One (One Universe)

and wedge my shoulder under his armpit. “What’s up?”
    “Just the medication from my drip, I think. I’m still a little weak. Plus…” He winces. “…I think Nora and Lia gave me something.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He reaches over, grabs the Swiss army knife from the pocket inside my bag where I always keep it, and slices it across the palm of his hand. I gasp, but he heals within seconds.
    “My skin feels like a suit of pain right now,” he says, shrugging and smiling a little. “I figured it was a pretty good guess.”
    “Okay,” I say, my head spinning at the thought that Elias is no longer a One, wondering if it’s permanent and whether he can give it to me, too. But I won’t let myself obsess over that right now. “Okay. Let’s keep walking.”
    We trudge along in the direction of old Route 136. After a few minutes, when Elias seems to regain some of his strength, he says, “They figured it out.”
    “The Hub? I know.”
    “They paired me with another One who goes weightless — a kid. A couple years older than Michael and Max, maybe. Dragged him in from New York or something. Old enough for his parents to be frustrated he hadn’t changed yet.”
    “What happened?” Panic grips my heart. I wanted to be the only one who could do this to him. I need to be the only one.
    “Strapped our arms together. Gave us some enhancing serum. We scooted around the arena.”
    “Scooted?” My relief comes out in a weak giggle.
    Elias presses the heel of his hand against his eye. “Um. Yeah. I didn’t get it. Still don’t get it. Kid cried the whole time. The serum… It burns. But we didn’t fly. Could never race with cars or anything. Not like you and me.”
    I put my head on his shoulder, turn it to the side, and kiss wherever my lips land. His collarbone, I think. He doesn’t turn into me.
    “No one’s like you and me,” I say.
    I hug Elias as close to me as possible, my skinny arm like a thick rope around his waist, cutting into his sweatshirt, praying my slight frame can support him. I feel his torso’s shakiness — his entire body still trembles. When will this weakness resolve? It has to — soon.
    “How much does your Dad know? About what they were doing with the girls?”
    Elias stiffens. “I don’t know. But if I find out it’s anything other than ‘nothing,’ I’ll kill him.”
    I’m so angry at my own parents, knowing what they hid from me. I can’t imagine what thoughts run through Elias’s head right now. He doesn’t have any answers, and he has no way of knowing when he’ll get some.
    After sitting there, on the side of the freezing, pocked road for 10 minutes, then 20, Elias starts to fidget.
    “Sorry about that,” he says.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I will be.”
    He turns to the side, smells my hair. I hate it when he does that. But when he does, it stops him shaking so much, and that makes me smile. I would do anything to have strong Elias back. I would do anything to have strong Merrin back. Now I’m left hoping with everything I have that we can find a way to be strong together.
    Finally, after many breaths in and out, Elias says, “It’s all our fault, you know. If we hadn’t kept the secrets…if we hadn’t hidden what we can do…”
    “I know.” And suddenly, in his presence, the rage turns to a weight that I’m desperate to shake off. That my lightness can never fix. My fingers play at the back of his neck.
    “What are we going to do?” He raises his eyebrows, and his mouth turns down at the corners.
    For a split second, all I can think of is his mouth, and how we haven’t really kissed since we’ve seen each other again. But there’s only thing I want to do more than kiss him: Get the hell out of here.
    “How do you feel?” I whisper.
    “This was what I needed,” he responds. “You. You’re like a battery charger.”
    This makes perfect sense to me. I never realized the power of the buzz until Elias left and I didn’t feel it anymore.
    “Yeah. Yeah, me, too.” I look him straight in the eye. “Time to go?”
    “Time to go.”
    I crane my neck from the direction we came, toward the flat field covering the Hub, looking for signs of smoke or flame. Nothing. No shouts, not a smell. The Hub is as quiet and dignified as ever, even when its very center has just exploded. Only the occasional chirp of a songbird pierces the silence.
    The whole world has changed, and not even the sparrows have noticed.

THIRTY
    T he cold has injected a