The Significant (18 page)

      
“Okay.”

      
Isa started toward the guest hall door to
go to her office. Even knowing where the Elite was going, Kailynn’s heart began
racing as Isa drew closer. The Elite passed her and walked to the door that
opened automatically. However, she stopped.

      
“Kailynn.”

      
The Significant turned around quickly.

      
“No matter what Rayal said, and no matter
what I say, the choice is yours.”

      
Kailynn blinked stupidly at the Elite for
a moment.

      
“But doesn’t what he say have a lot to do
with my decision?” Kailynn pressed.

      
“If it makes sense to you,” she agreed.
“But in the end, no one can make the decision for you. You choose what you want
to do and what is right for you.”

      
Isa turned to go through the door when
Kailynn stopped her.

      
“Isa,” she started nervously, “when do I
have to make the decision by?”

      
Isa smiled. “There is no timeline,” she
said. “You make the decision whenever you are ready.”

      
Kailynn had spent much of the day in
silence, wandering around the level of Anon Tower, trying to sort her thoughts.
Words and emotions were ricocheting in her head, confusing her. She wanted to
go and sit with Isa and discuss everything, but the thought of being in such
close proximity to the Golden Elite again made her mind go blank. She was sure
she would be unable to communicate anything she wanted to the Golden Elite.

      
She wanted to stay. She was unsure
why
she wanted to stay. She was trying
to convince herself that it was for the money, but she knew that, if that was
truly the case, she would have taken Isa’s offer to pay her in full even if she
left early. There was some other reason that she wanted to stay. Some deep,
dark part of her knew that she
needed
to stay, because the thought of leaving Isa without knowing more about her was
too painful.

      
But that was not something she was
willing to acknowledge.

      
She began to remember that she would be
returning to real life in just over a week. She would be back to working as a
Significant to raise more money for her brother’s release.

      
Kailynn was a Trid. She was a non-citizen
with fake papers working to release the man who had tried to shut down Venus
and kill the Elites several times in his life. And she was earning most of the
money spending time with the Golden Elite herself.

      
Rayal’s words began to haunt her in that
moment.

      
She knew that, from a Trid perspective,
she could be a hero. She had the Golden Elite in an extremely delicate
situation. She had only to expose the Elite and that could bring down Isa’s
entire regime. Venus would be compromised with her Golden Elite having to be
replaced so suddenly and it could cause enough upheaval in the people to
overthrow the super-computer.

      
However, Kailynn knew that it was far
more complicated than that.

      
She had always been taught, as a Trid,
that the Elites were the enemy. She never really understood
why
the Elites were the enemy. All she
knew was that she had to struggle to eat and stay warm and the Elites never had
to struggle. She had been told that she struggled because the Elites made it so.
That was enough to fuel her hatred toward the Elite Syndicate.

      
But the previous night had changed that
perspective entirely. She had seen how upset Isa was at the attack on Caroie.
Isa had been trying to repair the damage that the previous Golden Elites had
dealt. Rayal explained that Isa was the best Elite the planet had had in a very
long time. Somehow, even without knowing what Isa had done and how the planet
had been before Isa took over the Syndicate, Kailynn understood that Isa was
very special, even among the Elites.

      
The sudden change in beliefs, and
remembering how she had felt before about Elites, was causing her head to spin.

      
She did not know what she was supposed to
do.

      
But Isa had given her the decision. She
was letting Kailynn choose how she wanted to proceed.

      
Kailynn was unsure if she was smart
enough to make that decision.

      
Over dinner, both Isa and Kailynn hardly
ate, lost in different thoughts. Kailynn was trying to determine her next step
while Isa was trying to understand her current situation with the other planets
after more information about the attack on Caroie had been uncovered.

      
Tarah cleaned up the plates, feeling
helpless, watching both of them struggle silently.

      
Isa stood.

      
“I’m going to bed,” she murmured.

      
“Oh…okay…” Kailynn said, startled out of
her thoughts.

      
Isa walked over to her and placed a hand
on hers, squeezing it gently with a knowing smile before walking to her room.
Kailynn watched her disappear and the door close behind her.

      
For over an hour, Kailynn sat at the
table, staring at her hands, trying to figure out the tangled mess of her
thoughts. Tarah went to bed, worried. There was a part of her that hoped
Kailynn would decide to go home so that there was no more danger to either of
them. However, there was another part of her that wanted the Significant to
stay because of how much happier Isa seemed to be with Kailynn around.

      
Finally, Kailynn stood, feeling her heart
race with every step she took toward the door. When the door opened, Isa sat
up, clearly surprised that Kailynn had come into her room. The younger woman
walked over to the bed and stood next to it for three long seconds before Isa
lifted the covers, inviting her in.

      
Kailynn shimmied out of her pants and
shirt and climbed into bed with the Elite, her arms wrapping around Isa. She
closed her eyes and tightened the hug, pressing her face into Isa’s neck. The
Golden Elite held her, her hand gently stroking Kailynn’s hair until they both
fell asleep.

Chapter
Thirteen

      
“Isa, there are a few things I wanted to
ask you.”

      
“Okay,” the Elite said, dressing in her
Syndicate uniform. It had been three days since the fated night that had changed
their lives, and Kailynn finally felt like she could gather her thoughts enough
to ask some of her burning questions.

      
“Rayal said that you were sick for a long
time. That they thought you would die.”

      
Isa turned to Kailynn, surprised that
Rayal had revealed that information. Kailynn turned away, hugging her knees as
she sat in the bed, still covered in the sheets.

      
“Is that true? You were that sick?”

      
Isa hesitated before turning back to the
mirror, straightening the collar of her uniform.

      
“I was very ill, yes,” she admitted. “To
be honest, I do not remember much of my time in the hospital, but I was there
for eight months.”

      
“
Eight
months
?” Kailynn gawked.

      
“The doctors said that I was on the verge
of death, but I do not recall anything of my treatment.”

      
“What put you in the hospital?”

      
“It was a combination of things,” Isa
admitted, brushing through her hair. “My health was in decline for over a year
before I was in the hospital. And then I fainted and fell down the stairs and
through some glass at the Syndicate Building.”

      
Kailynn’s jaw fell open at the story. She
could not respond as Isa turned around.

      
“But that was almost five years ago,” she
concluded. “It’s ancient history now.”

      
“Are you…I mean, clearly…you’re better?”

      
Isa chuckled lightly.

      
“I am fine,” she assured. “Every now and then,
particularly in stressful times, some of the pains return, but they are not
serious.” Isa walked over to the bed and sat on the frame, smiling gently at
Kailynn. “I am a little surprised that Rayal told you that.”

      
“I’ve actually been hearing a lot of
things about you that have me curious…”

      
“Oh?”

      
“Like that you’ve been in a relationship
before.”

      
Isa’s eyes were unreadable. She stared at
Kailynn for a few moments before heaving a sigh and nodding.

      
“I was.”

      
“How did you even manage that? Was it a
short-term thing?”

      
“No, it was not short-term,” Isa
admitted. “And I was very careful about it.”

      
“But Venus still found out,” Kailynn said
knowingly.

      
“She did.”

      
“But she didn’t kill you,” Kailynn
continued. “Did she kill the person you were with?”

      
“No.”

      
“She doesn’t enforce her own rules?”
Kailynn asked skeptically.

      
“At the time she found out, there was a
crisis within the Alliance. The relationship was very secret and she found out
while it was a still a secret. Because it was not public, and she still needed
me to help with the crisis throughout the system, she did not kill me. She
ordered the relationship terminated, and that was all.”

      
Kailynn looked down at the sheets,
thinking.

      
“But, there won’t be that kind of
reaction if she finds out about us, will there?”

      
Isa took Kailynn’s hand and squeezed it.

      
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I do
not plan to have her find out.”

      
She leaned forward and kissed Kailynn’s
forehead.

      
“I must work.”

      
“Okay.”

      
Isa left the room while Kailynn flopped
back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Even though she and Isa had been
sleeping together the previous nights and continuing sexual relations, there
were several moments where the reality of the situation hit her hard enough to
knock the breath out of her. Hearing that Isa had been in a relationship before
eased her mind in part because it meant that Isa did know how to keep their
relations secret. However, knowing that Venus had still discovered Isa’s prior
relationship caused Kailynn to be overcome with anxiety.

      
Tarah had been her biggest support. When
the younger caretaker realized that the Significant would be staying, she
seemed relieved and overjoyed. She would talk to Kailynn constantly, trying to
get her to stop thinking about the dangerous situation. She knew she only had
to distract Kailynn while Isa was working, because the Elite always seemed to
calm the anxious Significant when she appeared.

      
Tarah was very careful not to reveal much
more about Isa’s past, but she did tell everything she had heard from the other
houses about the interesting, and sometimes illegal, things those in the upper
class did, which helped ease Kailynn a little bit, but it would also increase
her anxiety in other ways.

      
Rayal stopped by later in the afternoon
to discuss information with Isa that their intelligence agents had found. He
also stayed for dinner, helping Tarah cook. Kailynn had far too much time to
worry as they were cooking, though she was sometimes distracted watching Tarah
glance at Rayal with bright stars in her eyes. Kailynn wondered if Rayal
noticed Tarah’s crush.

      
During dinner, Kailynn immediately felt
more at ease. Whenever she saw Isa, she calmed, feeling safe.

      
She sat next to Isa at dinner, no longer
across from her.

      
Rayal spent his time watching them at
dinner, noting every secret glance and every small smile.

      
He saw that, somehow, in the three days
he had left them, they had become even closer. He could tell from the way
Kailynn was acting that she did not entirely understand Isa, or know her
secrets. Instead, it was as if the Significant was instinctively gravitating to
the Elite, and the Golden Elite was also pulled to the younger woman.

      
The realization scared Rayal.

      
Things were getting more dangerous the
longer the two women were together.

      
Two days after Rayal’s visit, a second
unexpected visitor appeared.

      
Kailynn was helping Tarah clean the
living room, listening to the caretaker relay a story Rayal had told her. The
younger woman had been unable to stop talking about Rayal and Kailynn was
starting to get annoyed with the crush. She did not say anything, hoping that
thinking about Tarah and Rayal and listening to Tarah’s stories would take her
mind off her own inner turmoil, but it was still starting to grate her nerves.

      
The front door opening stopped Tarah’s
story short as they both turned.

      
Kailynn did not see the way Tarah’s face
dropped, but she could feel the shift in the tension of the room when he walked
in. The man who entered was tall and broad, built with impressive muscles and
an extremely handsome face. From his appearance alone, Kailynn knew he was an
Elite. He was dressed in the same Syndicate Uniform that Isa wore, but somehow,
it made his already-perfect physique seem impossibly perfect.

      
“Elite Remus,” Tarah murmured, quickly
running forward to greet the Silver Elite. Kailynn’s heart stopped and fell
into her stomach. His eyes found her immediately and held her gaze for what
felt like days. Kailynn was sure her legs were trembling, because it was
difficult to stay standing. His green eyes were sharp and clear, veiled and
powerful in their knowledge. “Is there anything I can get for you, sir?”

      
“No, Tarah,” Remus said simply, glancing
at the caretaker before his eyes settled on Kailynn again. “Please retrieve Isa
for me.”

      
“Yes, sir.”

      
Tarah threw an apologetic look back at
Kailynn for leaving her alone with the Silver Elite, and then disappeared to
find Isa.

      
Two seconds passed before Kailynn moved.
She shifted her legs, trying to brace herself on one to keep from shaking. She
crossed her arms over her chest and looked over the Silver Elite, as if Elites
were something she came in contact with every day.

      
“Are you the Significant?” Remus asked.

      
“I would think that would be obvious,”
Kailynn said, her voice shaking only a little.

      
The corners of the Silver Elite’s mouth
quirked slightly upward.

      
“I’m glad my instructions were followed
to send someone with a little bite.”

      
Kailynn did not respond and forced
herself to remain still as Remus approached her.

      
“Let me ask you something,” Remus
started, his voice cold. “Were you instructed on what to do while you were
here?”

      
Kailynn said nothing, not sure what the
Silver Elite meant.

      
“You were supposed to sit with her and
talk with her, and that was all,” Remus explained.

      
Kailynn’s expression faltered, her eyes
going wide.

      
He knew.

      
The warning from Rayal rattled her skull
again.

      
“I’m guessing from your reaction that you
did not follow those instructions,” Remus said, his voice growing dark.

      
Kailynn was already intimidated by how
tall Isa was, but Remus towered over her and was broad, which made his looming
gaze even more frightening as it was cast down on the Significant.

      
“I was hoping the information was false,”
Remus continued.

      
“How did you find out?” Kailynn asked,
putting on her strongest face. “What happens in Isa’s private life is none of
your business.”

      
Remus’ eyes darkened.

      
“
Everything
to do with Isa is my business,” he growled. “And this is something that cannot
be ignored.”

      
“Because it’s
illegal
?” Kailynn challenged. “We’ve both heard that argument
enough.” The Significant sighed, trying to sound indignant as she shifted her
weight to brace herself on the other foot, her legs still shaking. “Look, you
wanted me to be here to talk to her and comfort her, but when all this shit
happened with Caroie, she needed more than someone to talk to.”

      
Remus hesitated, the muscles in his jaw
clenching for a brief moment.

      
“What happened on Caroie shook her up,
that is without question,” he started, his tone measured. “However, even if she
was upset, or drunk, or whatever it was,
you
as a Significant should have known the rules of interactions with Elites and
stopped her from making this monumental mistake.”

      
The words cut Kailynn deeper than she
anticipated.

      
“
Mistake
?”
she growled. “For your information,
I
was
the one who came onto
her
. She did
not start anything, I did.”

      
“What you did was illegal,” Remus hissed.

      
“What you did was illegal, too,” Kailynn
snarled. “But you would know that, already. You’re the one paying for me to be
here.”

      
“That’s right. I am the one paying,”
Remus repeated darkly, glaring at Kailynn. “But I never paid for you to touch
her. Do you have any idea the implications of what you’re doing?”

      
“She needed me,” Kailynn said. “That’s
why you hired me, right? Because she
needed
someone?”

      
Remus was about to speak when the door
opened to the living room and Isa walked out of the guest hall, Tarah behind
her.

      
“Remus,” she greeted. “You should have
told me you were coming over.” She approached the two, looking between them. It
was clear she already knew the situation. “Is there a problem?”

      
Remus turned to Isa fully.