Free Divided by Elsie Chapman Page A

the outer ward train as just people. They’re now reduced to maybe thems. I don’t know what those Alts—my potential strikes—look like. They can be anywhere, anyone.
    Perhaps the girl near the front of the train, the one sleeping in her seat with her platinum hair half shielding her face. Or the boy across from me, reading on his cell while hearing nothing but the music blasting into his ears. Both would be easy to kill. Not girl or boy but each a target.
    It’s an ugly view, but a familiar one, too.
    And then there’s what’s behind me— who’s behind me.
    Two parents with a little kid. She’s got a messy bob of light brown hair, eyes nearly the same shade. Her face is round and unassuming and still way too young to fully realize what’s in store for her.
    She doesn’t look much like me when I was that young. Or like Ehm, either. Still. I’m hyperaware of her sitting in the seat behind me. When she laughs, the sound leaves me bewildered, curious … and thinking of Chord.
    Kids. A mix of him and me, the two others absolutely insignificant in this moment. How dominant would Chord’s features be, compared to mine? Where would one give and another take? Would they be stubborn, smart, skilled?
    The train pulls to a stop at the station. I make my way to the door and step off onto the streets of the Grid.
    It’s raining and completely dark out now and I pull my hood over my head. An inner ward train blasts by without stopping, heading down the same direction I need to go, and I swear under my breath. A particularly cool rivulet of rain runs down the side of my face and I decide not to wait until the next train comes. I want an end to this day.
    Across the street is a café, its windows steamed from the cooking going on inside. It reminds me that I’ve missed dinner, the takeout container still on the couch in that meeting room. I’m no longer hungry in the least.
    By the time I turn onto my street, I’m hunched over and soaked through and silently cursing the rain. Even this close to summer there’s not much relief. My own fault for not carrying an umbrel—
    “West.”
    My name comes out from the dark. He’s standing in front of my house right beneath the burnt-out streetlamp.
    “Chord?” I call out. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just coming over to see if you were home,” he says, stepping out from the shadows and closing the distance between us. It’s true; he obviously wasn’t planning on going any farther—he’s just as jacketless as he was when I left him back at school, despite the rain. It’s thinning his T-shirt, revealing the hard planes of his chest, dampening his brown hair. He’s smiling anyway, despite the question in his eyes. “You weren’t answering your cell …”
    “What?” My hand automatically goes for my jeans pocket before I remember that I turned it off earlier, when I was waiting in the meeting room. I forgot to turn it back on.
    “Sorry, I guess it must have died,” I lie. “But you have a house key …” I gave it to him for emergencies, but now that I think about it, he’s never used it. Though his place is so messy with all his tech projects lying around in different stages of progress as he waits for a certain part to show up. “Did you lose it?”
    “No, of course not,” he says with a low laugh. “And I can tell you were just picturing my room—”
    I have to smile back. “I was, yes.”
    “That key is one thing I’m careful to keep track of, West.” His eyes gleam a bit beneath the lamplight.
    “That’s good,” I say, my pulse taking a little leap.
    “And, well, as much as I wanted to see you, it didn’t feel right to call that an emergency.”
    “Like tempting fate, or something?”
    “Something.”
    “But now you’re all wet. You should have just waited for me to call—”
    Chord comes closer, pulls me to him. “Hi,” he says, interrupting me.
    “Hi.” So good to feel him again.
    He kisses me.