Across the Universe - Beth Revis [82]
“Every moment.”
“Then how were you ensuring that the ship prospers when you were in the cryo chambers earlier? What great leadership action were you taking then?”
Eldest straightens up. “I do not have to answer to you, boy.”
I know how Eldest operates; I know how to make him talk. “I thought the second cause of discord was lack of one strong central leader. How can you be a strong central leader without disclosing important information to your successor?”
I hear a creak. Eldest is crushing the sides of the basket of needles under his hands. “Why don’t you just tell me what you think I should have been doing.” It’s not a question, it’s more of a threat.
“Why not just say what I think you shouldn’t have been doing? Like how maybe you shouldn’t have been ripping more people from cryo chambers. The man died. The woman would’ve, if Amy hadn’t found her.”
Eldest shoves the basket away from him. The needles clatter inside it. “Are you accusing me of opening the cryo chambers, of killing another one of the frozens?”
“All I’m saying is that you’ve been awful close every time one of them dies.”
“I do not have to listen to this drivel from the likes of YOU!” Eldest roars. He heads to the door, but his bad leg makes him stumble. He crashes into one of the big cylinders of goo, and the bean-shaped things wobble in the bubbles.
“Some leader,” I mutter.
Eldest straightens up, glaring at me.
“The third cause of discord,” he says in a terrible monotone, “is individual thought. No society can thrive if a single individual can poison its members into mutiny and chaos.” He turns now, glaring. “And if the individual thought is coming from the ship’s future leader, and if the ship’s future leader is spewing forth such vitriol and stupidity that he’d accuse me of killing the frozens, then I pray to the stars above that he puts something more intelligent in that empty head of his before I die and he takes over!”
“That’s just like you, to try to turn this into a lesson about how shite of a leader I’ll be!” I shout. “But you haven’t told me what you were doing down here, or how Mr. Kennedy ended up drowned just on the other side of this door!” I fling my arm toward the door, hitting the tube of cryo liquid and embryos so hard that the embryos inside jiggle like fruit in gelatin.
“You are a fool,” Eldest spits out at me. He storms from the room, slamming his foot against the door when it rises too slowly. The needles clatter with each of his steps.
“I might be a fool,” I mutter, “but you haven’t told me that you didn’t do it.”
45
AMY
I HAVE ONE REGRET.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about this, now. But it’s think about this or think about that.
It was our last date.
I’d already told Jason by then. Told him how I’d be gone soon. Gone forever. We’d said goodbye earlier that night, alone in his bedroom. Together. Really together. For the first—and last—time.
After, he took me to this overpriced Italian place called Little Sienna. And it was so wonderful that all I wanted to do was cry, because I knew it would end. And of course I hadn’t worn waterproof mascara, and of course it smudged all over the place, so I excused myself. There was only one toilet, and a line of women waiting.
“Are you here with Jason?” the girl in front of me asked. I nodded. Her name was Erin, and she was a senior, and that’s about all I knew of her.
“He broke my heart last year. I don’t know how he does it.”
“Does what?” I was still smiling, but the smile was starting to feel plastic.
“Keep up with all his girls.” My smile disappeared. “I swear,” Erin said, “I thought I was the only one, all those months we dated, but I never knew about Jill and Stacy, not until after we broke up.”
I felt like I had swallowed boiling lead.
“He cheated on you?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. Then she laughed. “But that was last year. I’m sure he’s not like that now. You two look really cute together. I’m glad to see you were able to reform him. Your name’s Kristen, right?”
“No,” I said hollowly. “Amy.” Who was Kristen?