Across the Universe - Beth Revis [78]
My stomach squirms. I’m not sure if I agree with Eldest or not—I don’t like to think of a ship full of inbred idiots, but I also don’t like how Eldest thinks he can just engineer genius.
Eldest places the last needle in the basket and looks up at me. His face is very serious, but he looks tired, too, as if he is made of wax and slowly melting. “I don’t say this enough. But I believe in you. I think you’ll be a good leader. One day.”
I want to smile and thank him—I don’t even remember the last time Eldest complimented me like this—but at the same time, I cannot help but wonder if the reason Eldest is so sure I’ll be an okay leader is because I was injected with some “leadership” goo before I was born.
And if I have been, I wonder if it was enough.
43
AMY
I AM CURLED ON MY BED, MY LEGS TUCKED UNDER MY CHIN, MY arms wrapped around my knees. My teddy bear, Amber, is tucked between my chest and my knees. Her button eyes and nose dig into my ribs, but I don’t care.
Harley hands me a glass of cool water.
“I’m sorry,” Harley says. An angry purple-red bruise the size of my pinky finger underscores his left eye.
He touches my hand, and I flinch. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to hide, but all I can do is flinch because a man came close enough to touch me.
“I’m sorry,” Harley says again. He backs up and sits at the desk chair, all the way on the other side of the room. He sits on the edge of his seat, as if ready to jump up and protect me again. But he holds himself back. His hands grip the armrest, making sure he doesn’t touch me again.
I raise my head. “No... I mean... Thank you. You saved me.”
Harley shakes his head. “I left you. That was stupid. I knew the Season was full on. I’ve seen it getting worse since yesterday. And I left you alone.”
“Why were they like that?” I ask. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the glazed look of the couple having sex beside me, of how they turned away from my screams. I press Amber closer into me, relishing the feeling of her buttons grinding into my ribcage, wondering how the bruises she makes will compare to the ones already blossoming on my wrists.
Harley shrugs. “That’s just the way the Season is. Wasn’t Sol-Earth like that? People are animals. No matter how civilized we are, when our mating season arrives, we mate.”
“Not you. Not Elder. Not everyone’s acting like they’re insane with lust.”
Harley’s brows knit together, a ridge of flesh forming between his eyes. It reminds me of the deep, heavy brow of the man who was on top of me, who held me down, who ground his hips against mine. I bury my face into Amber’s fake brown fur, and I breathe in her musty smell. My arms tense around my knees, and my hands grip my legs, and I’m glad, because if I wasn’t holding on to myself, I think my body would all fall apart like a puzzle lifted at the corners.
Harley has not noticed that I’m quivering under my hard exterior. “Actually, a lot of the people in the Ward are fine. Some are using the Season as an excuse to act... recklessly... but most of the Ward patients aren’t quite so...”
“Crazy?” My voice cracks.
“Ironic, huh? The crazy people are less affected by all this than any of the others. Maybe it’s our mental meds. They’re called ‘Inhibitors.’ They’re supposed to inhibit the crazy, but maybe they inhibit lust as well.”
Didn’t seem to inhibit Luthe’s lust. He knew what he was doing. But the Feeders hadn’t, not really. I wonder if it’s because the Feeders are so brainless. Whatever’s making them want to screw, the Feeders just do it, like how that girl with the rabbits just believed what Eldest had told her, even when she read the truth. People like Harley and Luthe, who aren’t mindless idiots, have more control over themselves. They can choose to be kind, like Harley.
Or they can choose to be like Luthe.
Harley’s still talking, trying to distract me from everything. He talks like talking will make everything okay again,