Elite

Sylvie was breathless by the time the light of the bonfire came back into view. Rather than burst out the doors at her current pace, Sylvie pulled herself to a halt just before and passed through them in a forced, but leisurely gait. She was immediately thankful for the emphatic roar of conversation and laughter that greeted her outside, hopeful that it was enough to mask the hammering of her heart. She spied Jules across the lawn and was met almost instantly with her watchful gaze.

She had been waiting for her.

Sylvie started toward her, rehearsing her excuse for being tardy, when she felt the touch of a hand on her back. Instinctively she recoiled away, the memory of Rex’s malice still fresh in her mind. But when her eyes fell on the source, she found the hand belonged not to her attacker, but to Jack instead.

“There you are,” he said, stepping promptly in her path. He studied her face and Sylvie watched as worry chased away his casual grin. “Are you ok?” Whatever he had originally planned to say was immediately forgotten for the one question she had hoped to avoid.

“I’m fine,” Sylvie said, waving away his query with the flick of a wrist. “Just a little tired is all.” She smiled weakly and hoped he would take the frailty of her expression for proof of her fatigue rather than a challenge to her reply. Luckily, Jack’s attention had been drawn away from her face all together and instead to the book she still held in her hand.

“Did you get a chance to look at the story I marked for you?” he asked, nodding toward the gift turned weapon. Having forgotten about book all together, it took Sylvie a moment to register just what Jack was asking.

“Oh!” she said, realization dawning on her. Sylvie’s eyes flew to the little volume in her grasp and then back to Jack’s quizzical stare. “No not yet,” she laughed self-consciously and tucked the book away again into her pocket. “But I will.”

She knew in an instant she had spoken too earnestly; her words revealing far more than she had intended to say. Lifting her eyes to Jack’s face, Sylvie watched the corners of his mouth lift again into a smile. The sight of it there caused her heart to pound again—this time for a much more frightening reason.

At that moment she would have traded the warmth she felt spread through her at Jack’s closeness for the violence of Rex’s advance. At least she had a weapon against him. There was no defense for the way Jack turned her insides to butter. The only thing she could do was stay away, but even as the warnings screamed in her head, Sylvie found herself taking a step toward him.

She told herself it was because he stood between her and her destination across the yard, but when she breathed in the warm smell of him—clean air and flame—she knew it was a lie. Sylvie opened her mouth to speak, but before she could confess what she was feeling or excuse herself, the swell of music muted her altogether.

Sylvie turned to find the source and spotted a small group that had formed near the center of the lawn. A trip of ramshackle violins fanned around an elderly man who had draped a worn, wooden guitar over his equally worn knee. With his silver capped head bent low over the neck, his fingers danced out a soft and melancholy tune. The hum of the violins blended seamlessly in a harmony unlike any Sylvie had ever heard before. It was rich and full and it spoke to her as plainly as any spoken lyric.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed and for a moment she forgot everything but the hypnotizing drift that filled the air.

“Would you like to dance?” Jack asked. He held out his hand to her and before she could come up with a reason to refuse, Sylvie took it in her own.

Jack led her over to the makeshift dance floor next to the small band where the music wrapped around her like Jack’s arms. Drawing her in close, Jack steered Sylvie around their own little square of ground on practiced feet, his skilled spins making her head dizzy with excitement.

Sylvie had always loved to dance, even since she was a little girl. It was the only thing she had ever experienced that was both freeing and controlled at the same time. The rhythm of the music told her body what to do, leaving her mind free to roam.

Subconsciously, Sylvie knew she should be thinking about the plan involving her father or even what would come of her altercation with Rex, but as she pressed her body closer to Jack’s, all of that worry felt so far away. Even the watchful eye of Jules, which she knew full well was honed into her every move was of no consequence to her. In that moment, she did not feel like a fearful outsider or a pawn in some top-secret game. Right then she was just a girl dancing with a boy.

Some time well into the haunting ballad, Jack bent low until his lips were a whisper away from Sylvie’s ear. “I have been meaning to tell you,” he said, Sylvie’s skin sizzling under the caress of his warm breath. In the instant before Jack continued, her mind filled with every possible thing he may say next.

Every possibility but one.

“I’m sorry.” His words were plain, simply stated, and confused her more than any two words should.

“What?” she asked, pulling back to look up into his face. Out of habit, she searched his features for insincerity, but only found herself suddenly suspended in the space before a kiss. “Why are you sorry?” Sylvie spoke so softly that she wasn’t sure she had actually spoken at all. Watching him then, Sylvie saw every facet of his expression—everything he had been keeping in and hiding behind his cool smile. She recognized sorrow and regret and the shadow of something she could not quite place.

“You never should have been mixed up in all of this,” he said, unblinking. “And it is my fault that you are.” Sylvie could not argue with his logic. It was his fault she had been taken from her home and thrown in the middle of such a monumentous conflict, but as she stared up into his troubled face all she could do was think about erasing the lines of worry she saw there.

“I understand now that you did what you had to do,” Sylvie said, zeroing in on the rationality of the situation. “You had a mission and I got in the way.” As she spoke, Sylvie realized that to this day, she still had no idea what that mission had been. She started to ask, but stopped short when she saw Jack’s anguish had only settled deeper into his features. Sylvie lifted her brow, silently asking a much different question.

“That’s not all,” Jack said, softly answering. “Most of all, I am sorry that I am not actually sorry.” He looked at her then, so intently that Sylvie was sure he was peeling away the layers of her soul searching for her most honest reaction. But even she did not know what it was.

“What do you mean?” she puzzled, sure she had heard him wrong. “Not sorry about what?”

“That you are here,” Jack said, his voice growing in timber. “That I met you. I am not sorry about that. It has only made me want to know you more. I always thought people from New Eden were the enemy and you have shown me that I could be wrong.”

Sylvie felt as though Jack was reading her mind yet again and she was sure when she spoke it would in agreement. But doubt, as it tends to do, crept in and crept right back out her mouth. “But you barely know me,” she said, adding up all the time they had spent together and finding it wanting.

The way he saved her accounted for far more than time in her mind, but she could not think of a single scenario Jack had witnessed that provided the same. “I have seen enough,” Jack said. He lifted his hand from where it held her at the waist and brushed a stray lock of hair from Sylvie’s eyes. His touch, soft like butterfly wings, sent a flutter across Sylvie’s skin and caused her lashes to do the same.

“Besides,” Jack continued, drawing her eyes open again. “You have quite the little fan club around here. Ellena apparently has nothing but wonderful things to say about you. And I put a lot of stake in the opinions of children. They always have a way of seeing what adults cannot.”

“What did she say?” Sylvie asked, wanting desperately to know what testimony had earned her such a place in Jack’s mind. “And how do you know?”

“Doc told me,” Jack said. “He said Ellena just went on and on about the nice girl who told her fun stories and sang her pretty songs.”

It was the same thing Sylvie’s mother had always done for her as a child. It had felt natural to pass it on to the little girl with her name. “My mother’s name was Ellena,” Sylvie said. She stared off, wishing she could look all the way into the past and see her face again. “She was killed when I was little. By Rebels.” Once the words were said, Sylvie knew they could not be taken back. They hovered there between them like the wall they seemed to build.

Just then, Sylvie did not feel very much like dancing anymore.

“Jules is waiting for me,” she said, breaking their embrace before Jack could comment. “Thank you for the dance.” Without another word, Sylvie turned and walked away. She did not dare to look back.

She found Jules waiting for her with a mob of emotions fighting for the winning place, front and center on her face. Jealously and doubt were tied for first. “You were gone a long time,” Jules said, her eyes still glued to Jack where Sylvie had left him across the yard.

“I don’t feel well,” Sylvie said as a way of explaining at least part of her prolonged absence. And it wasn’t a lie. Her insides were knotted past the point of comfort. They churned and twisted and for a second, Sylvie really did think she was going to be sick. She was even convincing enough for Jules.

Once the girl managed to pry her eyes away from the object of her affection, she ran them up and down Sylvie’s form. “You do look pale,” she said, but whether or not she agreed for Sylvie’s sake or her own was unclear.

“I think I am ready to call it a night,” Sylvie said, it occurring to her that the reason did not matter. She had her way out, so she took it. “Do you mind coming with me back to our room? I don’t feel much like being alone.” Sylvie gave Jules her best attempt at a pleading look and it worked without fail.

“Of course!” Jules said, so sincerely that Sylvie almost felt guilty for taking her away from her Celebration. At least until she saw Rex slink back into the shadows surrounding the bonfire. His eyes threw daggers at her, but he made no move to approach.

Instead, he sidled up next to the nearest cask of wine and drank deep. As Sylvie watched him, she saw Jack make his way to Rex’s side at the perimeter of the party and she wondered how the two of them could possibly be more different.

But as she turned away, Sylvie knew their differences didn’t really matter. Her father was coming and no differences would matter to him. Even if, deep down, they made all the difference to her.