Return Once More (37 page)

The air in the room thickened and swirled, made it hard to breathe. The eight of them conferred about my sentence through their throat tattoos in whispers too soft to be overheard.

Oz reached out and slid his hand into mine, pulling me against his side. I wanted to push him away, but without him there, I might have fallen down. Instead, I leaned into his side.

“Your parents are hereby exiled to Cryon. You will complete your Historian apprenticeship, delayed one year and without any input into your specialization, and without further infraction, or you will join them.” Zeke pounded his gavel.

“No,” I gasped as my knees gave out.

Oz wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me up before the cold floor rushed up to smack me. My brain and body went numb. The tears that flooded my eyes, washed down my cheeks, and dripped off my chin were silent.

“Mr. Truman. Please see Miss Vespasian to her room and then return for your own sanction. Say your good-byes—the two of you would do well to avoid each other in the future.” Zeke glowered.

Oz nodded at Zeke and started to drag me away. My brain screamed, finally urging my feet into motion, and I broke away, rushing back toward the bench.

“Please, send me away. Please. Not my parents. They didn't do anything wrong, they're good people, they're important. It's me. I'm the bad one.” The words tumbled out, tripping over one another in a race to get off my tongue first.

The Elders didn't answer. Not one of them responded to my pleas, their faces cold and stony in their refusal to recant their sentence of exile. Only Booth met my gaze, the tiniest bit of sympathy flickering in his rheumy eyes. Oz's hands were gentle this time as they grabbed my waist and hoisted me off the floor, then prodded me out of the judgment chamber.

*

We made it almost back to my dorm before my mind snapped out of the fog. I jerked free from Oz's grip, then whirled and slapped him across the face. “How could you?”

“How could I what? Save your life?” He took the strike without flinching, his stormy eyes roiling with a confusion of anger and hurt. “Or are you referring to my handling your business in Egypt since you obviously weren't going to be able to do it on your own.”

The pain that spiked at the mention of Caesarion almost broke me in two. “
Save
me? By letting Analeigh get kidnapped? Breaking Sarah's heart for the second time? If you would have let me go with Jonah …” I trailed off. There had to be a reason for Oz's actions. All this time I assumed he's been acting, been lying, the same way I had but now … what if he hadn't?

When he kissed me the other night, when he followed me into Egypt … just now, when he'd confessed we had feelings for each other and handled me so gently … no. I shook away the stupid thought. He had a True, the chance at a lifetime with the one person in thousands of years who matched him. No way he could fight that feeling. I knew from experience, now.

“If you had run off with your brother, your parents would have probably been exposed. The penalty for having both of their children turn pirate, leave behind the System wouldn't have reflected well. Not to mention you would be branded an outlaw, meaning both you and Analeigh would never be able to return.” He swallowed, blinking his eyes hard. “And let me worry about Sarah.”

Shame and guilt burned in my throat, making it hard to hate Oz more than I hated myself.

His face softened. “This way, your parents are alive. Analeigh was technically kidnapped, even though she was in trouble, so should anything change in the future she could still return.”

“What's going to change, Oz?”

He paused, swallowing a half dozen times as his eyes swept the hallway. “I need you here, Kaia. You're the only person who knows what's going on.”

My laugh sounded like someone was trying to strangle me with a tube sock. “I have no
idea
what's going on, Oz. And you heard them. If I put one more toe out of line, it's curtains for me and my family.”

“I was running some trajectories last night on the Projector when everything started to hit the fan with Analeigh and Sarah. Kaia, I think there's more going on, like you said. I don't think the Projector is just to enhance our understanding of how things went wrong, and I don't think the missions they've been sending me on are simply to test the validity of the trajectories. If they continue to alter such significant developments, it's not only death for your family. It's curtains for all of us.”

Sanchi, Amalgam of Genesis–51 NE (New Era)

The months had stretched out, each day lonelier than the one that
preceded it. I had no friends. Sarah and I existed largely in silence; she and Oz had
patched things up, though I had no idea how he'd managed that or how much he'd told her
since three months had done little to return our friendship to normal. Or even
frigid.

I had a right to be angry with her, too, given that she'd done something
illicit for my brother and never thought to mention it, but my guilt overshadowed my
indignation. Every night before bed I told her nothing had happened between us and she
said she knew, but other than to talk silently about how we might clear Analeigh's name,
we didn't speak.

The fact that I'd failed in Egypt haunted me every time I closed my eyes.
In my mind, it meant I might not be as cut out for this job, for this life, as I'd
always believed. Even though my work improved, my enthusiasm waned.

Observations continued, as did the reflections and group sessions,
lunches and dinners. The Elders watched me closely, but nothing had happened that
allowed me to distinguish the ones who were part of the so-called Return Project and
those who weren't. Oz and I hadn't had a moment alone to speak—the overseers assured we
took separate trips, our reflection times were opposite, and the group sessions were
always supervised.

We'd returned from a trip to England, where we'd witnessed the coronation
of Queen Elizabeth. The rest of the class had been issued a pass for Oz's birthday
celebration at Stars in My Pies, and although they would have given me one, too—for all
of the anger and watchful eyes, the Elders outwardly took care to treat me the same—I
didn't feel welcome. Or like celebrating. At all.

I didn't know how to go through the Archives without triggering some kind
of alarm, and clearly whatever Analeigh had learned about Zeke's family had gotten her
into trouble. I still had Jonah's scrambling chip, but no chance to use it—not to
mention nowhere to go, even if I hadn't lost his cuff.

Oz had said he needed me here, to help him figure out how to get the
proof we needed about the danger of the Return Project to present to the full Elder
Council, but I felt useless. Analeigh had been gone, stars knew where, for three months.
My parents had been banished the day after the hearing. I hadn't even been allowed to
say good-bye.

The suspicion that the reason they had been banished and not me was
because they wanted me here to monitor my movements. It made no sense that Analeigh
would be exposed, my parents banished, but I would remain here, my day-to-day life
largely unchanged.

I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed with my mom's copy of
Pride
and Prejudice
when my best friend appeared out of nowhere on her bed. Like she
never left.

I threw myself into her arms and we held on for dear life. Relief and
guilt and loneliness so strong it forced sobs from my gut crashed through me like
thunder, and for a long time we cried together. Then I realized she must have traveled
here from the future, and that Sarah and the others would be back soon. We couldn't
waste all our time crying.

“What are you doing here?” I managed, wiping the wetness from my
cheeks.

Her white-blond waves were piled high atop her head in a messy bun and
her Historian clothes had been swapped for shorts and a blue tank top with green dots
that hugged her slim figure and showed off her chest. Pink splotches decorated her
cheeks and excitement lit her green eyes behind her glasses, still in place after all
this time. The angry scar on her wrist and throat where the golden bio-tat had been was
new, though.

“I had to see you. We've been working on how to get back inside without
tripping the new security but it's taking forever.”

“There's new security?”

“Yes. It's good, too. Sarah designed it. They probably made her.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. Your brother is fine, too.” The pink splotches deepened before
her eyes turned sad. “Your parents are doing okay. They're confused and we haven't
spoken to them, only checked in since Cryon is pretty heavily monitored, but they're
safe.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. I want to come back, but this is bigger than you and
me. Jonah knew about this Return Project—they recruited him at the beginning, bribed him
with the incentive of saving Rosie Shapiro, then left him no choice but to run when he
found out their end game was to return to Earth.”

“How is that even possible? Will there be anyone left to take back with
them?”

“Jonah left the Academy more than three years ago, so who knows what
they've figured out since then. He thinks Oz was probably roped in somehow, too, and
that they didn't tell him the full scope of consequences.” She paused. “Have you talked
to him? Oz?”

“No. They keep us apart, but if they plan on sacrificing people in order
to return, I'd guess he didn't know.” I paused, trying to decide what to ask next. “How
did Jonah know we were in trouble?”

“When we visited him and he pulled me aside?” She waited until I found
the memory and then continued. “He gave me a beacon in case we needed him. They have
access to satellite feeds on the ship and it beamed a signal. I slapped it under one of
the table comps when the Enforcers caught me in the Archives.”

“Why didn't he give it to me?”

“He knew I'd recognize trouble even when you refused to ask for help.”
She smiled, but it was quick to fade. “I have to go. Sarah's going to be back soon, and
you're going to have your hands full. We need her on our side, Kaia. She's the only one
in the Academy with the brains to outsmart their tech.”

“What do you mean, I'm going to have my hands full? And what were you
trying to tell me about Zeke's last name?”

“When I researched environmental causes of our evacuation, his paternal
founder—Thomas Midgley, Jr.—kept coming up. He pretty much had the biggest singlehanded
detrimental effect on the environmental destruction of Earth Before. Gasoline and
fluorocarbons, among other things. We know Truman's ancestry. The Elders involved all
come from families with negative impact on our previous society—so they're trying in
some sick way to make it right.” Her cuff beeped and she looked down. “Gotta go, Kaia.
I'll come back soon.”

She hugged me and disappeared before a protest could slip past my lips,
and the door to our room swung open a split second later. Sarah's pale face caught me
off guard, along with the tears streaming down her cheeks. Hurt and anger burned like
wildfire in her icy eyes. She crossed the room in two steps, reeled back, and slapped me
across the face.

My eyes watered, cheek blazing under my palm. “Are you off your nut? What
the hell did I do?”

She shoved a crumpled blue card into my hand, went into her room, and
slammed the door. Still trying to retrieve my senses from where they'd been smacked
loose, I looked down at the paper, dazed. Oz's name and bio information printed across
the top, along with his birthday—today.

Underneath it, the name of his True Companion marched in black typeface
against the light blue background, impossible to miss, even harder to believe:

Kaia Ruth Vespasian (August 16, 33
NE–
)

Return Once More
is the book that has taken me the longest to get from conception to publication, and there are so many people who have helped along the way. I believe it's a better story for all of the ups and downs and changes and ideas.

The first person I called when I had this idea was Melissa Triebwasser, and even though she is sometimes inclined to inform me when things that come out of my head are silly, this time she didn't! She's been a supporter of the book since the very beginning all the way until the end, when she encouraged her high schoolers to create a fabulous book trailer for the story. Thank you.

My critique partners and early readers, all of whom thought this book could be something special – Denise Grover Swank, who is there not only for craft and business questions, but for wine drinking, television watching, and general wallowing and/or celebrating any night of the week. Leigh Ann Kopans, who has become one of my best friends over the past three-plus years, and without whom I would have nowhere to be myself without fear of judgment. Also without whom I quite possibly would never have tried baking challah, which would be a terrible dystopian version of my life. Amalia Dillon, you know your insight and quality as far as a historical sounding board is priceless to me and my stories, never mind the satisfaction and thrill one gets from discussing history with another nerd as big as one's self.

Danielle Poiesz, my longtime content and line editor, was the first to look at this book in a professional manner. My initial edit letter was a record 38 pages. Thank you, for this one and all the ways you've helped me become a better writer as we've worked together on so many projects.

Kathleen Rushall, the agent who took a chance on me as a New Adult author but loved Return Once More (then The Historians) enough to want to find it a home in the traditional publishing world. I can't thank you enough for believing in my stories, my career, and in me. I am full of gratitude.