choose wrong—they’re… they…”
“But say theydo,” I blurt out. “Say that theydosometimes choose wrong.”
I bite down on my lip, even as more wicked thoughts race through my mind:say the Guardians choose wrong because they sit in their palace and view us through cameras and read their pairings through loudspeakers and never feel the actual spark—or lack of spark—between a couple and never realize that you, Malcolm, have always looked everywhere but at me.
“Saskia,” Malcolm says again, an ache beneath the admonishment in his voice.
And I know. I know right then and there, as if I’m making a clinical analysis, that Malcolm does not and cannot and will never love me. Not in the way I want him to. Not in the way that I could ever love him.
