Chapter 52

52

BUT KASEY DIDN’T JUMP.

As the mock swim meet went on without her, she stared at the approaching person, her face a haze like it’d been at Kasey’s party.

Yvone Yorkwell.

“Hey,” said the girl as she neared, in a swimskin like Kasey. “Bad timing, I know, but I’m pretty sure this is the only period we share and—”

“Less chitchatting, more swimming!” called their gym instructor from across the pool.

“—I just wanted to say, I watched your speech.”

Kasey felt her toes curl against the pebbled rubber of the starting platform.

“And it really resonated,” Yvone rushed to say. “So, let me know if there’s anything I can do. To contribute to the effort.”

Their gym instructor started walking over.

“There is no effort.” None Kasey was still a part of. P2C wouldn’t be expecting her return as a junior officer; she’d served her time, making a mockery of their trust on the international stage during it. Meridian and Kasey hadn’t spoken since that day in Territory 4, and as for Actinium, Kasey had deleted him as a contact while leaving GRAPHYC. She hadn’t looked back. That didn’t mean she didn’t regret her path. It’d been easy to refuse him in the moment, but harder to convince herself now—back in school, her environment mostly unchanged, surrounded by peers who didn’t understand her—that she was brave enough, human enough, simply enough to impact a world she, herself, often felt so distant from.

“There is no effort,” Kasey repeated when Yvone didn’t leave. Then, before their instructor could tell them again: “I have to swim.”

She jumped. The world roared, then went silent.

The water closed over Kasey’s head.