The silence stretches for a few seconds, and then Gideon’s hands come out of his pockets and he pushes away from the wall. “Sofia—” he starts, taking a step toward me.
I’m moving before I have time to think, dropping the flashlight and reaching for the gun tucked into my waistband. He stops moving when he sees it; the flashlight’s beam comes to rest against the wall, reflecting just enough light that I can see his face. The confusion there, as he halts a few steps away from me.
“Stop.” My voice is a lot stronger than I thought it would be. “You made your choice. You’re with Tarver. I’m with the others. We want different things.” Don’t come near me, because I don’t know how much of this I can stand.
“Except we don’t,” replies Gideon softly, watching me rather than the gun, whose safety is still on. I can’t even point it at him, not really. The barrel hovers somewhere in between, not quite lowering, not quite lifting to aim at him. “You don’t want Lilac dead any more than we want the universe destroyed.”
“You don’t hear how that sounds?” I burst out, shifting my grip on the gun. “One life versus the entire universe? Tarver I understand, he’s—of course he’s choosing her. But you…Why are you with him? Why did you leave, why not talk to me?”
Gideon’s silent for a few seconds, making me wish I hadn’t dropped the flashlight, making it harder to see his face. “Why didn’t you talk to me before you tried to assassinate Roderick LaRoux?”
The blow of that is a dull ache, his words just one more burden settling on top of the grief and guilt already making my knees buckle. I shift my weight, boot scraping whisper-like against the dusty floor. “Just go,” I manage. “I should make you come back with me, should make you take us to Tarver so we can stop him. But just—just go.”
Gideon’s weight shifts too, but he stops himself before taking another step toward me. “It’s because I have faith,” he says slowly. “In Tarver, in Lilac. In the fact that my brother loved her, because she was—is—worth it, worth dying for.” He swallows. “I told you already. It’s because if you were the one in there instead of her, there isn’t a force in the universe that would stop me going after you.”
I shake my head, throat too tight for me to speak. My face is heating, flushing with anger, with frustration, with all the things I told myself I’d say to Gideon if I could—and he’s standing here in front of me, and I still can’t say a word of it.
“It’s because there has to be a way for this to work,” he continues, his eyes scanning my face. “Because it’s impossible, any way you look at it, and I refuse to accept that this is how it ends.”
I take a shuddering breath, the barrel of the gun still wavering between us. “Are you still talking about Lilac?”
His mouth curves, the smile so sad it feels like my whole body’s ripping in two. “You’re the expert,” he murmurs. “You tell me.”
“We can’t trust each other,” I whisper. “You can’t love someone you don’t trust. You’ll never know if I’m playing you, and I’ll never know if you’re still the Knave, toying with me.”
“And that’s why I’m here,” Gideon snaps, shoving a hand through his hair in frustration. “I wanted to come back to a place before you and I learned the truth about each other. Odds are we’ll all be dead, or worse, tomorrow. We’ll never know if we could’ve learned to trust each other.”
“Whether you could’ve loved the real me.” My eyes burn, the weight of everything I wanted to say to him pressing in on my throat, making it impossible to speak.
“You think I don’t know the real you?” Gideon’s eyes widen, and there’s pain there. I didn’t expect that.
In the dim light, he looks so tired; so changed, in his pilfered military gear, so different from the cocky guy in an LRI shirt who winked at me across the holosuite. I can see his breath stirring the dust in the air, making it dance in the beam from the flashlight. It quickens as I watch him, until I can almost hear a waltz, each particle of dust twirling to the ghost of that old song.
“The hell with it,” I blurt, the gun clattering to the floor from fingers no longer obeying my commands. “I don’t care.” I move forward, closing the distance between us and reaching for him. My fingers curl around the edges of his jacket, tug him in close—he’s already moving, ducking his head, lips parting to meet mine. One hand slides around my waist, pulling me in against him, as the other tangles in my hair, his palm hot against my cheek.
We stumble backward until my shoulder blades hit the wall. Someone’s foot connects with the flashlight, sending it and its beam skittering wildly off into the dark. My hands are shaking as they peel his jacket away, as my fingertips curl against his shoulders, as the muscle beneath his T-shirt shifts and tenses in response to my touch. His mouth finds my jawline, my throat, the hollow behind my ear; the air goes out of me in a gasp.
“Sofia,” he mumbles against my skin, hips pressing against mine, arm tightening around my waist. “I always knew you.”
All the things I wanted to say…I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I wanted to tell you. I don’t care about the Knave. The thoughts come in fragments, too confused to speak aloud, too difficult and too numerous to track. I let you down. I let you hurt me. I’d take all of it back, and I’d do it all again.
“God help me,” I breathe, the words falling out of me like dust and debris, crashing in my own ears and bringing the world to a grinding halt. All I can hear is Gideon breathing, his skin hot against my skin, his body hard against mine. I struggle to breathe, the air rushing into my lungs like it’s trying to drown me. “I do trust you.”
I have never seen her face, the girl with the beautiful dreams, only the inside of her mind. But now, through the eyes of the boy who loves her, I can see she is beautiful. I can feel the others trying to push past me, to seek more destruction, for destruction is all they know. But I cannot stop looking at her. I wish that I could look at her forever.
She lets me take her hand, our fingers interlocking the way she and the green-eyed boy have let their hearts interlock—separate but inseparable. In this moment I find I envy them their individuality, their uniqueness, the beauty of being able to touch like this. In this moment I envy the green-eyed boy that he will always be able to touch her like this.
In this moment I decide that they must live, that they must show the others all there is to learn from humankind.
“Jubilee Chase,” I whisper through the green-eyed boy’s lips, “I wish…”
ALL I CAN FEEL IS her body against mine, the heat of her skin through the fabric of her shirt, the catch of her breath hot against my neck.
All I can hear are her words echoing around the silence of the abandoned arcade. Whether you could have loved the real me. I do trust you.
The two of us are the only spots of warmth in this world of darkness, and I want more than anything to have the words to make her see the truth. That though she’s played me almost every moment I’ve known her, I do know her.
My heart’s been pounding since the moment she walked into the arcade, and I want to abandon myself to her—to this—even though I know that loving her and trusting her are two different things.