One (One Universe) by LeighAnn Kopans

Author:LeighAnn Kopans [Kopans, LeighAnn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: english eBooks
ISBN: 9781490304045
Publisher: LeighAnn Kopans
Published: 2013-06-07T14:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

We get within about 15 feet of the ballroom exit, and Elias drops my hand and says, “Follow me in a couple minutes, okay? I’ll wait around the corner two hallways down.”

What are we about to do that we don’t want the cameras to catch?

I nod and do as he asked. I wait a few minutes and then walk down the hallway, trying to keep my heels from making too loud of a noise in the empty, cavernous space. The lights have been dimmed so that the stark white seems much softer, probably trying to achieve the sense of evening in a space without natural light. I pass the first hallway to the right, and it stares back at me, a tunnel of more unknown emptiness, the turned-out lights leaving it pitch black.

The second hallway is just as dark, and as I approach it, Elias’s hand shoots out and grabs mine. I squeak, surprised even though I knew he’d be waiting there for me. He pulls me to him and kisses me, his palm pressing against the small of my back. In the dark of the hallway, it’s exhilarating, and for a second, I forget that that’s not why we’re here. At least I didn’t think it was.

Elias pulls back and touches my face, running his thumb along my lips, and the outline of his face, dark-on-dark in the slight shadows, smiles at me. He speaks in a low whisper. “I could get used to this ‘Merrin-in-heels’ thing,” he murmurs. “Much easier to just grab you and kiss you.”

My head swims. He’s right. And if they weren’t so damn painful, I’d wear them all the time.

I would be pretty thrilled with this whole standing-in-a-dark-hallway scenario if we weren’t right in the middle of the Hub. Or if Elias hadn’t just shut me down for no freaking reason. But there’s too much of everything that makes me happy or excited everywhere around me to focus on just one thing. Even Elias.

I step back and push his shoulders playfully. “What are we doing down here?”

“I want to show you something.” He tugs at my arm and pulls me behind him down the hallway. As he steps, the lights flare up to the blinding levels I’m sure they’re set on during the day.

“Low lights,” he commands, and they dim to nighttime levels. My eyebrows go up. How does he know to do this? I look at him, and he gets it. He gets the question.

“Um, my cuff gives me clearance. I’m actually here kind of a lot,” he says quietly, nodding toward his cuff. “The security system senses its presence whenever we walk through a checkpoint. That’s why no holodoors have flown up in our face yet.”

We come to a solid door, probably the eighth on the right, even though the hallway stretches much farther down.

“No retina scans?”

He shrugs. “No, the process to get into the Hub in the first place is intense enough. Once you’re in, the cuff is good enough. And besides, no retina scan at every door frees up funding for…other things.

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