Page 33 of The Dazzling Heights
It was so nice underwater, dark and cool and blissfully quiet. Rylin stayed under as long as she could, until each capillary in her lungs was stretching for air, before kicking up to the surface. She gasped a little in delight and started toward the shallow end.
“Myers. It’s been too long.”
“Great to see you, as always, V,” Rylin snapped in reply. V was leaning back with his arms behind his head, on an inflatable raft shaped like something vaguely inappropriate. He was a friend of Rylin’s ex-boyfriend, Hiral, and she’d despised him ever since Hiral had forced her to sell V his drugs.
“I hope you’re enjoying my little shindig,” V drawled.
“Breaking into a public space, wreaking havoc; I should have known you were behind all this.” She tried to keep moving through the crowds of people, but V slid off his float to block her path.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Though I guess this is far from what you’re used to now, at your new highlier school,” he replied. “What are you doing down here, anyway, when you could be at a party up there?”
Rylin found her footing on the bottom of the pool and managed to rise up on tiptoe, looking V squarely in the eyes. “I actually think of most of these people as my friends. Present company excluded, of course.”
“I’m glad to hear that you think of me at all.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
V glanced at her curiously. “Hiral’s trial is coming up in a few weeks,” he said, his tone deceptively matter-of-fact. “Are you going?”
“I don’t know.” Rylin fought the wave of emotion that rose up at the mention of Hiral. He’d been home on bail for a month now, but she hadn’t seen him—things between them hadn’t exactly ended on great terms, after he found out she’d hooked up with Cord. That was how the leg of their kitchen table had ended up broken. Among other things.
“Guess it depends on whether or not you’re going,” she finished, but her heart wasn’t in it. V didn’t bother challenging her.
The glow-lights above the pool changed color, from a lambent neon green to an eerie yellow. V glanced up, watching them shift, and his eyes caught on the vid-cam still floating cheerfully along after Rylin. “I see you have a new toy,” he remarked—and in a sudden, shocking movement, lurched forward to grab the cam, dunking it all the way underwater.
“What the hell?” Rylin cried out, attracting a few stares in their direction. V laughed at her reaction. He opened his palm and the vid-cam floated back up, as easy as ever.
“These things are waterproof. No one told you that?” he said lazily.
Rylin was done being baited by him. “Have you seen Lux? I’m looking for her.”
“She’s off with Reed Hopkins.”What?Rylin thought, trying to hide the surprise that lit up her face at that statement, but V didn’t miss it; he never missed anything. “Ah,” he said smugly. “You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“Rylin!” As if on cue, Lux splashed over and pulled Rylin into a hug. Her hair was a dark blond again, which was always Rylin’s favorite among Lux’s kaleidoscope of constantly changing shades. It was almost her natural color; which made her seem younger, smoothed out the sharp angles of her nose and her pointed chin. “Isn’t this incredible? V did a great job,” Lux exclaimed, turning to V, but he’d already disappeared.
“You aren’t worried about getting caught?”
“That new school is a bad influence on you,” Lux teased. “When have you, of all people, worried about getting caught?”
“When did you start hooking up with Reed?”
Lux grew quiet, chastened. “I was going to tell you. It’s really new, and I’m just … still figuring it out.”
Rylin smiled, though she felt sad that her best friend was keeping things from her. Then again, she hadn’t exactly been around much since she’d started at Berkeley; or even before that, when she was working for Cord. And she herself had been keeping something from Lux—she’d never told her about her secret relationship with Cord. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy for you,” Rylin said, because she was, and she really missed her friend right now. “Where is Reed, anyway?”
Lux tipped her head toward an enormous chair that someone had set up on the side of the pool, stacked precariously atop a table. Reed was sitting there, looking inordinately pleased with himself as he clinked shot glasses with a group of his friends.
“He’s on lifeguard duty for the hour. Like people used to do in ancient times! We had to turn the safety bots off, you know, to keep the police away.” Lux giggled. “He’s not taking it that seriously, though.”
Rylin had a feeling that human lifeguards were more recent than ancient times. She also had a feeling that Reed was in no shape to keep drunk teenagers from hurting themselves, but she smiled and held her tongue. “Let’s dance,” she said instead.
Lux nodded, and together they began to weave through the hot, crowded press of people. The vid-cam bobbed cheerfully above them, a tiny silver planet lost in a universe of glow lights.
WATT
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON,Watt waited for Cynthia at the corner of Madison Square Park in midTower.I still think this is a bad idea, he told Nadia, watching the flow of people on the carbonite sidewalk that lined the hover path. Tourists wandered around in their awful tourist clothes, jeans and fanny packs and those T-shirts that saidI♥NYwith the iconic image of the Tower emblazoned on the ♥. A group of girls across the street bought ice cream from an enormous cone-shaped snack bot, while periodically shooting glances at Watt and giggling.
“Did you have a better idea?” Nadia whispered into his eartennas.
