Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(69)

“I . . . It’s probably better if I don’t get into it. The more you know, the more they’ll think you’re a dangerous liability.”

“Are they going to kill me for having contact with you?”

“No. Lachlan will take care of that.”

“Lachlan.” She repeats the name as if tasting something bitter. “Where did he come from, anyway? How well do you know him?”

“He saved my life.”

“You don’t know him as well as you know me, though, do you?” She sounds younger, smaller, weaker, not her usually vibrant and confident self.

“Do you trust him?”

I resent her questioning. “He’s not the one who let the Center know about my mother,” I snap before I can stop myself. “He’s done everything possible to keep me safe. Can you say the same?”

“How dare you!” she seethes, stepping back from me. “I’m taking you into my home. I’m putting my father—my whole family, myself included—at terrible risk to help you! I made a mistake trusting other people, I know, and there are no words to tell you how sorry I am. But I meant well, and I’ll never trust anyone again. No one except you.”

Her voice has grown steadily softer, her anger dissipating. She glides closer to me, but this time I’m the one who takes a step back. Trusting anyone is dangerous.

“You can trust Lachlan, too,” I say.

“Oh, really? What did you have to do to get those lenses, then?”

“Nothing! What do you mean?”

“I saw you from my window. He looked like he owned you. You looked like you didn’t mind being owned. That’s not the Rowan I know.”

“Is that what this is about? Me and Lachlan?”

I don’t want to fight. I’m tired, so incredibly tired, and I hardly even know why she’s mad. If anyone should be mad, it’s me. But I’m here, because I need her to help Lachlan and me save Ash. “I’m not the Rowan you know. I’m not Rowan anymore. I’m Yarrow. And I’m going to bed.”

Before she can say another word, I throw back the deep plum-colored covers of her bed and slide in. I pull them resolutely up almost all the way over my face as I turn toward the wall. “We’ll meet Lachlan after dark,” I mutter, and close my eyes. “Be ready to put your plan into action.”

“Rowan, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. It just never seems to be the right time.”

What could she tell me? How sorry she is, again? Exactly what she feels for me? I really don’t want to hear it now.

I pretend to fall asleep quickly. All the while, I don’t hear Lark move. Finally I do fall asleep. I know, because at some point I’m awakened by another body sliding under the sheets beside me. She doesn’t embrace me, doesn’t touch me. But she is there, the warmth of her body filling the bed.

But against my stomach the gun is still cold as death.





I SLEEP ALL day, and at night I take Lark to the location I told Lachlan we would meet him—an innocuous little takeout place with enough traffic to make us completely inconspicuous. But when we arrive, there’s no sign of Lachlan.

As we wait, I look longingly at the takeout, kebabs redolent with salt and synthetic fat, because I haven’t eaten in forever. I feel like at any moment we’ll be too obvious even here, standing for a long time without buying anything. It is apparent that Lark and I are waiting, impatient.

“I thought you said you trusted him,” Lark snaps.

“I do,” I assure her. “Maybe . . .” But the list of maybes is too long, and for the most part too terrible to articulate. Maybe he was captured. Maybe Flint turned against him.

Maybe, now that he knows that Flame can make convincing lenses, he’s decided not to risk his life helping me save Ash. Maybe he’ll convince her to help the second children. Maybe he’ll even turn her over to Flint for his particularly unpleasant brand of “convincing.”

“We can’t wait any longer,” I say at last. So with great reluctance I leave the rendezvous site and make my way to my house.

I know the heart is just about pumping blood, an engine and nothing more. It’s not the seat of emotions, the repository of love and hope and happiness. All the same, when I stand at the base of my courtyard wall at the sheltered side where no one else can see, and look up at the walls that held me in all my life, the walls that held everything I knew and loved, I swear it is my heart that hurts. A pain, that must be physical, seems to stab me in the chest.

Home.

Without Mom and Ash inside it is really nothing more than an empty shell. Still, it was my shell.

“Give me about ten minutes,” I tell Lark. “Maybe fifteen. With luck he’s not home. He used to work late all the time, but now, I don’t know. I’ll let you in the front door.”

“What if he is home?” Lark asks.

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” Lark says, and I’m surprised at the fury in her voice. “If he’s there, he needs to be punished for what he did to Ash . . . and to you.”

My father, who hated me, who betrayed his own son to the Center, deserves to be punished. If Lachlan were here, so strong and capable, with so much violence lurking just beneath his usual joking exterior, he would willingly be the one to mete it out. But could Lark? Could I?