Wordless (18 page)

Khaya’s stony expression distracted me from the bigger picture.

Pavati noticed it too. “Like you’re any different, Tu. Your mother, Tsuchi—the previous Word of Earth,” she clarified for me, “had a donor parent from Japan, and we all know how much China and Japan love each other.”

Actually, I didn’t, but I didn’t say anything. The Words might be prisoners, but they had far more access to knowledge than I’d ever had. There were prisons other than those of concrete and metal bars: some were made of glass walls and indestructible bracelets, others of ignorance and wordlessness. Eden City had all three.

“Forget the Japanese,” Tu said in disgust, dismissing his mother in the same breath. “The father carries on the line, anyway.” He struck a seated pose. “I’m Chinese.”

“Right,” Pavati said sarcastically. “I’m sure you’ll be singing the same tune when your kid is named after the next country in line for the Word of Earth. That’s all your male ‘line’ amounts to.”

“I’m sure China will win the spot again—well, if the Words aren’t turned into mindless automatons built in a lab,” Tu added. “But hey, I’m free now! I’m going to do things the old-fashioned way, with the girl of my choice.”

He so pointedly did not look at Pavati that I nearly snickered. His insecurity almost made me dislike him a little less. Almost, but not quite.

Then Tu brightened. “That’s what our plan should be! We should go home, support our home countries in the fight against Eden—”

“China is not your home.” Pavati turned on him with a fierceness I hadn’t yet seen. “Don’t you get it? We have no homes!”

“Maybe that’s how you feel,” Tu shot back. “You just don’t have any connection to the earth, like me. You’re water, drifting.”

She rolled her eyes. “And you’re as thick as the earth’s mantle. I don’t have a home because my dad’s ancestors were sent as slaves to America. Even my donor mom’s people—
Native
Americans—were made prisoners on their own land. And now America has made me a slave, like the both of them, to Eden City. Like China did to you. Like you.”

Tu’s face reddened and his fists clenched at his sides. “So you don’t want to do anything? Just sink into anonymity and watch the world go by without you, never mind that you’re a
Word
?”

“Sounds pretty enjoyable.” Pavati leaned back on her hands and crossed her legs. “To complete the picture, I only need a sofa, a cup of tea, and a good book.” She inhaled, as if breathing in the aroma of her imaginary tea. “Ah, freedom.”

“Fine!” Tu rose to his feet in a storm of muscle. “If that’s how you insist on seeing things, you can go hide in a hole like Khaya. But we were made for more than that! We have power, and whole nations that support us—
us
,
not Eden City.”

He stomped away from the ring of light into one of the side rooms. If there had been a door, he would have slammed it. As it was, the earthen threshold collapsed, sealing him off from the rest of us.

Pavati sighed and stayed where she was. “Let him sulk. He’ll snap out of it.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen him ‘out of it’ yet,” I said, staring at the smooth wall where a doorway had just been. I hoped Tu wouldn’t sulk for too long. Khaya and I needed to move—which would be difficult, seeing as we were currently stuck underground.

“Yeah, Tu’s like that. About as chill as a volcano.” Pavati made a face. “Here I go, now, relating him to the earth. Gods, next I’ll be talking about how I’m as laid-back as a river.” She met my eyes in total seriousness. “I’m not.”

I suppressed a shiver. “I believe you. So your donor mother was from America?”

“Both mine and my father’s,” she said, relaxing somewhat. “My donor mother was Hopi, in honor of her people—
America’s attempt at an apology for genocide.”

That was why Tu had mentioned a powwow and a peace pipe. I vaguely recalled that those were Native American symbols.

“It’s where the name Pavati comes from. You can guess what it means.” She grinned. “My father’s donor mother was African American. She was selected near the end of the Civil Rights Movement, so it was political like everything else. My father’s name was Water. He hated it.” Her grin softened to a smile, but it was somehow stronger, more real. “He called himself Walter, and it eventually caught on, like Em’s name. Herio’s mom.”

“Yeah, Khaya told me about her,” I said quickly, not wanting to talk about Herio. “So they let you do that? Change your names?”

“Not on paper. But even then, we have a microscopic amount of control … for example, Agonya demanded that her name be written how it sounds.” Pavati bent forward, scratching some letters in the dirt with her fingernail. “It’s typically written without the
YA
, like this—
AGON
. The soft Russian
N
by itself has that
Y
-sound already built in. But then she complained that people called her ‘Ah-gone,’ see?”

“Uh,” I said. “I can’t read.”

Pavati looked startled for a second. “Right. I forgot.” She sounded embarrassed; but then, as always, she grinned and beckoned to me. “Come here, I can show you. See?
A-G-O-N
. But if you add only a
Y
after the
N
, it spells
agony
.” She snickered. “Tu likes calling her that, along with ‘Red Menace.’ Okay, maybe I like calling her that too.”

Leaning over the letters with her, I realized it was the first time anybody had ever tried to teach me to read. It didn’t matter than I couldn’t understand a thing. Something loosened inside of me, some frozen bit of resentment melting away.

I looked up at her. “Thank you,” I said in all honesty.

But then I looked around. Pavati and I were sitting alone in the main room with the flashlight between us. Khaya had slipped away in the dark.

nineteen

Pavati must have read the anxiety in my expression as I looked around for Khaya.

“Go talk to her,” she said, eyeing me. “You two have probably been through a lot in the past few days. I’ll, uh, plug my ears. Seriously, I have this trick with water, and Tu shouldn’t be able to hear through the wall.”

I trusted Pavati and didn’t hesitate, leaping up. I took the flashlight with me since Pavati had natural light, albeit only a little, shining from the holes up above.

It didn’t take me long to find Khaya—there weren’t many places to go in our burrow. I checked one room, didn’t see her, then wandered down a short hallway into another. She was sitting in a corner, hidden from even the weak reach of the light, deep in shadow.

I pointed the flashlight at the ground so I wouldn’t blind her. “Khaya?”

She blinked and looked up at me, showing nothing in her expression. “Tavin.”

Her distant tone made me hesitant. “Uh, I was looking for you. You disappeared.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Do for me? Khaya, I want to talk to you. I’ve wanted to talk to you since the lake—”

“About what Swanson said.”

“No. Well, yeah, but not just about that.” I stepped closer, but not too close. I didn’t want her to feel like I was cornering her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. And I have no idea if Swanson is your father, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was lying to manipulate you.”

I’d hoped she would say that, but I still had nagging doubts. “But Drey said something when he … when I saw him last … that he’d always thought of me as his son, instead of something else. Maybe
someone
else’s, which makes sense when I think about Swanson.” A sick, horrible kind of sense. “Drey told me he used to work for Swanson, but then went against him. Even Swanson confirmed that. What if they both meant that Drey had kidnapped me or something, to get me away from Swanson? I don’t know.”

It sounded absurd, like one of Drey’s stories, not something he would actually do. And, of course, why would he have gotten me that job and sent me into the Athenaeum if he’d taken me away from Swanson in the first place?

Khaya wore a slight, dubious frown. “Maybe. Maybe Swanson was telling the truth; I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want you to be his son.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?” I said, crouching down nearby. “Thinking of me as a Godspeaker’s son? Even if I am, I’m—I’m not! I told you, I could never be like that. And besides, I’m wordless. I grew up collecting trash. Even if Swanson and I share the same blood, that doesn’t make me anything like him.”

At least, I fervently hoped it didn’t. I still remembered how easily I’d used Khaya to godspeak. As a Godspeaker’s son, would that make me like a Godspeaker? I suppressed a shudder.

Khaya sighed. “This isn’t about me, Tavin.
I’m
not bothered by the possibility. I was worried about how it would make you feel. Swanson isn’t a good person, and from what little I’ve heard, Andre—Drey—sounds like he is. So I’m glad to hear your perspective on who your real father is wouldn’t change.”

It was a little more complicated than that—quite a bit, seeing as I felt nauseous just thinking about it. Or maybe I was only really, really hungry. I didn’t like it, in any case, but I liked how Khaya was acting even less.

“So what
is
bothering you? I don’t care about you drowning me or anything else that happened at the lake, if that’s what this is about.”

Too late, I realized she would think I didn’t care about her kiss—not that I wasn’t weirded out by it. I would happily do it again and again, even drown again if that meant I could kiss her afterwards.

“Good, me either,” she said in a clipped voice. “I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

Now I knew I was in trouble. But I was never one to fess up and beg for forgiveness when I hadn’t really done anything. And even when I had …

“You mean
still
dead, don’t you?” I said, reminding her that she’d officially killed me.

“Not exactly. What I mean is, I’m glad you’re not half-alive. If I’d been too late, the Words would still have woken you up, only …”

“With a lobotomy?”

She swallowed. “You wouldn’t have been you anymore.” She looked at the wall and her curt tone softened, her words running together. “Your being dead would have been preferable. Because I would have tried, no matter what. I would have brought you back even if it wasn’t you, and then—”

She looked so scared, suddenly, and she was speaking too fast. I reached across the short distance between us and
took her hand. Her mouth snapped closed.

“Well, I’m also glad I’m not dead
or
brain-dead,” I said.

She looked down at our hands, then pulled hers away. “You and Pavati seem to get along well.”

Earlier in the conversation, I’d felt like I was careening around narrow, curving streets in the garbage truck at night, but now it was as if I’d turned off the headlights.

“I like her,” I said with caution—apparently not enough, because Khaya’s expression went blank. “Gods, not like that!”

“It’s fine,” she said, her voice small and cool, her words like little ice cubes. “You don’t have to lie. I’ve seen how you two look at each other.”

“Come on,” I said, exasperated. “Pavati laughs and smiles at everyone. If you’ve seen me looking at her, well … yeah, okay, she’s pretty. Really pretty, but that doesn’t mean I feel
anything other than friendly toward her. Khaya!” I grabbed her arm as she tried to look away again. She glared as if she might punch me, but I didn’t let go. “Listen, there’s sometimes a hell of a big difference between what my body wants and what my mind wants. If I look at Pavati, that’s just … that’s just biology, Khaya, something animal, nothing else.” I grimaced at how bad that sounded and scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been gaping at you since I met you. Gods, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever—”

“So it’s just biology with me, too?”

“No! Well, some of the impulses
I have are, yes.” I flushed. I didn’t
want to be having this conversation—but hurting Khaya because of a misunderstanding would be far worse. “And there have been a few of those. But I’ve tried really hard to be more of a gentleman than that.”

“So under the lake, when we kissed, you would have preferred to be more gentlemanly there?” Her expression had gone from cool to cold and I knew I’d said the wrong thing again. “Friendly?”

I wanted to grab my hair. “Gods, Khaya, you have to know how I feel about you! Don’t make me say it!”

“Why not?” She looked at the doorway over my shoulder, impatient, like she wanted to get this over with and then go. “You don’t want to hurt my feelings?”

I wanted to tear my hair out. I slammed my fist into the wall instead. “For the Gods’ sake, Khaya, I’m a puppy! I’m a big damned puppy when I’m around you!” It wasn’t a sappy, sweet declaration. Horrified self-disgust rang in my voice. “I’m a stray—Drey found me and then you found me. I’d follow you anywhere, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’m afraid you’ll abandon me, because then I’d be—I’d be lost!”

“It goes both ways,” Khaya whispered.

“And I—what?” There was hope in my last word, flaring amidst what had been a tirade of increasing despair.

“I feel the same way,” she said. “I keep waiting for you to get tired of risking your life for me. You should be tired of it. You’ve helped me so much already, in ways you don’t even know about. I’m the Word of Life, and yet you’ve given me life. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore, but then I think about you leaving me, and I … ”

So that was it. Khaya didn’t want me to leave her, to go back to Eden City with a cure for Drey or frolic off with Pavati or whatever else. Because I was important to her. I was wordless and powerless, and yet I was somehow worth something in her eyes.

She didn’t notice the astounded look I was giving her because she was talking to her clasped hands. “I’ve laughed more than I have in years, more than I can even remember. This is the happiest I’ve ever been, but it’s the saddest you’ve ever been. Then I see you with Pavati, how easily you two laugh together, and it’s like—”

Khaya couldn’t continue in that calm, agonized voice, because my hands were in her hair and I was kissing her.

For the first second or two, she was so stunned she didn’t move. But then her lips responded, her arms flew around my neck and her body surged into me, knocking me backward from where I’d been crouching. The feeling of her breasts pressing against my chest made my brain go numb.

My hands moved automatically, running down her back, cinching around her waist and lifting her onto my lap. Her legs straddled me. I was happy to let my hands rest on her hips, since this was more than I’d ever touched her—my arms, my lungs, my mind full of her—but she seized my wrists and dragged my hands up her sides, planting them where her rib cage turned into the soft, outer curve of her breasts.

A lightning bolt of excitement shot through me—I could feel it crackling in my fingertips, on my tongue. My hair was probably standing on end for all I knew. Still, I tried to speak with her mouth against mine.

“Khaya, wait—”

“I have urges too, Tavin Barnes,” she whispered fiercely between kisses. She almost sounded angry. “Don’t think I don’t.”

Her fingers were dancing down my back, then slipping under the edge of my T-shirt. She started peeling it off.

“I believe you,” I said, my hands finding hers. I held them still.

Her lips pulled away from mine. “You don’t want—” she began in a flat voice.

“Mother of the Gods, you don’t think I
want to
?” I hissed. “Look at me!” I was panting, my hair in my eyes, and nearly shaking from the effort not to tear
her
shirt off. “But we don’t even have a door!”

There was more to it than that. With all of Drey’s lectures, he sure as hell hadn’t let me escape without hearing about all the consequences of unprotected sex—especially the reproductive consequences. And yet, while he’d prepared for my getaway by stuffing the backpack with everything I might need in an emergency, he’d somehow not foreseen
this
kind of emergency.

He’d only given me one form of protection: a gun.

I didn’t exactly want to tell Khaya the truth. Even I knew that admitting I didn’t want to get her pregnant would be utterly tactless.

“Besides, I haven’t showered in, like, a week,” I added.

“You actually care about that?” Khaya asked, but she let my shirt drop.

I had to tune out all the second thoughts pounding through my skull before I could answer. “I really smell,” I said finally.

“I don’t care!”

“But you would
care if Tu walked in on us. Think of all the insightful commentary he would have.”

“Tu doesn’t have the requisite experience for insightful commentary … not that it would stop him.” Khaya let her head drop onto my shoulder. “Ugh. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s okay. Trust
me.” I squeezed her, kissing the side of her face so hard that she grunted. “You can be thoughtless like this whenever you want. It’s just—maybe a little bit of thinking here or there is good. But we can stop.”

She lifted her head, a slight smile on her amazing lips, and she kissed me again.

My brain definitely ceased working. I wasn’t sure how long we stayed pressed together, our hands running over each other in the dark. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the passage of time until I passed out from thirst or hunger.

Fortunately, Khaya had the wherewithal to stop herself, this time, when she grabbed handfuls of my shirt like she wanted to rip it from my back. Because I wouldn’t have been able to resist a second attempt.

She released my shirt with a groan. “Gods, I want to.”

“There’ll be other opportunities.” I had to fight down a breathless laugh when I realized what I was talking about—and my desire to give in. These were words I never thought I’d say to a girl, let alone to Khaya. “We only need a shower and a change of clothes and a door.”

“I don’t know,” she said into my neck.

The feeling of her lips brushing my skin made it difficult to talk. “I won’t forget, if that’s what you’re worried about. Gods, I won’t be able to think about anything else ever again. Thanks a lot.”

“No, I mean, I feel like I have to seize my chance.” A laugh escaped me, and she leaned back to glare at me. “I’m serious. You don’t know what it’s like. Any … involvement … with the Words is forbidden. There can be no physical attachments, no loyalties other than to the City Council, and nothing to complicate the succession of the Words.” She probably meant unplanned pregnancies, but she didn’t say it. “That’s why they fired that Godspeaker for even kissing me. There are things I never thought I would be able to do … and now I want to.” Her eyes softened, heavy-lidded, swallowing me. “I want you.”

I had to break eye contact. “Khaya, if you keep saying things like that, in that way … You’re killing me, really. This is torture.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

I remembered what Tu had said when he first found me with Khaya—that he couldn’t wait either. The Words were the most powerful people on the planet, but they were also a bunch of hormonal, pent-up teenagers facing a short life of celibacy. I was hormonal and pent-up too, but I’d at least lived without thinking that I would be that way until I died—at age forty, no less. If I were in her position, I would have wanted it just as desperately. I pretty much already did.

“Khaya, we’ve got to wait for a little bit.” Forcing out the words was almost painful.

“I know,” she said. And then: “Until when? When will we have time?”

I didn’t laugh at her eagerness this time because the question made me pause—made me remember everything that had happened before her kiss had wiped my brain clean. “I don’t know. I guess we don’t have a lot of time. I need to see if Drey kept a cure at that Swiss address.”