Legend (14 page)

“What do you mean by that?”

“You get right to the point.”

I can’t help smiling. “As do you.” As we settle down to watch the stands, I make some notes to myself. I can afford to linger with these two for one more night, until I heal enough to return to tracking down information about Day. Who knows—maybe they’ll even give me a clue.

When evening finally comes and the sun’s heat begins to fade, we make our way back to the water’s edge and search for a place to camp. All around us I see candlelight flickering to life from window to glassless window, and here and there the locals light small fires along the edges of alleys. New shifts of street police begin making their rounds. Five nights out in the field now. I still can’t get used to the crumbling walls, the lines of worn clothing hanging from balconies, the clusters of young beggars hoping for a bite to eat from passersby . . . but at the very least, my disdain has faded. I think back with some shame on the night of Metias’s funeral, when I’d left a giant steak untouched on my plate, without a second thought.Tess walks ahead of us, completely unperturbed by her surroundings, her stride cheerful and carefree. I can hear her humming some faint tune.

“Elector’s Waltz,” I murmur, recognizing the song.

The boy glances at me from where he’s walking by my side. He grins. “Sounds like you’re a fan of Lincoln, yeah?”

I can’t tell him that I own copies of all of Lincoln’s songs as well as some signed memorabilia, that I’ve seen her perform political anthems live at a city banquet or that she once wrote a song honoring each of the Republic’s warfront generals. Instead, I smile. “Yeah, guess so.”

He returns my smile. His teeth are beautiful, the loveliest I’ve seen so far on these streets. “Tess loves music,” he replies. “She always drags me past the bars around here and makes us wait nearby while she listens to whatever anthems they’re playing inside. I don’t know. Must be a girl thing.”

Half an hour later, the boy starts to notice my fatigue again. He calls Tess back and guides us over to one of the alleys, where a series of large metal trash bins sit wedged between two walls. He pushes one of them forward to give us some room. Then he crouches down behind it, motions for Tess and me to sit down, and begins unbuttoning his vest.

I blush scarlet and thank every god in the world for the darkness surrounding us. “I’m not cold and I’m not bleeding,” I say to him. “Keep your clothes on.”

The boy looks at me. I would’ve expected his bright eyes to look dimmer in the night, but instead they seem to reflect the light coming from the windows above us. He’s amused. “Who said anything about
you
, sweetheart?” He takes off his vest, folds it neatly, and places it on the ground next to one of the trash bin’s wheels. Tess sits down and unceremoniously rests her head on it, as if it’s an old habit.

I clear my throat. “Of course,” I mutter. I ignore the boy’s low laugh.

Tess stays up and talks with us, but soon her eyelids grow heavy, and she falls asleep with her head on the boy’s vest. The boy and I lapse into silence. I let my eyes linger on Tess.

“She seems very fragile,” I whisper.

“Yeah . . . but she’s tougher than she looks.”

I glance up at him. “You’re lucky to have her with you.” My eyes go to his leg. He sees my gesture and quickly adjusts his posture. “She must’ve come in handy when she fixed up your leg.”

He realizes that I’ve noticed his limp. “Nah. I got this a long time ago.” He hesitates, then decides against saying anything more about it. “How’s your wound healing, by the way?”

I wave him off. “No big deal.” But I grit my teeth even as I say it. Walking around all day hasn’t helped things, and the pain is returning like wildfire.

The boy sees the strain on my face. “We should change those bandages.” He gets up and, without disturbing Tess, deftly pulls a roll of white wraps from her pocket. “I’m not as good as she is,” he whispers. “But I’d rather not wake her.”

He sits beside me and loosens the bottom two buttons of my shirt, then pushes it up until he exposes my bandaged waist. His skin brushes against mine. I try to keep my focus on his hands. He reaches behind one of his boots and pulls out what looks like a compact kitchen knife (patternless silver handle, worn edge—he’s used it plenty of times before, and to saw through things much tougher than cloth). One of his hands rests against my stomach. Even though his fingers are callused from years on the streets, they’re so careful and gentle that I feel heat rising on my cheeks.

“Hold still,” he mutters. Then he places the knife flat between my skin and the bandages and rips the cloth. I wince. He lifts the bandage away from my wound.

Tiny trickles of blood still seep from where Kaede’s knife stabbed me, but thankfully, there are no signs of infection. Tess knows her stuff. The boy pulls the rest of the old bandages away from my waist, tosses them aside, and starts wrapping the new bandages around me. “We’ll stay here until late morning,” he says as he works. “We shouldn’t have traveled so much today—but y’know, putting some distance between you and the Skiz folks wasn’t such a bad idea.”

Now I can’t help looking at his face. This is a boy who must’ve barely passed his Trial. But that doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t act like a desperate street kid. He has so many more
sides
to him that I wonder if he has always lived in these poor sectors. He glances at me now, notices me studying him, and pauses for a second. Some secret emotion darts across his eyes.
A beautiful mystery.
He must have similar questions about me, how I’m able to pick out so many details of his life. Perhaps he’s even wondering what I’ll figure out about him next. He’s so close to my face now that I can feel his breath against my cheek. I swallow. He draws a little nearer.

For an instant, I think he might kiss me.

Then he quickly looks back down at my wound. His hands brush against my waist as he works. I realize that his cheeks are rosy too. He’s as flushed as I am.

Finally he tightens the bandage, tugs my shirt back into place, and pulls away. He leans against the wall beside me and rests his arms against his knees. “Tired?”

I shake my head. My eyes wander to the clothes hanging overhead, several stories up. If we run out of bandages, that’s where I can get some fresh ones. “I think I can leave you guys alone after another day,” I say after a while. “I know I’m slowing you down.” But I feel a surge of regret even as the words come out of my mouth. Strange. I don’t
want
to leave them so soon. There’s something comforting about hanging around with Tess and this boy, as if the absence of Metias hasn’t entirely stripped me of everyone who cares about me.

What am I thinking? This is a boy from the slums. I’ve been trained to deal with guys like this, to watch them from the other side of the glass.

“Where will you go?” the boy asks.

I refocus. My voice comes out cool and collected. “East, maybe. I’m more used to the inner sectors.”

The boy keeps his eyes forward. “You can stay longer, if all you’re going to do is wander the streets somewhere else. I could use a good fighter like you. We can make quick cash in Skiz fights and split our food supplies. We’ll both do better.”

He offers this idea with such sincerity that I have to smile. I decide not to ask why he doesn’t fight in Skiz himself. “Thanks, but I prefer to work alone.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Fair enough.” And with that, he leans his head back against the wall, sighs, and closes his eyes. I watch him for a moment, waiting for him to expose those brilliant eyes to the world again. But he doesn’t. After a while, I hear his breathing grow steady and see his head droop, and I know he’s fallen asleep.

I think about contacting Thomas. But I’m not in the mood to hear his voice right now. I’m not even sure why.
Tomorrow morning, then, first thing.
I lean my head back too and stare up at the clothes hanging above us. Other than the distant sounds of night-shift crowds and occasional JumboTron broadcasts, it’s a peaceful evening, just like at home. The silence makes me think of Metias.

I make sure that the sound of my crying doesn’t wake Tess and the boy.

THE BOY AND I SIT TOGETHER IN THE BACK OF ANOTHER
alley while Tess sleeps a short distance away. The boy has given her his vest again. I watch as he files his nails down by scraping them with the edge of his knife. He’s taken the cap off his head, for once, and combed through the tangles in his hair.

He’s in a good mood. “You want a sip?” he asks me.

A bottle of nectar wine sits between us. It’s cheap stuff, probably made from those bland sea grapes that grow in ocean water. But the boy acts like this wine is the best thing in the world. He’d stolen a case of bottles from a shop at Winter sector’s edge earlier in the evening and sold all but this one for a grand total of 650 Notes. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly he gets around the sectors. His agility is on par with the top students at Drake.

“I’ll have some if you do,” I say. “Can’t let your stolen goods go to waste, can I?”

He grins at that. I watch as he stabs his knife into the bottle’s cork, then pops it out and throws his head back for a long swig. He wipes a thumb across his mouth and smiles at me. “Delicious,” he says. “Have some.”

I accept the bottle and take a small sip before handing it back to him. Salty aftertaste, just as I thought. At least it might ease the pain in my side.

We continue taking turns—large swigs for him, small sips for me—until he recorks the bottle, seeming to put it away the instant he feels it dulling his awareness. Even so, his eyes look glossier, and the blue irises take on a lovely, reflective sheen.

He may not let himself lose his ability to focus, but I can tell that the wine has relaxed him. “So tell me,” I decide to ask. “Why do you need so much money?”

The boy laughs. “Is that a serious question? Don’t we all want more money? Can you ever have enough?”

“You like answering all my questions with your own questions?”

He laughs again. But when he speaks, his voice has a sad tinge to it. “Money is the most important thing in the world, you know. Money can buy you happiness, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. It’ll buy you relief, status, friends, safety . . . all sorts of things.”

I watch as his eyes take on a faraway look. “It seems like you’re in an awful hurry to stock up.”

This time he shoots me an amused look. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’ve probably lived on the streets as long as I have. You should know the answer to that, yeah?”

I look down. I don’t want him to see the truth. “I guess so.”

We sit in silence for a moment.

The boy speaks up. When he does, there’s such a tender quality to his voice that I can’t help looking up at him. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this,” he begins. He doesn’t blush, and his eyes don’t dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans—one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. “You’re very attractive.”

I’ve been complimented on my appearance before. But never in his tone of voice. Of all the things he’s said, I don’t know why
this
catches me off guard. But it startles me so much that without thinking I blurt out, “I could say the same about you.” I pause. “In case you didn’t know.”

A slow grin spreads across his face. “Oh, trust me. I know.”

I laugh. “Nice to hear something honest.” I can’t break away from his stare. Finally, I manage to add, “Well, I think you’ve had too much wine, my friend.” I keep my voice as light as I can. “A little sleep will do you good.”

The words have barely left my mouth when the boy leans closer and places his hand on my cheek. All my training would have me block his hand and pin it to the ground. But now I do nothing but sit perfectly still. He pulls me to him. I take a breath before he touches his lips to mine.

I taste the wine on his lips. He kisses me gently at first and then, as if he’s reaching for something more, he pushes me against the wall and kisses me harder. His lips are warm and so soft—his hair brushes against my face. I try to focus. (Not his first time. He’s definitely kissed other girls before, and quite a few at that. He’s—he seems like he’s short of breath. . . . ) The details flit away. I grab at them in vain. It takes me a moment to realize I’m kissing him just as hungrily. I feel the knife at his waist against my own skin, and I tremble. It’s too warm here, there’s too much heat on my face.