Free The Revealed by Jessica Hickam Page A

being a child again, laughing and feeling the world at my fingertips. At the center is a small, circular clearing—a marker to prevent people from getting completely lost. I lie on the ground in the center of the circle, spreading my fingers along the dirt. I close my eyes and breathe in the air, smiling as the sun kisses my face, neck, and legs.
    Kai breaks through just behind me, and I can hear him stop.
    Silence fills the space between us.
    “What?” I ask, not opening my eyes, though I can feel his gaze.
    He shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, and sits down beside me. “Out of all the places you could go … ?”
    I shrug. “I feel comfortable here.”
    In fact, lying here in the dirt, I feel better than I have in a long time. I stretch out and know that these fields continue for as far as the eye can see. No fences in sight. The sky above me has no limits. All the stress about The Revealed and the unknown seems to melt away in the middle of this field with Kai.
    Really, I shouldn’t think like this. I don’t know him. I haven’t even spoken to him since high school. Even then we didn’t hang out. Ever.
    If you had told sixteen-year-old me that two years later I would be lying in a field with Kai Westerfield, I would have called you crazy. But I guess if you’d told me that I would be in these fields because he gave me the only way to escape my house, I guess that would have made sense. I was never made to stay in one place. I always had dreams for bigger things, faraway places.
    “Someday I’m going to leave this city,” I tell him, “and never come back.”
    “You say that now,” he replies lazily, “but you’ll miss it.”
    “Maybe I will, but I won’t come back. Isn’t that why you joined the military? To get away?” I open my eyes and turn my head to look at him.
    He’s staring back at me. His eyes are glinting with curiosity. He scans my face and I realize how close we are. My nerves hit me.
    “I guess that’s part of the reason,” he admits, his voice low, “but I also want to be part of the new nation. I want to help it grow, be the best it can be.” His cheeks curl as he smiles. “Kind of cheesy though.” He looks back up at the sky.
    “It isn’t,” I shake my head.
    I have this urge to reach out to him. As if a tangible connection would make him see I understand.
    But I keep my hand at my side.
    The truth is he scares me. He never had any interest in me before. Not that I tried to get his attention. I didn’t want it. I wasn’t one of those girls who needed it because I had to feel wanted. And he left me alone, just like the others. Because I’m the spoiled rich girl.
    The memory pricks in my throat and tears spring to the corner of my eyes. Of course Lily’s fucked up.
    I stand.
    All you have to do is look at her face.
    I pull my hair from under my ear, letting it fall across my face, almost into my eyes.
    “I have to get home,” I say, feeling the need to get out of here as soon as possible. My eyes sting, and I swallow against the tightening in my throat.
    “What?” Kai looks up at me as I scramble to get the stray grasses and grains off my back. “We just got here.”
    “Can you take me home?”
    “Why?” Confusion clouds his features while he gets up.
    “Because I don’t want to be here anymore.”
    He’s taken aback. “Did I say something?”
    “Yes,” I blurt, then quickly correct myself. “No. I mean, why do you care? Why did you even bother taking me from my house? I’m just a spoiled little rich girl right?” I cover my face in my hands, frustrated that I said that last sentence. Infuriated that I care. I shouldn’t care what Kai Westerfield thinks.
    He takes a step back, baffled. “What are you talking about?”
    It makes me even angrier that he doesn’t remember what he’d said. It was bad enough the words came from his mouth. But he’d said them so passively they didn’t even matter to him. It wasn’t a big deal to him at all to talk