Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(17)

“You’ve been my friend since we moved to this circle, Ash. Sometimes I think you’re my best friend. But there’s always been a distance between us that I never understood. You always held something back. And it bothered me. I never pried, you know. I let you keep that part of you walled off.”

I have no idea what Ash is like away from home. I only know what he tells me about his life outside. I’m always jealous of everything he does that I can never do (though I rarely let it show). But it never occurred to me that he carried his burden of secrecy out into the public realm. I thought I was the only one who had to bear the weight. But now I can guess that it affected him, too, strongly enough for Lark to notice.

“And you don’t have to tell me now,” Lark goes on. “I’m just happy to see you looking out at the world as if it just might be a wonderful place after all.”

Then she stands, crosses the scant distance between us, and bends awkwardly to hug me. I stiffen, then relax as the warmth of her hands seeps through my clothes. Then her face is near mine, her lips near mine . . . and suddenly her eyes widen, and she pulls back a little bit. But she doesn’t let go of my shoulders. If anything she holds them tighter.

“Oh,” she breathes, looking into my kaleidoscope eyes. “I understand now.”

I think she’ll scream for help, run away, say something cruel. But she slides to my side, one arm still around my shoulders, the other fumbling for my hand. “A second child,” she says softly. “A twin. I didn’t know.” She gives a little laugh that sounds like music. “Of course I didn’t know. But that explains a lot. What’s your name?”

I just breathe, terrified and elated that my secret is finally in public, and that I’m not instantly condemned. And with Lark of all people, the friend I’ve dreamed about for years! I try to speak, but I’m so cold with nerves that my teeth are starting to chatter. My fingers are icy in her hand, and she rubs my knuckles with her thumb.

“It’s okay,” she says soothingly. “If you belong to Ash, you belong to me, too. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

“Rowan,” I say in my own voice. “My name is Rowan.”

She smiles at me, and I feel like I’m being seen for the very first time.

We talk as though we’ve known each other forever. In a way we have. I’ve been hearing stories of Lark for so long that she is a part of me. And she probably sees so much of Ash in me that she thinks she knows me, too. As we talk, she keeps looking at me with her head cocked like the small bird that is her namesake, sometimes frowning when some preconception of me isn’t fulfilled, or smiling with sudden brightness when some expression or nuance pleases her, conforms to her idea of what I am, or should be. I think I am both familiar and mysterious.

I tell her about my life, about the endless years of solitude with only Ash, Mom, and Dad for company. About running in circles to nowhere, about climbing the wall around our courtyard to the top every single day, but never daring to go over until this night. I tell her about the loneliness, the yearning, the constant low-grade fever of anxiety that runs through me like a subtle sickness. And through it all she nods, sometimes holding my hand or stroking my arm. She is on my side, completely, I’m sure.

Still, even as I revel in finally having someone to share with, I can almost hear my mother’s voice in my head. Don’t trust, she whispers to me. You’re a secret, a dangerous secret that needs to be kept at all costs.

I ignore the imagined voice as Lark tells me about herself, her beliefs. She talks about Eden in ways I’ve never considered before. To her, the city is as much of a prison as my house is to me.

“Are we really all that’s left?” she asks. I can only tell her what I’ve heard in History vids. Our ancestors were the lucky few who survived two hundred years ago. There are no people outside of Eden. No animals, either, just a few lichens, algae, bacteria, and the like.

“But I’ve studied Ecology and Eco-history,” she says, her voice passionate. “Life is enduring, adaptable. I know that humans are terrible, destructive, but the Earth is strong. I can’t see how we could do anything to it that would destroy it completely. Ecological collapse, sure. Mass extinction, broken food chain. But I can’t believe that everything is gone.”

Again, I can only reply with what I’ve been taught: that beyond Eden, the world is a wasteland, dead and barren.

But it is the one-child policy that seems to particularly bother her. “Humans are part of nature,” she tells me. “We’re animals, just like all the other animals that used to live on Earth. Animals are meant to propagate, to expand, to grow.”

“But Eden can’t survive if the population grows,” I protest, even though I’m arguing for my own doom.

“I don’t know,” she says, pressing her lips together contemplatively. “There’s something that doesn’t add up. The vids at school say that the original settlers in Eden were chosen. That means that someone—maybe Aaron Al-Baz himself, creator of the EcoPan—decided on a number of people. Why pick so many only to reduce their numbers later?”

“Maybe it was just compassion,” I offer. “He wanted to save as many as possible, and then later generations could deal with the overpopulation.”

She shakes her head. “He was a scientist, a computer programmer, a practical, pragmatic man. I think he would have chosen the right number of people from the start. But listen to this.” Though we’re already close, shoulder to shoulder, she leans in closer so her lilac hair brushes my cheek. I shiver.