Adaptive: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The Elite Trials Book 2) Read online

  “You okay, man?” Jaxon said over my head. Brendan gave a thumbs up. As he nudged me into the room, Jaxon whispered in my ear, “Make sure he doesn’t overexert himself tonight.”

  The door clicked shut before his words could sink in. And now I was alone. With Brendan. Please say he didn’t hear that. By the look of his expression . . . Ah crap. He heard. At least he was clothed.

  He crooked a finger at me. “Come here, little bird.”

  The way he said the nickname, so casual like it was the most natural thing in the world, awakened butterflies in my stomach. Their wings beat at my insides as I approached, all too aware of the way his gaze lingered on my bare legs. I tugged on the dress’s short hem self-consciously.

  His room was identical to mine, but his table held books and, most interestingly of all, the walls were covered in colorful, rectangle-shaped metal. I squinted, trying to read what was written on them. None of the words made sense except one: H-O-T-T-I-E.

  “License plates,” Brendan said, as if I’d understand what that meant. “I just need to find seven more states before I’ve collected all fifty. I probably won’t find Hawaii though.”

  I hummed like I was impressed, but I was still clueless—and maybe felt a tiny bit stupid for knowing so little. Shyness stole over me when I dropped my shoes and stood near the foot of his bed, not knowing what to do with my hands now that they were empty. They didn’t want to be though. Double crap. He said he couldn’t read thoughts, but . . .

  “Are you all right?”

  His visible concern stilled my agitated movements. I nodded, kicking myself for being flustered when I should be helping him. “Are you?”

  He nodded, smiling slightly as though amused. “Just a little sore. The pain meds here are awesome though.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  His head started to shake, paused, then slowly nodded. When he remained silent, I searched his face for an answer. And found it. I didn’t know how, but in that moment, I knew exactly what he needed. My heart tumbled in my chest, and I moved, not giving myself time to overthink things.

  He was propped up by pillows, half lying on his side so as not to disturb his wound. I didn’t let him reach for me and risk pulling at his stitches. I gingerly climbed onto the bed and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, burying my nose in his neck. Breathed in the warmth, the life in him. The sunshine. His hand slid to my back and held me to him, his grip trembling slightly with fatigue. We didn’t speak, simply soaked in each other’s presence.

  I pressed my mouth to his skin, closing my eyes and opening myself up to the feel of him. This moment could last forever and still not be long enough. But I had to break the spell. I wanted him to be the first to know. “I had a memory. When I thought you were dying, I yelled something, a sentence similar to one the old me said to you.”

  His breath hitched and the fingers on my back loosely fisted my dress. “Which memory?”

  “I remember that it was dark and cold. I felt panicked because the Trials would begin the next morning and we could both die in them. I—I grabbed your face and said, ‘You can’t die, Brendan Bearon. You just can’t.’”

  He laughed softly, then flinched in pain. He trailed his nose down my neck, making me shiver. “That was the best night of my life,” he murmured, pressing his lips to a sensitive spot just below my ear.

  My body arched against him, and in my growing haze, I almost forgot about his injury. “Sorry.” I tried pulling away but his grip on my dress tightened. He kissed my neck again and I melted, too weak to resist. As his mouth continued to explore my skin, that question came back to me, the one he had refused to answer a week ago. But now . . . now . . . “What was she to you?”

  What am I to you?

  He paused, his mouth still warming my neck. I held my breath and waited for him to shut me out, to push me away like he had in the gym. But maybe it was news of my memory or his close brush with death that made him say, “She’s everything I’m fighting for. Redemption. Hope. Peace. Joy. All the things I can’t have until I right the wrongs I’ve made.”

  And now he pulled away, leaving behind a dull ache in his absence. Sighing quietly, he took one of my hands in his and rubbed a thumb over my knuckles. He stared at our joined hands as he said, “But I’ve been selfish and weak. I want those things now, and in pursuing them, I’ve put you in danger time and again. You’ve been through so much because of me, and instead of keeping my distance, keeping you safe, I—”

  His face contorted and he gripped my hand tightly. “You almost got stabbed. Again. You could have—” He hissed sharply through clenched teeth. “I even failed to identify the assailant. All I saw was that knife coming at you. And now they’re still out there, still a danger to you. Getting too close to me is a bad idea, Lune. You’ll only get hurt—”

  I placed my finger over his lips, needing to stop his words before they shredded my heart. I couldn’t stand hearing the pain behind them any longer. The guilt. The burden he was shackling himself with. I couldn’t bear seeing him suffer like this. Because after I’d been given that small sliver of memory back, I remembered the emotions that came with it. The way I had felt about Brendan at the time. The desire to make him forget about tomorrow and live in that one moment. With me.

  “But what if I want to be close?” I whispered, my breath catching as his mouth warmed my finger. Desire trickled through me. An overwhelming need to press my lips to his.

  And maybe I too was selfish and weak for wanting peace and happiness right now, but so be it.

  I kissed him.

  A soft brush of lips to ease the pain. A tender caress to distract the mind. With a gasp, I pulled back, shocked at what I’d just done, scared senseless that I’d ruined everything between us by forcing this on him. “I’m s-sorry,” I stuttered, slipping my hand from his.

  Before I could jump off the bed and flee the room, he caught my fingers again. Startled, I met his eyes. What I saw in their depths rooted me to the spot. “Don’t you dare run,” he breathed, slowly looping my arm around his neck once more. “Don’t you dare stop.”

  A small noise escaped me and my limbs threatened to liquify. He leaned forward as if to kiss me, but paused a breath away. Waiting. Challenging me. Holy crap, I was going to die. No, I was already dead. My body took charge then, pushing past my frozen state of shock. One hand grasped his neck while the other ran over the stubble on his cheek, guiding his lips to mine.

  When our mouths joined, my control began to slip. All I felt was his soft lips eagerly returning my kiss. All I felt was the warmth, the fire, the passion stirring my blood. His fingers slid into my hair and tugged none-too-gently, sending electric jolts racing along my scalp. I repaid him in kind, making him gasp sharply.

  He rose up, bringing me with him, and somehow I was straddling his lap, molding my body to his. My lips parted as new sensations flowed through me. His mouth opened, and I moaned weakly as his tongue touched mine. Any control I was holding onto snapped as we danced to a rhythm only our bodies knew. Warmth built in my core and I trembled. I ran a hand down his neck, his defined chest, skimming over rigid, unforgiving muscle.

  Brendan laced our fingers together, halting my movements. I broke our kiss and dragged my lips over his jaw, his neck, his . . . “Lune,” he panted. “I need to tell you about my past. About what’s going to happen. I—”

  “Please,” I breathed, then kissed his mouth again. How could anything feel and taste so perfect? “Not tonight. Later.”

  He gently grasped the back of my neck and pulled away enough for me to see the desire in his eyes. But there was more than that, and I knew there was so much more in mine, too. I let him see it. He blew out a shaky breath and slowly lowered his head, brushing the softest, most tender kiss to my lips. “Soon.”

  I nodded, whispering, “Deal,” then smiled as I grazed his mouth teasingly. He leaned forward with a low growl and I laughed as he nipped at my chin.

  When he learned that I needed to
fill out a report about last night’s incident, Brendan helped, using my inexperience with handhelds as an excuse to tap in the story for me. But I wondered if he already knew that I could barely read, let alone write. Had the old me told him? It was awkward enough retelling the event to him, but since we were using Jaxon’s handheld, we had company. Very nosy, very suspicious company.

  “Something’s different today,” Jaxon mused, rubbing at his jaw as he glanced at Brendan still propped up in bed, then at me shifting from foot-to-foot in the middle of the room. I stilled my antsy legs and gave him what I hoped was a neutral look. His face split into a megawatt grin. “You two kissed.”

  My lips parted. What the—? I threw an accusatory glare at Brendan who wasn’t bothering to hide a satisfied smirk. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t tell him. You don’t have a very good poker face, is all.”

  Huh? What did that even mean?

  “And after I gave you strict orders not to overexert the invalid last night.” Jaxon tsked at me in mock disapproval.

  “That’s not what you—” I stopped when he snickered. My cheeks burst into flame. This was not happening right now. Carefully avoiding eye contact with either of them, I marched for the door. “Now that you have the full story, I have training to do.”

  I was scrambling down the hallway with Jaxon squawking at me to wait up before realizing I hadn’t said goodbye to Brendan. My steps slowed, then renewed their clipped pace. Nope. He had been enjoying that torture way too much. When I arrived at the Ability Center, my skin felt a couple sizes too small.

  “Don’t be mad,” Jaxon said, coming up alongside me.

  “I’m not.” Though I wanted to smack him.

  “Embarrassed then. Like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”

  “Jaxon,” I barked, my face heating all over again as we neared Dominic.

  “Hey, no judgement, sister. I openly take from the cookie jar all the time. I know you’ve seen it at least once.”

  For the next few hours, I pretended he didn’t exist. Which was hard considering he kept giving Dominic unsolicited advice on how to coax my ability out. But the older man listened intently, digesting last night’s newest incident with rapt interest. At least he didn’t smirk when Jaxon described the way Brendan and I had been dancing. In fact, I was pretty sure his cheeks darkened a bit.

  Great. Just great.

  Somehow I’d get back at Jaxon for this.

  “I want to try something, Lune. I’m hoping the newness of it will heighten your senses and allow your ability to manifest,” Dominic said, ushering me into the usual glass cubicle. He held up a silver opaque band—virtual reality, I remembered Brendan saying. When I couldn’t fit it to my face correctly, Dominic made sure it was securely in place, deftly attaching a round sticker to each temple—a sensory pad and feeling receptor, he explained.

  “You’ll need space for this exercise, so I’ll leave you alone in here. I’ll see what you see on a separate viewing screen.” I felt him drop something into my palm and I blindly grasped it between my fingers. “An ear communicator. So you can hear and talk to me.”

  I heard him leave the cubicle then, sealing me inside. “Can you hear me?” I said loudly when I’d slipped the communicator in.

  A voice chuckled in my ear, making me flinch in surprise. “Clearly. You don’t have to yell.”

  Inwardly, I grimaced. Oops.

  “Okay, I’m going to turn on your headset and feeling receptor. If the images are too overwhelming, close your eyes and recenter your body. Tap your temple twice if the receptor becomes too much. It may take a few tries before your brain accepts two realities at once.”

  Well, that sounded . . . weird.

  “You can do this, Lune,” he added more quietly. “If you can master your ability, maybe you can stop whoever is out to harm you.”

  My chest tightened. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Instead of being the helpless victim, waiting for the next time someone tried to kill me, I could be one step ahead. Even save others I cared about from getting hurt. I felt something then that I’d almost given up on. Hope. I finally had a reason, a purpose for navigating unfamiliar waters that up until this point had terrified me. Maybe facing that fear would be worth it if I could stop death in its tracks.

  As soon as I nodded, the world fell away under my feet. I squeaked, backpedaling for solid ground. My back rammed into something hard, briefly knocking the air from my lungs.

  “You don’t need to move,” Dominic said, sounding apologetic. “That’s what the sensory pad is for. If you walk in place, you’ll move where you want to go in the virtual world.”

  “Where—where am I?” I struggled to keep my eyes open as a wave of dizziness swept through me. Everywhere I looked . . . darkness. And yet it wasn’t. There were muted blues and greens and purples. Pinpricks of light scattered as far as the eye could see, some clustered together to form speckled patches.

  “You’re an astronaut in outer space. Look at your hands.”

  I did and immediately reached for the bulky white gloves I was wearing. How did these get on my—?

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Dominic warned as I attempted to pry one off. “Your hand will shrivel up in seconds.”

  “What?” I yelled, flattening myself against the glass partition. Real. The glass was real. Not floating in outer space.

  “In space, any exposure of skin would result in frostbite. It’s extremely cold up there. But remember, you’re not actually there. Your mind is playing tricks on you. It wants to believe what it sees is real, so it’s relaying that message to your brain. The mind is a powerful thing, Lune Avery, and yours is willing to believe in the impossible.”

  “My visions.”

  “Yes. Maybe even more than that. Based off what Bren can sense, your ability to project energy is so intense that he thinks you’re more than just a Visionary. You’re something new—at least to our records. I’m hoping that this practice today will shed some light on what that something is.”

  Okay, then. No pressure. But outer space was probably a safer place to learn my ability than earth. No knives. No slippery floors. No people dying in front of me. I carefully took a step forward, then another, firmly planting my feet on solid ground even though I couldn’t see it.

  I nodded that I was ready.

  “Lunge faster! Don’t forget to check down below. They could be coming from any direction.”

  I was wrong. Outer space was scary, not safe.

  An alien horde had found me floating all on my lonesome and was attacking from all sides. My mission: envision their moves before they made them so I didn’t get shot. Then, shoot them. No problem. Except my visions weren’t working and apparently I didn’t know how to shoot a gun. Oh, and I kept dying. The pain from the feeling receptor wasn’t as intense as the real thing, but every time my virtual body was knocked back with a sharp zap and blood gushed out of me, I ground my teeth together.

  A blue sizzling bolt shot for my face and I ducked. Another slammed into my arm and I spun around, then lost my balance. My shoulder and hip bone collided with the ground and I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing myself for losing touch with reality again.

  “You okay?” Dominic asked, concern evident in his tone.

  “Yeah,” I panted, forcing my legs to bear my weight. The image of space had paused when I pried my eyes open again.

  “Maybe we should call it quits for the day. You’ve been at it for two hours.”

  “Just one more try. One more.” I readied myself, raising my virtual weapons.

  “Okay.” Dominic sounded hesitant, but I knew he wanted me to manifest as much as I did. “This time, pick a target. Only one. Open yourself up to that target with your emotions. Let go of control but stay focused. Let your mind immerse itself in the target. Feel, don’t think.”

  I nodded, shifting onto the balls of my feet.

  Feel, don’t think.

  I could do that. Letting go of control would be the hard par
t.

  “And make sure to pull the trigger this time!” Dominic added.

  The virtual world sprang into motion. Dozens of enemies surrounded me. I zeroed in on one—the closest. Its long, tentacle arms undulated grotesquely, threatening to distract me. But I let myself forget everything around me, just like I had last night dancing in Brendan’s arms. Let my mental guard down inch by inch as if opening a door. Feelings rushed in—fear, dread, determination, adrenaline, excitement. I focused on projecting those emotions at the alien, strangling its gangly body with them.

  My gut lurched as the alien’s weapon discharged and a blue static ball whipped for my heart. I braced for the pain, but none came. When I blinked, the image of my impending death was gone. The alien hadn’t fired yet. My stomach bottomed out, but I forced myself to remain calm. To wait a beat. The alien’s bony finger squeezed the trigger.

  Zip.

  I leaned to the side, just enough to avoid getting hit. Then unleashed myself on the creature, bellowing a war cry as I pumped its sickly bulbous belly full of virtual lead. Zap, zap zap. With a shriek, it flew backward into its comrades. Who were preparing to return fire. Crap. My concentration broke.

  But Dominic must have known I’d manifested because the image blipped out of existence, leaving me in the dark. I heard the glass door whoosh open, then hands were removing the silver band from my face. The brightness of reality was a punch to the eye sockets, but I blinked away the hazy spots and searched out my trainer’s expression. When I saw it, I knew I had guessed right. He was grinning from ear to ear, happier than I’d ever seen him.

  I smiled back, even let myself laugh. “I did it!”

  “You did it,” he reaffirmed, squeezing my shoulders. Then he pulled me into a tight hug. I hugged him in return and laughed with relief.