Creators(34)

I walked over to where Stephanie stood and looped my arm around hers. I pulled her into the room and motioned for Henry to shut the door. “You’re up next,” I said to her, handing off the jar of shine.

Stephanie hesitantly took it and brought it to her nose. She sniffed and made a face. “What is this?”

“It’s the community’s finest water.” Eric beamed. “It would be rude not to at least try it.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that line from guys before,” Stephanie said. She rolled her eyes and took a sip. Once the liquid made its way down her throat, her cheeks flushed red. She coughed into her fist. “You might want to get your water source checked out,” she said.

“Look, if you can’t handle it…” Eric began.

“You’d be surprised what I can handle,” she retorted before taking a longer drink from the jar. If the second sip bothered her, she didn’t let it show. She turned to Henry and handed him the jar. “Your turn.”

Henry glanced at me, and for a second I thought he knew I was up to something. I braced myself for his accusation. Instead, he brought the jar to his lips and drank.

“Why do I feel like we’re all going to regret this in the morning?” Lockwood asked, shaking his head as Henry handed him the shine.

…

Two hours later, the shine had claimed its first victims. Lockwood lay on my bed. His head hung over the edge while his feet rested straight up against the wall. Between the blood rushing to his head and the effects of the alcohol, his face was the deepest red I had ever seen it.

Henry and Stephanie sat on the windowsill. I watched as their arms and legs casually touched. Her shoulder would brush against his. His fingers would graze hers. Their limbs swayed like the breeze—all movement and no order.

Eric and I sat on two wooden chairs in the center of the room. Neither one of us was drunk, and neither one of us was pretending any longer. The other three were so far gone that we were sure none of them would notice that we were completely and utterly sober.

I nodded toward Eric. He leaned forward in his chair, placing his elbows on his knees. “So, Stephanie, how do you like the community? It has to be a lot different than what you grew up in. I mean, you did live in a compound, right?”

Stephanie leaned her head lazily against the window. “No. I didn’t come from a compound.” While Eric had been the one to ask her the question, she stared deeply into Henry’s eyes as she spoke.

“What do you mean you didn’t grow up in a compound?” Henry asked her. He stared right back.

“I was born in the woods,” she mused, a slight smile on her face.

“You mean like another community?” I asked. “Another Isolationist outpost?”

Stephanie shook her head. “No. In the woods.”

Henry laughed. “Like one of the creatures from that play Lockwood tried to get me to read.”

“Midsummer Night’s Dream. That’s what he’s talking about,” Lockwood called from underneath his arm, which he had thrown over his face.

Henry leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Stephanie’s. “Are you a fairy?” he teased.

Stephanie threw her head back and giggled, hitting Henry in the chest. “Hardly. My parents were resistance fighters just like me. They met on a mission. I was born on the move. Hell, I’ve always been on the move.”

Her mother, like mine, was from the last generation to successfully carry children, but even they suffered more miscarriages than births. It was my generation, and every generation after me, that would suffer Emma’s fate. Unless they were like me. Was Louisa? I pushed her image out of my mind; I had work to do.

“That couldn’t have been a very fun childhood,” I said sympathetically. I felt sorry for her. I couldn’t imagine constantly living my life on the run.

“Don’t feel bad for her,” Henry scoffed. “She was free. No compound or community to tell her what to do. Growing up knowing that she would be part of the group that would take the council down…”

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away. Of course that would be the life Henry would have preferred.

“Free?” Eric asked, narrowing his eyes at Henry. “You said it yourself. She was born into it. What choice did she have? My people came here so they could be free.”

“Your people aren’t any freer than those suckers back in the compound,” Henry spat.

“We don’t rape mothers and sisters in the woods while a little boy watches. Don’t you dare compare us to them!” Eric sneered.

Henry’s face went white. “How do you know about that?” He turned and glared at me. While darkness seemed to attach itself to everyone I knew, it seemed particularly attracted to Henry. Sensing the hypocrisy of the council, his mother had tried to run with him and his sisters when he was a child. When the chosen ones caught them, they brutally attacked the girls, leaving Henry alone, returning him to the world he would spend the rest of his life hating.