“The antidote,” she murmurs to me before she swallows it. She makes a face. “Ugh, so bitter.”
“The antidote?” I shake my head in disbelief. “You’d planned for him to ask you to do something like that.”
She blinks. “Of course,” she replies. “You always have an antidote for every concoction you make. We feed our customers this stuff.”
I realize with a pang that she still talks about the apothecary as if her father were alive. “You handled that like you’ve always known how to do it,” I say.
She shakes her head, then motions for me to sit down on the bed beside her. “With any luck, he’s going to be down and feverish all night, tossing and turning in bed. I don’t expect him to wake up until late morning.”
I nod. “It should give us enough time to work,” I reply.
She looks at me. That lopsided smile I know so well from her appears on her lips, and for a second, it looks like she’s going to leanforward and kiss me. My heart leaps in terror and excitement at the thought.
I don’t know if Pressa saw something in my expression, because she abruptly backs away and clears her throat. “Remember the first drone race I ever took you to?” she says instead. “You were shaking so bad, I thought you were going to pass out.”
I laugh along with her nervously. It had only been a couple of years ago, but I felt ages younger then. “It was the first time I’d ever been to the Undercity, period,” I reply. “You didn’t even give me a heads-up. You just tossed me right into the fray with the bets and the crowds.”
“I was saving you some time. It’s better to jump into cold water all at once, instead of painfully edging yourself in.”
“Right.”
We’re silent for a moment. “Let’s say we succeed in all of this,” I say in a low voice. “Let’s say everything just resets back to how it used to be. Are you going to be okay? Your father?… His shop?”
Pressa shrugs, trying to play it cooler than I know she feels. “If we make it out of here in one piece, maybe the AIS will help out Dad’s apothecary, give me a stipend that lets me pay for the repairs.” Her words trail off, and for a moment, we sit in silence, the weight of her father’s death pressing down on us.
“I mean, I might have some connections,” I say to her. But I feel a pang in my chest. If for some reason our plan to interfere with the Level system doesn’t work, Pressa’s going to go back to her life in the Undercity, battling her way through the Levels just like everyone else. I can see the struggle in her eyes as she thinks the same thing.
Finally, she looks down and says, “If we make it out of all this, I’dlike to leave the Undercity,” she says. “Go somewhere new. Find an adventure.” She’s silent for another beat. “I stayed for my father. Now he’s gone, and I don’t know what to do.”
Then she laughs and shakes her head, as if this is an impossible dream forever out of her reach.
I touch her hand. “You’ll know,” I tell her. “You always have.”
Pressa gives me a tired smile. We sit without speaking for a moment before she looks at me again. “Do you feel sorry for Hann?” she asks, her voice softer now. “I mean—I’m not saying that he’s someone we should sympathize with, but…”
Do I feel sorry for him? I’m about to say no, of course not… but something makes me stop. I think of the way Hann has to have his medicine tested. “A little,” I end up replying. And I realize that maybe she’s asking because she does.
Pressa nods down at the medicine bag she tossed onto the bunk bed between us. “I think he might have been trustworthy, a long time ago. He has the characteristics of someone from the Undercity, you know? You always find a way to make things work, until the world makes it impossible. And even then, you have to hang on.”
I’m quiet at her words. The world had thrown Pressa out, and yet she somehow still managed to hold on to the goodness in herself, had never truly wavered from what was right. And I found myself wondering about the fine lines in our lives that turn us one way or the other—that the hardships my brother or June faced twisted them in one direction, while Hann went in another.
“When this is all over,” I finally say, “I’m going back to the Republic.”
Pressa smiles again. It’s a sadder expression this time, like she’dknown all along, and the sadness twists my heart into a knot. “I never thought you were going to stay here in Antarctica,” she replies.
I look at her. “You didn’t?”
“Eden, you’ve lived your whole life with your shoes pointed in the direction of the Republic. That glint’s in your eyes every time I see you. It’s where you belong.” She puts a hand on my arm, and I think back to when she’d helped me up after the others in the university had shoved me to the ground. I think about what she’s doing right now, with me. If I head back to the Republic, I won’t get to lean on Pressa anymore.
“I…” I don’t know how to finish my sentence. I’ll miss her? I’ve liked her ever since we first became friends? That when we hang out late at night, I love watching her beautiful eyes flash in the dim light, reflecting the glow of everything around her?
She just smiles at me and leans closer. “Just visit me sometimes, okay?” she whispers. “So I can see how you’re doing.”
I swallow, searching for a good way to tell her how I feel. And in the middle of that search, I realize that what I’ve wanted to do all along was just to show her.
I lean toward her in the silence. Then I kiss her.
It’s a light kiss, my lips gentle against hers. She stiffens in surprise at my gesture, enough for me to pull away and give her a hesitant look. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so forward about it.
