Once I get into the Village, though, then what? I have to find Ezra, obviously. But, just as obvious, that won’t be easy. I will need help with that. And then, once I do find him, what am I supposed to say? We can’t go off and talk. We can’t go for coffee and compare life stories. I will have to remain with him wherever he is and hope I can get a few minutes of privacy. Given that I know nothing about the Village, this could be a tall order.
When our hour is up, I realize I’m still basically nowhere in terms of a plan.
We run back to the base. Upon arriving down in the facility we are given a massive protein drink that the doctors and scientists must watch us finish before our training is officially over. We expend so many calories a day, and this elixir, invented by the Roones, keeps our nutrition up. As I gulp down the shake, I see Boone is almost finished with his. I need to catch him before he goes into his locker room.
“Boone,” I say, grabbing his arm before he can leave.
“Yeah?” Boone has a towel and he’s wiping off the sweat and grime of our training.
I take a deep breath. I try to sound casual. “Can you do me a favor and ask Levi to meet me at Old Town Burger before he goes home? I know he just got off duty, so he should be in there changing.”
Boone smirks. “Levi, huh?” He crosses his arms and cocks his head. “Well, does Saint Ryn have the hots for someone?” I do not smile—if anything, I do the opposite of smile—and the grin on Boone’s face disappears. “Fine, but don’t expect me to pass him any notes in math class, okay? I’ll ask him, then leave me out of it. That guy is bad news, Ryn.”
Boone is sneering and I’m a little shocked. I know what happened with Levi and Ingrid—it’s common knowledge that they tried to have sex and failed. It was consensual, something they both wanted, and everyone knows that, too. Is Boone blaming Levi for that? I suppose Boone’s own predicament with Violet makes him sensitive to the issue. I don’t get any more insights from him and he disappears through his locker room door. I walk to the other side of the hall and go into mine.
I shower quickly and throw my hair up into one giant knot on my head. On go my yoga pants. I pair them with Converse and an old T-shirt of my mom’s with some grunge band on it that she used to love. I look at myself in the mirror and, unlike the way I felt on the night of Flora’s party, I’m not thrilled with what I see. I don’t care about impressing Levi, but I am beginning to think that at some point I should put a little more effort into the way I present myself to the world. Maybe going to the party awoke something in me that had long been dormant. That thought seems way more exhausting than the four hours of training I just put in, though.
I take the train to the school. I don’t need to worry about driving Abel because he has football practice and Mom will pick him up on her way home. The burger restaurant is almost exactly across the street from Battle Ground High. When I walk in, there are about a dozen students, and Levi is waiting at one of the only free tables. He must have been on the train before me. I slide into the booth so that we are facing each other.
“That was fast,” he says by way of a hello.
“Yeah, well, I just jumped in the shower and got the first train I could.” I say this impassively. I don’t want Levi thinking that I was racing to meet him.
“No, I mean that you want to use your favor pretty quickly. I have to admit I’m curious. Obviously, I can’t give you just anything.” He smirks and leans back in the booth, every gesture dripping with aggression. Even his neutral look smolders. Wait. When he said anything, did he mean his body? Does he think because he admitted to me that I was an actual girl, with boobs, that I want to confess my love to him or something? I don’t know a lot about guys, but I know it doesn’t take much to get one sexually attracted to you. Does he actually believe I’m naive enough to confuse normal teenage lust with real feelings? Is this his version of flirting?
I’m so out of my element, I wonder if this is everyone’s version of flirting. But Levi is so singular in his wretchedness, I have to think it’s just him.
“Uhh …” I pause, because even though I am itching to tell him that he is not actually God’s gift to the universe and that, no, I am not interested in him in that way, I need him to agree to this. If I piss him off, he won’t. If I butter him up too much, though, he won’t do it just to spite me.
He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a smirk that makes me want to never stop slapping him.
Instead, I take a deep breath and decide to just take the plunge. “Well, there is actually one thing you can do …” He raises an eyebrow in question. “I need you to get me into the Village.” I smile brightly, innocently. Levi does not return the smile. Instead he glowers at me. An awkward silence settles between us and my smile fades.
Levi’s lip curls sufficiently high to almost reach his eyeball. “What?” he demands. “No, even better: Why?”
“I captured an MTI from The Rift. He was very nice, very confused, obviously. And then I promised him I would come and see him and make sure he was okay.” This is not a lie. It isn’t the whole entire truth, but I am not lying to him. It feels good.
“Oh,” Levi responds coolly. He’s clearly unimpressed with my answer. “I get it, you have a crush on a boy. So you want me to help you break into one of the most heavily guarded areas on Earth so you can—what? Ask him to homecoming?” Levi laughs, and there’s a cutting cruelty to it that makes my cheeks burn.
“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” I protest, my back straightening. “I don’t have a crush on him. I don’t even know him. I just made a promise. It was a stupid promise, I know, but I did it and after what he’s been through I don’t want to be an asshole … not that you’d know what not being an asshole is like.”
“Ooh, you got me!” he says, grabbing at his chest like he’s wounded. He really is an asshole. He sits up. “Listen, Ryn, he’s going to be in there for the rest of his life. Just wait until next year, when you turn eighteen. You’ll get assigned a Village rotation. You can see him then.” Something about the way Levi says it—with such obvious disdain—it’s like it just doesn’t compute that there is anyone on Earth who can compare with him, especially an Immigrant, and he thought it was important I know that.
I bite my tongue and count to five in my head. I need him to help me. It’s taking a lot of work not to antagonize him. I lean in close so that no one else can overhear. “I don’t understand—aren’t we both on the same side here? I’m a Citadel, you’re a Citadel. I’m not a spy. I don’t see what the problem is. In fact, I don’t see what the big deal is in general. What is it with the Village that we aren’t supposed to see it till we are eighteen?”
“Seriously?” Levi asks through gritted teeth, in a voice just barely above a whisper but stern enough to get my adrenaline going. “It’s fucking monsters and demons and crazy shit that we don’t even have words for in the English language, it’s so out there. It’s also normal people like you and me who will basically be in prison, not because they are criminals, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So yeah, they don’t want kids near there.”
“I am not a kid.”
Levi lets out a loud, disrespectful laugh. “A kid calls in a marker to go and meet a boy regardless of consequences. Grown-ups don’t do shit like that. You’re so immature. I can’t believe you’re a team leader. I wouldn’t let you be in charge of a picnic. I wouldn’t let you babysit my cousin, and she’s ten.”
It hurts, and it hurts more than I thought it would. I couldn’t care less if he liked me or not, but to not respect me?
“You are so mean, Levi. Honestly, you’re the meanest person I know. Why are you acting this way? Why would you even say that? We’ve fought side by side and I’ve held my own. I deal with those monsters and demons and whatever all the time! I’ve saved people and put the safety of my team before