The Rift Uprising. Amy Foster S.
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Название: The Rift Uprising
Автор: Amy Foster S.
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780008179250
isbn:
Being team leader doesn’t end when you step out of uniform. It’s always there. I am never not doing my job. So I finally say, “Of course. She is practically my neighbor. It would be kind of rude if I didn’t go.”
Violet gives me a huffy sort of laugh. “Oh, please, like you give a shit what anyone thinks about you. But thanks. I’ll come over a bit early and get ready with you.” I nod my head and watch Violet walk into the house. I amble slowly back, trying to block out the swirling thoughts that are beating inside my brain. I just want to not think—about anything. I need a break from my own brooding over Ezra and Edo and the implant and the people I killed today.
It’s so hard to fight a war hardly anyone knows about.
When I get home I tell Abel that I don’t feel well and that I am going to bed. He’s playing a video game. Something with shooting and guns. I practically leap up the stairs to get away from the noise. I skip dinner and my dad comes in eventually to check on me.
“Rynnie?” I see his outline under the door, through the purplish twilight of the day’s end.
“Yeah?” I am in bed. My iPad is open beside me. I have been trying to read, but mostly I have been lying here with my eyes closed.
“Can I come in?” I tell him yes, and he walks in and sits gingerly on the edge of my bed. Unlike other teenagers’, my room is spotless. Since becoming a Citadel, I have become an obsessive organizer, taking control of the one thing in my life I feel that I can. “What’s wrong? Are you coming down with something?” He puts the back of his hand over my cheeks and forehead.
“No, I’m just tired.” I don’t turn away from him. I like the way his skin feels on my own. Safe. Comforting. I regress to ten years old, when my dad was everything to me. My biggest hero, my greatest champion. I remember what it was like to be so small he could hold me in his arms. My eyes begin to tear, but in the darkness, he won’t see. He waits a minute, and then runs a hand over my head.
“I’m sorry if I came on too strong about college. I know you’ll make the right choice. I’m your dad, and even though you’re such a good kid, I worry about you.” A tear spills down my cheek and I turn my head into the pillow to wipe it off. “You used to talk nonstop. You wanted to know how everything worked. ‘Why is the sky blue?’ ‘Do animals have their own heaven?’ ‘Is gasoline like water for cars?’ You had such an imagination, Ryn.” My dad laughs, remembering. “We would play the quiet game and you would sit on your hands and stomp your feet, dying to speak. Your face would go red! And now …” My dad breaks off. “Well, I suppose it’s a teenage thing, or friggin’ ARC. I never thought I would miss those millions of questions, but I do, Rynnie. I really do.”
“Yeah.” I wish I could say more, but I don’t trust myself to speak. “Sorry.” It’s about all I can manage. My dad stands up.
“Don’t be sorry. Just, I don’t know, reach out once in a while. Let us know what’s going on in that magnificent head of yours. We’re here for you. There’s nothing you could tell us that would make us love you any less.” No, they wouldn’t love me any less if they knew the truth, but they would never get over it. They would be furious, worried, half-crazy if they knew.
I roll over on my side, away from him. “’Kay, ’night.”
“Love you, darling girl,” he says as he walks toward the door.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. My parents are great, truly good people.
I cannot say the same about myself.
Violet has outdone herself with the wardrobe selection. She is wearing super-high-waisted jeans and a skinny belt around her impossibly tiny waist. Her gray silk blouse is unbuttoned low enough to show some cleavage. She is covered from head to toe, but the look is far sexier than the trampy, try-too-hard outfits I know the other girls at the party will be wearing. I tried to get away with a sweatshirt and my yoga pants, and honestly it almost came to blows. After refusing to put on a dress, or a skirt, I finally agreed to short Levi’s cutoffs and a cropped black tank. I insisted on my dark brown leather boots with straps, but I did concede to a bunch of jangly bangles. I am wearing my hair long and loose. I almost always wear it back, so even I am a little surprised when I see how long it is—down to the middle of my back. My hair is a Nordic blond with a natural wave. Because I wear it up so often, I have darker-blond highlights that have been tucked away from the sun. I pull the light strands over my shoulders and twist the ends to make it look smoother. When I realize I am preening at my own reflection, I stop. I’m not used to caring about how I look, but for tonight, I realize how much I want to look pretty. Or at least, I want to know that I can be pretty.
I let Vi put makeup on me. Luckily we both agree that, for me, less is more. I only look good wearing makeup if I don’t actually look like I have any on. Violet has dark voluminous hair and even darker eyes. Her skin, though, is as fair as mine. She can get away with all kinds of crazy eye shadow colors and, unlike me, not look like a hooker.
We walk to Flora Branach’s house and don’t bother to knock. We can hear the music blasting, so there’s no point. We get more than a few stares when we walk in. I know the boys are imagining all kinds of sexual scenarios when they look at us. What they don’t know is that we’d likely crush their windpipes before they would ever find out what we look like without our shirts.
The way some of them are outright leering, the prospect of some broken tracheas appeals to me. I find myself smiling.
The house is jam-packed. I guess we took more time getting ready than I’d thought. Boone comes up behind us and starts dancing right away with Violet. I suppose the fact that they’re grooving to a boy-band song from the nineties in a room full of people takes the sex appeal right out of it. Surprisingly, he’s actually pretty good. Violet starts doing what I can only assume is the Robot. I laugh, and so does everyone else. People don’t, like, dance at house parties. But Vi and Boone somehow make it cool. I’m sure that everyone will join them soon enough. Maybe if I drink enough, I will, too. But it takes a lot for us Citadels to get drunk.
Flora sees me from the kitchen and starts to shimmy toward me with an extra cup in her hand.
“You came.” She looks pleased and also strangely wary. The corners of her mouth are turned up into a smile, but it seems forced.
“I did,” I say, smiling back at her. There is an awkward silence for a couple seconds. We both just stand there, grinning like assholes. The thing is, Flora and I used to be absolute best friends. Flora and I had almost every class together in eighth grade and we had an instant connection. We just got each other. We liked all the same things and, with her living so close to me, I think we spent just about every day together. She can be sassy but also really kind. When the headaches came because of the implant, I can vividly remember lying in her lap, her room darkened because the light stung my eyes. She would put a cold washcloth on my forehead and whisper that everything was going to be fine. She talked me through that agony on more than one occasion.
I repaid her by abruptly cutting her out of my life once I became a Citadel.
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