“THIS IS THE craziest party we’ve ever thrown,” Avery whispered to Atlas, their bodies pressed together in the tiny linen closet. She’d been aching for this moment since the night began. It had been exquisite torture: meeting Atlas’s eyes across the room, letting their hands graze as they walked past each other, but unable to do anything more until they snuck away just now.
“Ending on a high note,” he answered, and kissed her.
Avery marveled at the illicit thrill of it, of being wrapped up in the boy she loved—the boy she planned on running away with, in just a few days—when their classmates were just meters away down the hall. It was insane.
She leaned into Atlas, wanting to rip his shirt off button by button and pull him down onto the fluffy towels, but instead she accidentally knocked his head back into the shelf. He cursed, wincing.
“I’m sorry!” Avery exclaimed, stepping back.
“No, I’m sorry.” Atlas laughed ruefully. “I would have brought us to my room, but it was already occupied.”
“Mine too!” Normally Avery would have been furious that some couple was in her bedroom. But standing here with Atlas, her hair disheveled and her blue dress covered in fluffs of white bath mat, she didn’t care about any of it. “I guess that’s the sign of a great party,” she added.
“Like I said, we’re going out with a bang.” Atlas leaned over to drop one more kiss on her lips. “See you out there,” he murmured, and slipped into the hallway. Avery counted to twenty before heading the other direction, unable to wipe the grin from her face.
It was a great party. Avery tried to savor every detail so she could recount them all someday when she and Atlas were old and gray together, living happily ever after. Earlier this afternoon they’d directed the bots to push the living room furniture against the walls, clearing a dance floor in the middle. Now the room was crushed with people, all of them laughing and drinking and having a good time. Gleaming bottles of booze were arrayed on the counter, constantly being replaced from the order she’d placed earlier. Music blasted from the speakers, the volume adjusting to match the voice level. And so far, at least, no one had done anything stupid.
But Avery would have remembered this party forever even if it had turned out to be a total disaster. She treasured every single moment of her time with Atlas, especially now that they’d finally discovered their love for each other.
She wandered toward the dance floor, seeing Risha there with Scott Bandier—that was a new development—and Jess with Patrick, as always. If only she could dance for even a minute with Atlas. Then again, she reminded herself with another irrepressible smile, they had the rest of their lives to dance together.
A hand clamped on her arm like a vise. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Avery gasped. Leda looked terrible. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, highlighting the severe architecture of her face. Her features were drawn and tired, her mouth a thin line. She seemed frail, somehow, in her geometric-printed dress, as if her body were running on nothing but sheer willpower—and drugs.
Avery knew this look; it was the way Leda used to be before exams sometimes, when she’d popped one too many xenperheidren. She would be amped up all day, take the test, then go home and sleep it off. Avery had never really approved, but every time she mentioned it Leda would clam up and get defensive.
Leda let go of her arm. She was shaking with agitation. “I can’t believe you. You’re a terrible friend, you know that? Not to mention, you’re disgusting,” she spat.
“Leda. What did you take?” Avery asked, gently pulling her friend to the side of the room.
“Back off!” Leda raised her voice, clearly not caring whether she made a scene. A few people glanced their way, eyebrows raised. “I know,” Leda said. “So don’t mess with me, okay?”
Avery felt a nervous rush of apprehension. She didn’t dare speak. She was trying to read Leda’s eyes, which were darting wildly all over the party. A sick instinct told her that Leda was searching for Atlas.
“Where is he?” Leda hissed.
“Who?” Avery asked, as innocently as she could.
“Your brother! Or should I say your lover?”
Avery felt sick, as if the world were tilting dangerously. Leda had spoken the words almost at a whisper, and the roar of the room had risen so high that Avery was pretty sure no one had heard—yet. She couldn’t afford to take any chances.
“Can we talk about this in private?” she asked, with all the dignity she could. She looked directly into Leda’s eyes. “Please. For the sake of all our years of friendship. Please don’t do this, not here.”
Something of the old Leda flashed in her eyes, and she sagged a little, as if she’d been strumming along through sheer outrage and now lacked the propulsion to keep herself upright. “Fine,” she conceded. “For a couple of minutes.”
Avery nodded. It was the best she was going to get right now. “Follow me,” she said, pasting a wooden smile on her face, nodding to everyone they passed as if all were well. As if she and her best friend were off to refresh their makeup together and exchange bits of gossip, not threaten each other with their darkest, most private secrets.
But everywhere she went there were people. Her and Atlas’s bedrooms, the library, the greenhouse: the party had sent its tendrils throughout the apartment. Every room had someone in it, passed out or making out or a combination thereof. Avery felt Leda growing restless next to her, a silent time bomb ticking down.
Then Avery got the idea that would change everything, forever.
“Here,” she said, pushing open the door to the pantry and reaching for the hidden handle. “No one will be up here. We can talk in total privacy.”
She grabbed the ladder and it retracted down, revealing a tiny square of midnight-blue sky above them. It was a sign of how upset Leda was that she didn’t even react to the existence of a hidden rooftop above Avery’s apartment. She just inclined her head a little and said, her voice cold as ice, “You first.”
Her Italian leather stilettos slipping a little on the rungs of the ladder, Avery started the climb up into the darkness.
LEDA
LEDA STEPPED FORWARD unsteadily into the wind. Her instincts should have been screaming at her to go back down the ladder, but those instincts were muffled under a powerful cocktail of xenperheidren and several other pills whose names she’d forgotten. Right now the xenperheidren was keeping her in check, if a little glazed over and tightly wound. But already there were starting to be strange distortions in her vision, shapes elongating and shadows brightening. It was all pleasant and bright, like a children’s carnival holo.
“Hooking up with your brother, a hidden rooftop.” She turned around to face Avery. “How many other secrets is perfect Avery Fuller hiding?”
“There’s no need to be cruel.” Avery stood there unmoving. The moonlight glimmered on the silver-blue of her dress, making her look like some ancient Greek statue of a goddess.
“There’s a need for whatever I say there is,” Leda said viciously. Up here on the roof, so close to the stars, she felt young and alive and hateful. “So, you and Atlas. What do you think your parents will say when they find out?”
“How did you find out?” Avery asked quietly.
“I have my ways.” Like hell Leda was going to tell Avery about Watt. Although there was a beautiful poetic justice to it: that the boy who’d fallen hopelessly for Avery was the one to spill her darkest secret.