Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) - By Dan Rix Page 0,22

loofah, maybe even scented bath salts to get rid of it—but then she had a crazy and exhilarating thought.

If she didn’t shower, if she went to bed just like this, she could fall asleep to his smell. She could sleep the entire night with a constant reminder of him, and nobody would ever know her secret. The notion gave her such an intense, nervous rush that she immediately felt herself blushing—and was furious with herself.

As if she would ever fall asleep like that.

As it was, she would have enough trouble forgetting the feel of his torso through a thin cotton T-shirt.

Amber sighed and closed her eyes. She couldn’t allow herself to see him again, not after tonight. And that was how it should be. She loved Clive.

Her cell phone rang . . . Dominic’s ringtone. Feeling faint, Amber answered her phone,

“What now?” she said.

“Your lucky number eleven is unconscious,” he said.

It took Amber a moment. “What?”

“Selavio pulled the same exact shit he did with Gorski,” he said. “Remember at school?”

“Where is he?” said Amber, swerving briefly into oncoming traffic.

“Selavio? I left him by the side of the road, he’s still walking back—”

“No, where’s Aaron?”

“Never gave me his address. I brought him back to my house.”

“I’m coming over,” said Amber, and she squealed to a stop before he could tell her no. There were honks behind her. As she turned around, her insides felt prickly and cold. This was her fault.

At every high school she attended, Clive did things to boys if they so much as glanced at her in the hallway. Yeah, it was frustrating enough that every boy she dated was too scared to acknowledge her existence in public, but she should have known Aaron would be much worse. He tried to piss off Clive.

After she parked up his driveway, Dominic stopped her at the door. Amber was breathless for a second, thinking it was Aaron.

“You probably shouldn’t be here,” he said, “at least not until Clive gets back. I don’t want him thinking anything.”

“Where is he?”

“I left him down by the freeway.”

“I mean Aaron.”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed at her. “Amber, why do you do this to Clive?”

“Why do you even care?”

“Because his father is an incredibly talented doctor, whom I’m honored to have as a guest in my house—and he’s asked me to look after his son,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “you’re not doing a very good job of it, are you?”

“Just give Clive what he wants.”

“And what does he want, Dominic?”

“He wants you.”

“Doesn’t he already have me?” she said.

“You could be better about it,” he said.

She pushed past him. “Just let me see him.”

He chased her and grabbed her arm. “You can’t right now,” he said

“Is he alright?” she said, sounding more concerned than she would have liked.

“He’s being examined,” said Dominic stiffly.

Her eyes widened. “By—by Clive’s father?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” said Dominic. “He wouldn’t wake up.”

***

Aaron opened his eyes on a bed in a room he didn’t recognize. The air tasted sour, prickly. Like static electricity and stale glue.

He felt the back of his head, but there was no more pain. Had Clive pulled some kind of Ju-Jitsu move on him?

Aaron glanced around the bedroom. The only furniture was a dresser, topped with a wrought iron sculpture depicting two cupids. The floor was layered with slivers of cut up photographs and empty cans of Red Bull. Someone had made a collage with the photos that spanned the entire opposite wall, and though he couldn’t say why, something about it didn’t look right.

Feeling dizzy, Aaron sat up and swiveled his feet to the floor, stepping onto a Swiss Army duffel bag that was stashed between the bed and the windowsill. A baggage claim ticket on one of the straps revealed the owner. Clive Selavio.

So this was his bedroom.

Aaron’s gaze snapped back to the photos on the wall, and he realized what was off. They were all photos of the same person. Playing tennis in high school. Swimming in middle school. Even younger. Baby pictures. Everywhere he looked, a thousand snapshots of her blonde hair.

All of Amber.

The sour odor of static and dried glue seemed to thicken. He went to the sculpture on the dresser. They weren’t cupids like he’d thought, they were simply babies. Two infants, their bodies wrapped around each other in a sexually suggestive way. On the base of the sculpture, carved into the iron, were the words:

Halves joined at birth

The Juvengamy Brotherhood

Hot with disgust, Aaron stared at the infants’ faces, sculpted into