But I know when I’m lying to myself.
If there were a manhunt ongoing, there would be clamor and commotion. This world is unapologetically loud. Its people are frivolous and reckless; they make no effort to silence their lives or emotions. They are not afraid enough of their own government.
Something is wrong.
Crickets chirp merrily into the quiet. A single pedestrian strolls down the sidewalk in the distance, too busy peering up at the moon to notice me. Her dog barks once, reasonably, at a flash of movement, and I tense—
Just a rabbit, darting under a bush.
I stand there a moment longer, watching the pedestrian disappear along the path. No one else appears. No new sounds are introduced. I lift my head up by degrees, turning toward the moon as the stranger did. Fear raises the fine hairs along my nape, my instincts telling me to pay attention, and as I study the sky, searching its depths, I feel my chest constrict.
The scene warps as if underwater.
It lasts less than a second—nearly undetectable—but I stare up at the anomaly long enough to witness it again: another quick blur of the moon, a glitch of a cloud.
Panic shatters under my skin.
I know what an electromagnetic force field looks like. Itcould stop a meteor. It would neutralize a nuclear weapon.
I’m gripped by vivid, escalating fear. I wonder, standing there in the dark, my eyes pinned to the sky, what other secrets this strange world holds.
“Cool, right?” he says, his voice carrying as he approaches.
I close my eyes, my shields dissolving, my heart screaming. I will the ground to open up and inhale me.
“What’d you say earlier?” James closes the distance between us. “Something about our world being held together with tape?”
36
Rosabelle
I go nearly lightheaded at his approach, my sensory load roaring brutally back to life as the frigid night skins me alive. I can’t feel my extremities. My lips have gone numb. I’m wearing thin, overly starched cotton basics on a winter night. Short sleeves. No underwear.
My body starts shaking.
I can’t decide how to feel about what he does to me. I love it. I hate it. I don’t even fully understand it.
And it keeps getting worse.
Being around James is like gasping for air after nearly drowning; there’s a horrifying relief in his proximity, a violent shock to my nervous system.
Pleasure and pain, over and over.
“Rosabelle,” he says quietly. “Come here.”
“There’s no way out of this place,” I say, my voice breaking.
“Not for you.”
When I don’t move he reaches for my hand, tugging me toward him, and the slide of his fingers against my palm is enough to stun my heart, threads of electric feeling quickening through my blood. The heightened sensation is so destabilizing I can’t withstand it for long; I draw away from him with a trembling breath, as if I’ve been burned.
“You can’t,” I say, panicking. “W-We can’t—”
“We can’t what?”
“You have to stay away from me,” I say, taking a step back. “I can’t get close to you or I—I might—”
He stills. “You might what?”
