Burn (Pure #3)(14)

“I don’t have to do what I’m supposed to do anymore. That’s the upside of being a social outcast.”

He jerks his head, nodding quickly. “Still, we should probably have it on. They know, you know, what’s on and what’s not. I’d just feel more comfortable with it on. I mean…you know.”

Lyda gets up and walks to the television but doesn’t turn it on. She knows what she’ll see—Partridge living a lie. He’ll be with Iralene, maybe even holding her hand. On Christmas Eve, he promised her that it would end soon, that someone was in charge of handling this so that Lyda and Partridge can emerge, together. Only a few more days, he promised a few days ago, the last time he saw her—a week tops. With the room set on Cairo and a view of moonlit pyramids out the bedroom window, he confessed that he killed his father. He wouldn’t tell her details—only that he hadn’t wanted to, but he did it. She understands that kind of thing now, having lived among the mothers and coming to understand survival on the most basic level. But still, his confession made her feel a fissure deep inside of herself. It was right, yes. She doesn’t doubt that Partridge felt like he had to do it—for survival or to right the wrongs of the past or to make change inside of the Dome possible. But it was also wrong. Even if it was noble, there’s no way around this immutable fact. And it changes a person. Partridge is different now. She felt it before he confessed to the murder, but as soon as he did, she knew it was the reason for the change—a change that’s almost imperceptible. “And Lyda,” he said to her, “something good has to come of it all. It has to.” She knew that he meant he wanted to make this wrong thing the source of something right.

And yes, everything was thrown at him when he came back into the Dome—Iralene was part of a package. It wasn’t his fault. Lyda believes him but sometimes wonders how hard he fought for her. Iralene is undeniably beautiful in a way that Lyda always wanted to be but fell short of.

“Are you going to turn it on?” Boyd asks again. But she ignores him.

She leans in close to the screen and sees her own reflection. Her face has grown just a little plump, and her lips are fuller—as if her body knows what’s coming.

There’s the humming of the air filtration system and yet it feels airless in the Dome—she feels like she can barely breathe. And she’s still nauseous sometimes. The bookshelves are stocked with books about pregnancy and childbirth. She’s not Lyda. She’s the vessel carrying a Willux.

“I can turn it on without sound, Boyd. Is that a compromise you can live with?” Partridge told her what’s said at these services for his father, and she can’t take the outpouring of adoration.

“I really think we should—”

She glares at him. She still carries the fierceness that the mothers taught her—something she’d always had but never tapped into.

“Fine,” he says. “Okay.”

She turns on the television and there’s Partridge, shaking hands, accepting condolences. A broadcaster is giving a narration of who’s standing in line, how they’ve served the Dome or their relationship with Willux. She hits mute. “Can you reprogram the orb?” she asks Boyd.

“What do you mean? Why would you want to do that?” He looks around the room, and she knows he’s searching for surveillance cameras. Partridge assured her that all recording devices were forbidden here. Still, Lyda—and surely Boyd—has doubts.

“I want you to add a world. Can you do that?”

“If the algorithms have been invented, yes. There are lots of shortcuts. It’s actually been made so that a layperson can choose between different options pretty easily. Willux wanted these to be made affordable and user-friendly for everyone. They’re still a little too expensive to just hand out like candy, but they’re getting closer. Where do you want it to take you?”

She imagines wind pushing ash, the cool shadows that she felt right at the edge of the stunted forest, and snow. God, yes—gray snow sifting from the sky. “I want out there.”

Boyd stops. His hands freeze. “Out there?” he says in a sharp breath.

She narrows her eyes, looking at him. “Yes.”

“But why?” He looks down at the orb and then glances at the television as if the faces there can see him in this room, can hear this conversation. Lyda looks too. A little boy is saluting Partridge. His beautiful hand, his perfect face—so clean and sleek, it seems almost unreal. “What’s it like out there?” Boyd asks in a hushed voice.

“Hard to explain,” Lyda says. “I didn’t really remember the Before so I was shocked by the air, how quickly it spins things. The real sun—it’s cast-over but amazing. And the moon too—like a bright bulb in the sky. The people, the Beasts and Dusts, the deformities, the grotesque… You can’t imagine what beauty there is in their lives. Everything’s dirty and real. There’s nothing fake or sterile. It’s…life. You know what I mean?”

Boyd has started crying. Two tears streak his cheeks. He doesn’t wipe them away. He says, “I remember it. I’m a little older than you so…yes. I know what you’re talking about. I used to climb trees. I even fell out of one once and snapped a bone in my hand.” He clenches his fist. “Sometimes, when I lie down at night, I remember what it was like to fall through the air and land hard on the muddy ground. I couldn’t breathe. All the wind had been knocked out of my lungs. But I just stared up at the blue sky. There were clouds—big, fat, white clouds that seemed to be moving really fast across the sky.” He shakes his head. “Goddamn it.”