Return Once More (27 page)

“Hey.” Analeigh sidled up and handed me a cup of sherbet punch.

I took it and smiled, tipping the cold drink against my lips. It helped cool the heat creeping up my neck from the paranoia that wouldn't quite dissipate. “Thanks.”

My best friend went all out, donning the same pretty peach ruffles and layers of petticoats she'd worn on our excursion to the Sun King's court. With her hair a mass of fat curls pinned off her neck, breasts shoved up toward her chin, and the dress's color setting off the natural china-doll pink of her skin, Analeigh was easily the prettiest girl in the room.

“I'm sorry about the whole Evan thing. It just came out,”
she whispered in my mind.

“It's okay.”

We watched the room, comfortable in our roles as observers. Tonight belonged to the oldest apprentice class, who would join the ranks of full Historians in a few weeks. They took turns getting fitted for their new cloaks, all smiles and laughter. Evan Pritchard looked as gorgeous as ever, but his blond-haired perfection couldn't hold a candle to the passion in Caesarion's dusky blue eyes under the Egyptian moonlight.

The younger kids laughed at the edges of the dance floor as a disk comp flipped through decades of music, never playing songs from the same year twice. A few third- and fourth-year apprentices moved awkwardly on the floor—dancing wasn't exactly common outside of weddings and the occasional party—but a few couples in the older classes gave it a good shot.

Sarah and Oz wandered over a few minutes later. She grinned, but he looked as though he had leeches attached to his ass, which may or may not have had anything to do with our confrontation yesterday. Hard to say.

“Hey, guys! Are you having fun?” A thin sheen of perspiration wet her forehead, and her pale, freckled skin glowed. They'd been bopping around the floor a few minutes ago.

“Yep. There's sherbet punch and eye candy. What more do I need in life?” I joked, nodding in Evan's direction. It sounded flat to my ears but Sarah didn't seem to notice.

I chanced a glance at Oz and found him staring back, intensity smoldering in his smoky eyes. Analeigh stepped on my toe before Sarah caught me staring and got the wrong idea; Oz apparently hadn't considered that because his gaze didn't leave my face.

A ballad from the decade prior to the abandonment of Earth Before spewed from the speakers embedded in the walls and floor, and Sarah nudged her boyfriend. “Sherbet can't be the highlight of your night. Go dance with Oz. My feet are sore from being stepped on.”

“Oh. No, really, that's okay.”

Oz cut off my protest, his smile tight. “Evan loves dancing and he's quite skilled. Maybe you should practice first.”

Heat flooded my face and I choked on my punch. Sarah had the good sense to look apologetic in response to my glare. Clearly she had blabbed to Oz about my supposed crush. Embarrassing, but the knowing set of his jaw told me he didn't buy it. He'd heard me talk about Caesarion. Watched me cry over the unfairness of it all.

Now
that
was mortifying.

I didn't have any desire to be alone with Oz, or to let him touch me again, but there wasn't a way to say no without drawing attention. Protesting could make things look more suspicious. The Elders were here, too, and maybe the dance would reassure Truman and Zeke they were right about my focused searches being related to feelings for Oz.

I slid my fingers into his, trying not to frown too hard. His hand was warmer and gentler than it had been yesterday as he led me to the dancing area. At least he couldn't threaten or manhandle me again in the middle of all these people.

In the center of five or six other couples, Oz stopped and turned, then settled a hand lightly on my waist, as though he expected me to swat it away. When I didn't, he took my right hand loosely in his left, I set a palm against his solid chest, and we moved.

“I'm sorry for yesterday. I shouldn't have lost my cool with you, Kaia,” he murmured.

His eyes held honest regret, with perhaps even a tinge of nausea over the whole thing, and holding grudges had never really been my thing. It took too much energy, not to mention I'd always been a big fan of the old adage about keeping enemies as close as friends. “It's fine. Thank you.”

Oz lowered his voice to a whisper. “It doesn't change the fact that you've got to stop seeing him. I don't want to report your use of Jonah's cuff—”

“Then don't,” I hissed back.

He stepped on my already pinched toe, and I winced.

“Sorry.” Oz's cheeks flushed red, but he quickly shook off his embarrassment at his truly horrendous dancing. “Like I said, I don't
want
to turn you in but I will if it comes to that, in order to keep you safe. You have to trust me.”

Irritation spiked my blood, speeding my pulse until it throbbed in my forehead. I started to pull away before I caught Elder Truman's eye over his son's shoulder, and his cold, narrowed gaze kept me in place. I forced my eyes back to Oz's and gritted my teeth, squeezing my fingers tighter around his. “People keep saying that. I don't want to be safe, I want to know. Being kept in the dark pisses me off.”

His fingers gripped my waist with more force, and he swallowed hard. His gaze softened until it almost pleaded. For a brief moment, the quiet, nonconfrontational Oz reappeared, painting the changes in him over the past couple of weeks in a harsher light. “I know you as well as anyone, Kaia, and your curiosity isn't a well-kept secret. As your friend, I'm asking you to leave this alone.”

When I didn't answer, he ducked his face until I couldn't avoid his gaze. “I know what you're thinking. But you can't save him.”

My heart stopped. The fingers on my free hand went to the necklace hanging against my chest, some kind of tick, or tell, though of what I couldn't be sure. I swallowed two times, and then again, struggling to find a response that didn't sound defensive or like a lie. Nothing emerged, and the song ended. Oz turned me loose as though he'd been burned.

“Thank you for the dance.” He left me standing there, unable to make my brain cooperate as far as words.

Determination simmered to a boil, because although his ability to read my desires unnerved me, it didn't change the annoying fact that both he and Jonah assumed they knew what was best for me. “Whatever you're mixed up in, Oz, I'm going to find out what it is. I double dog dare you to stop me,” I muttered under my breath.

*

Oz and Sarah steered clear of me for the rest of the night, mostly dancing on their own, sometimes hanging around with some of Oz's older friends from his reflection-intensive study group. Analeigh had gone to the bathroom when I noticed the congregation of Elders had split up. Some of the overseers moved around the room, speaking to their apprentices, congratulating the older kids getting ready to join their ranks, and others had excused themselves. But four were huddled together and headed for the rear door, three of whom had questioned me yesterday. Quiet warnings that had blipped on my radar since talking with Jonah escalated into pealing bells.

Zeke's hunched figure shuffled toward the exit. Maude stood at his elbow, supporting him lightly. Minnie and Truman followed the head Elder's subtle nod, and a moment later, Oz slipped out behind them. Without thinking too hard about the consequences, I waited a minute and then followed.

The hallway loomed, empty and lit by energy-efficient lightbulbs. One flickered overhead, in need of a tightening or a change, and cast an eerie pall over the scene as I pulled off my heels. I didn't know what I was doing, only that if something secretive was happening at the Academy, like Jonah said, I'd bet my one and only set of pretty teeth that Oz knew what it was. If he was sneaking off to some kind of private Elder meeting about the past being the future or whatever nonsense he'd spouted earlier, I wanted to hear it, too.

The hallway went two directions. One led toward the rest of the common areas, the dormitories, and the mess hall, the other toward the Archives, Research facilities, and the offices. That was the direction I chose.

Voices echoed back at me after only a minute—for once the stark metal and glass design of all the buildings on Sanchi offered something other than a constant chill. I stopped at the next branch in the hallway, unwilling to turn the corner until the voices moved farther away. They definitely headed in the direction of the Archives, which didn't make much sense. All of the Elders had table comps in their personal offices, along with smaller versions of the holo-walls. They weren't as elaborate as the ones in the Archives—more like a chart as opposed to a map, and there were no running scenes being observed, but they were functional.

As I took a step forward, intent on continuing to snoop until they arrived at a destination and settled in for whatever discussion they were about to have, a warm hand clamped down over my mouth.

I struggled, elbowing my captor in the gut hard enough to knock the wind out of him and loosen his hold, then whirled around to find Oz rubbing his stomach.

“Are you following me?” I hissed, trying to remember that the sound-bouncing hallways worked both ways and the Elders hadn't gone far.

“I'm pretty sure
you
were following
me.
”

“And you were following the Elders. Don't let me stop you.” I turned and continued my trek, silent in my bare feet, but the pant of his breathing told me he followed. I ignored him, intent on my mission. Hoping he'd get annoyed and give up.

A few more turns led me past the Archives but still hadn't brought me to the Elders. They had moved beyond the offices, into a place that I had always been told was reserved for storage of extra wardrobes and comps. Outside a final doorway, their voices became clear.

Oz's hand pressed against the small of my back. His gray eyes darkened with worry as they flicked between the hushed tones filtering into the hallway and me. He jerked his head back the way we came, expression turning from pleading to frantic and finally to anger as I shook my head repeatedly, a finger pressed against my lips.

He gave up, throwing his hands in the air, and I turned my attention to the conversation he didn't want me to overhear. One of the Gatlings spoke—their voices were indistinguishable even when they weren't on the other side of a closed door, so I had no idea which one.

“… assignments for this week?”

There were a few beeps and shuffling noises, like the sound table comps made as they raced through a search request. I had no idea there were more research labs back here.

“Maude, you and Minnie try to figure out how to influence Cecil Beaton,” Zeke's unmistakable voice rasped. “I'll continue to scrub the references we decided on, and David has an assignment already.”

David Truman cleared his throat. “And Oz?”

Before I could hear the answer, footsteps approached us from behind. Oz's hand tightened on my wrist, whipping me around to face him, and before I could protest he'd shoved open the door to the room across the hall and dragged me inside.

Then his lips were on mine, his hands shoving me against the wall as he kissed me hard.

My instincts begged me to scratch at his eyes, punch him in the nose, and scream bloody murder, but as the door across the hall flew open and twin exclamations of surprise rang out, I understood he was trying to give us some cover.

I felt his surprise as I relaxed and kissed him back, softening my lips against his to play my part. His arms tightened around me, pulling our bodies flush together.

We broke apart at the sound of a cleared throat. Dizziness tipped me off balance—shocked from being caught, disoriented from being kissed by Oz, of all people, and a little bit stunned by how quickly my life was spinning out of control.

Truman and Booth stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised.

My face heated with confusion and embarrassment, and for his part, Oz looked properly flushed and ashamed. To an outside eye, the two of us looked exactly like a couple of teenagers who'd been caught making out in an off-limits area, not people who spent their days threatening one another and the last ten minutes stalking the Elders in charge of their futures.

“What are the two of you doing here?” Booth demanded. His lanky, frail frame filled the doorway, and with his arms crossed, he was imposing enough to make me shrink closer to Oz.

I don't know what instinct made him snake an arm around my back in support, but at the moment, it steadied me. It was even better when he spoke first.

“Do we really need to answer that? Because I'm pretty sure you just got an eyeful of the answer.”

Oh, stars, did he really just say that like a cocky asshole who'd gotten handsy in the back of a closet at a party? He really was well and good off his freaking nut.

Booth didn't look amused by the smarmy answer. The lines of his face appeared stern even when he meant to be kind, and his dark eyes studied us with more disappointment than anything.

Before he could respond, Truman reached out and grabbed a fistful of his son's shirt, dragging him away from me. “I expect these sort of infractions from Kaia, but not from you. We've all taken a great risk, believing that you're ready, based on how responsible you've always been. This is unacceptable. You have a True Companion. This girl is not worth losing everything.” Truman let go of Oz's shirt, shoving him a little harder than necessary so that he banged into me.

I reached out to steady him, unsure whether I was playing the part of the insulted lover or simply being nice. “Hey. I'm standing right here. If you're going to talk bad about me at least wait until you're alone.”

“Sarah Beckwith is your friend, Kaia. Your roommate. What are you thinking?” Booth asked, his voice soft, filled with the concern that had been missing from Truman's.

The question twisted my stomach, shame and guilt churning the sherbet punch into a soup of nausea. I hadn't
wanted
to kiss Oz, but Booth didn't know that. And Sarah wouldn't, either, if she found out. She might not even believe me. I suddenly regretted not confiding everything to her and Analeigh at the same time because the thought of her believing I would ever do any such thing felt like a punch in the chest. Oz and I were … friends, I supposed. Classmates. Now, apparently, conspirators. But would she believe me?