Regulators, p.25
Regulators, page 25
Maybe I just had to know the passcode to get through the door.
“Because I’m scared,” I admitted. “I’m scared that, if I wait . . .” I paused to shake my head, thinking about it. “I’m scared that if I wait, all this shit is going to overwhelm me. I don’t want the first time of something new to be like those two people in the club. Not something like that. I want to understand it. And . . .” I took in a deep breath then released it slowly. “I want you to.”
He was almost smiling but wasn’t quite when he looked down at his wrist. “A for acceptable,” he said again, like he had yesterday when trying to comfort Paige. But then there was a different word. “Proceed.”
He started moving and . . .
Oh my god, he was moving over to me. I stepped backward, wondering what the hell I’d even asked for. Thinking about it was so much different from contemplating it actually happening. I didn’t think my heart had ever beaten so quickly. Not in hours of physical training, or any point of fear, or anything. Not ever.
This really could not be good for people’s bodies.
Seb watched his wrist as he walked through the water, shaking his head the entire time. When he was standing in front of me, he held his arm out to show me what it was saying. Two messages in red letters alternating with one another.
JCE-286 GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
DO NOT DAMAGE THE REG
Over and over.
Didn’t they know he’d already touched me and not damaged me?
If I hadn’t known what crying felt like, I likely would’ve assumed the tickling on my face was just water from the pool. It wasn’t water from the pool tickling my face.
As if to mock what the com was repeatedly warning him, he reached out and touched my face. It didn’t do any damage.
I reached my own hand out, putting it over his chest, feeling the heartbeat that I was hearing along with mine in my ears. It didn’t feel exactly like mine, for some reason, but it was still there.
My wrist buzzed. I watched the letters appear, and Seb looked down.
YOU ARE GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, JCE-286
“We’re alive,” I whispered. “Can’t they see that?”
“No,” he whispered back.
As if to reinforce it, the second message appeared after another buzz.
DO NOT LET THE GEN DAMAGE YOU
“He will not hurt me!” I shouted.
I watched Seb’s eyebrows furrowing downward where he was staring at my com. I looked down, barely catching it. It hadn’t buzzed.
ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE IMMINENT, FACT
I opened my mouth, but Seb’s right hand shot out, putting a finger over my lips. It moved away quickly but had done enough to keep me from saying what I’d been intending.
Then he shook his head and quietly said, “I won’t hurt you,” and I didn’t care so much. I didn’t care about the coms, or the invasiveness of it all. I did wonder if real racehorses ever wished they could just be a different sort. A less-expensive sort.
His face moved forward and didn’t move away like it had in one way or another all those other times where it had been close to mine. It was just right there, close. I swallowed something, though it felt like nothing, listening to both our hearts beating faster. He looked in my eyes, then down at my mouth, and shook his head.
Then he kissed me.
I didn’t know how it was supposed to be done despite having watched it done at the club and then on the television. The latter had been far more helpful in learning the way it was supposed to be done, but it was so much different doing it. It was much . . . slower.
Every bit of movement with our mouths together made my head feel lighter. Every second that passed made me less aware of what was happening, what it felt like, what I was doing. Little bits and pieces were all that came through—mouths parting, and tongues, and breathing, and hearts, and skin.
His body was pressed against mine when it happened, some bit of intense feeling through contact with it.
I made a very strange, quiet noise and turned my face away from him. I heard a noise behind me at the same time and startled because of it, but I didn’t move otherwise. It had only lasted for a second, but it had . . .
It had been there.
Was that what it felt like?
Oh my god.
Seb was still standing close to me. I looked up at him, feeling like my eyes were breaking apart at the edges. I found him staring off behind me and in front of himself. The look on his face . . . I didn’t think it was so dissimilar to mine.
My wrist buzzed. I had to touch Seb’s stomach to bring it up to see.
DAMAGE REPORT
“She’s fine,” I watched him say to his own wrist.
My wrist buzzed again.
DAMAGE REPORT
“I broke the pool.” Seb said that loudly, but then he took several steps back and quietly added, “A little.”
“Seb,” I whispered, watching red dripping from the inside of his hand into the pool. It held itself together for a second or two before disappearing into the water.
I only saw it for an instant when he looked down at it himself. The skin on the inside of his hand was gone in parts, with fleshy bits showing through, but . . .
His bones . . .
Those bastards.
“I have to go fix my hand,” he said urgently. He didn’t look at me at all as he was making his way out of the pool. I didn’t think he could.
My wrist buzzed and I looked down.
BLOOD AT SCENE?
I turned around, stepping on hard bits of fallen material on the bottom of the pool. He’d broken the pool with his left hand. His right had been on me the entire time and hadn’t . . .
It buzzed again. BLOOD AT SCENE?
“A little.” I didn’t know if there were cameras in the house, but they certainly weren’t everywhere.
REMOVE, it buzzed.
“How?” I tried to get my thoughts straight. “I was told . . .” I’d been told that wasn’t my job. I shook my head. “I don’t know how to do it properly.”
TOWEL, it instructed. WIPE AWAY, REMEMBER WHERE, THEN FIND BLEACH
“What is bleach?”
CLEANING SOLUTION, it answered.
MAKES DNA UNREADABLE
“All right.” I could do that. I got out of the pool, being very careful not to harm myself on ragged edges and bits or spread the blood. In truth, there was more of it than I’d admitted. A little more.
JCE-286, CLEAN THE DROPS
“Okay.”
I grabbed the nearest towel from off a nearby chair and immediately set to work. My wrist buzzed again.
GIVE TOWEL TO GEN WHEN FINISHED
“What?” I asked several seconds later, ensuring I was getting all of it I could. I then stood to ensure I got any of it that he was dripping after exiting the pool. It was more like a trail than drops until a certain point. “No smartass remarks about how there was damage?”
It buzzed.
JCE-286 UNHARMED
I was shaking my head when I heard Paige behind me.
“Jaycee . . .”
I looked, watching her very carefully walk over, avoiding the trail of blood.
“What happened?”
“Seb . . . broke the pool.”
“Why?” She drew the word out for a rather long while.
“Because we were kissing,” I admitted.
She watched what I was doing for a little while before asking, “Jaycee . . . how was it?”
I was unable to stop myself from pausing in my efforts for a second or two, but then I remembered that I always had to do a satisfactory job, to keep him here. So I was smiling down at Seb’s blood on the floor when I answered her with, “Kind of amazing.”
Chapter 20
Word
I did as I was told where Seb’s blood was concerned, as instructed by my com. I didn’t let myself get distracted by anything else after the first initial distraction from Paige. I ensured I did as good a job as possible, better than passable. Not only was it a carrot worth chasing, it was pretty important.
“I’m finished,” I said into my com. “Apart from giving him the towel, which I’ll do the instant he comes back down here. But it’s done otherwise.”
It buzzed immediately after.
ARE YOU CERTAIN?
“I swear to you, I removed every drop of his blood from this house,” I said firmly. I’d checked multiple times. I’d followed the path he’d taken at least five times after completion, on my hands and knees with my face almost touching the floor, so I could be positive of it. My eyesight was good enough to know.
I was glad it hadn’t gotten on any carpet, but I would’ve ripped the carpet up with my bare hands and burned it if I’d had to. I could’ve done it, and I would have.
And it was so strange, but I felt—in that moment of silence and nothing before the com buzzed me again—that some horrible understanding passed through my head, and the collective heads of whomever it was sending us our messages. But no . . . they’d already known.
I listened to the speed of my heart increasing when I realized . . .
I would do whatever I had to, in order to keep him here, out of trouble. Here.
My wrist buzzed again and I looked down.
SATISFACTORY, JCE-286
They already knew. I was sure they did, but . . .
Satisfactory?
“I was just—” Seb said from the stairs, which made me jump.
The instant I was looking at him, he just stopped speaking.
It took him a little while to say, “I was going to take care of that.”
“It’s fine.” I felt very antsy for some reason. The words, “Happy to help,” just came out. I cleared my throat. “I, um . . . I want to go outside. Just for a little while.”
Seb nodded. “Right.”
I walked over to him, feeling my heart pounding. I extended my right arm to him, keeping the horrible-smelling towel firmly in my left hand. But I watched his left hand coming toward me to hold my arm in place while he removed the com.
It had healed, likely with the spray they used on us when we sustained minor injuries during physical and combative training, but not completely. He’d only given it enough time to heal back over the bone.
As soon as the com was removed, he squeezed my right wrist with his hand for the briefest moment and asked, “Did you see my hand?”
He knew I had. He knew I’d seen it.
They were asking.
“I saw the blood,” I said quietly. “Are you all right?”
He smiled stiffly, uncomfortably at me. His voice was quiet when he responded with, “Fine.” He looked away to a wall. “I’ll take that.”
I handed the towel over to him and walked to the door, looking over my shoulder at him. I stood there for a little while, waiting. I didn’t know what for. Something.
He didn’t move. He didn’t look at me.
Nothing.
I thought I understood, at least somewhat, so I let myself out. I could’ve easily been wrong about that.
I went and sat on the edge of the undamaged outdoor pool, dipping my feet in, and I cried. I didn’t really know why at first. It was just like . . . I couldn’t help it. For a long time, there was hardly any thought at all. Stray things that were irrational and made no sense.
Maybe he didn’t think I was beautiful anymore.
Maybe he’d hated kissing me.
Maybe this, and maybe that.
I couldn’t blame him if he hated kissing me. I didn’t know how to do it even passably.
But I had it figured out by the time Seb came and sat down beside me at the edge of the pool what I thought was an hour or so later. So when he said, “I’m sorry. This whole thing’s just—”
I was able to stop whatever he didn’t want to say with, “You came out to apologize.” And not for what it seemed like he was.
“Yes.”
“What do you think I’m thinking?” I asked him, staring off at the water. He had no reason to apologize to me. None whatsoever.
“That you finally realized what I was trying to tell you yesterday,” he replied quietly.
“That we’re so different,” I whispered.
I saw him nodding slowly in my peripherals.
“You think I care.”
“You should.”
I finally looked at him. “Do you?”
He didn’t answer me.
I looked down and put my right hand over his left. “Look at me.”
When he did, I closed my eyes and thought very hard about Paige. I’d had more contact with her skin than all other female’s skin combined in my life. I thought harder about it than I’d ever thought about a change before, harder than I’d thought about my instructor to attempt getting through a door.
I felt it, and it hurt in ways it usually didn’t, bones moving farther. My voice wasn’t even mine but close to Paige’s when I said, “This is what they did to me.”
I couldn’t hold it.
It almost hurt worse going back to myself because it was so much quicker. I closed my eyes again and shook my head frantically. When it had settled enough that I could open my eyes, I did, and found him frowning at me.
I reached my left hand across myself and put it over his chest. The word, “How?” barely fell out of my mouth.
He looked away from me, down at the water, but he opened up his hand beneath mine and took it. “Because . . . it doesn’t matter.”
“And you know that, even if it did . . .” I started and then paused. “You know it’s not my fault—what they did to me. Just like I know that what they did to you isn’t your fault either. It just . . . is what it is. The things we can do don’t make us who we are. The things that people have done to them only make them who they are to an extent, but . . . we’re just people under here, Seb.” No matter what they said . . .
He shook his head and looked back at me. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” I told him. “We’re living, and feeling, and breathing. We make choices and mistakes. Our hearts beat, we bleed. Cry.” I shook my head at him. “What else is there to a person?”
“One thing,” he answered.
I was honestly surprised there was only one thing I’d missed in all the things I didn’t know about.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What does the word love mean to you, Jaycee?”
My first reaction was to check my wrist, but the com wasn’t there. I still checked it anyway.
“It’s your safe word, isn’t it?” he asked. “Love? It’s the word you’re to use if you or someone within eyesight is in mortal danger, right? It’s the word you’re supposed to say out here if my life is compromised. Isn’t that right?” He looked back out at the water to say, “They teach you about hate. They must because I’ve heard you say it. You know what it is. And they taught you right about that, but they didn’t teach you right about love. To you, all of you, love is a word that means death. I can just imagine someone falling and breaking their neck and all of you shouting love into your coms.” He laughed once under his breath, shaking his head again.
“What is it?” I asked again, whispering this time because I was asking an entirely different question.
“The opposite of hate,” he replied. “Hate makes people do horrible things. It makes them think horrible things. Love . . . It makes people do stupid things because of how they feel about another person, or some thing. It’s like . . .” He trailed off for such a long time, chewing on his bottom lip uncomfortably.
I kept my mouth shut.
“It’s like nothing else in the world matters. It’s like there’s nothing else. And you’ll do so many things you shouldn’t.” He barely said, “Stand in fire, trying to stop it from touching them.”
I thought about what he’d said last night at the club. “Do you—”
I hesitated so long in saying the word I’d been taught never to say unless it needed to be said that he laughed and said, “You can’t even say it. But no. I do not love you. It’s not just something that you can be. You fall into it.”
“But you said . . .” I couldn’t even say what he’d said last night.
“Want to do and will do are two totally different things,” he said firmly, finally looking at me again. “Want to is feelings, caring. Will do is love. I will follow orders, first and foremost. That is what I will do. I might not like it, I might not want to, but if they tell me to stand down, I will stand down. If they tell me to move, I will move.”
My first instinct was to believe him. Words. They were believable words. They were more believable than his words had been last night.
But.
Should the hidden words be more believable than the exposed ones? I thought they should.
I thought about his actions that contradicted everything coming out of his mouth. DNI, ignored. Ignored until WR.
Seb was looking at me, but there was something behind his eyes. It reminded me of standing in the headmaster’s office, staring into his face and telling him that I’d put Kelsey up to our first attempt at getting through the elevator. It had been her idea that first time. Not mine. I’d lied, because I didn’t want her to get into trouble. It was only later that I’d realized they’d known the truth all along. They always knew.
Seb was lying to me. He was lying to me to save . . . someone. Himself, possibly. All of us, maybe.
He might not have loved me, but that didn’t even matter. It didn’t matter because he was lying to keep himself here.
“I’m sorry.” He pulled his hand back to himself. “I’m sorry, but . . . until I feel that word . . . I can’t think of myself as what you think I am.”
Maybe he didn’t even realize he was lying.
We were staring at each other and he was waiting for something, a response I had no intention to give.
“I’ll never let myself feel it, Jaycee,” he said when I didn’t respond to him at all. “It’s too dangerous. I can’t. I won’t. It’s never going to happen.”
“All right,” I told him.
He hadn’t been expecting me to say that. I didn’t know what he had expected, but the slightest furrowing of his eyebrows told me it hadn’t been that.
