I couldn’t look at him.
“Fifteen minutes, Ruby. You teach me.”
What could I possibly know that he didn’t?
“Do you think you could walk me through how you erase someone’s memory? I know it’s not something you’re proud of, and I know it’s caused you a lot of pain in the past, but it seems like a useful trick, and I’d be interested to learn it.”
“Well…I guess?” I said. Like I could deny him after all that he had done for me. But it wasn’t something I knew how to teach. I’d barely managed to figure it out for myself.
“I think understanding how you do it will also help me figure out how to prevent you from accidentally doing it again. Sound good?”
That sounded great, actually.
“If you’d let me,” he continued, “I’d like to walk through your memories and see if I can find any clues. I just want to confirm a suspicion I have.”
I don’t think he expected the request to give me pause, but it did. He had been in my head multiple times, seeing things I’d never spoken about to anyone. But I’d been able to keep him from seeing the things that really mattered, the dreams I wanted to protect.
I kept thinking about what Liam had said before, when he told me about his sister. Those memories are mine.
But if I wanted a future with my family—with Liam—then I had to relinquish my control. I had to let Clancy in if it meant I could avoid the same thing happening in the future.
You can trust him, said the same voice at the back of my mind. He’s your friend. He would never overstep.
“Okay,” I said. “But only those, and, afterward, Charles gets to use your computer.”
“Deal.”
Clancy knelt in front of me, hands cupping my jaw, fingers weaving through my hair. I tried not to squirm at his proximity and his assumption that I would be fine with it. We’d sat this close before, but somehow this felt different.
“Wait,” I said, sitting back. “I told Liam and the others I’d meet with them about something. Can we maybe do this later? Or even tomorrow?”
“It’ll only take a second,” Clancy promised, his voice soothing and low. “Just close your eyes and think about the morning you woke up on your tenth birthday.”
Come on, that same voice said. Come on, Ruby.…
I swallowed hard and did as he asked, imagining myself back in my old room, with its blue walls and enormous window. Bit by bit, the room reassembled itself. Blank walls bloomed with cross-stitch samplers Grams had sewn, pictures of my parents, and a map of D.C.’s metro system. I could see all six of the stuffed animals I slept with, on the floor next to my bright blue comforter. Even things I had completely forgotten—the lamp on my small desk, the way the middle shelf of my bookcase sagged—suddenly came back into clear focus.
“Good.” Clancy sounded far away, but I felt him near, closer and closer. His breath was warm across my cheek, an unexpected touch. “Keep…” He sounded breathless. “Keep thinking.…”
I saw his face through a glossy haze, his dark eyes burning the shimmering air. I saw only him, because for those few passing moments, he was the only thing that seemed to exist in my world. Every part of me felt slow and warm, like honey. Clancy blinked once, then again, as if to clear his own cloudy gaze, to remember what he was supposed to be doing. “Just keep…”
And then his lips—his lips were so close, smiling against mine. Fingers wove their way through my long hair, thumbs gliding along my cheeks. “You—” he began, his voice hoarse. “You are—”
At the slightest pressure, something hot and dark sparked there, sending a wave of desire straight into my core. His hands slid down over my neck, my shoulders, down my arms, down…
And then there was nothing gentle about it.
His lips pressed against mine hard, with enough force to drive them apart, to steal breath, and sense, and the feel of the bed under me. The skin of his face was smooth and cool against mine, but I was warm—too warm. The fever that swept up over me made my body go limp, and I was pressed back against the bed, sinking into the pillows there like I was falling through clouds. The blood had left my head, and all that was left there was a low, throbbing pulse. My hands came up to tangle in his shirt—I needed to grasp something, to hang on before I fell too far.
“Yes,” I heard him breathe out, and then his mouth was on mine again, his hands at the hem of my top, edging it up over my stomach.
You want this, a voice whispered. You want this.
But it wasn’t my voice. I wasn’t saying that—was I? In that instant, a flash of his black eyes gave way to a light blue. That was I wanted, what I really wanted. My mind felt slow, drugged with the strain of thought. Liam. But here was Clancy. Clancy, who helped me, my friend, beautiful in a way that made me lose trains of thought. Clancy, who more than liked me.…
Who was also an Orange.
My eyes flew open as his hands slipped up to my neck, his fingers tightening slightly around the skin there. I tried to pull back, but it felt like he had flooded my veins with concrete. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even shut my eyes.
Stop, I tried to say, but when his forehead found mine, the pain that exploded behind my eyes was enough to make me forget everything.
TWENTY-SIX
THE COMPUTER’S FRANTIC BEEPING woke me from a dreamless sleep, tugging at me until my eyes drifted open. I was lying in darkness.
My body felt heavy, and though someone had pulled off my sweater, my shirt was plastered to my skin with a thin sheen of sweat. If I had been alone, I might have taken it off, or at least kicked my jeans off my legs to let my body breathe, but I knew better. I was still in his room, and if I was here, then so was he.
The light on Clancy’s dresser was on, and I could hear the voices of kids below at the fire pit. Night, already? It was insane that my blood could run as frigid as winter at the same moment my heart started to squeeze out a panicked rhythm.
The creaking of the old mattress was drowned out by the TV. For a while, I did nothing but listen to President’s Gray baritone voice give his nightly address. My legs seemed to be the last part of my body willing to wake up.
“—assure you that the jobless rate has declined from thirty percent to twenty percent in this past year alone. I gave you my word that I would succeed where the false government would not. As much as they would like you to believe they have influence on the world stage, they can barely control their terrorist branch, this so-called Children’s League—”