Элли Конди - Matched

"It's probably underwater," I said. "Let's get the lifeguard to clear the pool."

"No," Xander said, his jaw set. "Don't tell them. They'll cite me for losing it. Don't say anything. I'll find it." Carrying our own tablets is an important step toward our own independence; losing them is the same as admitting we aren't ready for the responsibility. Our parents carry our tablets for us until we are old enough to take them over, one by one. First the blue, when we are ten. Then, when we turn thirteen, the green one. The one that calms us if we need calming.

And when we're sixteen, the red one, the one we can only take when a high-level Official tells us to do so.

At first, I tried to help Xander, but the chlorine always hurt my eyes. I dove and dove and then, when my eyes burned so much I could barely see, I climbed back onto the cement next to the pool and tried to look beneath the sun-bright surface of the water.

None of us ever wears a watch when we are small; time is kept for us. But I still knew. I knew that he had been under the water much longer than he should. I had measured it out in heartbeats and in the slap of the waves against the side of the pool as one person, then another, then another, dove in.

Did he drown ? For a moment, I was blinded by sunlight slanting off the water, white, and paralyzed by my fear, which felt white, too. But then I stood up and drew a deep breath into my lungs to scream to the world Xander is under the water, save him, save him! Before my scream was born, a voice I did not know asked, "Is he drowning?"

"I can't tell," I said, tearing my eyes away from the water. A boy stood next to me; tanned skin, dark hair. A new boy. That was all I had time to notice before he vanished, slipping under the surface in one quick motion.

A pause, a few more slaps of the waves against the cement, and Xander's head popped up above the water. He grinned triumphantly at me, holding the waterproof case. "Got it," he said.

"Xander," I said, relieved. "Are you all right?"

"Of course," he said, the confident light back in his eyes. "Why would you think I wouldn't be?"

"You were under so long that I thought you were drowning," I admitted. "And so did that boy—" Suddenly I panicked. Where did the other boy go? He had not come up for air.

"What boy?" Xander asked, puzzled.

"He went searching for you." And then I saw him, below the blue, a shadow under the water. "He's right there. Is he drowning?"

Just then the boy broke the surface of the water, coughing, his hair glistening. A red scrape, almost healed but still noticeable, ran along his cheek I did my best not to stare. Not just because injuries are uncommon in a place where we are all so healthy and safe, but because he was unknown to me. A stranger.

It took the boy a few moments to catch his breath again. When he did, he looked at me but spoke to Xander, saying, "You didn't drown."

"No," agreed Xander." You almost did, though."

"I know," the boy said. "I meant to save you." He corrected himself. "I mean, to help you."

"Don't you know how to swim?" I asked him.

"I thought I did," the boy said, which made both Xander and me laugh. The boy looked into my eyes and smiled. The smile seemed to surprise him; it surprised me, too, the warmth of it.

The boy looked back at Xander. "She looked worried when you didn't come back up."

"I'm not worried anymore," I said, relieved that everyone was safe. "Are you visiting someone?" I asked the boy, hoping he was staying for a long visit. I already liked him because he had wanted to help Xander.

"No," said the boy, and though he still smiled, his voice sounded quiet and still like the water had become around us. He looked right at me. "I belong here."

Now, my eyes fixed on the crowd in front of me, I feel that same feeling of relief and release as I see a familiar face, someone who, until now, I had been desperately worried about. Someone I must have thought had drowned or slipped or been pulled under and might never be seen again.

Ky Markham is here and he looks right at me.

Without thinking, I take a step toward him. That's when I feel something burst beneath my foot. The lost tablet container has broken open, and everything it is supposed to protect has spilled out on the floor and been crushed under my foot. Bluegreenred.

I stop in my tracks but the movement has been noted. Officials swarm toward me and the people near me draw breath and call out, "Over here! It's broken!"

I have to turn away when an Official takes my elbow and asks me what happened. When I look back at where Ky stood, he has disappeared. Just like he did that day into the pool. Just like his face did earlier on the port at my house.

There was a new boy at the pool today," I told my parents that long-ago night, after the incident while Xander and I were swimming. I was careful to leave out any mention of Xander losing his tablet container. I didn't want him to get in trouble. The omission felt like the tablet itself stuck in my throat. Every time I swallowed, I felt it catch there, threatening to choke me.

But still, I didn't tell.

My parents exchanged glances. "A new boy? Are you sure?" my father asked.

"I'm sure," I said. "His name is Ky Markham. Xander and I swam with him."

"He's staying with the Markhams, then," my father said.

"They've adopted him," I told my parents. "He calls Aida his mother and Patrick his father. I heard him."

My parents exchanged glances. Adoptions were and are virtually unheard of in our Province of Oria.

We heard a knock on the door. "Stay here, Cassia," my father said. "Let us see who it is."

I waited back in the kitchen, but I heard Xander's father, Mr. Carrow, at the door, his deep loud voice booming through the foyer. We aren't allowed to go into one another's residences, but I could imagine him standing there on the steps, looking like an older version of Xander. Same blond hair. Same laughing blue eyes.

"I talked with Patrick and Aida Markham," he said. "I thought you'd want to know. The boy is an orphan. He's from the Outer Provinces."

"He is?" My mother's voice held a note of concern. The Outer Provinces are on the geographic fringe of the Society where life is harder and wilder. Sometimes people refer to them as the Lesser Provinces, or the Backward Provinces, because they have so little order and knowledge there. There's a higher concentration of Aberrations there than in the general populace. And even Anomalies, some say. Though no one knows for certain where the Anomalies are. They used to be kept in safe houses, but many of those stand empty these days.

"He's here with full Society approval," Mr. Carrow said. "Patrick showed me the paperwork himself. He told me to tell anyone else who might be concerned. I knew you'd be worried, Molly, and you, too, Abran."

"Well, then," my mother said, "it sounds all right." I edged around the corner to look into the foyer, where my parents' backs were to me and Xander's father stood on the steps with the night behind him.

Then Xander's father dropped his voice, and I had to listen closely to hear what he said over the low hum of the port in the foyer.

"Molly, you should have seen Aida. And Patrick. They seemed alive again. The boy is Aida's nephew. Her sister's son."

My mother's hand went up to her hair, a gesture she always made when she was uncomfortable. Because we all remembered vividly what had happened to the Markhams.

It was a rare case of government failure. A Class One Anomaly should never have been unidentified, let alone allowed to roam the streets, to sneak into the government offices where Patrick worked and where his son was visiting him that day. We all kept quiet about it, but we all knew. Because the Markham boy was gone, murdered while he waited for his father to come back from a meeting elsewhere in the building. Because Patrick Markham himself had to spend time being healed, since the Anomaly waited in the office, quiet, and attacked Patrick, too.