One (One Universe) Read online

  I reach down, lace my fingers through his hair, and kiss him on the forehead, then the lips, a gentle kiss becoming deeper.

  “I don’t mind being stuck with you,” I murmur between kisses because I don’t, I really don’t.

  Most of life isn’t flying, I remind myself. Most of life is about the people you love. I know that. Flying hasn’t made me forget.

  I swing my legs out from between his and hop down off the table, standing so I look curviest in my dress. I’m not going to be dressed up like this again for awhile, so I need to milk it. I stretch my hand out, smiling an apology.

  “Show me everything,” I say. And we spend the next hour looking at supersonic accelerators and fireproof cubes and electron-neutralizing gel.

  And I am happy.

  The next day, Elias seems like himself again. I try to hide my sigh of relief that my boyfriend is back and that we can enjoy the rest of the Symposium together, even if he is mostly humoring me.

  I have no idea what Michael and Max are doing — Dad’s keeping track of them today since his ultra-boring presentation is over. It was something about home safety for families with early-displaying Supers — how to keep your electricity-emitting baby from blowing the house up, for example.

  The biggest problem my parents ever had with the twins was that it was hard to bathe them. That’s how Dad got into this field in the first place, actually — my brothers were born, and what with my being a One and all, Mom and Dad had never really faced the challenges of having Super kids to take care of.

  I’m all excited to go to Mom’s demonstration today, but I see it’s marked “Authorized Personnel Only” when I read the listing closely on my schedule. I blow it up on my cuff’s screen and shove it in Elias’s face.

  “What the hell?” I grouse.

  He looks at the listing, too. “Yeah. And it’s the only thing in the training arena at that point. What does your mom do?”

  I shrug. I’ve never asked Mom exactly what she does — never cared enough. I mean, I know that she combusts and that she’s indestructible — never had a match in the house. But she’s never bothered to talk to me about it. Dad’s always clued me in on what he’s doing at the Hub, but Mom? Never. If I think about it, I never thought it was because her work was too awesome or important. I just thought it was because she thought I wasn’t awesome or important enough to hear about it.

  “What’s the matter?” Elias nudges me. I would tell him, but I know he’s excited because he finally gets to see his sisters today. I’m not about to ruin anything for him, especially after all I said last night.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head and give a closed-lipped smile. “I just… I’m really glad you showed me the arena last night. Otherwise I would never have seen it.”

  “Never say never, Mer.” He reaches an arm around me and squeezes my shoulder, pulling me close to him.

  We go to a couple presentations, including one for a pressure-enhancing suit to make some flier kid — the air-blowing kind, like Elias should be — push the air so hard and fast that she’s nearly supersonic. “While we had hoped to break the sound barrier this time,” the announcer intones, “this gap year student strengthens her abilities daily, and we have every confidence that by the next symposium she’ll be far past supersonic status.”

  “Supersonic,” I whisper. Elias gives me a sad smile. The girl, her skin the color of coffee glowing almost golden from the exhilaration and the sheen of sweat, runs a hand over her head, which has hair cropped so close it’s nearly shaven. For speed, I think.

  Elias looks at me, and I swear it’s another instance where he knows what I’m thinking. “Don’t get any ideas,” he says, and he rolls the end of some of my hair between his fingers lightly.

  Yep. He knew.

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” he leans in to whisper, and whether he’s talking about flying or kissing or something else, I don’t know and I don’t care. But I silently vow to keep my hair just like it is.

  There’s a big lunch with more milling around and networking. I sit at a table with Elias and Leni and Daniel, and for a few minutes, this feels like some surreal, awesome, alternate-dimension high school. I can tell that Daniel’s just as thrilled as I am by this whole thing — Daniel’s a lot like me, now that I think about it — but Leni looks pretty much the same as always. Slightly less on edge, but then, she’s looked like that since the two of them figured out the whole “flame on” thing.

  Then Mom walks into the room. It’s like the freaking Sea of Reeds parts for her because the people standing in front of the door where she’s walked in kind of stop what they’re doing and all turn toward her, and then the clapping starts. Within seconds, it’s thunderous, echoing off the high ceiling and every wall.

  Even my heart swells with pride for her. She must have done something really, really incredible. I’ll have to talk to her about that.

  She holds up her hands, trying to quell the applause, which has now blocked out everyone else’s conversation, but it keeps going, and she’s clearly embarrassed. Suddenly, Dad is there, with his arm around her, saying “thank yous” on her behalf and walking her away. Right after my initial rush of jealousy for her, I look at her and Dad again, and I see it.

  Elias and me.

  There we are, twenty-five years from now. They fit together perfectly. Just like Elias and me.

  I love Elias.

  I love Elias. I beam at him and tear up a little, I’m so damn happy about it. He smiles back at me, his eyes kind. He doesn’t get it, somehow doesn’t see it in my face.

  Great. He can read my freaking thoughts about my hairstyle and its aerodynamics, but now, with my feelings so strong, he thinks I’m randomly grinning at him like an idiot. The applause for Mom dies down after a few seconds. I squeeze his hand.

  “How soon can we get out of here?” I ask, only realizing after I say it what it must sound like.

  His smile in return seems distracted and a little confused. He knows how excited I am about the Symposium. “They’re doing the gap year presentation after this.”

  Right. I feel bad that I was so stupid. Elias’s sisters, the presentation, the reception afterward. He’s not thinking about me at all, and I shouldn’t expect him to.

  It’s actually not that bad that I get to keep this to myself for a while longer. I love Elias. I love him. He’s almost told me he loves me, a few times. Last night. A month ago, when we sat on the rooftop, even though things were different then.

  I can’t wait to tell him. Can’t wait to be the first to finally say it, can’t wait to see the relief written across his face. Can’t understand how or why it took me this long to realize it.

  I look at Elias again, and some of my elation melts away, filled in by more worry. He’s still so distracted, so anxious to see them.

  “Have you heard from them?” I ask. “Letters or anything?”

  He shakes his head. “Not for a couple weeks,” he says, not looking right at me, his disturbed look.

  I squeeze his hand again, put my head on his shoulder. “Okay,” I say. “I’m sure they’re okay.”

  He kisses the top of my head, and from the way he does it, lightly and kind of sideways, I know. He’s still staring off, still upset.

  Suddenly, all I want is to get to that presentation. Because I know that, in this moment, that’s all he wants, too.

  EIGHTEEN

  The entire room clears after lunch for a tour through the Hub. I’m actually pretty bored as we near the Symposium’s end. Elias gave me a tour of the Hub, between the testing arena last night and some more awesome lab and testing areas this morning. The tour doesn’t extend nearly that far. I wonder how many people have really seen the depth of this place. I try to remind myself that Elias is lucky.

  Suddenly, I feel butterflies in my stomach. This is the gap year presentation, so Mr. Hoffman will probably be here. My skin crawls again. For the first time, I wish I could tell Elias about him. About everything. But I promised,
and I can’t break that promise, not even for Elias.

  Fisk strides onto the stage, and I shiver. I focus on Elias, look over at him and squeeze his hand, and for the first time this Symposium, he’s lit up — his smile, his eyes, everything. There’s something incredible about a guy who loves his sisters this much.

  “Welcome to the crowning presentation of the Superior Hub’s Biotech Symposium.” Applause thunders through the room, and I wonder if I should have been even more excited about this.

  “I know this is the show you all have been waiting for, so I won’t keep you waiting any longer. It is my pleasure to introduce you to our inaugural class of Gap Year Gifteds.”

  The applause gets even louder, if that’s possible.

  The kids file out on the stage, ten total — two very muscular guys; the girl with the cropped hair from earlier; a blond girl almost as short as I am; one very lanky boy; and then, finally, Nora and Lia.

  Nora and Lia smile and wave at the crowd with the rest of them. Their forearms are stiff and barely move, like they’ve been on a parade float for three hours and any minute they’ll collapse from the exhaustion. Their eyes gaze out, empty, and their skin is so, so pale. Lia reaches down and squeezes Nora’s hand, and they both look straight at Elias, widen their eyes — which look bloodshot even from this distance — and a second later, look back at the crowd again. Elias shifts and fidgets in his chair and stares at them with his chin resting in his hand.

  Fisk runs through the achievements of the gap year. We know about the near-supersonic flier already, and we hear about the buff guys lifting 20 tons; the tall kid, who I’m calling “Stretch” in my head, doing some incredible body-bending stuff; and another guy running a marathon in one and a half minutes.

  Nora and Lia are up next. Some Hub workers roll a thick concrete wall, set on casters, onto the stage. The girls step up to it, hold hands, and practically melt through it. Then, almost without pause, they zap to the back of the room.

  “Teleportation of this type is common for Gifteds after a period of hard work, as these young ladies have been through. But you’re not here to see something common.” He nods toward Nora and Lia. “Ladies, let’s show them something phenomenal.”

  A pair of coordinates — longitude and latitude — flashes on the screen behind the announcer. The girls turn back, stare at it for a second, then look up — empty-eyed — and disappear. The camera changes to a scene of Times Square, and the girls appear there in a flash. Everyone leaps to their feet in a standing ovation. Elias stands and claps politely, but he looks the opposite of thrilled. He sucks in a deep breath when the girls appear back on the stage.

  “Oftentimes, twins show increased, more powerful or, in some cases, additional abilities when close to one another.”

  “It’s the genetics,” Elias murmurs, reciting some information it sounds like he’s memorized. “I’ve read theories that the twin genes duplicate the power or something.”

  “Your sisters?” I lean in and ask. I’m really asking, Your sisters and my brothers? Michael and Max are identical – the only way I could tell them apart for the longest time is a scar on Michael’s chin from where he crashed into a coffee table as a baby. And a couple years ago, they did figure out that when they hold hands, they’re faster speeding across the water. But we just thought it was a confidence thing because they were only eight or so.

  Elias shakes his head. “It wasn’t…I mean…no. They’re talking about identical twins. Identical. Nora and Lia are fraternal. They’re… It doesn’t make sense. That’s what I don’t get.” He sits on the edge of his seat, his legs bouncing.

  When the girls finally walk down with the rest of the Gap Year Gifteds to greet the audience members, it’s obvious. I can almost see their feet drag on their way off the stage. They head in our direction.

  Elias leans down to me and says, “Watch it. They’re both going to jump on me. Love pile. Weird family tradition.” He beams, but they still have the same plastic smiles and dragging walk.

  They don’t speed up as they get closer. That’s when I really know something’s off. Elias doesn’t seem to, yet, because he slings his arms around each of their necks and pulls them to him tight. They draw in toward him, but their movements are almost wooden. He whispers something in each of their ears, then draws back and turns to me, motioning me over.

  “Nora, Lia. This is my girlfriend, Merrin. Uh, the one I wrote you about.”

  I blush, maybe because I so seldom hear him refer to me that way. Maybe because he’s been telling his sisters about me, and I know how important they are to him. But I smile, too. A lot.

  “It’s great to meet you,” I say, extending a hand. They both nod at once. Nora shakes my hand first, and her fingers are like ice. Lia’s are the same.

  “Well,” Lia says, “we need to be back. See you soon, right, Elias?”

  “Um, yeah.” Elias swallows hard, and his eyebrows tent up. He hugs them to him tight again. “Love you girls,” I hear him whisper. They glance back at Elias and smile a little on the way out, not looking at us, but somehow beyond us.

  “Well,” I say, smiling. “That was good. You got to see them. They look tired, but…”

  “They would have teased me,” Elias interrupts. “They would have teased me, and they would have hugged you. They would have been so happy that I have a girlfriend, that I… And I would have made a joke about how someone’s playing their damn expensive drum set that they never used, you know?”

  Elias clenches his jaw, squeezes my hand hard. He doesn’t yell — he can’t, not here — but still. I’ve never seen him this angry. Never.

  “Elias. Elias,” I say, plaintively. He looks down at me, blinking hard. “They’re just tired. They’re working really hard here, right? You heard the presentation.”

  Elias shakes his head and clutches me to him, like I’m a substitute for both of them right now. I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze him back, as hard as I can.

  Elias strides out of the presentation hall, and I trot to keep up. He wants to get out of here, but I want to talk. I can’t keep what he said about the genes off my mind.

  “You said you were never powerful. Your One, I mean.”

  Elias nods. “Never could really do more than blow out candles on my birthday cake.”

  “Then how are we flying so fast? I mean, we’re fast, Elias. We’ve gotta be going over a hundred miles an hour now. The only reason we’re not going faster is…”

  “Our skin. I know. I already got windburned.” But he’s not really behind the words he’s saying. He looks at me, hard in the eye. Burning. Wanting to know something. “Can you float higher now?”

  My heart beats a mile a minute, and I actually feel like I’m going to do it now. Float. I haven’t felt this shaky around Elias since the first week I met him.

  My voice is barely above a whisper. “I could only go up like four feet before…you know.”

  Elias’s eyes widen. “Mer, we’re clearing 30, 40 feet…”

  “I know,” I say. I nod rapidly and swallow. “I know.”

  If I’m going to tell him about practicing on my own and about Mr. Hoffman, this is the time. This is when I need to do it. I can’t decide. I can’t. The two choices thrash around in my head. Tell him and keep this whole thing honest. Get closer to solving it together. Use Elias’s connection to figure out how we can fix the Oneness…but how can I do that to the boy I love? How can I admit that I’ve been keeping things from him, trying to break away from him?

  There’s plenty of time to tell him that. Plenty of time.

  Except we won’t be having this conversation again, I can feel it. He’s closing up more by the minute, since Nora and Lia walked out on the stage, not themselves.

  “I’ve been practicing,” I murmur, almost hoping he doesn’t hear me. He stops dead in his tracks, and my words rush out in a flood. “I’ve been practicing on my own, trying to go higher, and ever since we flew, I can, Elias.”

  “
And?” he asks, his eyes boring holes in me.

  “And what?”

  “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  Shit. Shit, he knows. He knows me too well for me to keep a single thing from him. I lower my eyes, stare down at my shoes. Then I think, no, I have to do this for real. I owe it to him.

  “I’ve been studying with someone. The grad-level chem.”

  “Who?”

  “One of my teachers from Superior, he’s — ”

  “What’s his name?” Each word that leaves his mouth punches me in the gut.

  I can’t look away from him, but I can’t say anything either.

  “It’s Hoffman, isn’t it?” Elias’s eyes burn.

  “Uh…yeah.” I stand up straighter. “Yes. So?”

  “Did he take your blood?”

  “It was mostly o-chem work, theories, tests.”

  “Did he take your blood, Merrin?” There is an edge of urgency to his voice that makes my heart stop.

  My eyes flare wide, and I nod.

  Elias breathes in sharply and mutters, “We have to get out of here.” He squeezes my hand and practically drags me down the hall with him.

  Our entire walk out is fast and silent. The doorway chirps its goodbye to us as it registers our cuffs leaving the building, and I don’t even get a chance to look back at the Hub before we’ve made it through the garage and into Elias’s car. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again, and just the thought of that makes a lump rise in my throat.

  “Mer.” Elias grabs my hand, squeezes it till my fingers scrunch together and it almost hurts.

  I don’t want to look at him, suddenly. I know he’s upset. I know, even though I never met his sisters before this, that there’s something wrong, something off with them. Something big. That’s because I know Elias. He’s about to lose his mind.

  “Let’s get out of here. You and me.”

  “Okay, yeah,” I say, smiling at him a little, rubbing his back. “We can hang out at my house, watch a movie, raid the junk food cabinet…”

  “No,” he says, and there’s a determined sort of glare in his eyes. “Let’s get out of town. You pack a bag, we’ll stuff everything in my car, we’ll leave tonight. No. In the next hour.”