Burn (Pure #3)(96)

This is what Lyda’s most afraid of now. If Partridge is truly married to someone else, what will happen to Lyda and the baby? She’s suddenly exhausted. She leans against the wall, resting her cheek against the coolness of it, flattening her palms. She looks at the knob. Is Pressia on the other side? Is it a lie? Can she trust anything anyone says to her inside of the Dome?

She looks at the light ashen print her hand made. She pinches the lock on the knob, turns it, and opens the door a small crack.

She can’t look. She wants to see Pressia’s face so badly that she starts to cry.

“Lyda.”

She looks up.

Pressia. How is it possible?

Pressia steps inside the nursery, shuts the door, locks it again, and the two hug each other.

They hold on tight.





PRESSIA





CYGNUS




Lyda is shaking from deep inside. She’s barely able to stand. Pressia holds her up. “We have to get you out. They’re going to put you away and take the baby once it’s born.”

Lyda nods. Does she already know this is true? If she didn’t already know, it doesn’t surprise her. “I want to go back to the mothers. This place—it can’t be saved.”

“Listen, we have the means to take down the Dome,” Pressia whispers.

“Are you really going to? Can you?”

“If Partridge has turned on us, we might have to,” Pressia says. “Bradwell and El Capitan are on the outside, waiting for word from me.”

“Awaiting word to take down the Dome? How would you send the message?”

“I don’t know. I thought I’d have help once I was here.”

“Cygnus,” Lyda says softly. “They’re here. They’re your mother’s followers. They can help us, I think.”

“Someone from Cygnus met me when I first got inside the Dome.”

“We can try to get them to help. I know we can,” Lyda says. “What will the message say?”

“Well, I’m not ready to send it. I have the cure with me,” Pressia says. “I need to get it to someone who knows what to do with it. We can still save people—the survivors. We can make them whole. We can’t take down the Dome until I try to give this to someone we can trust.”

“Yes, but what kind of message would you send? What would it say?” Lyda asks.

“It would be a message that could only be from me.” They keep their voices low.

“A coded message?”

Pressia nods. “I would tell Bradwell that our lives aren’t accidents. This is the beginning, not an end. I’d tell him to do what he has to do. He would know it’s from me and that it was time to bring it all down. Maybe a picture.” She thinks of Cygnus, the constellation, her mother’s followers—her mother is still with her, in some way. “Maybe of a swan.”

“I think I can find someone who can help send it,” Lyda says.

“I’m not sure if it will ever be the right thing to do. It’s just that Partridge seems gone. Just gone…”

“He is gone,” Lyda says. “He is.”

“Partridge told me he has my grandfather, that he’s bringing him back—from the dead. Is that possible, Lyda? Is it?” Pressia’s afraid that Lyda will say yes, and she’s also afraid she’ll say no.

“Is that why you’re really waiting to tell them to bring it down? Your grandfather?” Lyda draws in a shaky breath.

“Is it possible he’s still alive? Please tell me.”

“They can do things here that seem good, but they’re horrible, Pressia. Do you understand me? Horrible.” She starts crying again, harder this time, her ribs convulsing. “Send the message! Send it!”

Pressia hugs her, sways gently. “Not yet. Give me time.”

“Then do me a small favor,” Lyda whispers, her voice shaking.

“What is it?”

“Tell the guard that the orb is broken.”

“The orb?”

“The orbs keep the images in the rooms spinning. I can’t explain it. Just promise me.”

“Lyda, right now we have to concentrate on—”

“Just tell him!” Lyda shouts.

“Okay,” Pressia says as gently as she can. “I’ll tell him. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m so tired,” Lyda whispers. “I can’t sleep.”

“I’m here,” Pressia says. “You’ll be able to sleep now. I’m here.”





PARTRIDGE





BRASS BEDS




Partridge lifts Iralene up, carries her over the threshold into a penthouse suite. This is a honeymoon. He shouldn’t be surprised by the luxury of it all, but he is. The suite is lush—even after all of the luxuries of the day. He sets Iralene on her high heels and together they walk through a living room of leather furniture and a formal dining room, past a baby grand piano and a claw-foot tub in a bathroom as big as a bedroom.

Partridge can’t stop thinking about Pressia. Ever since he saw her, he can’t help but see everything doubly: his perspective and then hers—all the arrogance, wasteful opulence, and cruelty of so much luxury when they both know what’s outside the Dome. He feels choked with guilt.