Day 21

CHAPTER 3 Glass

Glass lifted her head from Luke’s chest, trying not to be frightened by how much effort it required. He smiled as she pushed herself into a sitting position and let her long legs spill over the side of the couch. Glass wasn’t sure whether the lack of oxygen was making her drowsy, or whether she was just tired from staying up most of the night. Lying in bed with Luke, the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. They didn’t know how much time they had left, so every moment was precious. She and Luke had spent the last few nights wrapped in each other’s arms: whispering their fleeting, half-formed thoughts, or just lying silently, memorizing the sound of each other’s heartbeats.

“I should probably go out and look for more supplies.” Luke spoke lightly, but they both knew the gravity of what he was proposing. Ever since the skybridge between the ships had closed, the chaos on Walden had reached a fever pitch. The Waldenites’ desperate attempts to find and hoard food had turned violent. Armed with a meager handful of protein packets, Glass and Luke had barred themselves inside Luke’s tiny flat, doing their best to ignore the sounds echoing from the corridors—the angry shouts of neighbors fighting over supplies, the frantic cries of mothers searching for lost children, the ragged wheezes of those struggling to breathe the increasingly thin air.

“It’s okay,” Glass said. “We have enough for a few days, and after that…” She cut herself off, looking away.

“You’re really too good at keeping calm under pressure. It’s a little scary. You should have been a guard.” He tapped his finger under her chin. “I’m serious,” he said in response to her look of skepticism. “I’ve always thought women make the best guards. It’s a shame girls on Phoenix never really consider it.”

Glass smiled inwardly, imagining her best friend Wells’s surprise if she’d shown up to the first day of officer training. While he probably would’ve been too shocked to speak at first, she was sure he’d have supported her. Before she met Luke, Wells was the one person who’d always treated her seriously, who believed she had talents beyond flirting and styling her hair.

“I guess I could’ve given it a shot, as long as no one tried to make me spacewalk.” The word alone was enough to make her nauseated as she imagined stepping into weightlessness.

Luke cleared his throat. “You know they don’t let just anyone spacewalk,” he said with mock grandiosity. Luke was part of the elite corps of guards who were also trained as engineers, responsible for making crucial—and dangerous—repairs to the ship. She would never forget how terrified she had felt a few weeks ago, when she’d watched Luke go outside the ship to examine a malfunctioning airlock. For twenty heart-racing minutes, a thin cord had been all that kept him from being lost in the emptiness of space. The cord, and Glass’s fervent prayers.

“Not to mention, you would’ve looked pretty cute in the uniform.”

“Want me to try on yours, to see?” Glass asked innocently.

He grinned. “Maybe later.” But as soon as the words left his mouth, his face fell. They both knew there wasn’t going to be a “later.”

Glass jumped to her feet and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Luke’s hand. “I have an idea for dinner.”

“Really? You managed to decide between two-day-old protein paste and three-day-old protein paste?”

“I’m serious. Let’s make it special. Why don’t we use the plates?” Earthmade relics were rare on Walden, but Luke’s family had held on to two beautiful plates an ancestor had carried onto the ship.

Luke hesitated for a fraction of a second, then rose to his feet. “That sounds like a nice idea. I’ll go get them.” He squeezed Glass’s hand before disappearing into his room, where he kept the valuable relics hidden away.

Glass went into the tiny bathroom and looked at herself in the sliver of scratched mirror above the sink. In the past, she’d found the lack of grooming space endlessly frustrating, but now she was grateful not to know what she looked like after three days in the same clothes. She finger-combed her hair and washed her face with the tepid water.

She didn’t think she’d taken very long, but when she stepped back into the living space, Glass found the flat transformed. The flickering lights near the table weren’t flashbeams—they were candles. “Where did you get those?” Glass asked in surprise, padding over for a closer look. There weren’t many candles left anywhere on the Colony, let alone on Walden.

“I was saving them for a special occasion,” Luke said, coming out of his room. As Glass’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, her breath caught in her chest. Luke had changed into dark pants and what seemed to be a matching jacket. Could it be a real suit? They rarely appeared in the Exchange. Even the men on Phoenix had trouble tracking them down.

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.

“They don’t have any other options,” Luke said flatly. His eyes searched hers. “You should’ve stayed on that dropship when you had the chance.”

“Yes, well, it turns out I’d left something pretty important behind.”

Luke reached out and ran his finger along the chain of the locket he’d given her on their anniversary. “Of course. You can’t go to Earth without your jewelry.”

Glass swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Luke laughed. “I can’t wait to see you scowl at me on Earth.”

“Is that the only thing you’re looking forward to?”

“No.” Luke’s hand moved to the back of her head as he lowered his face toward hers and kissed her gently. “I’m looking forward to a lot more than that.”