Taken (Erin Bowman)

be more on the other side. There has to be more than just Claysoot.”
    “You’ll die, Gray, like they all do,” she says.
    “Maybe not. I survived the Heist. Maybe I can survive the Wall, too.”
    “Gray, promise me you won’t. Please. I understand what you mean, that feeling that there has to be more, some explanation. I get it every time I think about those original children. But it’s crazy, what you’re talking about. It’s suicide.”
    “But what if there really is more, Emma? What if we just have to climb over that Wall to see it, and instead, we spend our whole lives in here because we are too afraid to try?”
    She stands up and walks around the table. Before I realize what she’s doing, she’s wiggled her way onto my lap so that her back is to the game board and her face right before mine. She looks me over, brushing my hair away from my eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but I’m too focused on her hands to care. She is tracing the contours of my face, dragging her fingertips along my chin. And then she leans in ever so slowly and she kisses me. She knows exactly what to do to win me over, to bend me to her will. I lean into her and every inch of me livens.
    Her lips are soft but dry, and her hair smells like soap from the market. I return her kiss, my hands finding the curve of her back. I’m about to pick her up and carry her into the bedroom when her palms push against my chest. I open my eyes to find her, inquisitive, before me.
    “Promise me,” she demands. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
    “Emma, you know I can’t make a promise like that. I do stupid things all the time. Blaine’s the one that thinks things through.”
    “I’m not interested in Blaine. I’m interested in you.”
    “Fine, I can promise you this much: If I am about to do anything stupid, you’ll be the first to know, before I actually do it.”
    “Assuming you can even identify it as stupidity.”
    “Yes, that.”
    I kiss her again. My hands go to her back for a second time, but as I begin to lift her, she giggles and climbs from my lap. She puts the kettle on and looks back to me, smiling. I don’t know how she can be so calm. My chest is still heaving, my body electrified.
    “You know, maybe you’re overdoing the whole thing,” she says. “Maybe your ma really did have twins back then, but the younger one died or something. And then a year later you came along and she named you in his memory. You could really be a year younger than Blaine.”
    “But then a lost child would have been stated in my mother’s scroll. And I would have been listed as the third.”
    “Or maybe the scrolls are incomplete,” she counters. “After all, that’s the excuse you gave me when we originally talked about Claysoot’s founding.”
    I raise an eyebrow at her. “That’s different.”
    “How so?”
    “I don’t know. It just is.”
    “Maybe you should go talk to Maude, Gray. If there are any more answers to be found, she has them.”
    “And, what? Admit that we snooped around the Clinic and read private records and now I don’t understand why, at eighteen, I haven’t been Heisted?”
    “At this point it seems a far safer option than climbing over the Wall.”
    I catch myself staring at her wavy hair, the way it has grown wild in the damp evening, and decide she is the most beautiful being I have ever seen.
    “You are so smart, Emma, you know that?”
    She blushes and pours the tea.
    Much later, after tossing in bed for hours, I give up on sleep entirely. I sit at the table and think about Emma’s suggestion. Maybe I can get information from Maude without admitting I snooped around at the Clinic. Maybe I can say I discovered I was a twin through Ma’s letter by pretending I have both pages. Before I can decide if this is a good idea or rather foolish, I am pulling on a hooded shirt and stepping into the rain.
    I knock on Maude’s door several times, but she doesn’t answer. She’s probably asleep, but I pound again. This time, the door swings inward ever so slightly from the force. I nudge it cautiously with my foot. The kitchen is empty, but a faint, flickering light seeps from the bedroom, casting an eerie blue glow about the room.
    “Hello?” I step inside, mostly to get out of the rain. “Maude?”
    Still no answer.
    I move cautiously through the kitchen, and that’s when I hear it, murmured voices, coming from the bedroom.
    “Any other happenings to report?” It’s the voice