Edge of the Falls (After the Fall) (30 page)

"A week.” He shrugs. "Maybe more."

We lapse into silence, and I take a few bites more. The food, usually a favorite, is tasteless and bland in my mouth. Berg seems frustrated, wanting more of a reaction from me. I try to summon it, but I have nothing. My mind is too focused on Arjun. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Berg lets the waiter scan his cred card, and we leave. The night is crisp—icy. I miss warmth, and wind. The Shield seems to contain the cold, a bubble of bright, impersonal life.

Berg vanishes into his library when we get back to the house, and I retreat to my studio, to the nook seat, filled with soft pillows in a variety of texture and colors. I curl in the seat, hugging a pillow as I stare at the folded note I have retrieved from my bed.

I wonder how long it will take you to read this. Either way, by now you know the pack has gone to our City. And you have gone to yours.

Why did you leave? I will never understand why either of you were stupid enough to walk away from each other. Arjun’s an idiot, to send you away.

The thing is, I don’t think it’s fair. You should have a choice in this—an unemotional one. You are so convinced this is what he wants, rather than realizing this is what he thinks you
need
.

So I’m trusting you. Below, you will find a map, leading to our City. If you are happy in Mlena with Berg, then burn the map. If you want to be with Arjun—well. We’ll be waiting.

Merc.

**

I stare at it, at the carefully plotted route. The ban-wolves have hidden their City well—almost on top of the base they raided for the technology to build it. It's south of The Island, one of the first cities destroyed by bombs during the Cataclysm. I wonder if they are safe from the nuclear fallout, but I know Rook—he would not build a haven for his pack without being very sure of its safety.

I want to see it. So much it hurts, I want to see this city in the wild. The familiar pain is burning in my chest. For so long now, I have ignored the pack—buried the memories that haunt my dreams. I take a shuddering breath and a sob breaks out.

It hurts, more than I expect. The hope that I have ruthlessly killed, all the seeds that I thought long dead spring to life in me with a violence that leaves me gasping.

And I realize, with absolute certainty, what I will do.

**

Wrenfel takes me to lunch the next day, as planned. The Prince is almost trembling with glee. I should be furious, especially when I hear them murmuring about a fête the Prince is holding. It is, he tells Wrenfel, to honor the Commission who is coming to Mlena to meet me.

“Me?” I blink, startled at the thought of the Commission wanting to meet me.

Wrenfel laughs at my disbelief. “She’s still uncomfortable with attention, Prince.”

The Prince nods. “Well, she’ll learn to appreciate it.” He looks at me, and I am surprised he speaks to me, rather than addressing his comments about me to Wrenfel, as if I am not present. “You are a credit to Mlena. A true daughter of the City,” he says, as if this is something of which I should be proud.

I can’t help but laugh.

The Prince frowns, looking at my sponsor as if he can explain my behavior. Wrenfel smiles nervously. “I’m not a credit to this City, any more than I’m her daughter,” I say, still smiling. I see Wrenfel pale, and despite my dislike of him, I pity him in this moment. “If anything, Prince, I am daughter to Kathleen Lawson. She raised me, cared for me, when your
City
threw me in the gutters.”

There is no disguising the venom in my words, and the Prince’s eyes narrow. “And yet, you chose life in the City over staying with her.”

I shrug. “That is not your doing, whatever you think. I am here at the behest of my Mistress—not to do you
any
favors.”

I stand, disgusted and unwilling to sit with them any longer. I expect a Keeper to force me back into my seat, but no one moves toward me. And we all know why.

I am too valuable and rare. There are very few fertile girls of Majority wandering Outside, waiting to be plucked up by the Commission, especially in light of the plague. Sending them a tight smile, I stalk out of the lounge.

**

“Wrenfel told me about your afternoon,” Berg says. He’s leaning against the doorframe of my studio, watching me. I think it surprises him that I am not painting.

I shrug, ignoring the censorious tone in his voice, and sign my name. The stack of letters has grown considerably since I arrived back home.

“Sabah, talk to me,” he says, and his voice is that of my friend, not the man hoping to share my bed.

I pause, and look at him. This is the question that I have been wrestling with all day. What do I tell him? How much can I say without putting the pack in danger? I cock my head, looking at him, and he comes closer, crouching at my feet.

“We haven’t talked, not really, since you returned from the forest,” he says. “I know it changed you.”

“Things like that tend to,” I say lightly, but we both know this is not a joke.

He’s staring at me with those familiar sky dark eyes and it nearly breaks my heart, what I have to tell him.

“I can’t do this,” I say.

He doesn’t seem surprised. “Because of the Commission?”

I nod. “Partly. I won’t risk them taking my children, Berg.”

“And the other part?” His voice is whisper quiet.

Arjun.
Berg knows that someone in the forest holds my heart. If I’m honest, I’ll admit he knows it’s Arjun—that I’m rejecting him for the same ban-wolf who so savagely beat him.

He sighs explosively when I don’t respond. "I don’t understand why you came back.”

That hurts, and I let him see it in my eyes. "Because I had to—he thought it was too dangerous, in the wild. And the pack leader wanted the serum."

"How do you know this wolf isn't just using you? How do you know he even truly loves you?"

That fear has been plaguing me for over a month. "I don't," I say simply.

He stares at me for a long time, his eyes wary. “What are you going to do?”

I shrug. “I need to find a way to live. We all do the best we can, right? With what we’re given.”

"But this is what you were given," he protests.

"I have to make a choice," I say. "I let Arjun choose to send me back. I let the pack needs dictate the choice to come with you to Mlena. If I don’t do something, I give all choice to the Commission, and where does it end? What do we do when they take our children? By even having children, we have given away their choices." I sigh. "I need to think—to decide what I can live with, what I’m
willing
to live with.”

We sit in silence for a long time, and I stare at the sketches on the walls around us. The forest seems to beckon to me—I want desperately to bolt into the night and never look back. Arjun's eyes gleam at me from a dozen different places on the wall, and I can finally meet them, without it hurting. How much longer, I wonder, until I'm within his arms?

"Are you leaving the City?" he says, startling me.

"No," I lie without hesitating. He looks surprised, and I soften my tone. "Berg, I’m not leaving you. I just need time to think, about if I can live this way. And what I’ll do if I can’t."

His eyes are troubled, beginning to panic. "But... Sabah, I don't know how to live without you. If there is anything I learned from when you were missing, it is that I can’t get by without you. You’re the only thing that never changes in my life. No matter what secrets I uncover, what I learn—you are there, steady and unchanging. I can't lose that."

Tears burn in my eyes, and I clutch his hand. It is so familiar, it's like an extension of me. How many times have I held his hand, and been reassured? How many times have I listened to him read me his stories, and rolled my eyes at his impossible dreaming?

"You can't leave me, Sabah," he chokes out, and I can hear the tears in his voice. "I promised. Don't you remember—I promised you the night we met. If one of us goes, we both go."

I feel the shade of that girl, the girl I was, floating between us. I can almost feel the rope that bound us together. It stretches between us now, and maybe that is where we went wrong. We are bound, by a lifetime of memories and emotions.

I stare at Berg, the boy who saved me, the one I thought would be tied to me forever. And feel the strain that finally makes perfect sense.

“Berg,” I say, tears filling my eyes, “I love you. I always will. You’re my best friend, the one person who knows
everything
there is to know about me. But our lives… what if they aren’t going the same place?”

“I can’t let you go,” he almost shouts, panicked.

“What if I need you to?” I whisper.

**

Berg’s head is resting on my knee, and I toy with his hair as I lean against the pillows of our bed. My eyes are gritty from crying. It is an effort to keep them open. Exhaustion tugs at both of us in the silence, and my eyes drift closed.

“I guess this trip is coming at a good time,” Berg says, startling me. I thought he was asleep.

I glance down at him. “What do you mean?” I ask, a smile lifting my lips.

“It’ll give you a chance to think, without me around.” He leans up, and kisses me, quick and chaste, on my lips. “I leave in three days.”

**

Selent smiles when she opens her front door. After I’m ushered inside, I wait impatiently, my knee bobbing under the table as she clatters around the kitchen, making idle conversation as she prepares tea.

Finally, she sits across from me, her eyes curious and questioning. “Have you thought more about what I said?”

“I did,” I answer. I slip the note from Merc from my pocket, keeping the map aside. She reads it quickly and then her gaze comes up to meet mine. Without waiting for her to speak, I say, “Berg is leaving with the scientist to test a cure in Alpen. I’ll have a week—maybe a little more—with him gone, and Wrenfel is distracted planning my premiere gala.”

She looks startled. “Wrenfel Lark is your sponsor?”

I nod, brushing it aside. “I need your help.”

Selent takes my hand, twisting it palm up. “You don’t have a biochip,” she murmurs, and her eyes are fierce, almost wild, when they meet mine.

“They wanted to wait until my tests came back. I’m supposed to get it the day after Berg leaves.”

“I can get you out of the City,” she whispers, and my heart stops. I hadn’t dreamed she could do that—hadn’t dared. All I’d hoped for was a hiding place amongst the Gutterlings until the quarantine was lifted. I look at her, and she smiles, and I see her son and daughter in that feral grin.

Berg is upstairs, nervously triple checking his bags, when the hovertransport arrives. I put my tablet down, going to open the door.

“One minute,” I tell the transport captain, turning to yell up the stairs, “
Berg.
You’re late!”

He comes hurrying down the stairs, his long hair—he needs it trimmed—falling in his eyes, and I gasp. His eyes dart to me, questioning, and whatever he sees there makes him pause. “Take these,” he says, thrusting his bags at the waiting captain, and then turns to me, pulling me into his embrace. I cling to him, memorizing the familiar lines and angles of his body against mine, the scent of him that evokes a thousand memories, the brush of his hair against my cheek, the caress of his lips against my neck.

“It’s only a week, love,” he says, his voice teasing as he pulls away from me.

I nod, and if there are tears in my eyes, he doesn’t mention them. He kisses me, a quick kiss until I fist my hands in his hair, dragging him closer and deepening it. When he stumbles a little, I steady him by drawing him even closer, until nothing separates us, until we’re as close as we’ve ever been.

When I release him, shove him lightly toward the door, worry flares briefly in his eyes. And then he’s gone.

And I can cry.

**

My eyes hurt when Selent arrives. She looks at me, startled, and I shut the door before saying briefly, “Berg.”

“I thought you loved Arjun,” she protests, stopping short.

I glare. “Berg is my best friend, my brother, my confidante. When this City threw me away, Berg took care of me. Is it so strange that lying to him, and leaving him for a man who beat him is somewhat difficult?”

She blinks. “When you put it that way, I suppose not.”

I lead the way to my studio, opening the closet and pulling out an empty sack. “I haven’t had a chance to pack food,” I tell her. “Did you get what I asked for?”

She nods. “I left it in the tunnel. Your guide has it.”

I spare her a quick glance. I have a guide? “Hurry,” she says, her voice urgent. “You need to be in the tunnels by the time the City wakes.”

I nod, and wave a stack of sealed letters. “When the quarantine is lifted—will you deliver these to the Manor?”

She hesitates, and I wonder how dangerous it is for her. Will she be questioned when the Prince and Wrenfel realize I’m gone? Selent reaches out and takes the letters from me, saying only, “Sabah, you need to hurry.”

In the kitchen, I shove all the non-perishable food I can find into the bag: nuts, dried fruit, energy bars, dried meats. Hard, crusty bread. I add the little fresh fruit in the icebox, a bit of cooked meat that I’d prepared for this reason last night. It’s not much, but if I’m careful with it, I should be able to survive.

I’m good at that.

Finally, I nod at Selent. At the door, she loops a scarf around my neck, and says softly, “Remember—you need to act like you belong on the streets—like you have no reason to be questioned. Confidence, Sabah.”

I nod, and lift my chin, squaring my shoulders.

It’s harder than I thought, and laughably easy. The Keepers barely glance at two Citizen women strolling past the shops. If my bag is heavy, it doesn’t concern them—why should it? I’m a Citizen, and what on earth could Outside offer that could entice me away from that safety?