What you don't know can kill you...
It's just a pretty pendant. A harmless necklace. Everyone wears them, like a talisman.
At least that's what sixteen year old Shai Eli has always believed. But why does her community enforce a law that keeps people...
There had to be another way. His tongue smoothed the stinging blemish his teeth had made on the inside of his lower lip. Bad habit.
He breathed in, shallow and ragged. His best friend sat across from him drying her hair by the fire. She'd just come back from bathing in the Bath House when he'd let himself into her new living quarters.
He sighed and looked around the small living room. Stone floors, matching stone walls and a fireplace. Three simple pieces of wooden furniture: a bench, a rocking chair, and a table. They'd chosen to sit on the floor in front of the fire with scratchy grey blankets around their shoulders.
Shai tipped her head sideways as she worked at squeezing the wet strands of her honey-colored hair with a towel. Long lashes rested on high cheekbones as she kept her eyes down.
He was familiar with every curve of her slender neck, and her shoulders that bore the weight of growing up in their oppressive community of orphans.
He flicked his eyes at her again and suddenly wished she was like everyone else. Maybe then she wouldn't have caught the Leader's eye. She was wrong about being safe because she was different. He knew the Leader. He knew their Leader liked courage and determination. Aliah often wondered if the Leader had designed the Laws as a way to flush out the ones who showed signs of resistance. Even though Shai seemed to keep the Laws and Rules, Aliah knew she secretly despised them. It was what made him afraid for her. He was sure that one day he'd meet her for one of their assigned chores and she'd be missing. That she'd hopped the fence and disappeared into the Borderless forest beyond. Only her fear of the unknown kept her in Lael this long. And now this.
It's not supposed to be this way. Nausea rolled in his stomach.
"It would've been better if you were never born." He reached and out traced his thumb along the contours of Shai's face. Her pale blue eyes looked up at him and widened as she pulled away. She said nothing, just pressed her lips together the way she did when trying to keep her emotions in check. His shoulders caved forward. Why did I say that?
He shifted his position on the floor then touched her shoulder but she recoiled from him, her brows furrowed. She avoided his steady gaze and fixed her stare on the fire blazing in the stone fireplace.
He frowned and dropped his hands.
"I didn't mean it like that, Shai." His heart galloped in his chest like a wild stallion in a thunderstorm. In the firelight, Shai tilted her chin up slightly but didn't speak, as she pressed some wrinkles out of her grey tunic with her fingers.
It was time to go, before he got caught interrupting her mandatory twenty-four hours of solitude. He pushed himself up from the hardwood floor, grabbed his wool cloak from a bench and hurried to the door. He stopped on the threshold, one hand against the rough wooden door.
Several moments passed and the only sound was the popping of the wood fire. Shai's face was drawn and pinched in the dim, orangey fire-light.
He cleared his throat of a sudden stuffy-feeling. "I can explain. But maybe it's better that I go." He wrapped the cloak around his shoulders.
The birthmark in the flesh over his heart grew warm until it flooded him with its comforting heat. He rested a hand on it, grateful for its interference, and caught Shai watching him. He dropped his hand and smiled. She didn't return it.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, with the fire-light playing with the golden hues of her long hair. Shadows made her thin jaw appear angular, almost stubborn. The hard lines in her face disappeared as a fleeting look of fear touched her features. When she glanced at him it vanished, leaving behind something fiercer. Defiance: in the way she squared her shoulders and stuck out her lower lip.
He took one short step away from the door, towards her, then hesitated. Something stirred in him; the familiar need to protect her. If only she would let him.
He stood rooted to the ground, willing himself to turn around and leave, but the ache in his chest compelled him to stay.
Shai stretched one hand towards him. "Don't go, Aliah. I don't... I don't want to be alone. And I don't care about the solitude order." Her admission startled him. Exposed a seldom-seen vulnerability.
"But you have to be alone tonight." His throat constricted, graveling his voice. "Tonight you... things are different now. I shouldn't even be here."
She waved him away. "Fine. It's okay. It's just... I was caught off guard earlier. I'll be fine you know."
The vulnerability evaporated in that single flick of her wrist. Steely resolve hardened her jawline again.
He chewed his lip for a second, watching her.
"I have to go. The Mothers won't appreciate it if they find me here." He turned to reach for the knob again just as she got up from the floor and came to stand in front him, her hands twisting her standard, grey tunic. The absence of the pendant around her neck reminded him that time was much more precious now.
"It's better that it's me and not you. Everyone needs you, Aliah." He faced her, the sudden nearness of her prickled his arms and heated his face. "Including you?" He caught a fistful of the honey-gold hair at the back of her neck and pressed her to him.
She resisted. He lowered his face to hers and breathed in the scent of soap on her skin, but she shoved his chest with both hands, knocking him backwards into the door.
"Don't. You're asking for trouble, Aliah. I mean it," Shai sighed. "That's exactly what would earn you an infraction. And how would that help?" She took a small step away from him, then looked up at him with a conflicted look. "I'm sorry. Just stay until... I fall asleep?"
She curled up on the bench by the fire while he sat on the floor beside her. What does she want from me? He ran a hand through his hair then rubbed the back of his neck.
She soon fell asleep, so he carried her to the bed in the tiny back room, then tucked a woolen blanket around her. Her forehead was cool and dry when he pressed his lips there. She would never know.
He backed up a few steps and watched her. The gentle rise and fall of her chest more rhythmic than his own jerky breathing. He turned and walked briskly back to the door.
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