For Darkness Shows the Stars

stepped back. Stumbled, really. And sputtered. “Get out.”
    It was Kai’s turn to blink in surprise.
    She waved the lantern at him. He was fortunate she didn’t throw it at his head. How could he know her so well and so little at once? “Get out of my barn. Now.”
    He stepped away from her, his hands held out to brace himself should she choose to swing. “I’m serious.”
    “So am I.” She advanced, and he retreated toward the door. “I don’t want anything from you.” Not his money, not his pity, and most especially not his false kindness. “Don’t you ever speak to me again, Malakai Wentforth . I hate you. I hate you. And I’m not sorry anymore.”
    “What?”
    “I’m not sorry I didn’t go with you. Because I hate the man that you’ve become.”
    He had passed the threshold now, and she slammed the door shut in his face. For a moment, Elliot let that door support her. She panted against the wood, giant, gulping breaths that did nothing to soothe her or stop the tears that sprang to her eyes.
    The Kai she’d known could never have made her that offer. He would have asked a favor from a friend. She’d been wrong about him all along. He must have been telling the truth the night of the Innovations’ party. He’d never cared for her at all. Perhaps he’d always only seen her as the rich girl in the big house, the one who could help him, who could give him things, who could protect him from punishment, who could get him out of trouble. Why shouldn’t it work the same in reverse, now that he was the rich one? He’d never loved her. Maybe he’d never even liked her.
    She slid to her knees on the packed dirt floor. She rested her forehead against the ground. She raked her hands through her skirt and her hair, and she wept.
    Many minutes later, she heard his voice, soft and low, on the other side of the door. He was centimeters away. “You were sorry ? You were sorry you didn’t go with me?”
    Hadn’t he spent every moment since his return making sure she was? Hadn’t it been the unspoken meaning behind every cruel comment? “I said go away!”
    “No, you said ‘get out.’ I’m out.”
    “ Now go away.”
    Silence. And then, “No.”
    For a second, they were both fourteen again, bickering. Bantering. For another second, Elliot wished it could stay that way. But too many things had changed. “I mean it,” she tried, though she was terrified she didn’t.
    “I need to know—” she heard him growl under his breath. “I need to know your mind.”
    She jumped to her feet and threw open the door. He was kneeling on the other side, and when he looked up at her in surprise, he nearly took her breath away. But her anger prevailed.
    “Get out of my sight this instant or I’ll scream,” she ordered him. “I will scream to the world what you are, Kai. Believe me, I will.”
    He regarded her for a long moment, and then he, too, stood. “I have been unfair to you,” he said at last. “I know you wouldn’t tell. You never have.”
    Ten minutes ago, those words might have meant the world to her, but it was too late. Not after what he’d said. “Good. You have the answer you wanted. You and your abominable friends are safe. Now go away.”
    “Elliot—”
    She shuddered. If she heard him speak her name again she might vomit. “Don’t you understand? You disgust me. Go. Away.”
    His expression turned hard, and then he left. Elliot breathed a sigh of relief.
    It was true. He did disgust her. But not for the reasons he should.

P ART III
     
True North
     
I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul.
—JANE AUSTEN, PERSUASION

F OUR Y EARS A GO
     
    Dear Kai,
    Please do not hate me. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me.
    But I cannot go with you.
    I thought I could. Last night, I thought everything was possible. I thought you were right, that there was nothing for me here, either. Mother’s dead, Grandfather’s locked in his own head, and you’re leaving. Why in the world should I stay? It was a beautiful dream. But outside your room, outside the barn, in the cold light of morning, I realized that was all it was. A dream. There is nothing for me here, but that doesn’t mean I am nothing to the North estate.
    Today, when I was supposed to be packing, I wandered the estate. I watched the Posts in their little cottages, I watched the Reduced in the fields, and I thought about our lots in life.
    We can’t escape