and began to jig. ‘Aaah … listen … I die over this song.’ She ran off ahead.
Retra followed more slowly, taking in the top floor scaffolding and the ceiling decorated with light-reflecting streamers, and glitter globes that floated above her head. The balls shot off little beams, casting dotted patterns on the faces and limbs of the dancers below. An open-cage lift crawled up and down the side of the scaffolding, depositing newcomers on the dance floor on the bottom level and then returning to the top. On the other end of the floor was a narrow set of spiral stairs, but no one seemed to be bothering to use them, preferring to hang over the sides of the crowded cage.
Suki glanced back at her once. ‘Don’t leave without me,’ she shouted, before she ran onto the lift.
Retra watched her go, unsure of what to do next. The lighting was dimmer than Vank. Perhaps she could stay unnoticed and wait for Suki to tire of the place. But something about the music was impossible to ignore. The drumbeat crept into her chest and along her limbs. Like Markes’s guitar, it made her body want to move.
She caught the next lift down, drawn to the source of it. Standing on the edge of the dance floor, she sensed the current feeding backward and forward among the dancers, skittering along their laughter and their casual embraces, linking them together.
Some boy grabbed her arm. ‘Come on,’ he urged.
She let him lead her out to the dance floor. The music seemed deeper, thicker out there. When she tried to copy the boy her movements were stiff, and clumsy, as if she’d been cramped in a small compartment for some time and now, suddenly, had been given space to move.
The boy spun and jumped in front of her, encouraging her.
She slowly followed his lead, letting her limbs loosen.
Then the beat changed, pulsing faster and faster. The crowd surged in close and in one accord they began to jump, forcing her to do the same or be crushed. She bathed in the energy pouring forth from the moving bodies. Her heart beat wildly and heat radiated from the top of her head like a burning halo. Her hair came loose; bodies banged against her, and bore her up and down as if suddenly they were one dancer, one sound, one heartbeat.
She tore the band from her hair.
A heart that beat forever; music that went on forever. So long that she lost her place in time, so long that even her altered metabolism began to tire, so long …
And then, finally, it stopped. The music ended – torn away from her.
The crowd slowed and broke apart, disorientated, lost without their purpose. Retra clung to the feeling, wanting it back. She had never felt so bright before, so shiny and large. But the boy she’d been dancing with had disappeared and the palm of her hand felt hot. She glanced at the faux badge. Had she been dancing for so long that she needed to rest already?
Disconsolate and lost, she drifted among the crowd who’d gravitated to the drink stations. She looked at faces hoping to see Joel. But her head felt muzzy and the dimness made it hard to see faces properly.
She took the cage lift back to the top level and wandered out through the entrance. Though the Ripers still leaned near the door, Brand was no longer among them and their scrutiny made her nervous.
Should she return to Vank and rest? Or wait for Suki? The Stra’ha girl seemed so much nicer than Cal, but they’d still only just met. Was it possible to make friends so quickly? In Grave, the Seal girls only talked to each other when walking to and from Disciplines.
One of them – Toola – would wait for her by the skeleton tree after prayers, and they would sit together and share goat cheese and sweetbreads. Toola always asked her about Joel; what he was like, what he talked about. Her eyes would shine when Retra answered.
Then Joel left, and the warden was assigned to Retra’s family. Toola shunned her. After that she walked and ate alone.
Retra’s thoughts shifted to Joel. If he’d asked her to wait somewhere then she would. Using that as her guide, Retra turned back into the club to wait for Suki, but instead of catching the lift, she walked across to the less-crowded spiral stairs.
As she descended, the music bombarded her mind again, but the effects