Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) (36 page)

COMPETITION

Somehow, James makes good on his word, and Jack comes to find me two days later. “You can go, but on one condition,” he says, holding up his index finger.

I’m too relieved to object. “Anything.”

“You do whatever James and Ryka tell you. And you don’t do anything rash that might compromise the plan.”

“That’s two conditions,” I say.

“Two very good, reasonable conditions.” Jack frowns at me. “Can you do that? Can you take direction without fighting them every step of the way?”

How Jack knows me this well is a mystery. “Of course I can.”

He grumbles but takes me at my word. “I’ve made contact with one of the cells. The old man in charge, he has a plan to get his people out that might actually work with your help.”

“Opa?” I ask. It can only be him.

Jack nods. “You know him?”

“No. But my friend did.”

Jack misses my edgy expression. He put his hand on my shoulder. “There’s been a lot of movement in the forest today. Ry will be back before lunchtime, mark my words. You should be ready to go. Pack nothing but water and food.”

And knives
, I think to myself.
Really sharp knives.
With Jack, that probably goes without saying. He hugs me brusquely and leaves, and I go about boiling up enough water to last two days hike through the forest. My bag is packed when Ryka appears around noon, just as Jack said he would.

 
He stands in the doorway to my tent, awkward and silent, and for a while I pretend I haven’t noticed him, even though I have. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Our last conversation nearly blew my head off, and I’ve not come anywhere close to untangling the mess I’ve made out of everything in his absence. In the end he just comes in and sits down on the edge of my bed as I gather up my stuff. “Did you enjoy your space?” I ask him. It feels kind of petty to be sharp with him but I’ve felt a little abandoned since he left. After what happened, I don’t know, I guess I thought he would want to stick around. He gives me a crooked smile that seems out of place combined with the troubled frown he wears.
 

“Sometimes, Kit, you can put as much space as you like between yourself and a problem and it won’t make a blind bit of difference.”

I automatically go to touch my neck but manage to still my hand halfway. I rub the heel of my palm into my solar plexus, wanting the subtle ache there to leave. I have a feeling it’s more of an emotional pain than physical ailment, however. “Is that what I am? A problem?”

Ryka closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly. “Not you. Just…everything.”

“Oh. Well I could have tried to fix
me
as a problem, but
everything
? That might be a little difficult.” I find a small smile for him when he looks up at me. He looks so different without the whole bravado thing keeping his back straight and that cocky grin on his face. Now, he looks a little lost. Confused, just like me. I dump my bag on the floor and note how our roles have reversed since the last time we were together. Him sitting on my bed instead of the other way around, and me getting ready to leave with a bag in my hand. The only difference is that this time, when I go, he’s coming with me.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks quietly.
 

I glance up at him as I pluck Cai’s holostick out from underneath my pillow. He flinches and I’m quick enough to catch it. “Yes, I need to. I owe it to those people. Cai wouldn’t have made it as far as
―
” The more I speak, the more Ryka flinches. I straighten, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. “Are you okay?”

He looks away. “Yeah. I just…
Cai
...”

“What about him?”

“It’s hard to compete with him, y’know. He has the unfair advantage of being so very
dead
. No one remembers the negatives about people who’ve kicked it. I’m still very much alive and making mistakes on a daily basis.” He stares down at his hands, his hair in his eyes, and I can’t help but acknowledge how badly I’m itching to touch him.

“Why do you think you’re competing with Cai?” I whisper.

“Because
―
” He exhales sharply, cracking his knuckles.
 
“You carry that trinket around with you like it’s your most prized possession. You fought me to get it back, remember. Every time I see you it’s in your hand. Kind of says a lot.”

I look down at the holostick, as he said, clenched firmly in my hand. I had no idea he would think of it like that. “I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I don’t feel that way about Cai. You were right when you said I didn’t know him. I just feel so ashamed and guilty all the time. He made a huge sacrifice so I could live, and
I
keep messing everything up, too.”

“You haven’t messed anything up,” he says quietly.

“Really? Cai died so I could feel, so I could escape the Sanctuary and be free of the Colosseum. And where am I now? I’ve landed myself in the pit, fighting again, except this time I’m awake and I know exactly how horrifying it all is. I’d say that’s pretty much the stupidest thing I could have done with the gift he gave me.”

Ryka doesn’t say anything for a while. He tilts his head as he stares down at his boots and I can’t help but focus on the tensed muscles in his shoulders and his neck. The teenager in him seems to be burning off faster and faster every day. He takes a deep breath and finally looks up at me. There’s a smile on his face, but his eyes are desperately sad. “So your heart’s not broken over a dead guy. That must mean you’re head over heels in love with me by now, then, right?”

I laugh, because that’s what he needs me to do, although I sense a hint of seriousness in his question. A hint I laugh off nervously. “I’m afraid I probably wouldn’t realise it even if I was in love with someone,” I tell him quietly. “I have no point of reference to go off.”

“Oh, you’ll know when the time comes, Kit.” Ryka’s voice is soft and gentle, so intense. His eyes scour every part of my face and it’s the most invasive thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m addicted to how confronting he can feel. Like he’s daring me to look away, but he and I both know that I won’t.

“How will I know?” I murmur.

Ryka stops studying the features of my face and locks his gaze with mine. His eyes are piercing when he leans forward and closes the gap between us. “You’ll feel breathless,” he whispers. Typical that I can’t find any oxygen as he says this. He takes my hand and slowly places it on his chest, tracing his fingers carefully over mine. “Your heart will race whenever you’re around the other person. It’ll burn and feel like it’s trying to swell out of your chest. You’ll feel like you’re brimming over with how much you want to take care of them. Protect them from anyone and anything. Like there’s nothing in this world you wouldn’t do to keep them safe.” Ryka leans closer so that his lips are mere centimetres away from mine. “You’ll spend all day every day imagining ways to make them smile. Imagining what their lips feel like on yours. Imagining ways to make them agree to fall as stupidly and painfully in love with you as you have with them.”

His voice catches and I can feel his heart thundering underneath my hand. I’m glad he can’t feel how mine is matching his beat for beat. I swallow and try to tear my eyes from his but I can’t. I feel everything he just described, but I’m too cowardly to ever admit it. I do the next best thing and take the final step, until there’s no space left between us. My chest presses against his, my hand trapped in between our bodies, and Ryka seems to hum.

“You’ll know, Kit,” he breathes, and then he reaches up and cups the back of my neck, pressing his lips to mine. Our second kiss is just as powerful as our first, and I end up curving into him as he holds onto me tight. I’m limp and weak when he finally lets me go.

 
“It’s almost time to leave,” he says, clearing his throat. “There’s no point in trying to talk you out of this, is there?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” He gazes straight through the tough canvas of my tent wall as though he can see the trees and the river on the other side. “Are you worried?” he asks me. “About the river?” That’s what Jack and the others decided
―
that we should go back the way I came, through the tunnel. I haven’t been thinking about it.

“Not really,” I lie.

“Will you let me help you this time?” He looks solemn enough that I know he’s not trying to be a hero. I let the fixed smile fall from my face and nod slowly.

“That… would be good.”

He nods too, apparently satisfied, and collects my hand from his chest, linking his fingers with mine. Even after the last time we held hands when we walked to the Tamji beach, this contains a whole new level of gentleness I wouldn’t have thought Ryka capable of. He watches me studying him; I’m intrigued by the way his skin looks so tanned next to my paleness.

“You have a lot of scars,” he whispers.

I hadn’t even thought about that. I do have a lot of scars. When in the business of knife fighting, you end up with more than you can count. “Yeah, I’m…I’m sorry,” I mumble, trying to pull my hand back. I must look like a freak to him.

He lets out a half-hearted laugh. “What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know. Girls here, they’re different than me. They wear dresses. They have flowers in their hair, the whole music when they walk bit.”

“You don’t make any noise when you walk, Kit.”

“I know. I’m never going to be like them,” I say.

He analyses my face and draws my hand up to his mouth, gingerly pressing his lips against each one of my imperfect knuckles. “I don’t want you to be like them. You are who you are. There’s no hidden agendas, no games.”

I feel my breath catch in my chest as I breathe out. I have no idea how to describe this feeling inside me, but it’s a long way from ‘Ick’. It’s about as far away from ‘Ick’ as I can get. I swallow as he kisses my hand again.

“
Ryka
.”

“Just tell me if you’re going to put it back on, okay? Tell me so I can prepare. I couldn’t bear running into you without any warning if you decided to wear it again.”

I have no clue what he’s talking about for a second. When I realise, my throat closes up at how earnest he sounds. “I’m not going to wear it again,” I whisper.

He drops his head and closes his eyes. “Please. Promise me,” he says.

My heart pounding again, I do it. “I promise.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I made you a promise, too. I’m going to keep it.”

It’s not just how kissing you feels. It would get so much better than that, I promise you.

Suddenly I don’t want the halo anywhere near me. I don’t want to be able to renege on the vow I just made. I push away from Ryka and rifle through my bag until I find what I’m looking for. Clasping onto the halo, I take hold of Ryka’s hand in my free one and pull him out of the tent. “Where are we going?” he says, half laughing. “We have to get moving if we’re going to be at the boundary fence by nightfall.”

“This won’t take a second.” I guide him down a path that is much easier to see in daylight, and we end up back at the place where he let me in on his secret. Outside the rear of his tent, I gesture for him to jump down the drop like last time, but this time I don’t follow. He smiles up at me, his hair falling loose from his small ponytail.

“I thought you weren’t like other girls,” he laughs.

“I thought just this once, maybe
―
” I don’t need to say anything else. He takes hold of my waist in firm hands and lifts me carefully down to the pebbly shoreline of the river. This would be the perfect moment to kiss again, but I’m suddenly shy and I duck away from him, biting my lip. “Here,” I say, holding out the halo to him. He looks down at it and then shakes his head.

“No. It has to be you.”

He’s right, of course, but I still shake when I pace up to the fast-running water. Can I do this? Can I cast my security net away and never have it back? It’s one thing deciding not to wear it, but it’s been under my bed this whole time, a back-up just in case. I run my fingers along the metal, knowing its every dint and scratch. Ryka comes and stands right behind me, so close I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. For the first time I’m glad my hair is short. When his hands find my hips and he leans into my neck, I know I am in for some major trouble. Electricity fires through me as his lips whisper against my skin. “You don’t have to do this, you know. If you’re not ready.”

But I am ready. I don’t need the halo now. I’m going to try and let Ryka be my safety net, which is as terrifying a thought as it is wonderful. I swing back and fling the collar through the air with as much force as I can muster. The two of us watch from the bank as it loses its fight with gravity and begins to fall, barely splashing at all as it lands in the deepest part of the river.

“You know I’m not diving for that, right?” he says into my ear.

I nod my head, enjoying his proximity. “I don’t want you to.”

“You two paint a pretty picture,” a sharp voice says from behind us. Ryka stiffens, and I place my hands over his, stacked on my stomach. I don’t want him to turn around, but in the end we have to.