Defy the Dark (2 page)

With Jed, my heart beat louder than it ever had before.

He was the one.

One of the last times we spoke, Jed told me I needed to get him out of my head. I tried to explain to him in a letter he wasn't in my head, he was in my heart. But I didn't explain it well so I had to write another one but that one didn't do the job either, because he just didn't understand, but now I think he might have understood more than I realized.

I don't regret writing the letters, ever, but I wish Jed hadn't showed them to our parents after my accident. It made things far more complicated than they had to be.

But what's done is done.

It's not like there was anything in them he could doubt.

I couldn't follow him to the river that night, either.

 

E
ven though I wasn't ready for the river, I was ready to get closer to him.

The ninth night, I crossed the middle of the road and raised my voice above a whisper, but the words that came out of my mouth weren't the ones I meant to say.

Imagine you can't breathe. Imagine you're trying so hard to breathe, but every time you open your mouth, it's full of water and dirt you can't breathe.

As much as I loved him, I was angry with him, too.

That's how you can tell you
really
love someone. It's just, we had something good and he ruined it and now we were here and I couldn't touch him, I couldn't have a conversation with him, and my skin was burning with how much I wanted both.

I wanted to ask him how he could plan the rest of his life with her when she wasn't the kind of girl who would die for anyone. I'd give up everything for him, and now here we were, trapped in an endless cycle of nights. I needed to know what the itch driving me meant. It felt like there was something I had to do but I didn't know what and that made me angrier. I wanted him to taste the ground, but if I pushed him and pressed his face against it, he'd wake up.

Still. I bridged the distance between us and circled in front of him and then we were facing each other and seeing his half-open eyes staring right at me, I still wanted to make him eat the earth. That's the thing that worries me sometimes. I feel everything so much, it makes me say or do the wrong things. I don't think. And the things I do—from the outside they might look like the opposite of love, but they're really just actions inspired by it.

How do you think of me, Jed?
I asked. I knew he thought of me, but I had to know how.
Do you think of me the way I think of you?

I walked backward as slowly as he walked forward, and I wished again I had the rock. When they pulled me out of the river, my teeth scraped against the dirt, the stony embankment. I wanted him to know what that was like. If I had my rock, I would aim it at his mouth and he'd stay asleep while I tore up his lips and forced it against his tongue.

But then he said my name.

My name.

His voice.

I stumbled a little. He said it again but there was no flicker in his eyes so I knew he was still asleep. To hear him say it made me feel so alive and disappeared every bad thought from my head. He kept coming at me. I wanted to reach for him but instead I sidestepped and backed onto the curb. I watched him make his way to the river and wondered if, when he woke up in his bed that morning, I would just be a dream he'd had. A good dream.

 

T
he second-to-last time I saw Jed was before my accident.

It was the night the votes came in. His father won them all, won by a landslide but neither of us was concerned because we all knew Mr. Miller would win. Jed drove me home before the party was over. We sat side by side in his car and there was a nice buzz in the air but there was also a familiarity in it, too, the kind of familiarity that comes with sharing someone's soul, like you've been married for years and years.

Jed and I had that.

He pulled over an entire street away from my house and reached for my hand and then I was awkwardly underneath him and when we were finished, he said he was so glad we had time together, that I kept his head above the water, that he'd miss me. I put the first two compliments away for safekeeping, but the other I echoed back at him stupidly, not understanding. Still not understanding.

Miss me?

It was the first taste I had of drowning. The water was all around me, in my lungs, in my nose. Everywhere. I couldn't breathe and Jed had to hold me until I calmed down and even then, I only calmed down enough to ask what he was talking about.

This was nice,
he said,
but now it has to stop.

It seemed to take forever for him to understand my lack of understanding and then all of these horrible words were coming out of his mouth about this other girl and how could I not know about her, it wasn't like it was a secret. Her family was in politics, too. They'd been matched. They were in press photos together, it was broadly hinted at, well—everywhere.

You had to have known.

But love is exclusion. How was I supposed to see her in a picture of him? I said it before, but I don't really like politics. It's all strategy and secret keeping and tearing people apart. Selling your son off to another girl from a family even higher up the ladder because that's what it was, they were selling Jed, they sold him.

I screamed when he told me they were engaged and I couldn't stop screaming and in that moment, when I was screaming, I could see in his eyes how trapped he felt, stuck with her, a lifetime of her when it was supposed to be us. I kicked my legs, my arms out because I knew he didn't want her, couldn't want her.

Love is about expression.

You have to express it. You can't just let it sit inside you. You have to tell people how you feel. You have to show them or they will never know. So I called him. He didn't answer, but it was just enough to call him so he knew I cared. There were the letters, I wrote the letters, actually sat down and wrote them—no emails, no texts—and I sent them. My fevered handwriting had to make him realize how important he was to me. I did everything.

I sat outside his house and waited for him to be nostalgic about us, to invite me in. Nothing worked. He could never let on that we meant something to him, ever. I understood he was in a tighter spot than I was. He felt like he had a lot to lose, him and his family. He loved me but he was afraid he'd cost them everything. It's a terrible thing when fear overpowers love and the only way you can reverse it is by shaking a person to their core so that the fog inside their head lifts and the only thing they're thinking with is their heart.

I should stop calling what happened at the river an accident.

 

J
ed's sleepwalking is an expression of love.

That's how I know what I'm going to do is right. I decide to go to the river with him the tenth night, the coldest night. I have no more time to waste. I know, after it, Jed won't sleepwalk anymore. There is no way he will open the door and not feel the cold. This is our last chance. I put on my jacket and I put on my gloves. I grab a hefty rock from the garden. I finally understand the itch. I know what I'm supposed to do.

I stand outside his house, whispering.

Please come out, Jed. Come out. Please.

After an hour, my voice reaches his ears. He comes out, walking the stone path to the sidewalk and I walk next to him, dangerously close next to him, and he doesn't wake up and to anyone who sees us, I bet we look like we belong. We belong.

He turns two corners. Left, right.

You do think of me,
I tell him.

I trudge after him. I am as ready for this as I was the last time we went to the river, even if it didn't end the way I wanted it to, then. It would this time.

The houses on either side of us gradually thin out and become less immaculately cared for. Jed's family avoids this side of town even though every single house was a vote for his father. I glance into the windows. There are no witnesses.

That night, that last night we saw each other at the river, went so wrong for something that started out so right. What happened was I called him and called him and promised I would stop if he agreed to meet me and talk. He agreed but said we'd have to meet somewhere private.

I was the one who chose the river.

Eventually, Jed and I cross the street and reach the brush, the brush you have to go through to get to the green bridge. His slippers crunch over the dead leaves. He doesn't wake himself but his sounds scratch my insides. When we finally step through the clearing, the roar of the water is in our ears. He pauses.

We have to go the rest of the way,
I whisper.

He hears me. We move. The green bridge is what it sounds like. The metal is painted a washed-out green, always has been. It overlooks the dam and it's a walker's bridge. The wooden planks can't support cars but they hold us. My stomach twists. I step onto it with him.

He makes his way to the middle of it. He stops in front of the rail.

The last time we were here, it was like this. I was here first, waited for him, and by the time he arrived, I was crying because he looked so unhappy to be there. That was how much his fear twisted him. It brought down the corners of his mouth, made his face empty. He didn't want to be with her, but he didn't know how to be released. Even though he didn't say that, I could tell. I could tell because I know him better than anyone else.

You love me,
I said, and he told me to stop it. He asked me if I wanted money. He thought I was there for money, to keep quiet about what happened and I just repeated myself over and over
:
You love me
.

You love me,
I said, and he shook his head.
You'll prove it to me.

And then I stood on the rail.

Things I remember: the shock of the fall, the shock of the water, the water in my mouth, my nose, the nothingness, and then the dirt against my lips as I somehow made my way out of it alive and my family knew and his family knew and that's the only thing I like about politics now that I think about it—the secrets you're forced to keep. It was all so hush-hush. Jed's fiancée and her family could never know about us. My parents promised I'd stay away.

I remember the emptiness after. Because even though Jed was clearly bound to a life he didn't want, his heart was supposed to kick in and give him the strength to save me from falling and the act of saving me was supposed to make him realize it was me all along, I was the one. I thought because he didn't, it meant he didn't love me but it turns out I was just mixed up. He wasn't supposed to save me from drowning. We were supposed to drown together.

It's a good thing I didn't break his window that first night, now that I think of it. If I had—if I'd broken his window and he'd caught me outside his house—I wouldn't have discovered he was a sleepwalker. I wouldn't have heard the things he could never tell me in the day. I wouldn't have gotten this chance to rewrite our history in the dark, the way it was supposed to be.

My fingers curl around the rock. It feels good and heavy in my hand.

Aprilynne Pike

Nature

I
n the end, it's because of my hips.

The nurse doing my physical looks up from the icy calipers pressing against the skin fold at my waist. “When did you eat last?”

Caught.

“Monday,” I mumble. When scores were released. There's no reason to lie; it's too late to change anything.

“I want you to go right to the cafeteria after this, do you understand? Eat something soft—yogurt, soup—otherwise you'll have a terrible bellyache.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I whisper.

She's still for a few moments before she loops a cold, plastic tape measure around me, pulling it firm but not tight across my navel. “You know,” she says without looking me in the eye, “it's not about fat; it's your pelvic bones. They're perfect for a Nature.” Her hands find my pelvic ridges and grip them almost possessively. I suppress the urge to pull away, to get her hands off me. “Good oblong girdle, wide, but with a generous depth—we'll have to do some measurements via ultrasound to be sure, but I predict a perfect-sized outlet.”

“My scores are high,” I blurt, not wanting my fate to be fixed yet.

“Not sure it matters,” the nurse says, and marks down numbers for my waist, my bust, my hips. “These hips are going to subtract a lot of points.”

“They're
very
high,” I insist. It's a lie.

She laughs. “Please. Can't be all that high if you starved yourself to get your measurements down, can they?”

My face burns red and I want this physical over. I just want to leave.

And my stomach is growling.

Traitor.

Three and a half more minutes drag by before the nurse smiles. “You can go now,” she chirrups in a tone that makes me want to strike her.

I grit my teeth, hating that I've succumbed to these violent feelings again. I've had a lot of them lately—it wasn't something I ever struggled with before.

Before the scores.

“I don't know how you did on your exams, of course,” the nurse says, distracted as she writes more numbers on my chart. “But I suspect we'll see you tomorrow for that ultrasound. Don't fill up your schedule, just in case.” Her busybody hands sweep me out the office door, quickly but not unkindly, and I shift to the side as another girl from my class gives me a nervous smile and takes my place in the examination room.

The door closes and I'm alone in the foyer. “They're quite high,” I whisper to no one.

But the nurse is right—they're not high enough.

Last year I was fifteen, top quarter of my class, headed straight for the life of a Nurture. I had just finished a growth spurt that stretched me tall—five nine, with a slim, boyish figure I expected to keep. Everything was perfect.

But evidently my growth spurt was just the beginning, and I learned firsthand the definition of “late bloomer.” In the last six months I'd gone from flat and skinny to curvy. I didn't think much about it until I couldn't zip up my jeans and had to go to the clothing emporium for new pants for the second time in three months. I had to fill out a special form and get my nutrition and body fat analyzed. But my fat percentage had barely changed. I just had hips and breasts now.

With the new clothes came the realization that those hips could ruin everything.

It's been almost a thousand years since the Bust, when birth rates in the more developed parts of the world dwindled to the point that societies could no longer support themselves and collapsed. The economic devastation that followed was nothing compared to the war for resources that wrecked the environment and ended with most of Africa turned into a nuclear wasteland. It was a whole new Dark Age, characterized by the rise—and subsequent fall—of several high-control autocracies, theocracies, plutocracies, and just plain crazies.

“Doomed to failure,” our government books say. And they were right. Human beings are too free-spirited to thrive under so much control. It's a concept we learn from our youth. Besides, in such a government, the balance is so precarious, it only takes one strong rebel to topple everything.

That's how New Horizon came to be. Founded by Stewart Richardson—a runaway from a totalitarian dictatorship—our community rejects the idea that a governing body should control our lives. But Richardson also knew that we had to avoid another Great Collapse (the proper name for what most people just call the Baby Bust). So, as a society, we give up a small part of our freedom for the benefits of a well-ordered community. In return, we have strict laws protecting the freedoms we most value.

It always made sense to me. How could it not?

Until five days ago.

One hundred and eight. My test score.

It's black and white; one hundred and over become Nurture. Ninety and under become Labor.

Ninety-one to ninety-nine are Nature.

If my hips weren't so big, I would have been Nurture for sure. Every inch over thirty drags down your score if you're female. For males, it's about chest circumference.

I saw the number the nurse marked down for my hip measurement. It brings my final score down to ninety-nine.

I scoop up a large spoonful of pudding and stuff the whole thing into my mouth, feeling the tingle of butterscotch on my tongue. For a moment—only a moment—it is me and my butterscotch in a world of pleasure that nothing and no one can touch.

Until I realize tears are streaming down my cheeks.

Natures are exactly average. I don't want to be average. I understand why our society is built around the mathematical median.
Extremes cannot sustain themselves.
Everyone knows that. It's the most basic principle, taught by Richardson to my ancestors two hundred and fifty years ago, when New Horizon was established. New Horizon has lasted longer than any country since the Bust, because we know that the answer to the age-old question of Nature versus Nurture is . . . neither.

And both.

Halfway. A median point. Median intelligence, median education. That's what produces the most perfect human beings. The most
balanced
human beings. Cutting out the extremes keeps things stable.

But Richardson also understood that even the median can be taken to an extreme. Those are the more complicated philosophies, the ones they teach you when you're a Nurture—the ways to maintain the balance that keeps our community alive. I was going to spend the rest of my life learning about those ways, but one of them I already know. Everyone knows; the physical markers of females who are likely to be healthy mothers and produce healthy babies.

Good hips.

Wide
hips.

One inch. And my plans for the rest of my life are shattered.

 

T
here is no ceremony. No elaborate good-byes. No awards or medals of distinction. It's just life. In the year we turn sixteen, at the end of March, we separate and go on to our assigned roles. It's the one big freedom we've given up to our governors. For our own good.

It always made sense to me.

Until five days ago.

There are no tears or heartfelt partings; it's not like we won't see each other. Nature, Nurture, Labor, we all mingle freely—a freedom that's heavily protected—but like those proverbial birds of a feather, each classification tends to flock together.

To be honest, I've never before given it a second thought. We all have different kinds of jobs. What Laborer wants their work interrupted by a chatty Nurture, anyway? Learning doesn't come easily to them, and they're often relieved to give it up. They are the pillars of support in New Horizon, and Richardson taught that we are never to look down on them. Their life is far from grueling—no one works more than forty hours a week and
never
in unsafe conditions. We have thousands of years of terrible history to teach us that breaching either of those standards is a sure road to societal dissolution.

New Horizon is better than that.

The Nurtures will head off to university. They're the learned of our society, and their mission is twofold: to enhance our society for the next generation, and to raise the next generation to enhance society. Most will go on to teach, to nurture children into proper citizens. It's the path I should be headed down.

Instead I'm following two other teenagers, one girl and one boy, to the tall, broad building where the Natures live. It's their job—our job—
my
job—to simply produce the next generation.

Well, not
simply.
Natures are intelligent enough to work what I always called the “semiskilled” jobs, because, in my mind, those jobs weren't as important as the Nurture jobs.

The job someone else is going to do now.

I'll be given a career that won't break down my body—a body that is now excessively precious to New Horizon as a whole—but that will require more skill than many of the Laborers possess. It won't be something that requires sustained focus or consistent attendance; nothing will be allowed to interfere with the creation of a new generation. I won't be assigned; I'll rotate until I find something I like, and then I'll get to choose. It's not like we're brood mares with no liberties.

But right now it kind of feels that way.

It's early evening. Most of the day workers are home. Almost all of them are through with dinner at the cafeteria and are home with friends. It's a time for socializing and enjoying life, a life that's comfortable for everyone.

I had butterscotch pudding again—
just
butterscotch pudding.

The woman leading us is barely pregnant enough to show, but not enough that it slows her down. She gives us name tags and cards that will let us into the Nature Building. She pauses at an elegant set of double doors and asks in a gentle, quiet voice, “Do you have any questions?”

I can hear that she expects there to be none. We've studied Richardson. We know our roles. We've been learning them since the first grade. There are no secrets in New Horizon.

I want to ask her if she's happy.

But I don't.

When none of us speak, she smiles, swipes her card, and pushes both doors open. I've never been here before and don't know really what to expect.

But a party?

Maybe this is normal.

We're surrounded by surprisingly attractive people gathered around tall tables that are just the right height to lean on while standing. Munchies are set out, and I feel a little sick when I catch sight of a tray of cream puffs drizzled with chocolate. I should have eaten something decent at dinner.

There are a good number of pregnant women, many reclining in comfortable chairs set around the perimeter of the enormous room. I admit, not as many as I thought there would be. I guess I expected everyone to be waddling around with swollen bellies. But there are only a handful of those, maybe one in ten.

But they look good. Weirdly. They're swathed in colorful clothing that makes them look chic and sophisticated, smiling and chatting with one another—not merely fulfilling a biological process that any female could potentially do. Prior to being initiated as a Laborer or Nurturer, anyway. Only Natures have children.

I'm trying not to stare when a shout from the front of the room mercifully pulls my attention from the women. It takes me a few seconds to locate the source of the noise, and by the time I do, he's done talking and he's raising a glass high in the air. Higher than everyone else. I crane my neck as those around him raise their own glasses in response and realize he's sitting on one of the tall tables.

A grin full of straight white teeth fills much of his face, barely leaving room for his straight nose and pale blue eyes. Messy curls top off a look that could have come straight off the cover of a pamphlet about the Natures.

I admit, I take a moment to notice his long torso and broad chest.

Oh.

Broad chest. That's the big score adjuster for males. Not only because a broad chest is indicative of both strength and virility, but because the male Natures need to be attractive to the female Natures.

So it works. So what? It's built into millions of years of my DNA.

But that's as far as it goes. This virtual god is clearly happy to be here,
wants
to be here. Probably always wanted to be a Nature and was thrilled when his chest pulled him up from Laborer.

I turn away.

I don't like him.

 

I
slap the dough down on the floury countertop to force the air bubbles from it. I'm making a yeast-based confection called
bienenstich
from a country that vanished in the Bust. Allemagne, it was called in some places. Germany. Deutschland.

I admit, I was surprised when I saw baker's assistant on the list of job openings suitable for a Nature, but I soon discovered there's more to the position than making cakes and bread. You oversee the regular Laborers, create new recipes, file paperwork. Marie, the current head baker, needs someone to manage the bakery when she births and then spends six months focused on breast-feeding.

Seeing as how Marie has already birthed four times and is not yet thirty, I suspect it will happen somewhat often. I look at her wide hips and wonder if they were once the same measurement as mine.

The dough. I have to think about the dough.

I've only been doing it for three days, but I like this job. I do paperwork with Marie at night and I'm picking it up pretty quickly.

After all, I am one of the highest-scoring Natures. I won't forget that.

Sometimes Marie looks at me with a strange desperation in her eyes and asks how I like the work. I get the feeling she's had a lot of Natures rotate through here—clearly none of them chose to stay. New Horizon won't force us into a job. Another freedom.

I'm happy I can honestly assure her that I'm enjoying it. The yeasty scent on the air, the feel of dough in my hands, watching a simple lump turn into something beautiful and mouthwatering in the oven . . . and cooking is a lot like chemistry, which I was leaning toward when I thought I would be a Nurture. Baking's not exactly lab work, but it has a similar charm.