Page 106 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

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AMY

AFTER ELDER ABANDONS ME IN THE RECORDER HALL, I STAND there, alone in the dark. I’m not sure why Elder went with Eldest—I trust Elder, but not Eldest, and I thought Elder agreed with me about Eldest.

Under it all, always, deep inside of me, is a pulsing worry for my parents, a constant desire to find the killer and to protect them, as ingrained in my being as my heartbeat. A wave of fear washes over me. My leg muscles tremble, but I can’t tell if it’s because they want to run, or because they want to collapse from under me.

“Amy?”

I bite back a shout of surprise.

“It’s Orion,” he says, striding from the shadows behind the model of Earth.

“Where were you before?” I ask. “I thought I saw you . . . ”

Orion smiles sheepishly at me. “I was looking at the wi-com locator, just for fun, you know. I saw Eldest was nearby. I . . . I don’t get along well with Eldest. I thought it might be best for me to lie low until he was gone. ”

“He hates you, too, huh?” I ask. Orion nods. “What’d you do?’

“It’s mostly just the problem of my existence. ”

“Yeah, me too. ”

Orion brushes his hair out of his face, and I see a flash of white: a scar trailing up the left side of his neck.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Orion says, “I’ve seen you running and . . . what are you running from?”

He’s the second person to ask this, but I think he means something different from the girl in the rabbit field.

“I’m not sure,” I say, “but I think I’m tired of running now. ”

“Yeah. ” Orion glances behind him, into the Recorder Hall. “Me too. ”

“I better go,” I say, even though I don’t have anywhere to go. I just know I’m not going to stay here, stagnant, afraid to move, cowering in the shadows of unreachable planets.

“I’ll see you soon,” Orion calls after me.

I don’t run back to the Hospital. I walk. I won’t let myself enter the zone where my body’s movement drowns out my brain’s thoughts. I force my feet to go slowly so that my mind can race.

The air is humid in the Hospital garden. If I was on Earth, I would think that it was about to rain—but I’m not on Earth, and rain here is nothing but sprinklers in the sky.

“Leave off,” an elderly voice behind me says. “I can walk up

the stairs on my own. ” I turn, curious. This elderly voice has an inflection of knowledge and insight to it—and I recognize it. Steela. The woman who dispersed the crowd of Feeders in the City, on my first run after I woke up.

“Yes, Mother. ” The younger woman speaking is not like her mother. She has the same dead monotone that Filomina used when I observed her examination by the doctor.

Steela catches my eyes with her cloudy ones, the color of milk mixed with mud. She looks warily at me for a moment more, then her wrinkled lips spread into an even wrinklier smile. Her teeth are stained and crooked, and I can smell onions on her breath, but still it’s a nice smile. It’s a true smile.

“Mother,” the woman says again.

“Shut up, you,” the old woman says pleasantly. “I’ll just be a moment. ”

“All right, Mother. ” The woman stands perfectly still, like a windup toy that has run out of windup. She’s not upset in the least with her mother’s rude words, and she seems perfectly at ease with merely standing.

“Nice to see you again,” I say, extending my hand.

Steela’s grip is firmer than I’d expected. “Wish I could say the same. I hate this place. ”