Naturals (17 page)

Chapter 22

There he was. James.

It was the single most surreal moment of my life. I had been sure I couldn’t survive without him, but life had gone on. No matter what I lost, time didn’t just stop. I had convinced myself I would never see him again, and yet here he was.

James had come for me.

He promised in those woods that he would find me, and he had kept his promise. I don’t know why I ever doubted that he would.

I couldn’t breathe or move. I just had to stare at him, to take in the work of art I had come to love. He was thinner than I remembered, but I was sure it was because his long days of training at Templeton were over. No doubt guarding a compound of apathetic naturals didn’t require a lot of brute strength. And I knew given the choice, James would rather read or play music than learn ways to fight in combat.

But the things I loved most about him were still all there. Curly black hair. Mismatched eyes. And the scar, the one imperfection that marked him as different from the rest. It was this scar that so intrigued me when I first saw him.

I watched as James’s eyes roamed over every inch of my body. His gaze never felt intrusive. I knew what he was doing. He was making sure I was all right, checking for signs that the illness still had me in its grasp. He must have been so worried.

James always risked too much for me.

“Stand back,” Al commanded from beside me, pointing his gun directly at James.

“What’s going on?” James asked.

“Looks like you have a new roommate,” one of Al’s men called out.

James’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t be serious. She had no part in this. She was lying on her death bed.”

Al clicked the safety off his gun. “I believe I told you to stand back.”

“It’s okay, James,” I choked out. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying. With my eyes, I tried to plead with him to just do what they said. I knew taking orders from a natural wasn’t something he was used to. In fact, it went against everything he had been told from the day he was created, but I needed to be next to him.

And this was the only way.

James nodded and offered me a pained smile.

Al opened the door and nodded to his men. Without any pretense of respect, the men shoved me forcefully into the cell and I stumbled into James’s arms. I was touching him. He was real. I didn’t care about the noise of the cell door slamming behind us. They could have trapped us in there for all of eternity, and I would have welcomed it.

I lifted my head to look at him.

James hesitantly reached both hands up to cup my face but stopped before actually making contact. “Is it okay if I touch you?” he asked.

“God, yes,” I breathed.

His hands found my face and a wave of goose bumps covered my limbs. I closed my eyes and allowed the feeling to overtake me. It was euphoric.

“Did they hurt you, Tess?”

“Say it again?” I begged.

“What?”

“My name.”

“Tess,” he murmured.

My eyes snapped open. I threw my arms around him and held onto him as tightly as I possibly could. I began to full-out sob, burying my face in his chest.

“Shh. It will be all right. I promise,” he said soothingly, running a hand up and down my back.

I shook my head and looked up at him. “I…I know it will be…that’s not why I’m crying,” I managed.

James wiped under my nose with his sleeve, waiting patiently for me to continue. He wasn’t dressed much differently than the other men of the camp—brown trousers and a blue and green plaid shirt—but in other ways, he was entirely one of a kind. He had always been so gentle with me.

I swallowed, trying to somehow calm down enough to explain my words. I took a shaky breath. “I’m crying because every time I wanted to see you again, it felt so foolish. I never thought it could actually happen.”

“I told you I would find you,” he said tenderly.

“And I told you not to risk it,” I reminded him. “Coming here was the most idiotic thing you have ever done.”

James offered a small laugh in return. “I thought we figured out a long time ago that when it comes to the other, neither one of us is capable of rational thought.”

I returned his laugh. “That’s true.”

“I need you to tell me you’re all right,” James said. It truly was a need for him. I could see that now.

I sniffled. “I’m fine. I feel so much better now. Thanks to you.”

“No need to thank me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, James. I can’t believe what you risked for me,” I replied.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. If something happens to you, it happens to me,” he said.

I nodded in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean.” I motioned around to the very cramped cell that I would now be sharing with him. There wasn’t much to it. In fact, it reminded me a lot of The Void. Except where The Void was made up of cement, the floors of the cell were made of dirt. One bed. No chairs. No bathroom.

We weren’t in Templeton anymore.

James sighed. “I really wish you wouldn’t have done whatever you did to get thrown in here. I came for you knowing this was a possibility.”

I reached down and grabbed his hand in mine, placing it over my heart, and I could hear how his breath caught. I was glad those feelings still existed for him, too. “It is
not
a possibility,” I said, my voice becoming hard. “They aren’t going to touch you. That is something I promise you.”

The outside door to the jail cell opened. I turned around to find Lockwood looking at us. No doubt next to the starved men of the community, James looked like a beast.

“Um, so…hello,” he replied meekly. “Um…I’m Lockwood. One of Tess’s friends…or at least I hope I am. You must be James.”

James merely nodded in response. No doubt he was waiting to gauge by my reaction whether Lockwood was friend or foe.

I offered Lock a small smile. While I may not have been happy about his part in Henry’s deception, I knew he meant well. He had been a great friend, and I would be forever thankful for his help. “It’s good to see you, Lockwood. I guess I won’t be helping you with the milking today.”

“Yeah, remind me to be mad about that later,” he joked.

“I hope you have some news for us?” I asked.

“Want the good news or the bad news?” he asked.

“I want all the news,” I said.

“Robert did it. He’s been talking to the leaders all day, and he got you a reprieve. I mean, they’re still planning on ultimately killing James, but they agreed to give you a few more days,” Lockwood said.

“Time is good,” James said with a curt nod.

So, that was where Robert had been. I had so much to discuss with him.

“You said there was bad news?” James asked.

“Yeah…the leaders want to see you first thing in the morning, Tess. And they’re not happy.”

James was so quiet, even when he slept. I shouldn’t have been so surprised by this fact. It wasn’t the first time I had shared a bed with him—before we got separated, we lived the life I’d always dreamed of. We lived free. Nestled together in the ruins of a house damaged by the war, we found a sense of normalcy. We giggled together on the couch, watching the snow fall through a hole blasted in the ceiling by some bomb. We fell asleep in each other’s arms knowing that we would both be there in the morning.

For a few short days, we lived other peoples’ lives.

But even without my knowledge of James’s sleeping patterns, he’d always had a certain quietness about him. He didn’t need to walk into a room and announce himself. I remembered watching him train with the other chosen ones at Templeton, and even then he didn’t seek out attention. That’s not to say the creators messed up. He was powerful. Sometimes his power scared me. I once watched him and George fight, and there was certainly a killing machine inside of him—but it was the part of himself he hated.

I think that’s what made me love him the most.

James would rather sit in his room reading than flirt with and tease the girls forced to work at Templeton. His artistry was not in the way he could take down an army, but in the way his fingers danced across the keys of a piano so effortlessly—the way he touched me as if he was afraid he would break me.

But besides a few caresses here and there, James hadn’t touched me since we’d been reunited. He refused to share the bed, claiming he would only cramp me. This was the downside of letting myself feel: I often felt too much. And right then, as I stared at him leaning against the wall asleep, all I felt was insecure.

Did he not want me anymore? I knew he loved me, but I also knew there were so many dizzying, distracting notions of love that sometimes people thought they were experiencing one kind when really it was another type in disguise.

Like how I felt about Henry.

Henry.

I felt something for him, but it was so entirely different than what I felt for James. Was that it? Could James somehow tell about the moments Henry and I had shared? Would I ever be able to explain it to him in a way that made sense? I could hardly comprehend it myself.

I sat up from where I lay curled on the bed. “James,” I whispered. He didn’t stir. I contemplated letting him sleep, but then what if it didn’t turn out like we wanted? If the darkness consumed us, and we were destined to be separated forever—be it by distance or death—I couldn’t waste what moments we had left contemplating the meaning of every damn emotion that made up life.

I cleared my throat. “James,” I repeated, this time much louder.

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up straight, alert, prepared to go into action. Just like he had been trained to do. “What is it?”

“Why haven’t you kissed me?” I asked, my voice trembling.

James didn’t speak. I groaned, not out of impatience but from despair. I couldn’t help it. I got out of the bed and sat down next to him. James reached forward and took one of my hands in his. “Do you think I don’t want to kiss you?” he asked.

I took a deep, uneven breath. “I’m not sure. We’re here together, alone, and you haven’t even tried.”

“I was waiting for you to ask me,” he said quietly.

“Me to ask you? You don’t need permission,” I replied.

James offered a short, harsh laugh. “Don’t I?”

I frowned, not understanding what he meant.

James cleared his throat. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, I smiled. James always cleared his throat when he got nervous—a habit I felt like I had picked up. “The council took you away from me, and I had to go back and work for them. Day in and day out I do their bidding, and all the while, all I want to do is hate them. But it’s a difficult thing to hate the people who created you. And they
did
create me.”

I squeezed his hand. As someone who always had murky relationships with her own family members, this was something I could understand.

“Life has been…difficult. I tried to immerse myself in my books and music, but everything I read or played reminded me of you. Even ideas and objects that had nothing to do with you. I would create your image out of the most ridiculous things. And it didn’t help that I was surrounded by naturals all day. I almost wished I had answered my interview questions the way they wanted me to. At least then, they would have given me a job that challenged me. Instead, I’m stuck watching people live and feel things I’m not supposed to.”

James paused, looking down at our hands. When his gaze traveled back up to my face, his eyes were watering. “The only thing that got me through it was thinking of you and the life you were living. You were away from the council. You were free. I needed you to start a new life. So, that’s why I haven’t kissed you.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t—”

“When I say I wanted you to start a new life, I meant that I wanted you to experience everything. I couldn’t just walk in and ask you to go back to the way things were. I spent so much time hoping you would move on, and I couldn’t take back that wish just because I found you again,” he said.

“Kiss me, James,” I murmured.

James reached forward a hand and ran it through my hair. I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch. His hand slowly moved to my cheek, his thumb grazing my bottom lip, and my breath hitched. The waiting was slowly killing me. Painfully, blissfully slow.

James moved forward and pressed his forehead against mine. “Are you sure?” he whispered. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” I said.

James’s lips lightly touched mine. I sighed, my heart fluttering. I pulled away slightly and looked up at him. “I’m not letting them take you away from me,” I promised.

James brought his lips back down on mine. Our mouths moved together haltingly—each of us wanting to savor every sublime second of contact. My mouth parted, and his tongue grazed mine. I gasped. I could feel him smile under my lips, and I smiled back.

I leaned back from him only to shift my position. I moved so I was sitting in his lap, facing him. His arms encircled my waist. “Who knew imprisonment could be so much fun?”