Rebel (Legend, #4)(24)

When she doesn’t laugh, I drop my fa?ade and ask, “Are you okay?”

She hesitates before she turns back to face me. Those dark eyes of hers fixate on mine, and I find myself feeling that strange sense of imbalance again, like I can never get my footing around her. “This isn’t you, Daniel,” she says.

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“This.” She looks around at the pristine restaurant, full of marble floors and white pillars, waiters in polished uniforms carrying silver trays. “You don’t feel like you’re comfortable here.”

A flash of déjà vu hits me in that moment—suddenly I’m remembering another restaurant from another time, when we sat across from each other and June asked me why I never told her about the illness that almost took my life. That took part of my memories.

I lean away from the table. “It’s not like I haven’t been here before,” I reply, feeling embarrassed. “Everything in my life is now this—the polished floors and high ceilings, the newness. I like it. I’m as used to it as you.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not trying to insult you,” she says, leaning forward on her elbows. “I just … want to let down my guard. Like you want to. Don’t you?”

Let down my guard. That’s when I notice, with some irritation, my stiff back and straight posture. Of course June had sensed my anxiety and my forced politeness. Had I really forgotten what it was like to be around her, how she’d always manage to figure out everything and everyone around her with a few quick glances? If I could look into her head right now, I know I would see organized lists of observations and reactions.

But that’s what makes us different. She can figure me out in an instant, but I can’t do the same back.

A waiter approaches us and pours us some more sparkling water. I remember how long it’d taken me to even understand the concept of sparkling water. My gaze lingers on the bubbles rising now in my drink. Across from me, June’s eyes rest on the paper clip ring looped around my finger. It’s catching a glint of light right now that makes it shine, for just a moment, like a rare gem. She gives me a hesitant smile, and my entire heart tightens with hope.

A place where we can let down our guard. Where we can find our way back to how we used to be.

Suddenly I perk up and give her a quick smile. “I know a place. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

At that, June’s entire demeanor changes. Her eyes light up with a warmth that I recall from our younger days, and a brightness fills her face until all I can do is stare at her, completely entranced.

“Sounds perfect,” she says, already pushing away her chair.

It’s winter down here, and the biodome’s simulation has started to disappear, giving way to the sheet of glittering stars overhead. I lead June across a walkway toward an unfinished skyscraper. It’s far at the east side of Ross City, in a development complex that has never been finished. Now the skyscraper stands alone and unoccupied, a strange dark structure among the others that are lit from top to bottom. Ivy has crawled all over it in the year since it was abandoned.

“Watch that step,” I say over my shoulder to her as I climb up the side of it into an open window. She follows close behind.

We land in a bed of lush vegetation and ivy, flower buds shut for the night against the cracks in the floor. Overhead, past the green trails hanging from the open ceiling, ribbons of southern lights dance across the blanket of stars.

“This might be the only quiet place in Ross City,” I tell June as we sit on the edge of the building and look out at the never-ending sea of lights. “Sometimes I come here to think.”

June has her eyes turned up to the stars. She can’t see them like this in the Republic, and the serene wonder on her face is breathtaking. “About what?” she asks.

I tear my gaze momentarily away from her. Down below, the floors vanish into slants of shadows. “I wonder if coming here to Ross City was the right choice,” I say. “For my brother. For me.”

June turns to me. “It seems like it’s treated you okay,” she replies.

“Maybe. But I can feel Eden’s discomfort with our life. He’s drawn to the streets of his past—he spent less time there than I did, so he’s curious about it in a way that I’m not. Sometimes I can feel him pulling away from me and back toward the Republic.”

At that, June nods stiffly. There’s a look of understanding on her face. “Are you afraid of the Republic?” she asks me.

“Maybe. I don’t know. When I think too long about the past, I get nightmares. I lose my appetite. That sort of thing.” I shake my head. “I don’t think Eden gets the same. If he does, he doesn’t talk to me about it.” I look at her. “And you?”

June hesitates as she gazes at the sky. Finally, she says, “Do you know the real reason why Anden came here to see your President? It’s because the Republic needs money.”

“Money?”

“We’re deep in debt. Anden’s trying to rebuild everything—fixing the infrastructure in the poor districts, tearing down the Trial stadiums, replacing them with new buildings. It all costs far more than we have. So he’s been trying to make deals with as many countries as he can.” She pauses. “I’m glad. It needs to happen. But protests have been happening too. There are times when I look out at the Republic and feel afraid. Afraid of where we came from. Afraid of what might happen in the future. Nothing ever feels secure, you know? I’m so used to our lives falling apart that it makes me nervous when it hasn’t happened in a while.”