POSSESSION, Book 1 in the Possession Trilogy

Chapter 18

18.

Knowing where to start in my family history was tough. Everyone has memories they’d rather forget. I’d been screwed up for as long as I could remember, so I started at the beginning.

“My birthday is in three days—”

“Shut up,” Jag said.

“O-kay.”

“June sixteenth?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Mine too.” His voice carried a smile. “That’s so interesting,” he continued. “We have the same birthday.”

“Yeah, interesting,” I said, trying to figure out what he meant by interesting.

“Maybe that’s why They don’t want us together.”

I frowned. “But we were sentenced to go to the Association together. They had us living in the same cell.”

“Not together, together. I mean, together, like, um, dating.”

“Oh.” Together. Several minutes passed while I wrestled with the togetherness I wanted. And who I wanted it with.

“So you were born,” Jag prompted, bringing me out of the memory where he kissed me with the red light flashing behind us.

“Yeah. Ty is my older sister Tyson. She was like my dad. They knew tech, could invent it, improve it.” I told him about Ty’s talents with water and working with the rangers. About the man with the black hair. About how my mother hated me for not being Ty, and how we both hated the man for taking her away.

He remained quiet, even when my voice cracked. Even when I had to stop and wipe the silent tears away.

“And you got put in Ward D because you were…?”

I cleared my throat. “Walking in the park with Zenn. After dark.”

“Ah, there’s the infamous Zenn.” Jag was asking how I felt about Zenn and making fun of the Goodie rules at the same time. He waited patiently for the answers. I tried to decide how many he’d need. Probably all of them.

So I started again. I told him about Zenn and our friendship. About my birthday presents, and the kiss last year. About the Special Forces, and not listening to the transmissions, and finally the walk in the park. I tried to keep how much I adored Zenn from infusing my voice.

Yeah, I failed, because Jag said, “So he’s your boyfriend.”

He definitely was. We’d been matched. Part of me still longed for that, so I shrugged, which Jag couldn’t see. A growl tore through his throat, which I interpreted as Jag-speak for, “Damn, I’m in love with you.” 

Gathering my courage, I slid down to him. “Jag,” I said, facing him. “Zenn’s not my boyfriend.” The words hurt, but they were true. Whatever life I could’ve had with Zenn wasn’t available anymore. I found Jag’s hands in the dark and squeezed them. “I’m with someone else.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Just this guy with wicked cool hair.” I felt his smile permeate the distance between us.

“Still doesn’t explain why you got put in prison. Walking in the park after dark doesn’t sound like that big of a deal—even in the Goodgrounds.”

“You don’t know much then.” I liked the way his hands felt in mine. His touch brought warmth and comfort and all my secrets poured out of me.

Except for an occasional low chuckle, he didn’t interrupt as I spilled the details about my eight rule-breaking episodes.

“You’ve been bad for a very long time,” he said when I finished.

If that’s what he wanted to believe, why should I correct him?

#

Zenn floated nearer. In this dream, the smoke was nearly black. It shifted into a moving sidewalk that had been stilled. Zenn walked next to me, his hands clasped behind his back. The silence in the twilight came easy.

“Well, now that you’re here, I’ve got something for you,” he said, smiling.

I angled my body toward him. Zenn’s e-comm had said he had a surprise for me—surely something he’d tinkered with until it was absolutely perfect. Like he was.

“The Forces have kept me busy.” Zenn didn’t seem concerned about the circling hovercopters. “But we might not get to see each other again for a while.”

He reached out and wrapped his hand around mine. His touch sent fear pounding in my veins. What if someone saw us?

But he smiled and on the next step, our shoulders touched. The fear in my heart changed to anticipation. Zenn was my best friend, my match. I missed him like crazy, and I imagined the feel of his lips before they came.

“Nice,” he said after he pulled away, and it stuck a familiar chord with me. The memory swam in my mind. I pushed away the blurred edges, trying to fight off the rising awareness.

“I made you something special for your birthday.” Zenn reached into his pocket. He grinned and held out his hand. A package half the size of my hand lay in his palm.

I took the gift. He’d wrapped it in green paper and written For my perfect match in his elegant scrawl. Those four words meant everything. He cupped my face in his palm as I stared at the paper. “Vi, I love—”

“You down there!” An electronic voice cut through Zenn’s throaty tone. I flinched and took a half-step behind Zenn. A one-manned tech-craft, the hovercopter was invented especially for ruining lives. No one ever escapes from one.

Not even me.

“Hide that,” Zenn murmured.

As I knelt, something feathery touched my mind. A whispered word I couldn’t quite hear stole through my ears. I disregarded the transmission as I crammed something into the tiny pocket on the side of my shoe. Zenn had a hidden slot like this in his old shoes too. We’d sewn them in when we realized only our eyes, fingerprints, and ID’s were scanned, and no one ever paid attention to our feet.

I stood up and studied the hovercopter. On the bottom rudder, a red rose winked through the twilight. My breath shuddered through my throat—I’d been caught by this hovecopter before. Maybe since Zenn was a Forces recruit and had invited me here, I wouldn’t get in trouble.

Yeah, right.

Because he slowly took two steps away.