ARC: Essence (14 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The last place I wanted to go was the woods, at night, but Ryder assured me wild animals only prowled the outskirts of the Valley. “This part of the river’s our territory, and they know that. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll grab a gun before we go.”

It didn’t, but he grabbed one from the Ahwahnee anyway – tucking it in his belt and assuring me the safety was on before he led me across the remnants of a wooden bridge near Curry Village. He found a span where the boards weren’t collapsed, and then he sank to a seat and dangled his feet over the edge. The water churned steadily below, but he didn’t seem concerned as he motioned for me to join him.

“Remains of the Housekeeping Camp bridge,” he explained, extending his hand to help. “This bit – this uncollapsed spot right here in the middle – I come here sometimes when I need to think.”

I gripped the railing and dangled my feet beside his. The chill of the river rose through the darkness, and I felt a shiver whisper up my shins.

“Come here.” He wrapped his free arm around me. “Feels a little cold until you get used to it.”

I nodded and leaned gratefully into the crook of his arm. His smell was different from Javi’s – smokier, with undertones of musk and sweat – but it seemed more masculine, too. It reminded me of adrenaline.

After a few minutes, he sighed. “Been a crazy day, huh? Can’t believe Shayla left us.”

“You’ve known her for a long time, huh?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “She was one of our first recruits; joined us when she was twelve. I can’t believe she won’t be around anymore.”

That niggling sense of insecurity resurfaced. “Shayla was your first kiss, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah.” He laughed, and his eyes seemed nostalgic. “She was. She was a year older than me, and I thought she was the most perfect girl I had ever seen. But then we grew up. I became a recruiter, she became disgusted with me, and that’s pretty much the end of that story.”

“Why did she become disgusted with you?”

He shrugged. “My new role didn’t really fit with what she wanted. And I got so busy recruiting that I didn’t have much time for her.”

“So… how many people would you say you’ve recruited now, grand total?”

He stretched his legs. “Maybe eighty? I’ve only been at it for a few years, so that’s a pretty good pace.”

I nodded. I wanted to say, “And how many of those recruits have been girls? And how many of them have sat here right on this very spot with you?”

But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “So, when you say you’ve recruited these kids… What does that mean, exactly? How much of what you tell them is planned in advance?”

He chuckled softly. “If you’re asking me if I faked what I said to you that night in Golden Gate, I didn’t.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” I was glad the darkness hid my blush. “I’m just saying… Why did you pick me? Why did you pick any of us?”

He leaned back and surveyed the sky for a moment. “You really wanna know?”

“Yes. I really do.”

He sighed. “We look for Centrists who are broken in some way.”

“What? What do you mean, you–”

“No, wait. Let me finish. We don’t look for broken
people
; we just look for Centrists with cracks. Followers who’ve already started questioning Cedar’s teachings. These people usually turn out to be the best advocates for our cause, because they already have something invested in what we’re doing.” He reached to touch my hand. “We knew you were broken the minute you came running into that park, Red.”

My tears were back, and they clouded my vision as he reached to gently wipe them away. “I’m sorry about Brady,” he whispered. “And I hate that I had to be such a dick about it when we were in the city. It’s just… That’s kinda my role, you know? Cody’s the kind one, Jett’s the charismatic one, and I’m the charming, clever asshole. It’s kind of a team thing.”

Broken. He’d thought I was broken. I wasn’t sure why this knowledge bothered me so much, but it did. It
hurt;
it made me feel weak – and exposed – like he’d picked me out of pity. Like he’d simply felt sorry for me.

“Why did you pick Javi?”

“Dude was pacing like a lunatic outside the meditation masters’ building. He’s almost eighteen, you know? Time to start training to become one of them, or time to get out. He couldn’t seem to make a decision, so he was just walking, walking, walking. Looking back and forth, chewing his nails, raking his hands through his hair.” He shook his head. “Recruiting outside the meditation masters’ building is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“What about Amneet?” When he looked puzzled, I added, “The girl with the black hair?”

“Ah, Amneet. I’m sorry, we just go on so many trips…” He thought for a second. “We met Amneet outside the temple, and it was clear she wasn’t looking forward to her lot in life.” He looked at the sky again. “Amneet was more of a wild card. Didn’t seem broken, just seemed pissed off. Sometimes our spiel works with those types; sometimes it doesn’t.”

I bit my lower lip. “So, it’s a spiel. It’s all scripted.”

“No. It’s just…” He paused. “Red, you gotta understand. This isn’t a game to us. We aren’t just out grabbing random kids off the streets. Every time we bring home a new recruit, we invite them to join our family.”

I couldn’t help my snort. He must have interpreted it correctly, because he chuckled and said, “I know what you’re thinking: Javi. You don’t think I’m treating him like family right now, do you?”

“Well… I mean,
you’re
the one who brought him here in the first place…”

“Yeah? Well, that was before I knew he was gonna go after my woman!” He grinned and reached sideways to tickle me. “Just kidding, Red. You’re your own independent woman, and I pity the man who tries to tame you.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t hold back my giggle. Wriggling away from him, I said, “All right, let’s talk about you, then. What’s your deal?”

“I have a deal?”

“Apparently. You said Kadence wasn’t right about you, but she wasn’t wrong about you, either. What does that mean?”

“Ah, Kadence.” His self-assurance faded a little. “That whole thing.”

“Yeah. That whole thing. She said you date everybody here. Was she lying?”

“I’m not the person Kadence thinks I am…”

“But?”

He cleared his throat. “But… I may have been that person at one time.”

Anxiety knotted my stomach. He must have sensed it, because he quickly continued. “Look, you have to realize. I started recruiting when I was
fourteen.
Do you know what kind of an idiot a fourteen year-old boy is?”

“I have an idea.”

“Yeah, but
do you
? I was expected to be the flirtatious one; I was told to charm every single suitable girl into coming away with us.” He stared at the dark water. “It was an act back then; it really was. But I was just a kid, you know? When those girls actually started falling for me…” He shook his head. “They had never been given the chance to experience any of those emotions before, so when we got back to Yosemite… Do you have any idea how intoxicating it is to feel like you have that kind of power over every single girl you meet?”

I thought back to the way Javi had trembled under my fingertips, and I realized with a start that I knew
exactly
where he was coming from.

“It… isn’t healthy, you know?” he said. “It’s a façade. Empty. Seduction for seduction’s sake; it doesn’t mean anything.”

“So… how many girls have you been with?”

He winced and met my eyes. “Define ‘been with’.”

“That many, huh?”

“Red… I’m sorry. It’s just… You need to understand where I’m coming from. Our upbringings were completely different.” He reached for my hand. “Imagine if you grew up here, if your job was to be the charming one. Would you have acted any differently?”

I shrugged. “So, what changed? Why did you decide you didn’t want to be that guy anymore?”

“Grew out of it, I guess. Realized there’s more to life than that power.” At this, he leaned a little closer. “Besides, I’ve moved on to more fulfilling pursuits. You see, I got a preoccupation with this little redhead lately.”

“Is that right?”

Heat rose in my cheeks, and the river below my feet no longer chilled my toes. Instead, my insides caught fire, and they burned from a place near the center of my chest when Ryder licked his lips and cupped my cheeks between his hands.

He leaned toward me, and my breathing became shallow when he closed his eyes and pulled me to his chest. The current that had been building between us ignited the instant our lips met, and it spread from my heart down through my abdomen until my vision felt cloudy and my entire body ached.

When I’d kissed Javi, I’d felt powerful and beautiful and strong. When I kissed Ryder, I felt like I’d turned into jelly – like I was going to liquefy and scatter into a million pieces on the bridge span.

I forgot about the river; I forgot about the night. I forgot about every single thing except the feeling of Ryder’s lips against mine, the tangle of his hands in my hair and the heat of his breath against my neck.

I felt like I would pass out, like I would collapse in Ryder’s arms and never, ever get up again. And that feeling… that hungry, powerless feeling of my heart racing against his chest…

The moment I kissed Ryder, I felt like I was waking up.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ryder woke me the next morning by banging impatiently on the door to my tent cabin. “Hidden waterfalls won’t discover themselves,” he announced, holding up a pair of fluffy towels for me to see.

My eyes still were bleary from sleep, and my insides were jumbled from the kiss we’d shared. I hadn’t slept much; instead, I’d just twisted and turned and replayed those delicious feelings over and over all night long.

I ran a hand through the tangled bird’s nest that had once been my hair, and I hoped Ryder wasn’t as shocked by my early-morning appearance as I was by his. But my shock was the good kind of shock, and I’m pretty sure his wouldn’t have been. His shock would have been the shock you undoubtedly feel when you accidently rouse a forest creature from its night bedding.

I hoped he wasn’t comparing me to a raccoon or a bear right now, but his expression was all smiles when I closed the door and then reemerged in my Community-appointed pants and blouse a few minutes later. I tried to contain my hair in a ponytail, but its curlycues and flyaways were way too much for me.

His voice was warm and slightly formal as he extended his hand to help me down my steps. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Good.” It was a lie, of course, but I had no intention of telling him that thoughts of
him
had kept me awake all night.

He didn’t seem to share my hesitation, because he laughed and said, “Must not have shaken you up the way you shook me up, then. You kept me awake all damn night, you know that, Red?”

I tried to act nonchalant, but I must not have done a very good job, because he grabbed my hand and said, “Come on, you must have thought about me a little bit, right? For half a second?”

“I don’t know. Maybe half a second.”

“I see how it is.” He grinned. “Just enjoying the fact you got me wrapped around your little finger, is that right?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And where are you taking me, anyway? I’ve got chores…”

“Already taken care of.” He held a tree limb out of my way as we started up the trail near the Balcony. “We’re doing something even better today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“We’re swimming. There’s this place called Secret Falls, and it’s filled with natural slides and waterfalls and all kinds of good stuff. Even a few still pools where the water stays warmer. You looked a little chilled at Vernal Falls the other day.” He turned and grinned at me. “Really, I’m just looking for an excuse to see you with your clothes off again.”

“You will
not
be seeing me with my clothes off,” I announced a short time later.

We stood near Secret Falls – which wasn’t a falls so much as a bunch of small slides that cascaded and filled a jumble of clear pools. Some were big, some were small and some were secluded in the narrow spaces between boulders and high trees.

The light was white gold, and the air felt warm as we shimmied up boulders until we got to the edge of one of the pools. We were the only people in sight, and Ryder took the opportunity to pull off his shirt and jokingly invite me to remove mine. “And your pants. And those annoying undergarments, too.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I stuck a tentative foot in the pool. “No way. And it’s freezing. Not warm at all. You lied to me.”

“Are you kidding? I promised I would never lie to you.” Ryder crouched beside me and wiggled his own foot in the water. “That’s bathtub warm, Red. Try again.”

“Nope, still cold. Freezing, actually, and I learned my lesson at Vernal Falls. I think I will sit this one out, thank you very much.”

“No way.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the water. “Red, you gotta learn to do stuff that scares you sometimes.”

“I do plenty of stuff that scares me.”

“What have you ever done that scares you?”

“I came here, didn’t I? I got on your muddy Slip ’n Slide, and I left the Movement, and I kissed you on the Housekeeping Camp bridge last night…”

“That scared you?”

“Yeah.” I hadn’t meant to sound vulnerable, but I guess I did.

Ryder stopped pulling my arm, and his swagger disappeared. “Yeah,” he whispered, holding my gaze. “Scared me too, Red.
Autumn
.”

My real name stuck on his tongue, and he looked a little sheepish when he added, “I guess I never really asked. Which do you prefer?”

“What do you mean?”

“Red? Or Autumn? Suppose I just took it upon myself to rename you.”

“I like Red.” I smiled. “I’ve never had a nickname before. Kinda makes me feel like I belong here.”

“Belonging. That’s a weird concept, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Sure is.”

Something swirled in the air between us – quiet and expectant and deeper than either of us had intended. We stayed silent – each one looking at the other, each one waiting for the other to speak first – and then finally Ryder said, “You know what? Let’s blow off swimming for now. I can take you to my favorite spot, and we can get to know each other better.” To lighten the weight of the air around us, he winked and added, “You can even keep your clothes on if you like.”

A short time later, Ryder and I sat stretched in the limbs of large, flowering tree. “Pacific dogwood,” he had explained as we climbed, plucking a pale white blossom and tucking it behind my ear.

He helped me to a spot where two limbs bowed outward, and they formed a perfect pair of benches as they stretched and bloomed above a deep, crystal pool. The canopy was dense, and the flowers and pale green leaves gave the clearing a dreamy, vibrant glow.

An emotion stirred in my chest, and I reflected on the Community’s counter-mantra:
Abundance is the key to longevity.

Abundance, I repeated in my head as I glanced at my fingers across the tree’s smooth bark. I feel
rich
right now.

Ryder must have sensed my awe, because he smiled and said, “Beautiful, isn’t it? I come here sometimes when I want to remember what life’s all about.”

I reached for another blossom. “And what
is
life all about?”

“This. Everything. My old man’s not just out here to disprove the Essence theory, you know. He’s out here to ensure that everyone, everywhere, gets the chance to experience beauty like this. You can feel it, can’t you?”

I tilted my head. “Feel it?”

“There.” He reached for my heart, and the warmth of his fingers against my collarbone made my breath catch. “There,” he repeated. “Right there in your chest. That glowing feeling, like your heart’s gonna burst through your skin? You can feel it, right?”

I nodded – although I wasn’t quite sure if the skittering in my heart was caused by the beauty of the dogwood or the whisper of his fingers against my skin.

“That’s your Essence, you know.” His expression became serious. “Not the bullshit Essence Centrists tell you about, but your real Essence. Your spirit. That intrinsic quality that makes you who you are.” He smiled. “Do you know who you are, Red?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you obviously know who you are, but do you
know
who you are? When you pull away all the constructs?”

I must have looked confused, because he touched another blossom and continued. “I’ll give you an example. Some people probably think I’m just some dumb, cocky recruiter, but you know what I want to do, Red? I want to become a doctor, just like my old man, and I want to help people. I want to make the Community as strong as I possibly can. You know what I’m saying?”

I nodded. I had never really thought about what I wanted to be before. Hadn’t really considered I’d be given an option. Cedar and his meditation masters assigned everyone jobs in the temple or used their connections to find entry-level positions for us out in the Community. They purposefully picked jobs that kept our minds blank, didn’t want us filling our heads with dangerous Outsider notions.

“I’d like to be a teacher, maybe,” I said after a moment. “Not in a temple, but in a school. A real one. I want to show kids like Brady how to lead good lives.”

Ryder smiled. “That’s beautiful, Red. Perfect. Really perfect. And you wanna know the secret to that?”

“There’s a secret?”

“Of course. In order to get from here to there, we can’t suppress our Essences. We have to
amplify
them.” He leaned closer. “You know how you amplify your Essence, Red?”

“No.” Again with the automatic responses. I realized I wasn’t thinking about much as long as Ryder’s face was this close to mine.

That glowing warmth inside my chest was overtaking me. And the feeling of being here, of being present in this dogwood tree, surrounded by blossoms and sunshine and a boy who really seemed to like me… That feeling became so all-consuming, I forgot he’d even asked a question.

It wasn’t until he hesitated with his lips just inches from mine that I realized he was waiting to tell me something. But what? What had we been talking about, anyway?

I think he must have read my mind, because he repeated, “The way to amplify your Essence, Red, is to push yourself further than you’ve ever thought possible. The harder you push yourself, the more alive you feel. And you know what I think would make you feel alive right now?”

“What?” My insides were suddenly foggy. I felt limp, and I didn’t protest when he clenched his hands around my shoulders and leaned even closer.

“Red, do you trust me?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you trust me? You know I’ll always catch you, right?”

What was he talking about? I managed a weak nod before I closed my eyes and swayed into his arms. His fingers were warm, and his breath felt hot against my lips when he tensed and leaned in to kiss me.

But he
didn’t
kiss me. He yanked me sideways off the limb instead, and we both crashed into the crystal pool below.

The icy water slammed the air from my lungs. I felt my insides seize up, and I became so overcome by panic that I must have blacked out as I struggled blindly in the pool. I didn’t know where the surface was, and I didn’t know where the bottom was – but just as quickly as I was submerged, I was pulled to the surface by two strong hands. And then Ryder was holding me in his arms and laughing.

“What the hell was that about?” I sputtered. I tried to tread water, but he was already holding me to his chest and kicking us to shore.

“Awesome, right?”

I couldn’t break free of his grasp. My hair was plastered to my face, and my clothes were glued to my skin, but Ryder didn’t seem at all bothered by my fury. Instead, he actually looked
entertained
, and the realization that he’d put my life in danger just so he could laugh at me… I was so furious, I didn’t know what to do.

We approached the bank. Before I could pull away, he rolled on top of me and pinned me to his chest. “I’m sorry, Red; I didn’t mean to scare you. But I promised I’d catch you, and I did. And look at you. You just jumped ten feet from a tree into a pool. And you
swam
, Red. Did you ever in a million years think you’d be
swimming?”

“I…” I paused. He was right; we’d jumped into something deep and dark and scary and unknown. And we were fine.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?”

I tried to frown, but I was suddenly filled with a giddy sense of accomplishment – like I’d beaten something I didn’t even realize I needed to beat. But I had. And I did. And Ryder had helped me do it.

His grin told me my reaction was written all over my face. “I’ll always be here to catch you, Red,” he repeated. “I want you to know that. And you know what else I’ll always be here to do?”

“What?” The heat of his embrace was quickly trumping the chill of the water.

His eyes became playful. “I’ll always be here to tickle you, too.”

“What? No!” I tried to squirm, but it was too late. He pinned my arms to the rock and began tracing circles in the narrows of my waist.

I couldn’t help but laugh, and I couldn’t help but struggle, but then his lips were on mine, and I wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. Anything except the glowing of my heart as it raced to burst through my skin.