Inheritance

friends. You said you’d never forgive me—”

“I never said that—”

“That’s what it sounded like!”

Amber’s eyes were red-rimmed, and a surge of shame went through Reese, quickly followed by indignation. What did she have to be ashamed of? “Well, maybe you were right,” Reese said angrily. “Why should I forgive you? You might just lie to me again.”

Amber’s face crumpled. She drew her feet up onto the wall and wrapped her arms around her legs, and she looked so small and fragile that Reese almost moved to comfort her. She curled her hands into fists instead.

“Yes, I lied to you,” Amber said in a low voice. “I know I hurt you. I see that I hurt you a lot and I’m so, so sorry. But I thought it was necessary to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

Amber’s eyes gleamed as she looked at the water. “We were trying to keep it a secret—the fact that you and David had this procedure. Your government was suspicious already, and if they knew we were successful, they would try to take you.” Amber turned to Reese. “They did try to take you. I couldn’t tell you because we didn’t want to put you in any more danger.”

“But you guys just released me and David to them. You gave us to those men in black, and they brought us back to San Francisco and we didn’t know anything about what you did to us. Do you know how totally weird it was to be experiencing that adaptation ability without knowing what it was? We thought we were going crazy. How was that protecting us?”

Amber shook her head as if Reese wasn’t getting it. “We had to let you go. Your government suspected that we’d done something to you, but they didn’t know what it was. We told them that you’d just had a car accident and you were treated for those injuries. If we hadn’t released you, they would have suspected much sooner. You would never have gone home, period. You would still be stuck at Project Plato or maybe at Blue Base, being tested by the military. Your parents probably would have thought you died during that gas station explosion in Las Vegas. They would never have found you.”

Reese rubbed a hand over her face, trying to puzzle out the details of what Amber was saying. “That’s all hypothetical, but fine. Maybe it’s good you gave us to the men in black, but once we were home, why did you show up? You said you were supposed to make sure I was okay. Wouldn’t the government get suspicious when they saw you? Obviously they were following me.”

Amber sighed. “They didn’t know about me. I wasn’t part of Project Plato. I was a secret. So really, when it came down to it, I was the only one who could keep an eye on you in San Francisco. And I was told to not tell you what happened, because we were still trying to work out how much the government suspected. We also weren’t totally sure that the procedure had worked, so we didn’t think there was any use telling you until we were sure. Besides, what if I had told you who I was? Would you even have believed me? You would have thought I was insane.”

Reese sat in silence for a moment, absorbing Amber’s words. “Even if I had thought that, didn’t it ever occur to you that I deserved to know? What you guys did to me and David—it changed us in ways we still don’t understand. How could you justify keeping that a secret? The adaptation procedure might have saved our lives, but it also put us in the middle of some crazy chess game between the Imria and the government, and David and I aren’t pawns to be moved around whenever one of you changes your mind. We’re people, not test subjects. Even if it might have made sense to keep some of this a secret at the beginning, I can’t understand why you didn’t tell me once you started—once we started—” She still didn’t know what to call it, and she made a frustrated sound. “If you really liked me, why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Amber looked miserable. “Maybe I was being selfish.”

Reese’s forehead furrowed. “What?”

“You have to understand: Nothing happened the way I expected. I thought it would be, I don’t know, straightforward. Like I’d meet you and we’d hang out and I’d get a feel for whether you were having any symptoms of the adaptation, and that would be it. But…” She raised her gaze to Reese. “I didn’t expect you. The first time we met, I knew right away that I wanted to kiss you.” A faint blush colored Amber’s cheeks, and despite her defensiveness, Reese felt her own face warming up in response. “I let myself get carried away by my feelings. It was so much more fun—it made me feel so much more alive—to forget about who I really was and what I was supposed to be doing. I wanted to be with you and pretend like it was totally normal. I wanted to be an ordinary human girl who met another girl, and we liked each other and that was it. No complicated backstory to mess it all up.”

Amber paused, and all Reese could hear was the soft rush of waves upon the shore. “I shouldn’t have given in to what I wanted,” Amber continued. “What I did was wrong. I know that now, and I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you. You don’t know how sorry I am. But I’m not sorry that I fell in love with you.”

Reese froze. She stopped breathing; she didn’t blink. The only motion inside her was the suddenly rapid pounding of her heart. Amber’s eyes were shining, her expression strangely defiant, as if she wanted Reese to dare her to say it again.

“Why do you like me?” Reese finally asked. “You barely knew me. You still barely know me.”

Amber uncoiled from where she was sitting. She turned to face Reese, one leg hanging over the edge of the wall, the other bent so that her sneakered foot rested against the inside of her thigh. “Because there’s something in you that speaks to me,” she said. “If you want me to list the top ten reasons, I can’t. I only need one reason, and that reason is that you and I work together. We work. I could feel it the first time I touched you, and I didn’t need to read your mind to know it.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I meant it when I told you I’ve never felt that way about anyone else before. I never have. I’ve been with girls I liked, you know? I was attracted to them. They were fun. But you—when I was with you I felt free. I felt… human.”

Amber’s eyelashes were dark and wet. Her mouth was slightly open, her bare lips the color of coral, and the smudge of pink on her cheeks looked like someone had swept their thumbs over her skin before cupping her face in their hands. There was something ethereal about her at that moment, something fragile and unearthly, and for the first time, Reese saw another world in Amber’s face.

“If I could go back and tell you everything at the beginning, I would. I hope that someday you’ll forgive me. I just—” Amber’s voice broke, and she took a quick, deep breath. “I miss you. I miss you so much.” She reached for Reese’s hand, and Reese was so stunned that she let Amber take it. Her fingers were soft and warm, and Reese felt Amber open up, as if she were making an offering of herself with no strings attached.

It was impossible for her not to look.

It was like gazing into a spiral shell, pearlescent and luminous. As Reese’s resistance slowly disintegrated, she began to sense Amber’s emotions rippling one into another. First there was fear: fear that made Amber’s internal landscape hum with tension; fear that Reese would push her away. But as they remained connected, their fingers interlaced, Amber’s fear began to recede, and gradually Reese sensed something else. It was like the sun rising over the ocean, at first only a dim glow on the horizon, then a wash of pink over the blue-gray sky, until at last a golden eye blinked open on the edge of the sea. Hope, weighted with all of Amber’s mistakes and regrets and desires. Hope that Reese would forgive her, that she would let Amber in again.

It was one of the most seductive things Reese had ever felt. She couldn’t help but be swayed by it, like a hummingbird drawn to the deep pink bloom of a fuchsia flower on a warm summer day. The hard-edged ache that had been buried deep within her ever since she discovered Amber had lied to her began to soften, and her eyes grew hot.

This was why Eres wanted her to talk to Amber, of course. To face this ache. Reese felt so stupid. She could never connect with another person if she didn’t acknowledge this part of herself, this bruised heart. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it heal, and imprisoning it behind a wall of defensiveness only served to suffocate herself. She drew in a trembling breath.

Please, Amber thought. Please give me another chance.

Amber reached out with her free hand and touched Reese’s cheek, her fingers trailing sparks over Reese’s skin. All of gravity seemed to bend toward Amber, and Reese leaned in. She was so close she could almost feel the breath from Amber’s lips on hers. If she moved one more centimeter, they would be kissing.

David.