I laughed. “You’ll just have to decide if you’re willing to risk it.”
He shuddered, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.
“I didn’t catch that.” Frustration snaked through my belly, making it tighten. I wanted him to touch me again, and I was furious with myself for it and with him for making me feel like this.
“Just nice to know I’m falling for a vestal virgin,” he said, anger clouding his own face.
“A what?”
“Fun history trivia.” His smile was cold enough to make me bristle. “Another set of highly desirable but untouchable girls. If they broke their vow of chastity, they were buried alive.”
“Buried alive?” I shuddered. Is that what would happen to me if the Keepers found out about Shay? I knew there would be consequences if anyone but
Ren touched me, but I hadn’t thought about how bad they might be.
“And the lucky guy who’d tempted a sacred virgin from her duty was flogged to death in public,” he finished.
I suddenly felt hollow inside. My own punishment might be frightening, but the thought of what could happen to Shay was much, much worse.
“I guess we should take our lessons from history, then,” I murmured, trying to hide the trembling in my voice.
“We aren’t living in ancient Rome,” Shay snapped.
“Since that subject is closed,” I said, ignoring his livid expression, “let’s please get back to what’s important.”
He stared at me.
“Please,” I murmured.
“Okay,” he said, opening his laptop again. “So if we accept the idea that I’m this Scion, what does that mean?”
Thank you.
“I’d imagine somehow it matters who you are descended from,” I mused.
He nodded and shrugged. “No one famous.”
“You don’t remember your parents?”
“No. They died in a car crash when I was two. I don’t remember them at all, not even what they looked like.” He pulled the Keeper’s text into his lap, fingers tracing an outline of the cross. “I don’t have any pictures. Uncle Bosque always said it was best to leave the past in the past.”
I frowned. “You don’t have anything of your parents? Nothing to remember them by?”
“Just a blanket my mother knitted for me.” He offered me a sheepish smile. “I carried it around when I was a kid.”
I toyed with the end of my braid, trying not to laugh. “What were their names?”
“Tristan and Sarah Doran.”
I jerked so forcefully in my chair that it almost tipped over. Oh God, those names. No, no, no.
His head snapped up. “What is it?”
“Tristan and Sarah?” I repeated, fresh horror nestling in my belly.
“Yes. Calla, what’s wrong?” he said. “More bad news?”
“I don’t know what it means. Please keep that in mind. But the night we were attacked outside Eden . . .” The face of the captive Searcher loomed large in my mind. “The Searcher who we took alive.” I wanted to erase the sickened hue of Shay’s skin. “He spoke their names, Tristan and Sarah.”
“One of the men who jumped us knew my parents?” The veins in his neck throbbed.
“I’m not sure.” I was trying to be truthful, but every word I spoke seemed like a stray thread that could unravel my life.
“What exactly did he say?” Shay leaned forward, watching me intently.
“He asked where you were . . .” I said, pausing to dig up the memory. “And then he said: ‘He doesn’t know, does he? Who he is? That you took Tristan and Sarah? What you’re going to do?’”
Shay gripped the arms of his chair. “I thought the Searchers were trying to destroy the world. Aren’t they the bad guys?”
I nodded, not having any explanations to offer.
He rose, shutting his laptop and picking up his backpack. “I’m sorry, but I need to leave. There’s too much . . .” He shook his head. “I need some time alone. But I’ll be back here tomorrow.”
I stayed still as he moved past me, wanting to go with him.
“And Calla.” He bent down for a moment, whispering into my hair. “I don’t think I’m the only one who’s being lied to.”
SEVENTEEN
SHAY WASN’T IN FIRST PERIOD. A WAVE OF nausea swept over me.
Could the Keepers have done something to him?
I gnawed on my fingernails through my next two classes. When I walked into Organic Chemistry and saw him already seated at his lab station, I had to fight the urge to run across the room to embrace him. His two human lab partners caught sight of me and shrank to the other end of the station. Shay observed their swift retreat from the corner of his eye.
“Do you always have that effect on humans?” he asked, a smile hooking the edge of his lips.
“Usually, yes. All Guardians do. You’re a freak for not being terrified of me.” I leaned against the table, trying to keep my voice even. “Where were you this morning?”
“Worried about me?” His smile broadened. “Your very own freak?”
“Oh, please,” I lied.
“I cut.” He twirled a pencil between his fingers. “I didn’t feel like getting out of bed this morning.”
“I think your attitude about cutting class is a bit cavalier,” I said, annoyed that I’d been working up an ulcer while he slept in.