Your One & Only(24)
“She’d fractured,” Jack said simply.
“Well, it’s good they held the Binding.”
Jack was silent, not wanting Nyla to hear the tightness in his throat. He’d never talked to anyone about his mother except Sam. He wished he knew more about her. He remembered her making him bowls of amaranth stirred with honey and then watching him run through the yard of the cottage. Sometimes he’d get so mad at her for turning him into such an outsider. He forgot how, back then, he always felt like he belonged. He felt loved.
The night she ran away, he was seven. He remembered her panic. She was talking about the Council, and her sisters, and how the asthma that Sam had recently diagnosed meant he wasn’t safe anymore. She rushed haphazardly through the cottage, hurriedly packing mismatched shoes and random food. That first night in the jungle, she laughed with a tinge of hysteria at finding among their supplies a useless bag of cornstarch. She made a circle with it around their fire, telling him the white powder would magically keep out the snakes and bugs. She wrapped him in a blanket and then stayed up the whole night keeping watch.
By the third night, Jack wanted to go home. He missed his bed; he was hungry. The nights were cold. She told him they had to keep walking, that they’d be safe once they crossed the mountains. They never reached the mountains, though. The Viktors caught up with them and forced them to go back to Vispera. They told Jack she was sick, and her sisters were suffering because of it. She fought them every step of the way, and once in Vispera, they rushed through the ceremony. Jack didn’t understand what was happening, and then they were holding her down, the needle that would kill her poised above her arm. She grabbed Sam, her fingers white as they pressed into the flesh of his neck. Protect him! she said. Promise me! Sam stumbled backward, repulsed by her vehemence and how unhinged she’d become.
She died never hearing an answer from Sam, but he’d brought Jack to live in the little room in the lab, telling him the Inga had fractured, and there was nothing anyone could have done. Jack didn’t know what Sam ended up saying to the Council, but he was an experiment they let continue, asthma and all.
Nyla continued to fondle the bead, making it wink in the flickering light of the candle. “If you like the Ingas so much, you could always Pair with them, too.”
Jack’s hand covered hers, stilling the fingers that idly twirled the bead on its string. “I didn’t like her in that way. And I don’t like the other Ingas at all. I like you.” He turned to face her. “Nyla, why’d you come here?”
“I wanted to. Are you sorry I did?”
He held her close. “Of course not.”
She tilted her head. “I was curious what it would be like with you.”
“And?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“You’re different than the others during the Pairing.” Jack felt a twinge when she mentioned others she’d been with. He pushed the thought away. “With you,” she said, “it’s like you think the whole world might end if we stop.”
“Maybe it would.” He smiled.
She shoved him playfully. “I was going to teach you the rituals and what the Nylas like. That’s usually how it is with the first year of Pairing. I mean, if someone hasn’t been with a Nyla before. You show him what to do to pleasure us, and he’ll show you what pleasures the model he belongs to.”
Jack’s discomfort intensified the more she talked about it, but he didn’t want her to stop. He wanted to hear everything, know everything about her. “Show me,” he said. “Show me what you like.”
“Well, that’s the thing. You make it seem like none of the rituals matter. Does that make sense?”
Jack leaned over her. “Show me anyway. I want to know.”
She smiled, slipping out from under him. “I have to go.”
He drew her back into his arms, where she settled for a minute before she sat up again and collected her robes. Jack leaned on his elbows, watching her dress. “Do you have to leave?”
She looked at him strangely. “Don’t be silly. My sisters are expecting me.”
He grasped her wrist, pulling her down to sit on the edge of the bed, and ran his fingers along her arm. “Can I see you again tomorrow?”
She laughed. “I can’t tomorrow.”
“When?”
“You will,” she said. She stood up and then leaned down to kiss his cheek. “But listen, don’t talk about this, okay? Let it be our secret.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “But wait, I don’t even know . . . which Nyla are you? I don’t even know.”
“Nyla-314,” she said, laughing again.
After she left, Jack lay in bed with his hand resting on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart pulsing into every corner of his body. He fought to keep his eyes open for fear he’d fall asleep and miss a moment of the peace that had come over him, a peace he’d never known was possible.
Chapter Seven
ALTHEA
The Council was talking about the cornfields, and Althea was finding it difficult to pay attention. She hadn’t seen Jack since spending that awful night locked in his room, but for reasons she didn’t understand, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.
Althea had always been so proud that she was an Althea, the model that was supposed to be full of compassion and understanding. She hadn’t been very understanding that night. She and Carson were the ones who barged in on Jack, and Carson-312—all the Carsons in fact—had made a game out of tormenting Jack anytime they saw him. Jack took it all silently, with only the tense muscles of his jaw betraying emotion.