Page 65 of Degradation
I see him grinning as he spoons a green powder into his smoothie. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
He pushes the start button on his fancy blender before he answers, and I cover my ears until he stops it again.
‘Sorry,’ he murmurs, looking more contrite when he notices that the noise affects me.
He sits next to me at the table. ‘It depends on a lot of things. How you feel, how you might react?—’
‘If you can trust me?’ I finish.
His eyes smolder as he looks at me, tracing my jaw with two of his fingers. ‘Oh, I think I can trust you, Tulip.’
I close my eyes focusing on his touch, leaning into it like he’s sunlight and I’m a starving little Daisy. But all too soon, his hand drops, and he lets out a sigh.
I echo the sound.
‘If he trusted you, he’d have told you about Envy,’an insidious little voice says inside my head.
I push the thought away and finish my tea while he drinks the smoothie that, to me, looks about as appetizing as the salads he likes.
When we’re finished, he walks me to class, handing me the textbook for it that I thought I was going to have to buy.
‘Where’d this come from?’ I ask.
‘Blake borrowed it from one of his buddies for you.’
I smile as I take it and go into class, hoping he’s there to walk me back later as I settle into my seat.
When class is over, Mav is waiting for me. We spend some time in the lab, going over numbers. I’m conscious of Mav watching me, with concern I think, almost the entire time.
‘What is it?’ I finally ask, a little suspicious that Shade might be using him to watch me since he’s barely left me alone all day.
But he just asks me if I’m hungry and hands me one of the salads he buys, muttering something about me getting my five a day. I eye it dubiously because, while I don’t have a problem with vegetables, I don’t like how everything in the container he’s given me is all mixed together.
I eat it even though it’s vile, half because he got it for me, and half, I realize with a sinking feeling, because, in The Heath, if I didn’t eat what was on my plate, I’d lose privileges that day.
I don’t tell him any of this, of course. But when I push the container away, disgusted with myself and the thoughts that my time there has left me with, Mav gives me a questioning look.
‘Don’t like salad?’
‘Not really a fan of lots of flavors jumbled together,’ I murmur.
My eyes drift over a short paragraph in the chemistry textbook I’m reading about drug manufacture. I vaguely hear him say something else a few seconds later, but I don’t really register it, too wrapped up in my thoughts. I need to find some time alone to do more research, but, after reading through all the data Mav accidentally gave me access to, I think I know what the problem is. And how to fix it.
‘Daisy?’
‘Yes?’ I look up, almost afraid he somehow knows what I’m thinking.
‘Did you hear anything I just said?’ he asks.
I blink up at him. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
I try to calm my nerves.
Keep it together. Mind reading isn’t a thing. He has no idea. None of them do.
‘Don’t you need to get to your next class?’
