Page 55 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

“Okay?” I ask.

“Let’s go. ”

30

ELDER

AMY IGNORES THE COLD STARES FROM THE PEOPLE IN THE Ward common room as we make our way to the elevator. She keeps her chin raised and avoids eye contact, and to me she looks like a queen, but I can tell from the whispers that follow her that the people around her view her as something very different. My jaw clenches. Eldest did this.

The elevator dings as the doors slide open on the fourth floor.

“Did you hear that?” Amy asks as we walk down the empty hall.

“Hear what?” Harley asks.

Amy shakes her head. “Nothing. I guess it was just my imagination. ” Still, she looks at the doors as if she’s a little skeeved out.

I open the door at the end of the hall—still unlocked—and cross the room to get to the second elevator. The smashed alarm box is gone. Eldest has probably taken it to the Shippers to see if they can fix it.

“So, what are we looking for?” Harley asks as the elevator descends.

“I’m not sure. ” Amy shifts on her feet. “A clue. Something. ”

I think about the last time I was on the floor with the cryo chambers. The only evidence that I remember seeing that proved a murder had taken place was the body of Mr. William Robertson. There were no other clues.

But I don’t tell Amy that.

When the elevator doors slide open, Harley strides out, looking around eagerly. I follow. Amy doesn’t step out until the doors start to slide shut again.

“Where’s the hatch with the stars?” Harley asks eagerly.

Amy steps forward. She grabs my sleeve and tugs at it until I turn to face her. “Where are my parents?” she asks very, very softly.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I can look up their location for you. ”

Amy bites her lip, shakes her head. “No. . . that’s okay. ” She looks around her with wide, round, scared eyes. “Not. . . not this time. Later. ”

“Can we look at the stars first?” Harley asks eagerly.

“There’s a hatch down there,” I start to say, but before I can finish, Harley takes off down the rows to where I’ve pointed. I turn to Amy. “But he doesn’t know the code to open the door. ”

She throws me a half-smile. “Let him figure it out. Why don’t we try to find something here that can help? Can you show me where Mr. . . . er. . . Robertson was?”

We go down the aisle of cryo chambers marked 75-100, and stop at Number 100.

Amy reaches toward the empty tray with shaking fingers. I wonder if she’s imagining her parents on that tray, or herself. Before her fingers actually touch it, though, she snatches back her hand and holds it against her.

“So, what should we be doing?” I ask, trying to distract her from whatever thoughts she’s having that are making her draw into herself.

Amy steps back, looks at the ground. Her eyes scan the bare, clean floor, then rove over the clinically neat room.

“I don’t know what I expected to find,” Amy says. “I guess I thought this was like a cop show, and I’d come down here and find a fiber that I could match to Eldest’s shirt, or a blood drop we could DNA test, but I don’t even know if you have DNA testing here—”

“The biometric scanners read DNA,” I interject, but she’s not listening to me.

“Or maybe a giant fingerprint. . . ” Her voice trails off. “Harley’s art supplies,” she says. She looks me fully in the face. “Harley’s art supplies!”

“What?”