Prodigy

you’ve actually met—and admired—in person. “Well, like I said. We don’t have a choice.”
    Day’s lips tighten. He knows I’m not telling him what I really think. “It must be hard for you to turn your back on your Elector,” he says. His hands stay slack beside him.
    I keep my head down and start pulling off his boots.
    While I put his boots aside, Day shrugs out of his jacket and starts unbuttoning his vest. It reminds me of when I’d first met him back on the streets of Lake. Back then, he would take off his vest every night and give it to Tess to use as a pillow. That was the most I’d ever seen Day undress. Now he unbuttons his collar shirt, exposing the rest of his throat and a sliver of his chest. I see the pendant looped around his neck, the United States quarter dollar covered with smooth metal on both sides. In the quiet dark of the railcar, he’d told me about his father’s bringing it back from the warfront. He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic’s most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.
    I straighten and reach up to his shirt. My hands touch the skin of his shoulders. I try to keep my breathing even, my mind sharp and calculated. But as I help him pull off the shirt and reveal his bare arms and chest, I can feel the corners of my logic growing fuzzy. Day is fit and lean under his clothes, his skin surprisingly smooth except for an occasional scar (he has four faint ones on his chest and waist, another one that’s a thin diagonal line running from left collarbone to right hip bone, and a healing scab on his arm). He holds me with his gaze. It’s hard to describe Day to those who have never seen him before—exotic, unique, overwhelming. He’s very close now, close enough for me to see the tiny rippled imperfection in the ocean of his left eye. His breaths come out hot and shallow. Heat rises on my cheeks, but I don’t want to turn away.
    “We’re in this together, right?” he whispers. “You and me? You
want
to be here, yeah?”
    There’s guilt in his questions. “Yes,” I reply. “I
chose
this.”
    Day pulls me close enough for our noses to touch. “I love you.”
    My heart flips in excitement at the desire in his voice—but at the same time, the technical part of my brain instantly flares up.
Highly improbable,
it scoffs.
A month ago, he didn’t even know I existed.
So I blurt out, “No, you don’t. Not yet.”
    Day furrows his eyebrows, as if I’d hurt him. “I mean it,” he says against my lips.
    I’m helpless against the ache in his voice. But still.
They’re just the words of a boy in the heat of the moment.
I try to force myself to say the same back to him, but the words freeze on my tongue. How can he be so sure of this?
I
certainly don’t understand all these strange new feelings inside me—am I here because I love him, or because I
owe
him?
    Day doesn’t wait for my answer. One of his hands trails around my waist and then flattens against my back, pulling me closer so that I’m seated on his good leg. A gasp escapes me. Then he presses his lips against mine, and my mouth parts. His other hand reaches up to touch my face and neck; his fingers are at once coarse and refined. Day slowly moves his lips away to kiss the side of my mouth, then my cheek, then the line of my jaw. My chest is now solidly against his, and my thigh brushes against the soft ridge of his hip bone. I close my eyes. My thoughts feel muffled and distant, hidden behind a shimmery haze of warmth. An undercurrent of practical details in my mind struggles up to the surface.
    “Kaede’s been gone for eight minutes,” I breathe through Day’s kisses. “They expect us back out there in twenty-two.”
    Day twines his hand through my hair and gently pulls my head back, exposing my neck. “Let them wait,” he murmurs. I feel his lips work softly along the skin of my throat, each kiss rougher than the last, more impatient, more urgent, hungrier. His lips come back up to my mouth, and I can feel the remnants of any self-control slipping away from him, replaced with something instinctive and savage.
I love you,
his lips are trying to convince me. They’re making me so weak that I’m on the verge of collapsing to the floor. I’ve kissed a few boys in the past . . . but Day makes me feel