Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) - By Dan Rix Page 0,62
the eastern horizon, their first day.
“What was that about your deepest, most erotic fantasy?” said Aaron, his skin igniting as he held her.
“You,” she said, locking eyes with him, taking short, shallow breaths. “Where should we go?”
“Paris,” he said, “then Spain, then Sicily—”
“I want to explore the coral reefs,” she said. “Will you buy me a sailboat?”
“And what do I get?”
“Me,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“Don’t push your luck,” said Aaron, “or I might change my mind about letting you be my half.”
“Actually, it’s you who’s on thin ice, buddy.”
Through a hole in the clouds, silver rays pierced the canopy, glittered, and struck the soil. Sunrise.
“Come on.” Aaron took her hand and led her up the muddy steps into the botanical garden. They collapsed on a bench between two dripping rose bushes, opposite a wall of mossy stones. As warm dew evaporated from the grass and perfumed the air around them, Amber curled up at his side. Their bodies melted together. Aaron filled his lungs, euphoric, unable and unwilling to calm the fire burning in every last nerve.
“Aaron, if I’m wrong,” she whispered, “if we’re not actually halves, will you promise me something?”
“What?”
“If I decide to do something you think is really stupid, promise me you won’t try to protect me. Promise me you’ll leave, that you’ll go somewhere safe instead of trying to bargain with Dr. Selavio.”
“Stop it,” he said.
“Just promise me,” she said.
“I promise we’re halves.”
Of course there was more to the story. But here, with Amber’s silky hair flowing across his chest, everything was perfect.
And they fell asleep thinking they were halves.
***
While he slept, he had a nightmare that Clive came out of the shadows and took her. As he carried Amber into the morning light, they both looked like angels, perfect in every way. It seemed so vivid at the time, but he soon forgot.
On his birthday, Aaron woke up alone. It was daytime and his arms were empty. Like a single breath of air, she had gone. And from high, high above the hills, the sun’s rays burned into his eyeballs and crushed his pupils to the size of pinheads.
But how high?
Aaron tore through his pockets and wrenched open his cell phone. His heart slammed against his chest. How high? A blank screen—the damn thing was out of batteries.
And it felt like being in a furnace. He squinted into the sun’s glare. Sweat steamed off his neck. Was it nine o’clock in the morning?
Or high noon?
Aaron rolled off the bench and ran back down the trail. Her car was gone.
The morning with Amber was a distant memory, fading as if it had never happened. He clung to some details, but others vanished, dreamlike in their elusiveness. But worst of all was his memory of their conversation, the logic of why they were halves: dream logic.
Desperate, Aaron struggled to recall their plans. Were they running away first and working things out later? Or were they first going to the Chamber, confirming they were halves, and then running?
It must have been the latter. Amber had gone off somewhere to change out of her suitcase. Yeah, that was it. She would be waiting for him at the Chamber at eleven.
Aaron sprinted home, and he counted out exactly sixty seconds before he crashed through his front door. He stormed into the kitchen, into a blaze of golden sunlight. But even when he shaded the numerals, he couldn’t read the clock. They were stifled beneath a white-hot haze of glare.
Still wheezing, he dashed to his bedroom—his alarm clock. The display faced the wall. Clive must have bumped it the night before. Aaron stepped forward, his heart squirming in his throat, and flipped it around.
***
At first, Aaron just blinked at the digits. They looked backwards, like he was seeing them through a mirror. Nine-fifty-nine.
With effort, he determined he had one hour to get ready. He did it in half.
Thirty minutes until his appointment, Aaron twisted his Mazda’s ignition wires together. The engine roared for a few seconds, then idled obediently.
He pressed down on the gas, and the car’s acceleration made his insides squirm. But it wasn’t nervousness, it was excitement.
As the streets flew by, he thought about his scar tissue, and the belief he’d held his whole life that when he finally met his half, something would be missing.
At dawn, gazing into Amber’s eyes, he’d realized nothing was missing. He and Amber had entered the world at the same moment, destined for each other, halves. She was everything.