Return Once More (28 page)

“I don't know, Elder Booth. I … we got carried away. It won't happen again.”

“Please return to your dormitory. We'll decide on your sanction and meet with you both tomorrow morning.” Truman dismissed me, his cold gaze trained on his son.

My feet refused to move, for some reason concerned about Oz. Only
I
had been dismissed, and the fury flashing in his father's gaze almost made me worry for my classmate's safety.

I didn't need to feel responsible for Oz getting into hot water, and Truman wouldn't hurt his own son. I had enough trouble managing my regrets over getting myself in trouble after my questionable decision making these past several days.

Booth stepped to one side of the doorway, beckoning me through with a pointed look, his patience clearly wearing thin. Oz nodded when I looked back at him, his eyes hiding whatever he was feeling. He reached up to wipe his lips, as though trying to smudge away the memory of mine.

With my emotions a jumbled mess, I hurried back toward my room. Sanctions were public record, so the hope of hiding what had happened tonight didn't exist, and one question weighed on me heavier than all the others right now.

How in the System was I going to explain this to Sarah?

*

“What were you and Oz doing sneaking around the storage areas, anyway?” Sarah's tan freckles stood out against her blanched cheeks.

It was impossible to tell if she was angry, hurt, or confused. Probably some mixture of all three, which pretty much described my feelings at the moment, too. Analeigh's gaze burned the side of my face, saying she wanted me to come clean, to tell Sarah everything. It would hurt her even more to wonder whether or not she was betrothed to … whatever Oz was these days. That confused me as much as anything. I couldn't pin him down.

In the end, her happiness meant too much for me to break her heart. If Oz was going to do that, he could damn well do it without my help. My pause must have been too long, because Sarah's eyes filled with tears a moment later.

“If there's something going on between the two of you, please tell me. I don't want to be the dumb girl who's the last one to know her own True doesn't want to be with her.”

“Sarah, no. No.” If she weren't so distraught I would have laughed at the ridiculous suggestion that someone who had the chance to actually
be
with their true love wouldn't take it. “I wanted to go and watch holo-files of Caesarion, but I was too embarrassed to tell you guys, so I snuck out during the party. When I heard the Elders coming down the hall and acting all secretive, I just … well, you know how I am. I was curious and wanted to snoop.”

“But Oz left the party right when you did. How do you explain that?”

I couldn't, but Oz could take care of his part of this mess on his own. “You'll have to ask him. I didn't see him until I snuck out of the Archive room to follow the Elders. He asked what I was doing, and then tried to talk me out of it—of course.” That coaxed the slightest smile out of her. “And when I ignored him, he followed me. Probably to try to keep me out of trouble, except we both got caught eavesdropping and now we have to go to a sanction in the morning.”

Sarah didn't say anything for a long time. I closed my eyes and tried to stop my heart from pounding. Oz's secret travels and clandestine assignments might be off-limits but I couldn't lie to her about tonight. Not totally. It would hurt her worse to hear it from other people, and thinking that I tried to cover it up would all but solidify, in her mind, that there was something
to
cover up.

“He kissed me.”

Sarah's eyes flew to my face, and Analeigh sucked in a sharp breath. Before either of them could start yelling, I pushed on. “It was only so the Elders wouldn't think we were snooping, and it didn't mean anything, I swear.”

Tears rolled down Sarah's cheeks. Each one burned my heart like acid, pain I deserved for being in the position to hurt one of my best friends, even if it had been unintentional. “Sarah, I'm sorry. I swear to you, nothing is going on between Oz and me. Wrong place, wrong time. That's all.”

“So, the sanction is about being caught making out in a restricted area?” she choked out.

“Yes. His dad was one of the Elders who caught us, though, so I'm sure the penalty isn't going to be terrible. A few weeks of mopping duty, maybe.”

Moppers, those with lower aptitudes that cleaned our Academy, normally changed the sheets, dusted the nooks and crannies, things like that. Taking over their duties for a week or two was a standard sanction for minor infractions. I'd done it a few times. It was kind of peaceful, actually, and a good way to let my mind wander over upcoming reflections when it wasn't terribly disgusting. Cleaning the bathrooms in the boys' dormitories nearly cured me of committing infractions ever again, though.

“That's really all there is to it? You were snooping, he tried to get you to stop, and then you kissed him to cover up the real reason you were in the restricted storage area?”

I swallowed my protest that
he
had kissed
me.
Oz had saved my ass, so it wasn't fair to throw him in front of the transport ship now. “That's really all. I swear, Sarah.”

My insides, from my stomach to my heart to my throat, clenched painfully at the lie. Not because the kiss had knocked loose hidden feelings for Oz, other than more confusion. Because even though I knew Sarah was asking whether he and I were involved in some kind of illicit affair, it felt like a lie to omit the twisted battle of secrets in which Oz and I
were
mired.

They weren't
our
secrets, but that wouldn't matter when she learned that I had known he'd possibly been betraying us all and had kept it from her. She could hate me forever.

I
would hate me forever, if I were in Sarah's shoes.

Now, she took a deep, shuddering breath, climbed off my bed, and wandered into her own room. A series of squeaks and rustles said she'd burrowed under her covers, finished dealing with me for tonight. Analeigh and I looked at each other, and I read disappointment and sorrow in her reproachful gaze. She knew nothing was going on between Oz and me, but we both knew if I hadn't snuck out tonight none of this would have happened.

“Should I have told her everything about Oz?”

The throat tats came in handy once in a while, and Sarah's bedroom left her too far away to overhear our silent whispers, even if she was faking sleep.

Analeigh shrugged, then shook her head. “
No. We can't ruin her trust in him without proof.”

“The Elders definitely know he's traveling alone, and they were talking about giving him some kind of assignment.”

“We don't know that what he's doing is bad. Maybe it's good,”
she replied, her tone doubtful.

I wanted so badly to believe that. That everything and everyone I'd believed in my entire life had humanity's best interest at heart, that Oz cared about Sarah and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our lives or our future in Genesis.

“They've always told us it's wrong, to mess with history. Deadly. And even Jonah said it's dangerous.”
Even though I trusted Caesarion, the truth of their warnings rang in my bones.

“Right, but
Jonah
is dangerous, according to the Elders and the Enforcers. It could be that we only want to believe he's still good because we love him.”
Analeigh's cheeks turned pink as she reached out and squeezed my hand. The quiet reprimand in her expression earlier dissolved, making room for empathy and confusion. “
I'm sorry for being harsh earlier.”

“When?”

“I was thinking it and you know it. But you didn't mean to hurt Sarah, and I doubt Oz did, either. Maybe
…
do you think you could talk to him again? Get him to trust you?”

I shook my head, my fingers lifting to my mouth before I realized what was happening. I pinched my lower lip, trying to erase the memory of the kiss. “
I don't know. He's scared.”

He had frightened me, then pissed me off, and that had taken precedence over any concern for his well-being. Maybe he'd climbed in way over his head. I could
try
talking to him. For all of his bluster in the air lock yesterday, he'd gone out of his way tonight to help me when he could have easily shoved me into his father's arms and told Zeke everything he knew about me traveling with Jonah's cuff. And he wouldn't have been wrong to do it.

“What are we going to do, Kaia?”

I squeezed her hand harder, holding on for dear life.
I don't know.
”

She pressed her lips into a thin line, worry wrinkling her brow and erasing her instinctive disapproval of my antics as she glanced toward Sarah's doorway. We were in this together, no matter how hard she wished I had just followed the rules, had never grabbed Jonah's cuff or found out Oz was up to something.

Another memory from tonight surfaced.
“Do you know anything about someone named Cecil Beaton? The Elders were talking about influencing him.”

She paused, chewing her lip, then shook her head.
“I know I should. It sounds familiar. We could look it up.”

I put out my hand, stopping her as she went for her personal comp.
“No. After earlier, I'm not sure what we can research without arousing more suspicion. Let's just think about it for a few days, and if we don't come up with anything, ask Sarah to help us get around the system security.”

“If she forgives you by then.”

For all of her meek exterior, Analeigh was always on my side. Perhaps not where Caesarion was concerned, but as far as things went with the goings-on at the Academy. And Oz.

Since he and I had yet another “date” first thing in the morning, I might as well give talking to him a shot.

It couldn't be a worse idea than kissing him.

The next morning dawned far too early, and since Oz and I were summoned to the private sanction before breakfast, sleeping in qualified as a pipe dream.

I rose twenty minutes before the alarm, deciding to take Analeigh's advice to try again to talk the truth out of Oz. I brushed my teeth and threw my long hair into a crooked bun on top of my head, then slid into my familiar apprentice uniform. An attack of chills led me to grab my warm brown sweater at the last minute.

The halls were empty because all sane people were snoozing the morning away. The door to the room Oz shared with Levi opened before I'd had the chance to work out what to say, or knock, and Oz stepped into the hallway. I watched him before he saw me standing off to one side, my heart stopping at the sight of a light bruise blooming across his jaw. He stretched his arms above his head, groaning a little as his joints popped and sleep-stiff muscles worked loose. His black hair was wet from a shower and curled around his ears, and the rings around his eyes suggested he hadn't slept much better than I did.

“Good morning,” I said, loud enough to startle him. Unable to tear my eyes away from his marred face.

“Kaia,” he said, recovering quickly. “I didn't know you were capable of getting up before the last possible second.”

It took me a minute to react to the unexpected, good-natured teasing. “Have you been body snatched by someone with a sense of humor? Because I need to talk to the old Oz about why he changed James Puckle's trajectory.” I watched him carefully for any nonverbal response, but the only one I got was a quick flicker of determination in his eyes.

“There's no reason for you to worry.”

“Oz. That's not what you said last night. You said there were things I didn't understand, that I should leave it alone.” I paused, watching him seriously. “And that bruise on your jaw? That makes me worry.”

“You don't need to worry about me.” He glared, but fear lurked behind his eyes. “I did a lot of things last night I shouldn't have done.”

The reminder of our kiss heated my cheeks and made it easier to ignore the proof that things with his father had gotten out of hand. Easier to stop wondering if it was the first time, knowing it couldn't be. It was stupid to be so embarrassed about that kiss anyway, to let it affect me. It hadn't meant anything, and it wasn't like I'd never been kissed before, and by much more effective lips.

“You shouldn't have kissed me, but—”

“I didn't enjoy it, I promise you.”

I glared at him. It was better than kicking him in his balls, which was my first inclination. “I was
going
to say, before the new smartass version of Oz came out to play, that I appreciate the bailout. Also, you should know that I told Sarah.”

“You
what?
Why would you do that?” He turned green, like he might heave all over my sneakers any second.

At least we hadn't eaten yet.

“She and Analeigh knew something happened. She saw me run after you like some kind of lovesick stalker, and it's not like the rumor mill isn't going to be churning with the news of our sanction this morning, anyway. Would you rather we lied about it like there's something to hide?”

His face fell and I almost felt sorry for him. Whatever else was going on, Oz clearly cared about Sarah and their relationship. After meeting Caesarion, I understood. The thought of disappointing him or making him hurt, even unintentionally, twisted my heart into a knot. It softened me toward this boy whose secrets were an infuriating source of dangerous intrigue.

“I had to tell her, Oz. I mean, maybe you and I
each
have something to hide, but
we
don't have anything to hide. And that's what she would have thought.”

He nodded, eyes downcast. “Thank you for telling me.”

We moved down the hall toward the wing that held the Elders' offices. The space where judicial panels were held sprang off Zeke's office, the rooms sort of modeled after a courtroom or judges' chambers on Earth Before.