Page 124 of The Pansy Paradox
“Hey.” His voice softens a touch. “I’m sorry, okay? I was worried, is all. Can I be forgiven?”
“Hm? Maybe. I’ll think about it.” But when his arm goes around my waist, I don’t resist.
Mort has always been bombastic, always so sure of himself. It serves him well as a field agent. In relationships? Not so much. He’ll bully and barge his way into every situation, often not caring what he breaks. And trust is a fragile thing.
“Just a bug Botten put in my ear, is all,” he adds.
My pulse jumps in my throat, and something small and fragile fractures inside my chest.
“He thought Darnelle might be taking advantage of you or leading you on, making you think you could pass your exam, but I told him you’re more capable than your performance at the Academy might suggest.”
My insides turn to ice. “You didn’t?—”
“No, I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. Screw the Enclave, right? They don’t need to know about your Sight.”
It’s all I can do not to sag with relief. “Okay,” I manage, the word insubstantial in the late morning air. I nod toward the housing development. “What do you make of this?”
“It looks like Thanksgiving from…? When was that? Years ago.”
“Six.” I scan the area, realizing that when it flickers, the development does look like that, the year both Mort and Jack spent Thanksgiving in King’s End, the year when they first fell in love.
“It’s almost like it’s taunting me,” he adds.
“How so?” Not that the Screamers wouldn’t taunt Mort, or me, or anyone, for that matter.
He pulls me a bit closer. “I’m thinking of asking Jack to make things permanent.”
“What!” I squeal for the second time in half an hour. This is news. This could be wonderful, assuming Mort can pull it off, if he’s truly serious about their relationship. Because, let’s face it, he hasn’t always been. “Have you asked him yet?”
He spins me around, gripping my hands, squeezing my fingers in what feels like near panic. “No, and please don’t say anything.”
I shake my head. “Of course not.”
“You know how he is.”
I do. And Jack’s trust? Exceedingly fragile, the sort that should come with a warning label.
“What about your betrothal?”
“Working on it.”
Jack’s family isn’t caught up in the betrothals the way the Connollys are. They haven’t been in the Enclave long enough for that. But Mort can’t walk away from his without an annulment.
Any number of possible outcomes for Mort and Jack whisper through my thoughts. I lock down the Sight before I even have to swipe blood from beneath my nose. I don’t need it interfering at the edge of the housing development. I don’t need it to suggest outcomes that have no bearing on this reality. Too many emotions are tied up in their relationship for the Sight to be anything but unreliable.
Mort doesn’t answer or elaborate, and once the quiet stretches between us, I don’t think he will.
“What did we do back then?” I ask, simply to break the silence. “Do we play their game this time around, or?—?”
“Do we change it?” He scans the development again. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t you catch one last time?”
“I did. I thought Rose was going to ban me from King’s End for it, too.”
Because Mort can do the near impossible. He can capture a single Screamer with his bare hands. Not that single Screamers last that long. Not that they’re actually a living thing. And yet, somehow, he manages it. And somehow, once caught, they manifest as if they are a living thing, briefly, at least.
My mother hated it, and to be fair, I don’t care much for it either. It feels wrong, like a violation. Although, considering all the trouble the Screamers give me, you’d think I wouldn’t mind. But I do.
