15

Roman walked me to the apartment. He didn't stay, but he didn't leave immediately. One moment he was at the door, on his way out, and the next moment he was striding back inside and gathering me in his arms for a very passionate, very thorough kiss.

His coat was unbuttoned and I snaked my arms inside and around him, our bodies pressed so close together, there was no place where I ended and he started. His breaths were mine as his kiss devoured me. He was pine and ash, hard where I was soft, lean muscle that rippled beneath my exploring fingertips, an elusive, exotic spice that I apparently craved.

Small groans escaped around our kiss, his or mine, I had no idea.

By the time his lips slanted off mine, I was breathless and boneless.

A grin shaped his sexy mouth, and he stood there another long minute, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head at me, as if I was the one who'd broken his ‘no more kisses' rule. He looked so sinfully hot with his roughed up hair and that wicked gleam in his eyes, I almost broke it all over again.

He didn't give me the chance. "Lock the door and don't leave the apartment until daylight."

"Even though it's perfectly safe here," I mimicked from the instructions he'd already given me the first time he'd started to go. No unsavory elements intruded on Gardens. The Protectorate made sure of it. "I won't do anything stupid and you don't have to worry. I'm not scared to stay here alone."

If for no other reason than Roman would never leave me here by myself if he thought there was any possibility of danger.

We shared a look, then he said goodbye and left, this time for real.

I fell into sleep with a smile and woke up the next morning to a cold, empty apartment. The electrics hadn't turned on yet and the portable heater had run down its charge during the night. I tried to hold onto that smile as I ate breakfast from yesterday's bread and packed up my belongings, but some of it chipped away.

Roman would be here shortly to walk me back, and I wasn't sure how last night's romance would translate behind Capra's walls.

He was a warden.

I was in the Sisterhood.

It felt like everything between us had changed, but that hadn't changed at all.

I wasn't ready for this interlude in The Smoke to be over.

Capra was my home, however, and I had to fight for it, not hide out here forever.

When the lights came on, I had a quick shower and then brewed coffee, which I took with me out on the balcony.

The sky was dull and overcast, and there wasn't a breath of wind.

Below, the streets were busy with people who had some place to be. Now that I knew about the balanced gender ratios here, it was impossible to miss. Activities in Capra were often separated, so it wasn't unusual to be in solely female company, but those times it was mixed, the male presence always dominated heavily.

The flow of foot traffic on the street below had no bias.

There was more or less the same number of women to men, and they appeared to have equally important places to be.

The concept of sperm sorting fell way outside my comfort boundaries. The theory was great, but there was something disturbing about selecting gender like you'd select a dress from the rack in a shop.

Then again, if science hadn't intervened, the human race would be extinct. I didn't have the knowledge or wisdom to judge.

The question I was really asking myself, was how I felt about the double standard between Capra and The Smoke.

Sure, I heard what Roman said.

In Capra, the goal was to fix nature.

In Capra, the aim was to keep everything as natural as possible.

In Capra, it was our responsibility to reverse the damage of the plague for the greater good of all mankind.

In Capra, women went without some basic human rights all in the name of de-stressing and de-cluttering and damn well de-living.

It was all starting to feel like that put a lot of onus onto us, while everyone else went on about their merry, old world lives.

Big, brown hair bunched into side ponytails grabbed my attention. I leaned over the balcony, tracking the hair, until a man brushed shoulders with the woman and she half-turned and I caught sight of Jenna's face.

Excitement exploded through me. "Jenna! Jenna!"

Considering I was squealing like a banshee, I was surprised only the odd person glanced up at me on the balcony. One of them was Jenna, and I waved frantically.

She cut across the square, her face turned up to me, her mouth hanging open. "It really is you."

I couldn't believe she was here, standing below the balcony. I grinned silly, staring down. She looked just the same, same old Jenna with her simple ponytails and alert blue eyes and dimpled chin. She was even dressed the same, in baggy linen trousers and a navy puff jacket.

I was still staring when she darted out of sight.

"Wait," I called, but she was gone.

I hurried inside to unlock the door and raced out into the passage, and almost collided head-on as she came bounding up the stairs, red-faced and out of a breath.

She flapped her hands at me. "Oh, my God!"

"How did you find me?" I exclaimed. "The woman at the community center said you wouldn't get my message until next week."

"Lydia told me someone had come looking for me, that she'd sent them to the center." Jenna dug a fist into her side and groaned. "Kill me now, I'm so unfit." She pulled on a breath, looking at me, shaking her head. "I went to the center last night and when I saw the note was from a Georga, I immediately thought of you, but that would be impossible, right? I couldn't shake it, though, so here I am. I seriously can't believe it."

"Believe it." I dragged her inside the apartment by the arm and kicked the door closed.

"What did you do?"

"What? Nothing?"

She slapped my shoulder. "What did you do to get tossed out of Capra?"

"Oh, that." I grimaced. "I didn't? I'm not really here, okay? Someone helped me, but I'm not supposed to be here and no one knows. And I can't stay. Actually, I'm just about on my way back."

"You snuck out of Capra?" She sounded totally impressed. "How?"

"I can't say," I said to her. "I'm sorry, but I really can't, and you can't ever say anything about this."

"As if." She slapped my shoulder again. "I'm not a snitch."

My grin returned. "I know."

"This is so crazy." She did a slow spin, looking around the apartment. "Who's place is this?"

I pursed my mouth.

She rolled her eyes. "Right, you can't say."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said. "This is so freaking amazing. You have no idea. I never thought I'd ever see anyone from home again."

"Would you like a coffee?" I made my way toward the hot plate. "I've just brewed a fresh pot."

Her groan was not unlike my whimpered groans in Roman's arms last night. "You have coffee."

"I'll take that as yes." I poured us each a fresh cup and brought it over to the table. "Is it lonely here? Is it hard? You must miss your family and…everything, all of us. But you look good, and you're a teacher?"

"That's a lot of questions." Jenna giggled as she perched on the couch arm. "I'm not really a teacher, not like at an academy or anything."

"Yeah, I heard there's no formal education here." I settled at the chair across the table from her. "But you still teach.

Her eyes sparkled. "I do."

I just looked at her, and looked and looked, because I could. "I'm so happy I got to see you."

"Same here." She sipped on her coffee and her entire body seemed to deflate. "Okay, now I'm really dead and this is heaven."

"You don't get coffee beans here?"

"You can get just about anything here," she said dryly. "Now ask me if I can afford it."

I leaned in, elbows on the table, and asked the one thing I desperately wanted to know. "Do you have any regrets?"

Her expression dimmed, and the sheer delight in my mood crashed.

"You do have regrets."

"Do you?" she threw back at me.

I was confused. "Regrets about what?"

"About staying? About marrying a stranger…" Her eyes widened. "Oh, crap, what happened about Daniel Edgar? Did he offer? Did you accept? Is that who you married?"

"That's a lot of questions," I bounced back, since that's what we were doing. But I was stalling as well. I didn't know if there was any point, how easily she could find out that this apartment belonged to Roman West, but I figured the less I offered, the better.

Jenna wasn't having any of my stalling. "Are you seriously not going to tell me?"

"It's not Daniel," I said, and I heard the bite in my voice. Whatever else, rejection wasn't pretty. "He's married to Brenda."

"You're kidding." The way she looked at me, she was waiting for the punchline.

"That's all the gossip you're getting about that," I said with a laugh, then grew serious and rephrased my original question. "Are you happy?"

"I'm happier than I would've been if I'd stayed. Some days, that sounds like happiness. Other days, not so much." She shrugged. "I don't know about regrets. I kinda feel like I wish there'd been a third option, you know? If I had to do it all over again, I guess I'd make the same choice."

That sentiment resonated with me, more deeply than I could ever let her know. If I had to choose a husband all over again, even in some alternative reality where Daniel had offered for me, knowing what I knew now, feeling as I did now, I would choose Roman.

And it didn't matter which side of the walls you were on, we all wished there was a third option. There wasn't. There was only the Sisterhood, for me, and working to improve the options we did have.

We chatted for about an hour, about life back in Capra, about her life here. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, as Roman continually warned me. Credits were doled out weekly and if you didn't work, or couldn't work, there was no other support mechanism in place. She had barely enough to live on, certainly not enough to move out of the dormitories, and on top of that, the Grabough family took their cut.

"They call it a protection service." She snorted. "But it's okay, you just have to learn the system and go with it. And there are other ways to boost my weekly credits." She brightened, her brow hitching. "Guess what? I can have children, as many as I want. And I don't even have to be married. I don't even have to keep them."

There was so much there to unpack. "How do you have children and not keep them?"

"The Protectorate takes care of them."

The Gardens Children Home. Roman had said he'd never known his parents, neither had Amelia, he'd said that wasn't uncommon in The Smoke.

Was he one of these children that were had, and not kept? "But why would anyone do that? Why have a child if you don't want it?"

Jenna rubbed her middle finger and thumb together. "Credits. The Protectorate is always trying to increase the population. For every child, you get fifty credits per week for life. That's about what I get at the community center. Two children, and I can move out of the dorm into my own place."

A shiver went through me. Jenna had always been different, but never hard, never cold and ruthless. "That sounds an awful lot like selling your babies."

Which made me think of Amelia, and how she'd been sold, and my stomach churned.

"That's exactly what it is," she said. "But isn't that what's happening in Capra? They dress it up all nice and pretty, but it's really not. Women are basically baby-making machines. Just because you raise your own children, doesn't mean it isn't still just all a factory line. Your children don't belong to you. Well, not your daughters, that's for sure. We belong to Capra. Theirs to do with as they damn well please."

I begged to differ. Okay, there was some merit there, pressure to have as many children as your allocated allowance of eggs allowed…Wait. What? "You said you could have as many children as you want? What about the limited supply?"

"You don't know?"

I squinted at her. "Know what?"

"Oh. My. God." She fanned herself with a hand. "You're not going to believe this!"

I thought I was prepared for anything, for every lie, for every earth-shattering revelation, for every blind betrayal.

But what Jenna told me next…?

I was not prepared for that.

My blood turned to ice and my pulse raced, chasing that chill through my veins.

Jenna left soon after. She had a previous engagement, somewhere to be. I didn't ask. She seemed to think she'd see me again, that I had some free pass to move between Capra and The Smoke as I liked.

I didn't correct her.

I smiled, and I assumed I said all the right things as I walked her down the stairs and waved goodbye, because she didn't seem to notice anything off, but everything was off. I was cold, so very cold and numb, inside and out. I was a marble statue in a snow blizzard.

I was still cold and numb to the bone when Roman arrived. I'd left the door ajar after seeing Jenna out, and he walked right in.

His gaze landed on me, and his jaw softened.

The affect was lost on me. A million thoughts and feels buzzed around me, threatening to penetrate my shield. If I let one in, I'd have to let them all in, and I would explode.

I jumped up from my perch on the edge of the bed and shrugged into my coat. I'd cleaned up last night's pasta disaster and I'd rinsed out the coffee cups. The apartment was ready to be left, and I was ready to leave it. "Let's go."

Unlike Jenna, he noticed something was seriously wrong. He came to a dead stop in the middle of the room, his eyes hooding. "What have I done now?"

"Nothing." I grabbed my overnight bag from the bed and slid it over my shoulder.

"Georga."

I swept around him and out the door. "The keys are on the table."

I knew my way out The Smoke and to the train tunnel. If he wanted to catch up, he had the extra leg length to do so.