Uglies 03 - Specials by Scott Westerfeld

Author:Scott Westerfeld [Westerfeld, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub

"You're so special you have to cut yourself just to feel anything."

She shook her head. "I don't do that anymore."

"So you can change!"

"But that doesn't mean …" She opened her eyes.

Zane's face was centimeters from hers, his gaze intense. And somehow the wild had changed him, too—his eyes no longer looked watery and average to her. His stare was almost icy.

Almost special.

She leaned closer…and their lips met, warm in the chill of the outcrop's shadow. The roar of the waves filled her ears, drowning out her nervous heartbeat.

She slid closer, hands pushing inside his clothes. She wanted to be out of the sneak suit, no longer alone, no longer invisible. Arms around him, she squeezed tight, hearing his breath catch as her lethal hands gripped harder. Her senses brought her everything about him: his heart pulsing softly in his throat, the taste of his mouth, the unwashed scent of him cut by the salt spray.

But then his fingers brushed her cheek, and Tally felt their trembling.

No, she said silently.

The tremors were soft, almost nothing, as faint as the echoes of rain falling a kilometer away. But they were everywhere, on the skin of his face, in the muscles of his arms around her, in his lips against hers—his whole body shivering like a littlie's in the cold. And suddenly Tally could see inside him: his damaged nervous system, the corrupted connections between body and brain.

She tried to blot the image from her mind, but it only grew clearer. She was designed to spot weaknesses, after all, to take advantage of the frailties and flaws of randoms. Not ignore them.

Tally tried to pull away a little, but Zane's grip on her arm tightened, as if he thought he could hold her there. She broke the kiss and opened her eyes, glaring down at the pale fingers grasping her, a sudden, unstoppable flash of anger rising.

"Tally, wait," he said. "We can—"

But he hadn't let go. Rage and disgust filled her, and Tally sent a flutter of razor spines rolling across her sneak suit. Zane cried out and pulled back, his fingers and palms bleeding.

She rolled away, springing to her feet and running. She'd kissed him, let herself be touched by him—someone unspecial and barely average. Someone crippled…

Bile rose in her throat, as if the memory of kissing him was trying to tear itself free of her body.

She stumbled and fell to one knee, her stomach heaving, the world spinning.

"Tally!" He was coming after her.

"Don't!" She raised one hand, not daring to look up at him. Breathing in the cold, pure sea air, the nausea was beginning to pass. But not if he got any closer.

"Are you okay?"

"Does it look like I'm okay?" A wave of shame whipped through Tally. What had she done? "I just can't, Zane."

She pulled herself up and ran toward the ocean, away from him. The outcrop ended on a chalky cliff, but Tally didn't slow down…

She jumped, barely clearing the rocks below, hitting the waves with a slap, diving down into the icy embrace of the water.

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