Burn (Pure #3)(52)

“Actually, I was given just some raw stuff. Nothing high-end. No molds.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a way to do coding right with all the built-in protections to make it as safe and specific as possible. And then, for a lot cheaper, you can do it fast. I don’t think it was as good for my overall health, but I’m not an academy boy, right? I’m expendable, in the long run.”

Partridge remembers Wilda—just a nine-year-old girl—who was made Pure inside the Dome, and how she started to break down so quickly because it was all too potent and she was so young. What’s going to happen to Beckley ten years from now? Five? Partridge stands up and looks at the boys’ dormitory. “I don’t think you’re expendable. Not at all.” He glances at Beckley, who gives a curt nod and looks away.

And then he hears Iralene’s voice, set on edge, giving instructions of some sort. He turns and there she is, wearing a canary-yellow dress that floats around her legs silkily. The dress is low-cut and looks like an evening gown. Partridge is underdressed. She’s surrounded by a small clutch of young women with fixed smiles. Her mother, Mimi, is with her, looking cold and angry. A half dozen photographers file in behind them, their cameras pointed at Partridge like they’re armed.

“Hey, Iralene,” Partridge says. “Ready?” He wants to get this going.

Her mouth becomes a perfect O of surprise. She smiles and then, oddly, she takes off her canary-yellow heels, hooking them in her fingers, and runs to him. She opens her arms, and if he doesn’t open his, she’s going to run right into him. And so he has to open them, and as he does, she jumps a little so that he has to catch her and set her back down on the ground.

“You’ve been working so hard we’ve had no time together! None at all!” She tilts her head and gazes at him.

The cameras erupt with clicking and flashes.

“Don’t look at them,” she says. “We’re not supposed to know they’re here.”

Iralene’s friends—though he doesn’t recognize any of them and wonders if they’ve been assigned the job—are cooing and awing like they’re watching kittens. Partridge hates it. “Do they have to make those noises?”

“We’re all alone now! At last! Let’s walk to the wooden swing near the trellis.”

“Fine.”

They hold hands and walk. “How are you doing?” she says. “Tell me everything I’ve missed!”

“Mrs. Hollenback tried to off herself taking pills. There are these premature babies…I can’t talk about them. They’ve been torturing people. Glassings among them. He looked almost dead. I punched Arvin Weed.”

“Stop it!” she says suddenly, flushed with anger. “Just stop it!”

“You asked.”

They’re at the swing. She puts her high heels back on, which is as inexplicable as her having taken them off. She sits on the swing and freezes, looking up at him, smiling lovingly.

He can’t smile back. He feels sick. He looks at the dormitories again. The freshman wing is all lit up. The other floors, though, are dark and quiet. Did the older three grades go on one of those dismal field trips to the zoo? He misses it all suddenly. He wants to be a kid again. He’d like to know nothing. Is that wrong?

“Push me! Push me!” Iralene says, sounding more like little Julby Hollenback than herself.

Her friends call out, “Yes, yes! Push her!”

Mimi looks on with disgust.

He feels so deeply manipulated that for a second, he can’t move. He refuses to do what they’re telling him.

But he’s already here. He’s signed on. No more blood on your hands, he hears Lyda whispering. He reminds himself that he’s not going through this little fairy tale for Iralene’s entourage. He’s doing it to save lives.

He steps behind Iralene, grabs the ropes over her head, pulls the swing back, and lets it go. A few pushes later, she’s really gliding, and now he understands the dress. It was made to ripple perfectly along her legs while swinging on a wooden swing.

“Aren’t you happy?” she calls to him, and by this she probably means, Smile, okay? At least try to smile!

He forces the smile onto his face. It’s painful—worse, maybe, because Beckley’s there. The young women clap their hands lightly.

“Talk about something!” Iralene says. “Something pleasant.”

Partridge can’t think of anything pleasant except Lyda. He misses her. He wishes he were here with her instead. But he pushes himself to make idle conversation. If he says the right things, maybe this will end faster. “I wonder where they took the academy boys. The freshmen are here, but that’s it.”

“Oh, who knows?” Iralene says. “I’m sure it’s educational!”

“Right,” Partridge says, but then he glances at Beckley, who’s turned away. Why? “Beckley, you know where the older boys are?”

Beckley doesn’t answer.

“Beckley! What is it?”

“A bird!” Iralene cries out then. Is she trying to distract him? “A real live bird!” She points up into the branches of the tree.

Partridge glances up. She’s right. It’s a real bird. Sometimes they escape the aviary. They even try to nest in the trees. But without anything to eat, they die quickly.