Page 60 of The Flame

What was wrong with me?

Why couldn’t I be normal like everyone else?

Why couldn’t I just disappear into The Smoke, live my life with Roman? It would be a good life. I knew that. A happy life. Roman was all my heart wanted, all I desired…so why wasn’t that enough?

As I stood there in the dank alley, gulping breaths of panic through the tightening in my chest, I thought of Axel and how his face lit up when he spoke about how his pod languagehad come about, or when he was exclaiming over my so-called triumphs.

Maybe it wasn’t just me. Maybe there were more of us than I’d ever dreamed. Maybe there were so many of us that, when put together, we could be the new normal?

That’s what pushed me, what drove me forward.

I took a tentative step out of the shadows to peer down the street. The guard had moved on again. I didn’t know where he’d gone. I didn’t trust him.

This was a mistake.

I should have waited for nightfall. I was deciding whether to stay or come back later, when a sound snapped my gaze up the street, and I realized Jessie wasn’t even home. She came cycling around the corner, her long curls streaming out from the bright yellow woolen cap that adorned her head.

Her eyes were on the road, she wasn’t looking left or right.

“Jessie,” I called as loud as I dared.

Her gaze veered to me. She kept on pedaling, then she stamped the brake so sharply, she nearly went toppling over the hand bars. “Georga?”

I put a finger to my mouth and stepped back into the shadows as she dismounted and steered her bicycle to join me.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “I need to talk to you.”

“I need to talk to you,” I said at the same time. “Not here, though. I think there’s a guard keeping an eye on this street.”

Her nose wrinkled. “What on earth is going on? Your mother came to see me this morning. She’s worried to death about you for some reason. And I’ve just come from Parklands. Do you know the lock on your front door has been busted? Your door is standing wide open.”

Geneva found my letter.

“Keep your voice down.” The guard was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. “Look, we can’t talk here.Do you know the service road that leads from Parklands into the nature reserve?”

“Of course I don’t.” She frowned, following my gaze down the road, not seeing anything. “I’ve never been farther than your house.”

She wanted answers right now, I saw that in her eyes. She didn’t understand the danger we were in. Or maybe that was just my paranoia, but I wasn’t willing to take that gamble.

I gave her directions and said firmly, “I’m on foot, so it’ll take me about an hour to get there. I think…I think you should go home, then cycle out to meet me in a bit. And be careful. Make sure you’re not followed.”

Her eyes widened into saucers. Finally, she lowered her voice. “What is going on, Georga? You’re acting like a fugitive.”

“Because I am,” I said simply.

She gawked at me like I’d lost my mind.

The word wasn’t out yet, then, not to the general public.

“I’ll explain everything,” I promised and abruptly turned from her, cutting through the footpath to the next street over.

I didn’t look back.

I didn’tknowif Jessie would meet me, but I thought she would. And if she didn’t, then that was its own answer. I’d wait a few days and then deliver the letters myself.

Once I was a fair distance from Jessie’s home, my nerves settled. I was anonymous again, just a face bundled against the cold, scurrying along with my head burrowed against the icy breeze.

I hopped the wall into Parklands and made my way to where I’d stashed my bicycle with fifteen minutes to spare. Or so I thought. Jessie was already there, pacing a short path up and down on the intersection of the service road, her bicycle discarded on the patchy grass curb.

---