He sighs. “I’m sick to death of worrying. I’ve spent months doing it. About whether you were safe, if you were happy. I even worried about whether or not you were with him. How childish is that?”
“Does that mean you were jealous?” I ask, smiling.
“Finish your sandwich” is all I get by way of reply.
So I do.
By mid-June, I am able to walk properly again. My wrist is still in a cast, still broken, but I feel more like myself. A small part of me wants to play up the pain when I feel it, to keep Sean here longer. But it isn’t fair to him. He has a life to live and it’s not here.
And my life? I have a life to fight for. Frankenstein’s Creature did unspeakably awful things, but he beat his uncaring creator.
I must too.
“I wish we could run away together,” I tell Sean dreamily. “I wish we could go away, you and me, and disappear. I think we could do it if we were together. I’d get in less trouble if I were with you. You’d laugh more if you were with me. We’d be like Cathy and Heathcliff. Harry and Hermione. Liam and Noel.”
“I didn’t know you liked Oasis.”
“You do, though, don’t you? You brought that CD to the cottage and you used to play it when it got late. You’d fall asleep on the sofa. And I’d come turn it off.”
“Well, I’m not sure they’re the best example anyway,” Sean points out, handing me a coffee. “Nor are the others. None of them exactly ended up together.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what they did together, what they could achieve side by side. We’d be unstoppable if we were together.”
“I suppose,” says Sean. “You and I could burn the whole world down.”
I gaze at him for a long time, until his brow creases and his eyes grow wider. I watch my own disbelief mirrored on his face. I am thinking of that unthinkable alternative.
“You know it’s not possible,” he says.
I nod. “But if it was,” I say, “I’d go. I swear. I would go and never look back.”
There is such freedom in the words. For just one minute, I am flying, high into the sky, among the stars and the shining planets.
“I’d disappear. One night, before the dawn, poof. Like magic.”
Sean smiles faintly. “Where would you go?”
“Anywhere. I have that deposit box Erik and the others set up for me. Maybe there’s money in it. They said it would help me have a life.”
“And how would you survive? You’ve never been out there in the world. Who would help you? Anyone who did would be punished. But that’s nothing compared to what the Weavers would do to you when they found you and they would find you—”
“I wouldn’t expect your help. I wouldn’t ask you or Mina Ma or the others to risk so much for me. They did it enough while I was growing up.” I swallow. “I think I could make it. If I was clever and fast enough. If I only had the chance.”
“But you don’t,” Sean says very quietly.
“No,” I say, the lump in my throat hardening, “I don’t. I never will have that chance.”
It would have been a risk, throwing my life on the line to escape the Sleep Order. It might have been a fatal mistake. If I had found a way to get rid of the tracker, and run, and the seekers had found me, I’d have gone to trial and lost the rest of my time. But at least I’d have lost it by choice. Because I chose to take my chances with the unknown. It would have been on my terms. Not Amarra’s.
“I’m sorry,” says Sean.
I turn my face away to hide my despair and pain from him. We’re silent for so long I wonder if we’ve forgotten how to speak.
I swallow and clear my throat. I force a smile. “Do you want to play chess? It’s been a long time since we’ve played.”
“Longer still,” he teases, “since you’ve beaten me.”
So we play. I win the first game. But there’s not much satisfaction to be had in the victory, not when I know that I’m the king, white or black, and I have been thoroughly checkmated.
Until an unexpected move knocks every piece off the board altogether.
“All right,” says Sean. “If you’re willing to take your chances with a life of being on the run, I won’t stop you.”