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  I keep running, moving in the exact direction where I can feel the bonfire ahead of me—racing toward the shore, just like me. My one sure trajectory, my best chance for survival.

  Ro.

  His hand grabs my ankle and I drop. I feel his arm slide around my waist, snapping me down to the tide. I fall toward him, and I find myself lying in the sand and shallow water, hidden from the Tracks just beneath a grassy rise of shoreline. Some kind of coastal cave.

  I feel us both still panting; Ro’s only gotten here seconds ago, himself. Then I hear a shout and a splash, and a Sympa soldier falls over the rise after me. I roll out of the way, knee-deep into the water.

  I know what will happen now. Someone will die, and it’s not Ro. In a small arena, it doesn’t matter that the Sympa is armed and Ro is not. Ro will crucify him.

  Before I can even think the words, Ro has the fallen Sympa’s gun in his hands, slamming the butt of the weapon into the soldier’s face. Blood sprays the rocks and runs into the water. Ro raises his hand to strike again, but I move my hands over his, forcing him to look at me.

  “Ro.”

  He shakes his head, but I won’t let go, and we cling to the gun together. I can’t let Ro do this to himself.

  “Don’t,” I say.

  I look at the unconscious Sympa’s face, just above the water’s edge, covered with blood. His nose is probably broken. He seems young and almost handsome, with hair the color of sunshine—though it’s hard to tell what he normally looks like, since he’s already starting to bruise. But I look away, because he’s too distracting—I have to close off the welling of sadness inside of me. I have people of my own to mourn. A pig and a Padre and a family I never got to know. I toss the weapon into the water and hold out my arms.

  Ro falls into me, folds into me, as if I am his home.

  I am.

  He doesn’t let go. His face is red, and neither one of us can slow our breathing. Instead we pant like two tired Mission dogs chased by coyotes. The cold, fluttering animal in my chest and the warm, rabid creature in his push up against each other, and for the moment we are not alone.

  I bury my face in his neck, wrapping my arms around the twisted muscles that move beneath the skin of his chest and arms. He smells like dirt, even now. I can practically taste the mud. When Ro smiles—which is only when I’m around, and even then only when all the stars in the night sky align—I half expect to see dirt between his teeth.

  He’s Grass, through and through. He’d break his share of hearts in another world. I don’t doubt that. I lace my fingers through his hair and ground myself in him. I listen to his breathing and know he’s trying to do the same. It isn’t so easy for Ro, to slow himself back down.

  I hear another blast, followed by the sound of people running toward the train.

  Fortis.

  A second explosion. The Merk is as good as his word.

  Ro carefully looks toward the train to make sure no other Sympas followed us here. He nods, indicating we are safe for the moment. We don’t speak until the shouting has grown distant and the Sympas are quiet.

  “It’s safer to hide for now. We’ll have to wait them out. Dol…” The way Ro says my name, I know he knows about the Padre and Ramona Jamona. I know he was afraid it would be me. I hear it in his voice. “Doloria,” he whispers.

  He’s no different than I am with my incantations, reciting the settlers of La Purísima.

  He needs me. I give him my hand. My right hand.

  He fumbles at my wrist, yanking the cloth that binds it. He unwinds the muslin strip that wraps my bony arm so tightly I forget it is not made of skin.

  Now my wrist is naked, and he pulls up his own worn sleeve.

  We lace our fingers together, and he slides his bare wrist down to meet mine. I let the shiver roll down my body, down from my arm to where my feet dig into the sand.

  One gray dot on my wrist, the color of the ocean in the rain.

  Two red dots on his wrist, the color of fire.

  The shared mark of our shared destinies, though we don’t know what they are. If my name is Sorrow, his name is Rage. And whatever I am, whatever Ro is, is a secret. One that could kill us both without our ever knowing why.

  One that probably killed the Padre.

  I wish I’d read the Padre’s book before I traded it for my freedom. Ro would have.

  My gray presses against his red.

  We live in a world of only two people now. Bound by the markings on our hands and our hearts.

  He winds the cloth around our clasped hands, pushing his body against mine, and I feel the sharp knuckles of our ribs as they fit together. We are the mirror image of each other.

  Sorrow for rage. Pain for anger. Tears for fury.

  I become Ro and Ro becomes me. He takes my great sadness, the frightened thing that lives inside me. He’ll do anything to keep it away from me. And I take the red rage. I am a deluge; the red spark that is Ro is twenty feet under my surface.

  I can’t keep it down for long.

  The Padre said Ro is too much for one person, that if I keep doing this—if I keep letting him do this—I may not be able to come back. Yet I let his pain take me to the edge of madness.

  The Padre.

  I open my eyes and find, in the arms of my best friend, it is safe enough to cry.

  The tears push out from my eyes and run down my face. I have no power to stop them.

  Ro grabs my hand, willing me to let them fall.

  When it is over, and we have pushed aside the feelings for another day, Ro helps me bind my wrist. His skin is no longer burning, and he pulls down his sleeve carelessly. Ro is not so afraid of his marking as I am. He’s not even afraid of the whole Sympa patrol I know are only a stretch of field away—no matter how long we wait.

  “You should be more careful. Someone could see,” I say.

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “They’ll take you away like they tried to take me. Lock you up in the Hole, somewhere. Use you. Hurt you.” I try not to remind him what that would mean for me, how afraid I am.

  “So instead we hide, our whole lives? Like this? Until we die?” His voice is bitter.

  “Maybe not forever. What if the Padre’s right and we are special, more powerful than we know? What if that’s why the Sympas came for me?” These aren’t words I’ve ever said, but I’m desperate. I need to keep him calm, before he gets himself killed. “We can’t pretend the Mission is safe anymore, Ro. If there’s even a Mission to go back to.” I swallow.

  “But why hide, if we’re so special? What if we’re supposed to be doing something? What if we’re the only ones who can?” He runs his hands through his hair, unable to keep still.

  This is all he wants. To save the world and everyone in it.

  Right now, I just want to save the only family I have. Whether or not he wants me to.

  I try again. “The Padre said who we are can be used against us, if we’re not careful. We might make everything worse.”

  Ro has lost his patience with me. We are both spinning perilously close to the edge of our tempers. “Yeah, Dol? The Padre also said the truth would set us free. He told us to turn the other cheek. He said to love our neighbors. And now he’s dead.”

  I move away from him, but he grabs my arm.

  “I loved the Padre, Dol, same as you.”

  “I know that.”

  “But he was from another time. What he said, what he believed, that was a fantasy. He said those things because he didn’t want us to give up. But he didn’t want to fight, either.”

  “Ro. Don’t start.”

  He softens. “I’m not going to leave you behind, Dol. A promise is a promise.”

  He remembers; we both do.

  Dot to dot, we swore. Down at the beach, after the first time Ro ran away. When I was the only one who could talk him into coming back.

  That was the first time we learned that binding our hands would bind our hearts. That whatever it was that made Ro’s hea
rt pound was the same thing that made mine break. When I felt myself willing the sand up over us, in my mind, smothering the flames inside him, he calmed down; we both did. When we touched—just so—dot to dot—the ache turned in on itself.

  The fire burned out.

  We lay together there, hand to hand, until he was sleeping. That’s when I knew I wouldn’t make it without Ro. And Ro wouldn’t last a day without me.

  He can’t stop the fires alone. He doesn’t care. It’s the hardest thing I know about him.

  He’d rather let them burn.

  I’m still lost in thought when I hear the Choppers overhead. We both know what it means, but I’m the one who finally says it.

  “Embassy Choppers. We have to move.”

  “Give me a minute.” Shaking in his wet clothes, Ro’s not quite himself yet. I’ve never seen him this rattled.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I thought you were dead, Dol.”

  I reach my hand up to his thick brown hair. I pull out a twig, caught behind his ear. I don’t say what I am thinking, that I should be dead, that I am supposed to be dead. A pig is dead and a Padre is dead, I think. Why should luck escape them to find me?

  Because they were never going to kill me. Because they were coming for me.

  I wonder.

  I wonder if the Padre and the pig are the lucky ones. Then I push the thought away and reach for Ro. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.” I try to smile at him, but I can’t. The Chopper is all I can hear, just as the bloody soldier at my feet is all I can see.

  “Then I thought I was dead.” He swallows a laugh, but the way it bubbles up from his chest, it’s almost a sob.

  “You nearly were. You can’t just jack a train car and attack the Tracks like that. I don’t know what you were thinking.” I twist his ear, like I would Ramona Jamona. Only hers are soft, like cloth. His are practically caked with mud.

  “I was thinking I was saving your life.” He doesn’t look up.

  I sigh and draw my arm around him. “I wish you wouldn’t. Not when it almost kills you. And anyway, someone’s going to have to save both our lives if we don’t get out of here before that thing lands.” I try to push him off, but he pulls me closer, tightening his arm around my waist.

  “You wish I wouldn’t. But you know I will.”

  “I know, I know.” I smile, softening in spite of everything. The cave, the unconscious Sympa, the sound of the Choppers. “We’re all we’ve got.”

  It’s true.

  We’re practically family—the closest thing we have to it, anyway.

  But as I say the words, I realize Ro isn’t looking at my eyes.

  He’s looking at my mouth.

  The spark that is Ro becomes a firestorm. I can feel my palms beginning to burn, my eyes widening. I know what he is feeling and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I can know someone so well and not have known this. “Ro,” I start, but I don’t go on. I don’t know what I would say.

  That I love him more than I love my own life? It’s true. That we’ve swum half-naked in the ocean without bothering to even look at each other? Also true. That we’ve slept a hundred cold nights together on the tiled floor of Bigger’s Mission kitchen hearth, just the two of us—alongside a bony litter of tired dogs and sheep? That I could no more kiss him than I could one of Biggest’s pigs?

  Is that also true?

  I close my eyes and try to imagine kissing Ro. I imagine his lips on mine. His lips, the same ones that have spit pomegranate seeds straight into my mouth.

  They’re soft, I find myself remembering.

  They’d be soft, I find myself thinking. At least, softer than his ears.

  I am afraid to open my eyes. I feel his hands on my waist, as if we are dancing. I feel him slowly pulling me toward him.

  I let myself be pulled.

  Almost.

  Then I hear someone moaning, and I remember we aren’t alone.

  The Sympa soldier is waking up.

  RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY

  To: Ambassador Amare

  Subject: Rebellion Recruitment and Indoctrination Materials

  Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout

  According to our intelligence, Rebellion recruits are made to memorize and recite the following verse, morning and night:

  6

  FOUR DOTS

  I open my eyes. “Ro,” I hiss. But he’s let go of me before I can say it, and is grabbing the gun out of the water. The reality of where we are comes flooding back. The sandy rocks beneath us seem that much sharper, the shallow rush of empty tides that much colder. Our watery cave—just a small indentation in the grassy shoreline—offers no protection at all.

  Not against the Embassies and their armies.

  Not for long.

  The Sympa’s eyes flutter open.

  Beneath soggy strands of wet hair, they are the same color as the hills behind the Mission—green and gray—but also flecked with gold. Hope and sadness. That’s how he looks to me. Like a rare coin half buried in the ocean floor. A bit of warm metal that somehow catches the light, even from so far below the surface of the waves.

  I’m staring. I can’t help it. My heart is pounding. I reach toward his face, marveling. His features are the opposite of Ro’s; where Ro is thick brushstrokes and harsh lines, everything about this boy is precise and fine. He’s muscled and compact, where Ro is strong and broad. His bones fit together like someone hammered them out of precious metals, blew them out of glass.

  “Hey—” Ro shouts. He raises the gun high over his head, ready to strike. I pull my eyes away from the Sympa, my hand away from his face.

  “Stop it. You don’t have to. He’s hurt enough.”

  Ro lowers the gun. Then I realize he isn’t listening to me. He’s aiming.

  “Please,” says the Sympa, though half his head is underwater, and his mouth bubbles, choking when he speaks. “Don’t kill me. I can help.”

  “Why would you help? You’re the one hunting us.”

  The Sympa has no answer for that.

  I splash closer to him in the water, careful to stay between him and Ro’s gun.

  “Dol, come on. Get out of the way and let me do this. He’s playing us. It’s a trick.”

  “How do you know?”

  He looks from me to the Sympa. “Can you get anything off him? Feel him out?”

  I lean closer to the Sympa, picking up his cold hand from the water.

  I close my eyes and try to feel what he is feeling.

  For the first time, I feel something equal to Ro’s spark—equally strong.

  I feel both of them, and it’s not hard to sort out the emotions.

  Hatred and anger, from Ro.

  Fear and confusion, from the boy.

  And another thing.

  Something I encounter very rarely.

  It bubbles up and out, radiating from him, filling the cave. I can practically see it.

  I recognize it for what it is, only because I have felt it for Ro, and felt it in Ro. Ro and the Padre. Sometimes in Bigger and Biggest.

  Love.

  My head is pounding. I drop the boy’s hand, pushing my palms against my temples, as hard as I can. I force myself to breathe until I can get the feelings back under control, just barely. Until the bright whiteness recedes.

  Then I open my eyes, gasping.

  “Ro—” I can barely speak.

  “What is it? What did you get?” Ro moves next to me, but his eyes don’t leave the Sympa.

  I don’t know what to tell him. I’ve never felt anything quite like this, and I don’t know how to put it into words, not in a way Ro will understand.

  Not in a way he wants to hear.

  I look more closely at the Sympa. I pull a button from his jacket, yanking it free of the threads that have bound it there. It’s stamped in brass with a logo even a Gra
ss could recognize. A five-sided shape, a pentagon, surrounding Earth. Gold on a field of scarlet. Earth trapped by what looks like a birdcage.

  The button changes everything.

  “He’s not a Sympa.” A sick feeling roils my stomach—and even though I’m speaking to Ro, I can’t rip my eyes away from the button in my hand.

  “What are you talking about? Of course he’s a Sympa. Look at him.” Ro sounds annoyed.

  “He’s not just a Sympa. He’s from the Ambassador’s office.”

  “What?”

  I nod, twisting the button between my fingers. Shiny as a gold dig, and worth more than everything I own. The closest we’ve ever come to seeing Ambassador Amare is her face plastered on the side of a car rolling down the Tracks.

  Until we met this boy.

  The wounded Sympa opens and closes his eyes. They roll back in his head. He’s too beat up to speak, but I think he knows what we are saying.

  Ro sits on his heels in the water next to me. He draws his short blade from his belt, the one he only uses to pelt rabbits and split melons at the Mission.

  He wavers, looking at me. I kneel next to the boy—because that’s what he is. He may be a Sympa, but he’s also just a boy. Not much older than Ro and me, by the looks of it.

  “So this thing—this thing matters to the Ambassador?” He holds the knife to the Sympa’s chin. The Sympa’s eyes open, now wide. “That’s funny, because anything that matters to the Ambassador is pretty much worthless garbage as far as we’re concerned.”

  He traces a line along the Sympa’s throat.

  “Right, Dol?”

  I swallow and say nothing. I am finding it hard to breathe. I don’t know what I think.

  Ro doesn’t have that problem. Ever.

  He raises the blade and brings it slashing down, again and again.

  I can’t look, until Ro turns to me, holding out the proof of his latest violence. A handful of brass Embassy buttons.