The Towering Sky

Page 98

A couple brushed past them, studiously looking the other direction. Cord blinked, bewildered. “What decisions have I made on your behalf?”

“Breaking up me and my boyfriend, for starters! Making me come to this party, to hang out with your friends, in a dress you picked out.” Rylin had thought this gown was a lovely romantic gesture, but suddenly she saw it in an uglier light. Had Cord bought it because he didn’t want her to embarrass him by showing up in something cheap?

Cord seemed hurt. “I didn’t realize I was forcing you to spend time with me. I thought you wanted to be here.”

“I do want to be here, but, Cord, you never want to be downTower with me!”

“I just thought it was easier meeting up at my apartment. I have more space,” he protested, and Rylin rolled her eyes.

“Right, because god forbid you have to come down to the squalor of the thirty-second floor,” she snapped. “You never even told your friends that I’m not rich, did you? That’s why they thought that I was one of them. Is it because you’re ashamed to be dating me—the girl who used to be your maid?”

“I didn’t bring any of that up because it isn’t important,” Cord said forcefully. “I care about you, Rylin. Where you come from isn’t part of it.”

“Except it is.” Rylin felt angry with him, but most of all, angry with herself for being one of those people who make the same mistake over and over again. “I’m not some charity case, Cord. I’m a person—with feelings.”

“Where is this coming from? I never said you were a charity case!”

“You didn’t have to say it,” Rylin told him, very quietly. Cord’s face grew red in frustration.

“If you would stop being so damned prideful—”

“You’re the one who kept this a secret from me!” Rylin’s eyes burned. “I guess you have no idea how to build trust, because no one ever taught you.”

“‘No one ever taught you’?” Cord said bitingly, repeating her words. “That was cruel, Rylin. I would have thought that you, of all people, wouldn’t jump straight to dead parents.”

She recoiled, suddenly ashamed of herself. “I just meant that you always throw money at problems and expect them to disappear,” Rylin said helplessly. “Even when that problem is an inconvenient boyfriend. I thought—” She ran a hand over her face. “I thought it would be different this time.”

“I thought so too,” Cord said wearily.

Rylin bit her lip until she tasted blood. She wanted to crawl out of her skin, to strip this expensive dress off her back and rip it to shreds. She felt disgusted with Cord and with herself.

She had been so angry with Hiral, for deciding that he would leave town without consulting her, for making it feel like he had made her choices for her. And yet Cord had been right here, doing the same thing the whole time.

“We should never have gotten back together,” she said heavily. “We were right to break up the first time. We’re too different, you and I.”

She turned and walked away, her head held high, and only after she was on the lift back home did Rylin reach up to brush away the tears.

AVERY


THE INSIDE OF the elevator car was completely dark.

“What’s going on?” Avery blinked rapidly, then gave a series of voice commands to her contacts. They refused to cooperate.

“That won’t work,” Atlas said, hearing her struggle. “The elevator shaft is lined with magnets, which interferes with their frequency.”

Avery pounded on the door. She knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything, but it made a satisfyingly loud noise beneath her closed fist.

“Hey, hey. Calm down,” Atlas said, reaching for her arm; and she realized how utterly absurd it was that she was standing here in her hand-stitched gown, pounding on the elevator like a Neanderthal.

“Sorry,” she muttered, somewhere on the precipice between laughter and tears. If only she could see Atlas. The darkness felt pervasive in a heavy, palpable way, like it used to feel in Oxford. Real darkness, without the omnipresent urban glow.

“Maybe they’re doing repair work somewhere nearby and damaged a power line,” Atlas offered by way of explanation. “Or maybe the party is draining so much of city hall’s electricity that it’s overwhelming the grid.”

“Someone will be here to let us out soon, though. Right?”

“I think so,” he said unconvincingly.

Their breath came ragged and shallow. There seemed to be a strange hum of energy circling through the elevator car, crackling in the air: as if the entire world was waiting, breathless with expectation, for something to happen.

“I’m sorry.” Atlas’s voice sounded at once very close and very far away.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Not for the power outage, for everything else. For coming back to town, upsetting you, interfering with your life—” He broke off impatiently. “I’m heading back to Dubai next week.”

“You are?”

“Don’t you want me to?”

Avery didn’t answer. She was desperate for Atlas to leave, and yet she dreaded it. It was as if there were two warring halves of her, two versions of herself, and each of them wanted such drastically different things. She felt like she would break beneath the strain.

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