you to save his life. Casler split us apart and sealed your channel to Clive’s so it would stop leaking. He made you guys into artificial halves—I’m your real half, Amber.”
Amber’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Then she flung herself into his arms and kissed him, convinced, and Aaron’s lungs inflated with helium. He felt her shivering, though, so they climbed into his car. Moonlight dusted their faces.
“Run away with me,” said Aaron, and he reached for the ignition.
“No,” she said, brushing her hair behind her ear, “because then we’d just be pretending. I want to be yours completely.”
“Amber, we have to leave—”
“And if they see me?”
“We’ll blend in,” he said, searching for the wires.
“You want me to blend in?” she said. “Now that I’m officially Clive’s half, a lot more people are going to know I’m missing. They’ll come after us.”
“So we lay low—”
“You are aware that I’m the heiress of the Juvengamy Brotherhood?” she said.
“So?” Aaron peered sideways at her, and for the first time that night, he noticed the light behind her eyes was dimmer, clouded over. Scarred. “Amber . . . what happened?”
Slowly, she swiveled away from him and pulled up her shirt—and Aaron finally lowered his hand from the ignition.
Because all across her back, adhering to the side of her waist and crisscrossing her spine, were strips of blood-spotted bandages. Where he’d rubbed her back, fresh blood stains soaked into the gauze, spreading as he watched. By connecting the dots, he could make out the design underneath—the mirror image of Clive’s tattoo, marking her as his stolen property.
She dropped her shirt and faced him, and the surf sparkled behind her. Aaron could taste the ocean’s salt. And he had nothing to say.
“I wish they’d just empty me out already,” she whispered.
“Don’t ever say that,” he said. “Those marks will heal after we switch back, after we become halves again.”
She nodded, and some of her hair came loose and fell across her eyes. “What about the part of me they gave to Clive?”
“What part?”
“The part of me you should have gotten when we were born,” she said. “The part that would have made us halves. I won’t get it back, will I?”
Aaron stared at her, and he could feel the hollow seconds between his heartbeats. She meant the vials worth of clairvoyance Casler’s machine had cut out of her. It was inside Clive now, not Aaron, and it would forever be missing if they tried to switch back.
“How much do you think I’ll lose?” she said.
“We need to find someone who can help us,” said Aaron, reaching for the ignition wires again.
“Who?” she said. “Casler’s the only doctor who would know what to do, and he’s the one who did this to us.”
“We’ll find someone.” Aaron fumbled with the wires, but they bounced off his fingers.
“Wait—” She held his hand. “Can’t we just stay here for a minute, together?”
He squeezed her hand and faced her. Amber lifted herself off her seat, slid over the gear stick, and climbed into his lap. Carefully, he ran his hands behind her neck, where her skin was cool, slippery. Her hair slid between his fingers. She kissed him.
And the universe paused to watch as they broke the law of halves. He could taste how utterly forbidden she was, how kissing her was tearing her inside out. She belonged to Clive now.
He felt it too, a prick at the back of his head as a little more clairvoyance drained out.
They did it anyway.
She pulled her head away and gasped. “Aaron, you have to run away before Casler gets to you.”
“I’m not running unless you’re with me,” he said.
“Aaron—” She pressed her cheek to his, and her tears filmed between them. “No matter what happens, don’t let him talk you into anything—”
But a squeal of tires cut her off.
They both jerked their heads around as a pair of headlights veered into the parking lot.
The vehicle pulled up behind them, engine growling. Its high beams glared in like searchlights, and the glass flared with white haze, opaque as frost. They had fogged up every last window. And it left them blind.
“It’s Clive!” Amber scrambled back into the passenger seat, her whole body trembling. “He must have followed me here. Drive!”
***
The sharp ends of the ignition wires stabbed Aaron’s fingers, drew blood. Silence.
He tried the next pair.
A black figure loomed outside Amber’s window, shadowing her from the glare. The wires shorted, and Aaron’s Mazda roared to life. The smell of his own