Summer Ruins by Trisha Leigh Read Free Book Online

shocks him, then does it again. The astonishment on Lucas’s face makes me laugh, too, and after a moment Deshi and I are doubled over with giggles.
    Lucas looks amused now, arms crossed over his chest. “Are one of you going to explain the joke here? What’s an ass?”
    That only makes Deshi laugh harder, and the sound of his mirth fill me with hope. “It’s another word for butt. Deshi taught me.”
    “Hilarious.” Lucas’s mouth twists into a wry smile, deepening his dimples and making me want to kiss him all the more.
    “Okay, okay. We really have to go.” Deshi stands up, wiping his eyes and wrapping his fingers around Lucas’s wrist.
    After they’re gone, the image of Deshi’s honey skin wrapped around Lucas’s paleness sticks in my mind. Then I think about tomorrow, and try not to cry.

 
     
    Chapter 7.
     

     
    Deshi brings me back to my smelly mess of a temporary home. I can’t talk because it’s taking all of my concentration not to break down into tears.
    He drops my hand and turns over the movie player to check the battery compartment. I shove all of my terror and loss into my stomach, where it makes me a little nauseous. “So what do we do now?”
    “Well, there’s still a couple hours before the meeting and training is over. I thought maybe we could watch my movie.” He looks away, almost shy as if he’s asking me to a Gathering and is afraid I’m going to say no.
    Except there’s nothing between Deshi and me that suggests romance or courtship. Not even warmth. I wish I felt something more than pity, but perhaps after everything that’s about as much as can be expected.
    Even so, I give him a small smile and nod. “Okay. Can I see it?”
    “My note? Sure.” He picks a plastic case up off the floor, where it must have been underneath the DVD player, and hands it to me.
    The cover is black and white. A handsome, tall man with a little girl hanging off his back smiles down into a pretty woman’s face. The title, scrolled across the top, says It’s a Wonderful Life . The back confuses me a little bit, because, like Deshi said, the story seems sad to me even though the words and the title make it seem as though it’s happy.
    The note inside is exactly like mine, except the words are fading. Frantically, I pry my own message loose from inside my star-shaped locket. It’s disappearing as well.
    Grief threatens to climb out of my center, but a couple of deep breaths get it back under control. My hand clenches so tight around my locket that it leaves a star mark in the center of my palm, kind of like the red mark that decorates each Warden’s neck just under their ear. Regular Others have red star outlines—the Elements have black ones that look like stamps.
    Deshi sets the DVD player in the corner farthest from the one I’ve been using as a wasteroom, then wrinkles his nose. His eyes close for a moment, and his lips move with silent words.
    “What are you doing?”
    He holds a hand up in my direction, silencing my question and irritating me more than a little in the process. Not long after he opens his eyes, though, the Goblert who brought me food appears outside the marble bars separating me from the rest of the Underground Core.
    Deshi lets him inside and even though we’ve met, the Goblert doesn’t acknowledge my presence. He goes to the corner stinking with my waste and blows a handful of glittery dust into the air the way he did to take Lucas away to the Harvest Site. When it settles on the ground, everything underneath it disappears.
    The room smells better before the Goblert’s steps even disappear into the darkness, and the small kindness relights my faith. Not much, but enough.
    “Thank you,” I tell Deshi for the second time tonight.
    He shrugs. “It’s a long movie. I didn’t want to sit here for three hours in that stench.”
    Fair enough, but his disinterested tone worries me. It makes me feel like he’s slipping further away instead of slinking closer. I ignore