Kass Morgan: Day 21

Glass had seen Luke straight-backed and serious-faced in his guard uniform. She’d seen him casual and laughing in his civilian clothes, playing catch with the little kids in his corridor. In the suit, he looked as confident as soldier-Luke, but he held himself differently. More relaxed.

“I’m underdressed,” Glass said, tugging at the sleeve of her slightly dingy shirt.

Luke tilted his head to the side and surveyed her for a long moment. “You look perfect.” There was a note of admiration in his voice that made Glass grateful for the candles, for the flickering light that obscured her old clothes and her sudden blush.

She took a few steps forward and ran her finger along Luke’s sleeve. “Where did you get this?”

“It was Carter’s, actually.”

The name made Glass snatch her hand away, as if she’d been burned.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked.

“Yes, fine,” Glass said quickly. “I was just surprised. Carter never struck me as a suit guy.” Carter was an older boy who’d taken Luke in after his mother died—out of charity, he’d claimed, but Glass had always suspected it was for the extra ration points. He was lazy, manipulative, and dangerous, and had once tried to assault Glass when she was waiting in their flat. Yet while Luke was generally far from naïve, his childhood admiration for Carter blinded him to his faults, and Glass had never been able to make him see the truth about the man he saw as a sort of mentor.

Luke shrugged. “He wasn’t. He was short on points one month, so I bought the suit from him. It was pretty generous of him, actually. He could’ve gotten a lot more at the Exchange.”

No , he couldn’t have , Glass thought. Because he would’ve been arrested for selling stolen goods . But then she felt a pang of guilt. Carter had been a scumbag, but now he was dead—executed for a crime he hadn’t committed.

And it was Glass’s fault.

Last year, Glass had made the terrifying discovery that she was pregnant—a violation of the Colony’s rigid population control law that was punishable by Confinement for minors… and death for anyone over eighteen.

Desperate to keep Luke safe, Glass had done her best to hide her condition. But when her pregnancy was discovered, she’d been arrested and forced to name the father. Glass knew that if she told the truth, nineteen-year-old Luke would be put to death. So, in a moment of panic, she gave the name of a man who made her skin crawl, a man she knew would be arrested sooner or later, anyway: Carter.

Luke didn’t know what Glass had done. No one on Walden had any idea why Carter had been dragged away in the middle of the night. At least, that’s what Glass had thought until two days ago, when Luke’s best friend and ex-girlfriend, Camille, had threatened to expose Glass’s secret if she didn’t do anything and everything Camille asked.

“Should we eat?” Glass asked weakly, desperate to change the subject.

Luke placed the two plates on the table with a clink. “Dinner is served.”

There was laughably little protein paste, but Glass noticed that Luke had given her a far larger serving. The upside to the meager portions was that they allowed Glass to admire the scenes painted on the plates—one depicted a couple in front of the Eiffel Tower, while the other showed the same couple walking a dog in a park. Luke didn’t know the story behind the relics, but Glass liked to imagine that a real couple had bought the plates on their honeymoon, and then brought them up to the Colony as keepsakes.

“Is it strange to dress up to eat protein paste?” Luke asked as he scooped some up with his spoon.

“I don’t think so. For a while, Wells was obsessed with this book about a famous boat crash. Apparently, everyone put on their best clothes and then listened to music while the ship was going down.”

Glass was proud to know this little fact about Earth history, but instead of looking impressed, Luke winced. “You should’ve stayed on Phoenix,” he said softly. “Coming here was like boarding a sinking ship.” Although Walden and Arcadia had been abandoned by the Council—left to die as their oxygen supplies dwindled—Phoenix, the central ship, still had oxygen reserves. Glass had fled the safety of her home ship to come be with Luke on Walden.

“Do you think Camille made it across?” Luke asked as he used his spoon to trace a pattern in the protein paste.

Glass suppressed a wince of her own. When she’d arrived on Walden, Luke’s ex-girlfriend Camille had demanded Glass show her how she’d snuck from ship to ship. And when Glass had hesitated, knowing that the guards would likely shoot a Waldenite trespassing on Phoenix now that the skybridge had been closed, Camille had whispered the most terrifying threat Glass could imagine: If Glass didn’t help her, Camille would tell Luke about Carter. Glass had no idea how the other girl discovered her secret, but she hadn’t wasted time trying to find out as she hurried Camille to the secret air vent that connected Walden to Phoenix.

“I hope so,” Glass said in answer to Luke’s question, turning away to avoid meeting his eye.

“It’s not too late for you,” Luke said carefully. He had begged Glass to return with Camille, but she refused. “You could climb through the vent and—”

Glass’s spoon fell from her hand onto her plate. “ No ,” she said, a little more sharply than she’d meant. “We talked about this.”

Luke sighed. “Okay, how about this?” He took a breath to speak, but then he caught Glass’s eye and let out a sputtering laugh.

“What?” Glass asked. “What’s so funny?”

“You were scowling at me.”

Glass sat up straighter. “Well, I’m upset. I’m not sure why you find it so amusing.”

“Because I’m sure it was the exact expression you used to make when you were a little kid and didn’t get your way.”

“Luke, come on. I’m trying to be serious.”

“So am I,” he said, rising from his chair. “Come here.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “What if you go across through the vent and just look around? If it doesn’t seem like the guards are patrolling Phoenix, you can come back and let me know.”

Glass paused for a moment to scan Luke’s face, trying to make sure he meant what he said. That it wasn’t a ploy to get her to retreat to the safety of Phoenix and then shut the air vent for good, so she couldn’t come back. “And then you’ll go over with me?”

Luke nodded. “If there aren’t guards near where the vent lets out, we can try to make it back to your flat without being spotted. And then…” His voice trailed off.

Glass took his other hand and gave it a squeeze. They both knew sneaking onto Phoenix would only buy them a little more time. The Colony was breaking apart, and even Phoenix would lose oxygen eventually.

After a long moment, Luke broke the silence. “They might start sending people on the dropships.”

“What? Before they know whether or not it’s safe?” Glass shouldn’t have been surprised. The Colony had lost contact with the hundred Confined teens who’d been sent down to Earth to test the radiation levels. Ninety-nine teens, actually, since Glass was supposed to be one of them but had escaped the dropship and snuck back onto the Colony. Her heart ached as she thought about Wells, who’d also been on the mission. He had always dreamed of going to Earth—Glass remembered how he’d made them play gladiator in the gravity gym when he was going through his Roman phase, or how she’d pretended to be a man-eating gorilla when they’d played jungle explorer behind his father’s office.

She hoped he was still alive, that he wasn’t being attacked by man-eating gorillas—or worse, dying slowly from radiation. She hoped that they’d made it to the ground at all.