Regulators, p.24
Regulators, page 24
I felt like I couldn’t breathe quite right, and there was something about the air outside that made me think—possibly foolishly—it might actually help. A little, at least. I would take a little right now. A little was better than none. I needed something to make this better in some way.
She nodded.
We each wrapped an arm around each other as we began walking very slowly downstairs. I didn’t know that either of us could manage anything more than slowly. I thought managing anything at all was something to be grateful for, if not proud of.
It felt slow, at least.
All three of the boys were down there, which did not help anything. Just the sight of them made my body clinch up, almost like what had just happened meant they’d somehow wronged me in some way and being near them was the very last thing in the world that I wanted. Garret and Brent sat at opposite ends of one sofa, staring off at seemingly nothing with wider eyes than I’d ever seen in my life.
I had to remind myself that neither of them had ever actually done anything bad to me, past making me uncomfortable a few times, and that seemed so small in comparison to other things. I also had to remind myself that, regardless of understanding the expressions on their faces well enough, they’d just gone through the exact same thing and were clearly just as horrified about it.
Paige and I both walked over to Seb and she literally hid behind me, partially to one side so the boys couldn’t see her on the other couch as well, or possibly so she couldn’t see them. I didn’t know which, but I would’ve understood either.
Seb stood when we got relatively close, and he looked . . . terrified. That was the word for his current facial expression, I was sure. He looked terrified. I’d wondered more than once whether Gens were capable of feeling that or anything close to it. Our instructors sometimes didn’t seem human at all whether they’d been altered or not.
More often than not, no one seemed human.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, almost urgently but clearly trying to be calm. Or at least sound that way.
My mouth was hanging open trying to form words to him, but all I could see was . . .
I shut my mouth very quickly. And then I couldn’t look at him at all. I looked at a wall and extended my right arm to him.
I tried not to move when his hands touched my arm to remove the com, but I couldn’t help it. I flinched a few times, or twitched, or something.
He said, “Paige,” the instant the weight of mine was gone.
Paige’s right arm went beneath mine, resting on my hip somewhere near her elbow.
I watched hers and, the instant it was removed, I shuffled her in front of me on my left side and tried to shield her as best I could. Her behavior was so strange and unsettling, and it was so much easier to focus on that rather than how I was feeling.
I didn’t know how I was feeling. Not really. But I did like the idea that I could sort of protect Paige from something. I didn’t like that I had to, because that meant she was feeling badly in some way, but I was glad that she wanted me to. Or maybe that she could, that she felt safe with me, like I actually could protect her. I didn’t know.
I was also glad, yet again, that we were with who we were with. I knew quite a lot of other Regs wouldn’t behave the way we currently were together no matter what they’d experienced with each other. I didn’t even think that what had happened in the room, with the video, would change that for some of them.
I was glad Paige wasn’t paired with someone who wouldn’t let her hide behind them. That was something to be happy about.
I was glad, in that moment of the door not opening while I was trying to get it to, that I’d had the experience of trying to open the door to my balcony earlier. I didn’t know that I could’ve gotten it open otherwise. I messed with the metal on the door until it opened. Paige walked forward, and then I did. I didn’t turn around when I closed the door behind me. I ensured I didn’t.
Paige had automatically gone to the pool once the two of us were alone outside, sat down at the edge of it, and dipped her bare feet into the water. I followed suit, and it felt nice enough, which was welcome with . . .
Everything.
We sat there for an extremely long time, holding hands, before I managed to say, “You can hear the ocean.” I liked the way it sounded.
Me opening my mouth opened the floodgates to a conversation I didn’t want to have that needed to be had.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Jaycee . . . are you afraid?”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things,” I admitted. I was afraid of way more than I’d known about a few days previously. “If you’re asking if I’m afraid of what I saw . . . You’re damn right. Are you?”
“Yeah,” she said again. “It just . . . It looked . . .”
“Scary?” I offered. It had looked that way to me. Very scary.
“But . . . it clearly felt good. I mean, I’m guessing good is the correct word, even though it really didn’t look like it.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid of what it’s going to be like, just . . . out of nowhere feeling things on my body that I’ve never felt before. Like . . .”
She looked over at me and I looked at her. Tears were again running down her face, and there was something about the expression she had . . . It made my chest hurt, like it was constricting on itself. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she looked like she was hurting, and I didn’t want her to be hurting. Maybe it was that simple. Maybe not everything was or had to be insanely complicated.
“We’re supposed to feel something,” she said desperately. “I didn’t know that. We’re supposed to have feeling there. I don’t feel anything.”
All her words did was remind me how much they’d taken from us. It wasn’t even that I wanted the feeling, but it was supposed to be there. We were so far away from normal that our bodies didn’t feel things that every person’s body felt. My body was in no way mine.
“Do you?” she whispered.
I shook my head uncomfortably, feeling my jaw wobbling. I sniffed in loudly through my nose a few times.
“Did you touch yourself?” she whispered. “Like it showed?”
I shook my head again. I already knew I didn’t feel anything. I was pretty sure that if I felt anything even remotely close to what I’d just seen . . . I would’ve known about it without any touching involved. I could’ve been wrong.
“I didn’t feel anything,” she said desperately. “Nothing. And before you freak out about touching my hand, I took another shower.”
I tried not to think about that. Apparently it was all very normal to do, and I couldn’t let myself think about it. I didn’t want to wonder about that sort of thing with every person I saw. Skin and touching . . .
Well, all that was already bad enough for me.
“It’s—” I shook my head. “It’s fucked up. All of it is.”
“How could they do this to us‽” she nearly shouted at me.
I blinked hard a few times, being reminded of her outburst while in the ocean, only this one was so much more understandable.
I patted her leg with my free hand. “I’ve been asking myself that since we left and I started seeing everything that was out here. I want to freak out. I want to scream, and throw things and . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what.” My voice was a whisper when I added, “But I can’t.”
“Why?” she asked me in disbelief. “You saw that.”
Because I was not going to do anything to get Seb replaced. That was the truth. But what I told her was also true.
“Because we’re here,” I whispered. “We’re out here, and there’s all this stuff, and there’s just . . . so much. It’s terrifying, and horrible in ways, but . . .” I felt my face scrunching as I stared down at the water, watching it ripple with the lights above and beneath the water. “It’s better. It’s so much better than being where we were and never knowing, living our whole lives never living.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I went on more quickly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in two months, or tomorrow, or five minutes from now, but . . . I will take five minutes of this terrifying shit, if it means being out here.” I gestured at everything. “For right now? Paige . . . we’re free.” Not completely, but in comparison it was undeniable. I looked over at her and I couldn’t help laughing. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for a door to open.” I shook my head at her. “Here we are.”
I slid myself into the pool.
The water came up to just past the middle of my stomach. Paige smiled a little at me when I looked up at her, and she slid herself in after me.
Chapter 19
Damage
“God, this thing is weighing me down,” Paige said of her nightdress as the two of us stood in the pool together. We couldn’t do too much more than stand and move a bit. Getting accustomed to moving in water was odd, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
I laughed. “You shouldn’t have worn it in.”
It was probably the worst thing I could’ve said, given the thoughtful expression that appeared on her face after it came out of my mouth. I didn’t understand the expression being there, but I didn’t believe it could be good—whatever it was she was thinking about.
“You know . . . You’re right.” And then the nightdress was over her head, being flopped onto the outside of the pool.
I was pretty sure only about four seconds or so passed between that point and when all the outside lights shut off, presumably by Seb’s doing.
“Jaycee.” I couldn’t see her face very well, but I could hear the awe in her voice. “You’ve got to take your clothes off. This is like . . . being in a shower, but . . . not.”
I was going to tell her no thank you, but . . .
I wanted to live. If Paige said it was an experience worth experiencing, it probably was. She probably thought dancing was, but she hadn’t insisted I try it, so maybe this was different. I wouldn’t know unless I tried it, and it wasn’t like we were out in public to draw attention to ourselves. If I didn’t like it, that would be a very easy fix. The sound of her voice did imply it was enjoyable. . . .
I’d just pulled the tank top over my head and flopped it onto the other edge of the pool, because I was closer to it, when the door to the house opened.
I kept my back facing it, easily hearing Seb demanding to know, “What are the two of you doing?”
I took in a deep breath, covered my chest with my right arm, and dipped my body into the water up to my collarbone. I turned around and answered him with, “Living.”
He was only looking at me for a few seconds before staring off in a different direction. I didn’t think he was actually looking at anything, just not looking at us. It seemed that would be a normal thing.
“Oh, nice answer,” Paige whispered appreciatively beside me.
I smiled because I thought it had been, but if she thought it was . . .
It probably was.
She also had her chest covered with her arm when I looked. That was probably best, despite the darkness.
Her voice was normal again when she asked, “Do you want to come live with us, Sebastian?”
He looked at both of us, shook his head, and stepped back inside. I didn’t think him shaking his head was in response, as him walking away had been enough of one. I thought he’d just been shaking his head at us, which seemed to be the most normal thing from him. Even after the door closed, I could hear him yelling at the boys.
“Do not go out there right now. I don’t want either of you touching her again until she can feel it and tells you to. Are you hearing me?”
I assumed one of them said something to him or asked him a question because several seconds passed before Seb said, “Not happening. Are we clear?”
The talking continued on, but I didn’t really care too much about it because Paige pointed out, “He didn’t say no. He didn’t say he didn’t want to.”
I couldn’t help smiling a little again. It seemed she couldn’t either. The best thing about all of it was realizing . . .
It really did feel good when people thought you did something well. Not just expecting you to but also not expecting you to not. Just having a nice answer . . .
I had weird dreams that night. Some of the images I’d seen on the screen distorted, changed into normal actions that people were doing unclothed, and sometimes . . . I would just see Seb’s face. Paige. Brent. Garret. Kelsey. A few people from throughout life. Mostly Seb.
I laid in bed with my eyes closed for a little while after waking, and I wondered what kissing felt like. Could it feel like something too? Maybe that was why the people at the club had behaved the way they had when kissing, because maybe there was some sort of feeling to it rather than it just being another thing to do.
I took a pill immediately after getting myself out of bed, brushed my teeth and hair, and did all the morningly things.
I went to the gym and exercised for a few hours, which was fine. My com didn’t buzz me, I supposed because I was doing what I was supposed to in the way I was supposed to do it. Passably. I still started out slower, expecting to be buzzed for it. I wasn’t, and I gradually increased my speed as I always did until getting to the point I always got to. When getting there, I ran as I always did until I started imagining a carrot in front of my face. That took a while longer than what was typical because I had quite a lot more to think about than was typical.
My breathing was actually almost verging on heavy by the point that I moved on to other exercises.
It was only when I was sitting at the breakfast table afterward, listening to Paige rattling on—about her first swimming lesson with Seb that she’d already had in the indoor pool before I’d woken—that I realized . . . My underwear was uncomfortable. And not in the sense of it going where it wasn’t supposed to, which it occasionally did, I suspected for everyone.
I fidgeted many times in my seat, stealing glances at the two boys who were eating bites of food. Their eyes were still very wide, as they had been last night. I wondered if they’d even slept.
“You two all right?”
That snapped Brent out of whatever was going on inside his head—I could guess—and look at me. “What?”
“Are the two of you all right?” I repeated.
Garret looked down at his plate. “Yeah.”
I was pretty sure he was lying, but . . . I couldn’t do anything about it. If there was anything to be done, I didn’t have a clue what it was.
By the time Seb walked into the kitchen a few minutes later and asked, “Jaycee, do you want to try and learn how to swim?” I was just thankful for any excuse to get out of the chair.
“Why is there a pool indoors?” I asked when Seb and I were standing near it, both in our bathing suits. I’d been wondering that since we’d all investigated the house thoroughly upon arrival. I hadn’t known what it was then, but it was still curious. I could hardly understand the point of there being one while so close to the ocean, but I really couldn’t make sense of two at the same location.
“Most places that have them have them because there’s a certain time of the year that gets really cold,” he answered. “But in locations like this where it’s nice out almost all year long . . . Well, you could just say the point is to be ostentatious. But it’ll help. Your sunburn is worse today than it was yesterday. Being outside will only make it worse. I guess this means the indoor pool is good for something.”
I knew it was. Worse today.
We were in the water very shortly after the explanation, and my heart was pounding as it had been almost constantly since waking for all the different reasons it had at different times. I was looking at Seb while he explained and demonstrated different things to me about swimming. A few times, it was like . . . Even though he was talking, I wasn’t hearing him.
Every time it happened, almost, he would ask, “Are you listening to me?”
“I’m trying,” I told him every time. I really was trying.
Something had changed since yesterday. During the few moments of clarity that his question would bring to my head, I would think about it. I thought about him saying it was only going to get worse. Weaning off. We were being weaned off the blocking of the receptors, meaning it would be a constant worsening of everything. Constant. And I knew, from how things had already been constantly changing and growing . . .
There was no stopping it. Horses weren’t donkeys, and no amount of mental determination could stop what was happening. Only unaltered pills.
I tried.
I tried so hard to pay attention. I really did want to know how to swim, just so I could do it. I didn’t want to potentially drown at some point because I couldn’t learn this. But I couldn’t help getting distracted—at the water forming in drops on Seb’s skin and moving, his arms moving when he explained things, his mouth when he was talking. I could watch his mouth moving, but where was the sound?
“Will you kiss me?” came out of my mouth at some point. I hadn’t consciously made a decision to ask him that, but it still came out.
Seb stopped in the middle of a sentence about I didn’t know what—swimming, I believed it safe to assume—and just stared at me. He blinked several times and then looked at his right wrist for quite a long time. When his wrist went back under the water, he looked away and said, “No.”
“Do you want to?” I whispered. Why did it feel like I had no control over what I was saying?
His right hand came back up, rubbed at his forehead a little, and then ran backwards through what little hair he had. There was something kind of amazing about it, which should’ve been way more ridiculous than I felt it was. “Yes. Do you want to?”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
He shook his head. “Why?”
They’d told him not to. He’d said no because they’d told him not to. Why had they told him not to?
Then I thought about it, about the lack of feeling and all things that had been said on it. Most of me had no reason to give him, apart from wanting to do it. They wouldn’t let him, but maybe . . .
