Скотт Вестерфельд: Pretties

Tally shook her head. "It got damaged in the escape."

"Wow. Takes a lot to break a hoverboard."

"It was a long fall."

He smiled. "Same old Tally. I knew you'd show up, though. Mom said you'd probably…" He didn't finish.

"I'm fine." She looked up at him, unsure of how much to say. "Thanks for waiting."

They rode his board. Tally was taller than David now, so she stood behind him, hands around his waist. She'd abandoned her heavy crash bracelets before her long trek with Andrew Simpson Smith, but her sensor was still clipped to her belly ring, so the board could feel her center of gravity and compensate for the extra weight. Still, they went slowly at first.

The feel of David’s body, the way he leaned into the turns, was so familiar — even the smell of him set her memories spinning. (Tally didn't want to think about how she smelled, but he didn't seem to have noticed.) She was amazed at how much was coming back; her memories of him seemed to have been ready and waiting, and were all flooding in now that he stood next to her. Here on the board, with David turned away from her, Tally's body cried out to hold him tight. She wanted to take back all the stupid, pretty-minded thoughts she'd had at her first glimpse of his face.

But was it just that he was ugly? Everything else had changed as well.

Tally knew she should be asking about the others, especially Zane. But she couldn't bring the name to her lips, couldn't speak at all. Just standing on the board with David was almost too much.

She kept wondering why it had been Croy who'd brought her the cure. In Tally's letter to herself, she had been so certain that David would be the one to rescue her. He was the prince of her dreams, after all.

Was he still angry that she had betrayed the Smoke? Did he blame her for his father's death? The same night she'd confessed everything to David, Tally had gone back to the city to give herself up, to become pretty so she could test the cure. She'd never had a chance to explain how sorry she was. They hadn't even said good-bye to each other.

But if David hated her, why had he been the one waiting in the ruins? Not Croy, not Zane — David. Her head was spinning, almost like being pretty-minded again, but without the happy part.

"It's not far," David said. "Maybe three hours, traveling tandem like this."

She didn't answer.

"I didn't think to bring another board. Should have known you wouldn't have one, since it took you so long to get here."

"I'm sorry."

"No big deal. We just have to fly a little slower."

"No. I'm sorry. For what I did." She fell silent. The words had exhausted her.

He let the board coast to a stop between two towering husks of metal and concrete, and they stood there for a long moment, David still facing away. She rested one cheek on his shoulder, her eyes beginning to burn.

Finally, he said, "I thought I would know what to say. Once I saw you."

"Forgot about the new face, didn't you?"

"I didn't forget, exactly. But I didn't think it would be so … not you."

"Me either," Tally said, then realized her words wouldn't make sense to him. David's face hadn't changed, after all.

He turned around carefully on the board and touched her brow. Tally tried to look at him, but couldn't. She felt her flash tattoo pulsing under his fingers.

Tally smiled. "Oh, is that freaking you out? It's just a Crim thing, to see who's bubbly."

"Yeah, a tattoo keyed to your heartbeat. They told me. But I hadn't imagined one on you. It's so … weird."

"It's still me inside, though."

"It feels that way, flying together." He turned away, tilting the hoverboard forward and into motion.

Tally held him tighter now, not wanting him to turn around again. This was hard enough without the confused feelings that rose up every time she looked at him. He probably didn't want to look at her city-made face either, with its huge eyes and animated tattoo. One thing at a time. "Just tell me, David, why did Croy bring me the cure instead of you?"

"Things got messed up. I was going to come for you when I got back."

"Got back? From where?"

"I was away scouting another city, looking for more uglies to join us, when the Specials came in force. They started to make huge sweeps of the ruins, looking for us." He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. "My mom decided to get out of town for a while. We've been holed up in the wild."

"Leaving me stuck in the city," she said, and sighed. "Maddy wouldn't have much problem with that, I guess." Tally had little doubt that David's mother still blamed her for everything — the end of the Smoke, Az's death.

"She didn't have a choice," David protested. "There's never been so many Specials before. It was too dangerous to stay here."

Tally took a deep breath, remembering her little chat with Dr. Cable. "I guess Special Circumstances has been recruiting lately."

"But I hadn't forgotten about you, Tally. I'd made Croy promise to bring you the pills and your letter if anything happened to me, just to make sure you had a chance of escaping. When they started to pack up the New Smoke, he figured we might not be back for a while, so he snuck into the city."

"You told him to come?"

"Of course. He was my backup. I never would have left you alone in there, Tally."

"Oh." Dizziness swept over her again, as if the board were a feather spinning toward the ground. She closed her eyes and held David tighter, finally grasping the solidness and reality of him, more powerful than any memory. Tally felt something inside herself depart, a disquiet that she'd hardly known was there. The torment in her dreams, the worry that David had forsaken her, had all been over a mix-up, just plans that had gone wrong, like in old stories when a letter arrived too late or was sent to the wrong person, and the trick was not killing yourself over it.

David had wanted to come for her himself, it turned out.

"Of course, you weren't alone," he said softly.

Tally's body stiffened. By now he knew about Zane, of course. How was she supposed to explain that she'd simply forgotten David? It wouldn't sound like much of an excuse to most people, but he knew all about the lesions — his parents had raised him knowing what being pretty-minded meant. He had to understand.

Of course, in reality it wasn't as simple as that. Tally hadn't forgotten Zane, after all. She could see his beautiful face right now, gaunt and vulnerable, the way his golden eyes had flashed just before he jumped from the balloon. His kiss had given her the strength to find the pills; he had shared the cure with her. So what was she supposed to say?

The easiest thing was, "How is he?"

David shrugged. "Not great. But not too bad, considering. You're lucky it wasn't you, Tally."

"The cure is dangerous, isn't it? It doesn't work for some people."

"It works perfectly. Your pals have already all had it, and they're fine."

"But Zane's headaches …"

"More than just headaches." He sighed. "I'll let my mother explain it to you."

"But what…" Tally let her question fade into silence. She couldn't blame David for not wanting to talk about Zane. At least her unasked questions had all been answered. The other Crims had made it here and had hooked up with the Smokies; Maddy had been able to help Zane; the escape had worked perfectly. And now that Tally had made it to the ruins herself, everything was just fine and dandy. "Thank you for waiting for me," she said again, softly.

He didn't answer, and they flew the rest of the way without looking at each other once.

The path to the New Smokies' hiding place wound along streams and ancient railway beds, wherever there was enough metal to keep the hoverboard aloft. Finally, they climbed a small mountain far outside the Rusty Ruins, the boards lifters clinging to the fallen remains of an old cable car track, up to where a huge concrete dome, cracked open by the centuries, stood against the sky.