A Million Suns (Across the Universe 2)

Harley slipped, going to one knee, then found footing on the wet bottom of the pond and trudged through the thick mud. With one final, mighty heave, he tossed Kayleigh’s body onto the bank and collapsed beside it.

A dribble of muddy water trickled from the left corner of her mouth, just where she used to twitch her lips up in a laughing smirk. Grime slid down the side of her face, pooling at the edge of her cheek and falling unceremoniously into the ground below.

Harley was shouting and sobbing something, but I couldn’t understand the words.

All I could do was stand there, a witness, my mouth hanging open a little.

Like Kayleigh’s mouth.

Her left leg was twisted backward, her ankle under her backside and her knee jutting forward in a sharp angle. One arm was thrown across her stomach, the other stretched out as if it were pointing up the path toward the Hospital. It suddenly became very important to Harley to position her body just right. He straightened her leg and smoothed her trousers down. He placed her arms by her sides and rubbed his thumb over the palm of her right hand, like he used to do when he thought no one was watching, just before he’d lean in for a kiss, and they forgot about everything but their love.

“Harley,” I said, breaking the spell. I took a step forward, squelching the mud by the banks. I knelt down and felt the warm water seep into the legs of my trousers and reached—toward him or Kayleigh, I’m not sure.

“Don’t touch her!” Harley snarled.

I didn’t move quickly enough. Harley lunged at me and threw the full force of his fist against my jaw. My teeth snapped over my tongue, and I tasted blood. I let myself fall away into the mud and cowered behind my arms.

When I dared look again, Harley was staring up. One hand still held hers, his thumb going methodically over her cool, lifeless palm, back and forth, back and forth.

“Why did she leave me?” he whispered to the painted metal sky above us.

Because this wasn’t an accident.

It couldn’t have been an accident.

Kayleigh loved the pond. Loved to swim with the koi. She’d dive under with handfuls of feed in her grip and uncurl her fingers underwater so the shy fish would dance up to her and nibble from her hands. She could hold her breath longer than anyone I knew. No one could catch her when she swam, not even Harley, who always tried.

Kayleigh couldn’t have died by accident. Not in the water.

I stared at what was left of her.

Pale yellow square patches lined the inside of both her arms. Doc’s med patches—the ones that made you fall asleep. This—this was what killed her. Not an accident. A choice. Kayleigh put herself into a watery bed and made sure she would never wake up. Suicide. We knew it must have been suicide. She’d been talking about how much she hated living, trapped on this ship, for weeks. Months. Just little things, a comment here, a snide remark there. Nothing we noticed. Not until—

My eyes drifted from her body to the lapping, almost-still waters behind her. I looked farther, over the reeds and lotus flowers on the far edge, my eyes skimming across the bright green new grass.

Where they crashed against a metal wall.

A hard, cold, relentless metal wall, studded with rivets and stained with grease and age. My eyes burned as I followed a seam in the wall up, up, curving higher up, until it met with the bright solar lamp in the center of the ceiling. Above that, I knew, was the Shipper Level, and above that, the Keeper Level.

And beyond that—beyond tons and tons of impenetrable metal—was a sky I had never seen.

A sky Kayleigh had never seen.

And she couldn’t live without the sky.

22

AMY

ELDER FINISHES HIS STORY AS WE ENTER THE CITY. I WANT TO say something to comfort him, but this memory happened years ago, and there’s nothing to really say, anyway.

I’ve never been this far into the City before. The whole Feeder Level looks different now, in the middle of the day, even though there’s not that much difference in the solar lamp between morning, when I used to run, and day—this false sun doesn’t move across the sky, doesn’t paint the horizon with pink and orange and blue.

The City is bigger than it looks from the other side of the Feeder Level. When I look at the City from the Hospital or the Recorder Hall, it seems like it’s made of Legos. The buildings are brightly colored boxes stacked one on top of the other, and the people are almost too tiny to see.

But here, it’s different. The streets are crowded. Men—and a few women—pull carts, running through the paved streets and pulling their loads behind them as if they were nothing. Produce, meat, boxes, bolts of cloth—all fly from one street to another. It’s louder than I expected. People call to each other across the street, and a couple at the corner are shouting at each other, waving their arms about. I smell smoke, and I’m worried that something bad has happened, but no—it’s wafting from an outdoor grill.

The City itself seems more chaotic too. There are so many people. And for the first time, I really think of them as individuals, each with their own story. I try to imagine their lives. The man behind the window, slamming his cleaver into a rack of ribs. Is he bored or hiding anger behind the brutal attack on the meat? The girl leaning against the building, sweating and fanning herself—what’s made her want to leave the comfort of her home to just stand there? What’s she waiting on?