Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(29)

Tomorrow.

Finally I fall asleep.

It can’t be an hour later when Mom is shaking me awake, hissing into my ear, “Get up! We have to leave. Now!”





ADRENALINE SURGING THROUGH me like lightning bolts, I’m on my feet before I’m even aware that I’m not dreaming. “No,” I mutter even as I move. Let me get back to my dream of happiness. My first thought—really my only thought in these hazy first moments of waking—is that I can’t let anything get in the way of meeting Lark again tonight. I don’t know what that kiss meant, to her or to me. I don’t know how I feel about it. But I need more time to find out.

It is a while before I realize that this isn’t just an acceleration of the plan, a blip that will keep me from Lark for the night, a delay of my hopes. This is the end of everything I’ve known.

“They’ve found out about us. About you,” Mom tells me as she starts to throw all my clothes into a trash bag.

I sit down hard on my bed. Oddly, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Why can’t I use a suitcase?”

“We have to burn your clothes. We have to get rid of everything that has anything to do with you. When you’re gone, we’ll sterilize the room, eliminate any prints, kill any DNA evidence of you . . .”

My brain is still fuzzy with sleep, and with Lark. “But Mom, what will I wear?” It seems like the most important question, somehow, in my sleep-addled confusion. When I fell asleep, I was planning my outfit for tonight with Lark, and now . . .

“It doesn’t matter—anything! Just throw something on.” She’s completely distraught. My clothes are flying, tumbling, balled up as she hurls them into the bags. “Hurry! Get dressed!” She tosses me a belted tunic in rich saffron-orange and a pair of shimmering gold pants from Ash’s school uniform.

Slowly, I pull on the pants and turn my back to strip off my nightshirt. The tunic top is made of the supple material that is supposed to mimic the softest doeskin. I haven’t worn it before. Mom picked it up only a week ago, and it still has the price tag on it. It cost an exorbitant fee.

I stand there, shirt poised to slip over my head, an idea almost clicking . . . but not quite.

“Hurry!” Mom barks again, and I realize she’s terrified. Whatever I was almost thinking is lost. I belt the tunic and turn, kneeling down beside her as she throws away my entire life.

“Mom, stop a second and tell me what’s happening.” I try to sound calm, soothing, but her naked fear is contagious. She takes a deep breath, then another, looking like she’s considering how much I should be allowed to know. “Tell me everything,” I insist.

“Our friend in the Center just tipped me off that they know about a second child. He didn’t have many details, so I don’t have any idea how they could possibly know, but now we’re all in terrible danger.”

Oh, great Earth! I’ve been so selfish! All this time I was only thinking of myself, of taking my life into my own hands and freeing myself from my captivity, of exploring the world, of making a friend for the first time in my life. I took pains not to be caught, but I was thinking only of me not being caught. It was a risk I was willing to take—for myself—and I trusted first in my own abilities, then in Lark, to keep me safe.

I never really thought about what it would do to my family if anyone found out about me. It was in the back of my mind, but only as a logical thread, not as a real conscious fear.

Now, looking into my mother’s frantic eyes, I realize what I might have done. To her, to Ash, to my father.

But how could they know about me? If a scanner or bot had detected me, I would have been swarmed with Greenshirts right away. They wouldn’t have given me a chance to go home. If I had been spotted and marked, I would have known. The reaction would have been immediate, and brutal.

Unless someone had turned me in. Someone who I’d shared my secret with. Someone I trusted.

I shake my head. No, not Lark. It can’t have been Lark. She would never do that. I think of the passion in her eyes when she talks about the problems of Eden, the inequality, the injustice. I remember the way she looks at me, soft and curious.

I won’t let myself think that, I decide. But I’d be a fool not to.

Right now, though, I need to calm Mom down and figure out more clearly exactly what is going on. “Do we really have to leave now?” I ask, my hand reassuringly on her arm. “Are they coming right this second?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “No. Maybe. He just said that there’s a report of a second child who has been spotted in this circle.” She claps her fingers over my caressing hand. “You’ve been careful, haven’t you? I know you sometimes go to the top of the wall and peek out.”

I bow my head, ashamed. Oh Mom, I long to say, I’ve done so much more than that.

“I’ve thought about telling you not to do it,” Mom continues. “But I know how hard it’s been for you all these years. I didn’t want to begrudge you that little bit of freedom and exploration. It’s so inadequate compared to what you deserve.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I . . . I don’t think anyone spotted me.” Just a Greenshirt, and Lark, and maybe even other people, too. Oh, how could I have been so stupid, so selfish?

“I don’t think it was anything you did. It might not even be you. There are other second children in Eden. He didn’t think they’d zeroed in, but he knows that they’re tracking a second child in our circle. It’s only a matter of time before they figure it all out. When they come, every trace of you has to be gone. You have to be gone.”