“I’m sorry I accused you of selling to humans.”
Eyes narrowed, he cracked his jaw. “I take it they let you listen to my conversation with Cara? And you believed me?”
“Yes. And yes.”
“Some people would say selling Onadyn to aliens is as bad as selling to humans,” he said loudly, and his tone left no doubt that he thought those people were idiots.
“Why would they do that? If it saves lives?” No one deserved to die like the alien I’d seen in that photo.
“Good question,” he muttered. Then sighed.
Gathering my courage, I said, “I can see why you’d want to leave this line of work,” for the benefit of those listening, as well as to lighten Erik’s dark mood.
“Yeah, and why’s that?”
“Not only do the living conditions suck, but your former coworkers are ass**les.” There. Take that, ladies! A.I.R. would not defeat me. And I would not cower. Not anymore.
Who are you? my mind demanded. Have you been taken over by an Outer?
Erik slowly grinned. “I like you more and more, Camille Robins. You’re a sound judge of character.”
I returned his grin. I liked him more and more, too.
“I’m sorry about the napkin,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
Maybe I imagined it, but as we smiled at each other, some sort of tension sparked between us. Not a bad tension. A needy tension. I wanted a kiss, needed a kiss. Did he? My heartbeat quickened and fire spread through my veins. People are watching, I reminded myself.
I cleared my throat. “So as an agent, did you ever have to kill anyone?” A topic A.I.R. already knew well, I’m sure.
“Yes.” A faraway glaze slithered over his eyes. Dark memories sunk deep claws inside of him, pulling him down a terrible spiral. “I was recruited on my eighteenth birthday.”
“You don’t have to tell me this, if you don’t want.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I was out celebrating and had too much to drink. Got cocky. Rude. Insulted an Outer. We fought. Not an easy, push-away fight, either, but a bloody, violent fight that broke several of my ribs, sliced my stomach, and fractured my wrist.”
“Wow.”
“An agent saw the entire thing. My opponent, you see, was an Arcadian, one who could move faster than the blink of an eye. I managed to hold my own and even inflict some damage, something most humans wouldn’t have been able to do.” He shrugged again, none too casually this time. “A.I.R. took me from the hospital the next day, bandaged me up, and began training me to become an agent. A killer.”
I smoothed the hair from his forehead, realized what I’d done, and jerked my hand into my lap. “Those girls…”
He nodded stiffly and stood. His boots had been removed, as well, I noticed, leaving him barefoot. “Yep. Kids taken from high school and trained to become A.I.R. agents. We trained together.”
I wanted to stand, too. Maybe lay my head on his shoulder and wrap my arms around him. He sounded so sad. But I remained in place. Any more touching, and they’d think we really were boyfriend and girlfriend. They already thought I was a liar; that would just add fuel to the fire.
“Why’d you leave?” I asked.
He massaged the back of his neck. “You heard. I was caught with Onadyn.”
“Yeah, but there’s got to be more to it than that. They seem to, well,” I hesitated. “I’m sorry to say this, but they seem to hate you. Being caught with Onadyn is a crime, yes, but I don’t think it’s worthy of such hatred.”
His gaze was sharp as it leveled on me. “You hated me when you first found out. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I’ll deny it if I want.” I stubbornly lifted my chin. “I didn’t hate you. I was disappointed in you and shocked. But even then, I had a hard time reconciling what you were saying about yourself to the boy I’d built up in my head. I mean, look at the way you took care of me.”
His eyes widened in surprise and he shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe I’d said that out loud. “You truly amaze me, Camille Robins.”
He meant it; I could hear the truth in his voice. No boy had ever said anything like that to me. A few that I had dated had told me I was pretty—to get into my pants. But to be told that I amazed someone? And said in a tone that dripped of reverence and awe, and not to get into my pants? Never.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He backed up a few steps, turned, and braced his hands on the wall. The back of his shirt was ripped and I could see fat red welts peeking out from beneath the torn material.
“They whipped you?” I gasped out.
He didn’t face me. Didn’t answer me. Just continued his story as if we’d never veered off track. “I met Cara about a month after I’d been accepted into the camp. We hit it off right away and started dating.”
I hadn’t asked, but I’d wanted to know. Badly. So I allowed him to ignore my query without protest.
“We had a pretty intense relationship for a year and spent every spare minute together. And when we weren’t together, we were thinking about each other.” He turned around and stared at the wall opposite him, as if he wasn’t speaking to me but to whoever was listening to our conversation. “I loved her.”
“You were eighteen?” My age now.
Erik nodded. “Yep.”
My dad would say a kid that young couldn’t possibly love with such passion, that teenagers had no concept of “true” devotion. A crush, he’d say. A passing fancy. You’ll wake up tomorrow and realize you never really cared about that guy, Dad always said when he’d caught me sighing over Erik’s picture.
Dad was wrong.
I hadn’t gotten over my crush on Erik. I felt as intense about him now as I had then. My dad didn’t understand—or perhaps he didn’t want to admit—that teenagers experience emotions as violently as adults. Perhaps more so, since the feelings are new to us and we haven’t yet learned how to deal with them.
When Erik said he’d loved Cara, I believed him. The truth was there in his expression, glowing brightly. He’d loved her, had probably wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Would probably have died for her.
To have a boy love you that much, well, it had to be empowering. I was jealous, I admit it. I didn’t like Cara, and didn’t think she deserved him.