Steven Santos - The Culling

I clasp my hands around his back. We start to sway.

He sighs against me. “Our first dance … ” His breath is warm and soothing against my neck.

I laugh. “All that’s missing is the music.”

His lips graze my ear and it’s like fireflies are buzzing around my heart. “If you close your mind to everything else and listen, you can hear it.”

My eyelids sag, giving way to the hypnotic lilt of his voice. The only time that exists is now. Nothing before, nothing after.

Soon the night’s a symphony: our hearts beating like percussion in time with the chirping crickets, the wind whistling through the trees, the branches twanging as they bend in the wind’s wake, the pounding surf crashing onto the shore like powerful cymbals …

We spin around the terrace, our cheeks pressed against each other, holding onto each other so tight I can’t tell where I end and he begins. Soon I’ve lost track of how much time’s passed. All I know is that I don’t want it to ever end …

But it has to. This is much bigger than Digory and me. Bigger than our families. It’s about the right to live … the right to dream … the right to hope …

To have a future to look forward to.

Our dance slows to barely a sway, and finally we’re just standing still. When I open my eyes, he’s staring at me, his face a mask of sadness as if he’s read my mind. We stay like that for a few minutes, drinking each other in like men dying of thirst, not knowing when or if another sip will ever come.

He caresses my cheek. “Thank you.”

“What’re you doing out here with me? Shouldn’t you be inside with your family?”

Now it’s him that looks away. “I needed a few minutes to myself. To clear my head.” His eyes connect with mine again. “There’s so much I wanted to say to you … I needed to say to you … before … ”

“Before what ?”

“Before the Trials.”

My blood cools to lukewarm. All this time Digory’s avoided talking about his family, who his Incentives even are , although he risked everything in being open with me about his involvement with the resistance-to the point where it put him in this mess right alongside me. My muscles twitch. As curious as I am to know what he’s been holding back, there’s a part of me that’s afraid to know what secret could possibly be darker than treason against the Establishment. I’m not sure I can handle whatever it is he has to say, especially when I’m running out of things and people to believe in.

His fingers interlace with mine and he leans in close. “You’re going to hear certain things tonight, but you have to trust me.”

The sound of my heart spatters through my ears like raindrops kerplunking off the gutters back home. Every second of wondering is a prolonged agony.

“ Just tell me ,” I whisper.

The doors to the terrace burst open. “You two. Get inside,” Slade grumbles from the threshold. “Ceremony’s about to start.”

“But I haven’t seen my brother or Mrs. Bledsoe yet.” I take a step toward her. “Where are they?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” She avoids my gaze, fixing her eyes on Digory instead. “Your husband’s been looking for you.” Then she pivots on her boots and disappears inside.

Husband ?

Digory has someone already? Of course he does. Yet how could he let me think … make me feel …? You’d think after everything that’s happened, I’d be numb to anything else by now. But between my missing family and this latest reveal, why does it feel like my heart’s been shoved into a grinder and sliced into thousands of bloody clumps?

My fingers slip away from Digory’s. “Your spouse is one of your Incentives.” My voice sounds foreign, as if it doesn’t belong to me.

He reaches for me, but I pull away. “Lucian, you don’t understand-”

I swipe a hand across my eyes. I’m boiling over with pain and I want to scald him, too. “You don’t owe me an explanation. Especially after what I did to you.”

Confusion clouds the stars from his eyes. “What you did to me?”

“You honestly don’t believe it’s a coincidence that we both got recruited, do you?”

He takes a step toward me and I back away. “What are you talking about?”

“Cassius had you recruited because he heard about what you were involved in back at the Parish-from my own lips.”

And though it’s technically true, my not mentioning the part where Cassius planted the transmitting device on me paints a whole different picture.

My words are like a brand that sears his face. Instantly, I regret what I’ve said, but the damage is done. His stance goes rigid. The muscles in his jaw and cheeks stiffen. “I trusted you.”

“I have to find my brother.” I turn and fling open the doors.

The reception room is empty. Everyone must be inside the hall by now. I stride past the two soldiers standing sentry by the doorway, trying to keep my expression neutral so they can’t see I’m dying inside. I pick up the pace when I hear the footsteps behind me. I need to get as far away from Digory as possible. I need to find Cole. That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is a distraction, and I deserve to feel gutted for giving in to weakness and allowing myself to dream my life could be any different than it has been until now.

It never will be.

The auditorium’s packed with enlisted personnel and officers. My trek to the first row, which has been cordoned off for the graduating Recruits, is a stinging, wet blur. I squeeze past Cypress, Ophelia, and Gideon. Fortunately, when Digory arrives, he’s forced to sit in the only remaining seat at the opposite end.

Standing off to the side of the stage, flanked by a squad of Imps, are the Incentives-Gideon’s parents, Ophelia’s mother and sister, Cypress’s twins, and a handsome, carmel-skinned guy about Digory’s age. That must be him . But where’s his second Incentive?

I scan the crowd, looking for my own Incentives, blinking the moisture away.

My heart sags. I don’t see them anywhere.

There’s a buzz of static on the intercom system that settles into a flatline hum, mimicking the feel of my heart. The lights dim, along with my remaining hope, as Trumpets blare and Sergeant Slade takes the stage.

“Welcome,” she announces, as soon as the fanfare has died out. “On this occasion we gather to honor five exemplary cadets. They have proven they possess the necessary attributes to partake in the Trials, for the opportunity to enter the ranks of our military’s elite.”

The applause echoes through the amphitheater like rumbling thunder.

When it fades, Slade rambles on about the Establishment’s principles and values, but her words barely register as I obsess about the only thing that matters.

Where is my family?

There’s more applause, and then Cypress has to nudge me as, one by one, we’re called to the stage to receive our graduation pin and shake hands with Slade.

“Congratulations, Spark.” Slade forces the words through clenched teeth. She jams the badge against the left breast pocket of my uniform, almost piercing my skin.

Then I’m moving in a daze to the end of the stage away from the Incentives and taking a seat, where I’m soon joined by the others.

Slade fades into the background as the beam of a spotlight appears center stage, illuminating a familiar silhouette that seeps deep into my eyes like a terminal sickness.

Cassius.

He’s blinding, in a coat as stark white as a violent blizzard. His reddish-brown hair is slicked back, reminding me of the color of dead leaves covered in sleet.