want to touch him. It just adds fuel to my weakness.
Derek’s brown eyes hold me to the wall. “Ren, you live harder . . . you love harder than anyone I’ve met. I wanted to earn it. And then I thought you were gone, and that it was too late. For me. For me to love you back,” he says. He drops his forehead against me so it’s cradled by my neck.
My tongue is blank. In my mouth, no words. The thoughts I had—all stunned away. I vaguely recall not wanting this—him, but all I’m left with are my vertebrae—each one a trigger, counting down to closer.
“Saving Aven was like saving a part of you. The part that you loved the most. The part I wanted to get to know,” he breathes, shaky.
Word by word, I’m unfolded. I wish my heart were made of paper, so I could write each one down where it belongs. As he traces his nose up the line of my neck, all the way to my ear, I know my heart will never be paper. Paper’s way too quiet. Bullet rounds, maybe. Rapid-fire.
Then, he pulls away. He searches my face. Eyes my mouth, thirsty. Like he’s never had a drop in his life. Leans in. With only millimeters to go, he stops. Miles and miles of millimeters, charged, electric power lines—“I don’t want the same regret twice.”
His lips are on mine, slow at first, hesitant, almost a tremble to them. Like he’s afraid. A moment later, he’s not. He’s the tide under a megawatt moon and this kiss is the ocean. Surge, then rush. No end to it.
Until, beep—my cuffcomm trills.
Looking down, I’ve got a message:
Serum’s made. Racers are here. Showed them Milo’s stats. Where are you? Vials are almost all filled.
“Brack,” I whisper. “I have to go.”
Derek looks back at me, his face drawn and hard—I can see it in his eyes. He’s read Callum’s comm. “Please, Ren,” he pleads, arm muscles tensed on either side of me. “I see what you’re planning. Once the others find out, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop them.”
“Can I ask you a question, Derek?”
He searches my face, not sure what’s coming. “Anything,” he says finally.
“Forget the others. What do you think is right?”
“It’s just not that simple. . . .”
I open my mouth, though I can’t believe what I’m about to say. What am I worth to him? . . . If he was just telling me the truth before, then my next words should mean something.
“Earn me.”
Derek looks up, runs a hand through the hair that’s fallen in front of his face.
“You said that’s what you wanted, right?” I go on. “Well, now you have your chance.”
I wait to see his reaction, but his face stays hard and I read nothing. I’m not sure if I should speak these next words. . . . They make me feel like I’m standing out on the highest rooftop during a summer’s lightning storm. Defenseless. But they also just might be exactly what he needs to hear.
“And I hope you do, Derek,” I say, a stillwater calm to my voice that surprises even me. “Because I could have loved you. Once upon a time.”
Spinning away from him, I don’t wait to see his reaction to that. I continue along the narrows, and when I hear him call my name, I turn off my ears and my head. All the places I hurt. I rip the paper in my heart to shreds, and I dry my mouth of the kiss. That’s harder, though. Salt water is everywhere. It’s below my feet and it’s behind my eyes. I run above it while wiping it from my face. I curse oceans, every one of them, until the moment my cuffcomm trills again.
?
That’s all it reads.
Faster. I pump my legs so hard my breathing goes thick.
The other racers are waiting.
48
10:35 P.M., SUNDAY
In Callum’s apartment, a shaky energy fills the room. Circling a glass basin: Callum, Kent, Jones, Terrence, all seated cross-legged on the floor in front of me.
“If I left now, I’d have time,” Kent says as I walk in, eyedropper in one of his hands, a small plastic tube in the other. A pile more of each lie at everyone’s knees. Pointing to me, he adds, “But she gets to bring it to some girl she’s not even related to?”
“There’s no way you’re getting all the way up north and back again before we start. Not even if you