The Unbound

I smile and push to my feet. “That’s very good to know.”

Wes is still grumbling as the soccer ball gets lobbed our way and Cash plucks it out of the air. “Just here to help,” he says brightly, turning back toward the field.

“I’ll add it to your feedback card,” I call after him as he jogs away. My attention drifts back to Wes, who is standing there, shirtless and staring.

“I’m going to need you to put your shirt back on,” I say.

“Why?” he says, arching a brow. “Having trouble concentrating?”

“A little,” I admit. “But mostly you’re just sweaty.”

His smile goes mischievous.

“Ugh no, wait—” I start, but it’s too late. He’s already closing the gap between us, snaking his arms around my back and pulling me into a hug. I manage to get my hands up as he wraps himself around me, and my fingers splay across his chest, the rock band sound washing over me, pouring in wherever our skin meets. And through his chest and his noise—or maybe in it—I can feel his heart beating, the steady drum of it hitting my palms. And as it echoes through my own chest, all I can think is: Why can’t things be this simple?

I mean, nothing is ever going to be simple for us—not the way it is for other people—but couldn’t we have this? Couldn’t I have this? A boy and a girl and a normal life?

He brings his damp forehead against my dry one, and a bead of sweat runs down my temple and cheek before making its way toward my chin.

“You are so gross,” I whisper. But I don’t pull away. In fact, I have to fight the urge to slide my hands down his chest, over his bare stomach, and around his back. I want to pull our bodies closer and stretch onto my toes until my lips find his. I don’t have to read his mind to know how badly he wants to kiss me, too. I can feel it in the way he tenses beneath my touch, taste it in the small pocket of air that separates his mouth from mine.

I force myself to remember that I’m the one who said no. That I’m the thing keeping us apart. Not because I don’t feel what he feels, but because I’m afraid.

I’m afraid I’m losing my mind.

Afraid the Archive will decide I’m not worth the risk and erase me.

Afraid I will give Wesley a part of me he can’t keep.

Afraid that if we go down this road, it will ruin us.

I will ruin him.

“Wes,” I plead, and he spares me the pain of pulling away by letting go. His arms slip back to his sides and he retreats a step, taking his music with him as he crouches and digs his key out of his bag. He slips the metal back around his neck before he straightens, polo in hand.

“So,” he says, tugging the shirt over his head. “Why did you really come?”

“Actually, I was hoping you could give me a ride home.”

His brow crinkles. “I wasn’t joking, Mac. I don’t have a car.”

“No,” I say slowly, “but you have something better. Fastest way around the city, you told me, and I happen to know it leads right to my door.”

“The Narrows?” His hand drifts to the key against his sternum. “What’s wrong with Dante?”

“Nothing.” Except for the bike’s current proximity to Eric. I tilt my head back. “It just looks like rain.” To be fair, it is kind of cloudy.

He looks up, too. “Uh-huh.” Not that cloudy. His eyes drop back to mine. “Be honest. You just want to get inside my halls.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, teasing. “Creepy corridors are such a turn-on.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up. “Follow me.”

Wes leads me around the back of campus to an abandoned building. Abandoned might be too severe a phrase; the building is small and old and elegant and draped with ivy, but it doesn’t look anywhere near structurally sound, let alone usable. Wes makes another sweeping gesture at the door set into the building’s side.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Your nearest Narrows door is…an actual door?”

Wes beams. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The paint has all flaked off, and the small glass inserts that once occupied the upper middle have broken and been replaced by cobwebs. Even so, it is strange and lovely. I knew that Narrows doors all started out as real doors—wood and hinges and frames—but over time, walls change, buildings come down, and the portals stay. Every Narrows door I’ve ever seen has been nothing more than a crack in the world, a seam you can barely see. An impossible entrance that takes shape only when summoned by a key.

But here this is: this small, wood-and-metal door. I tug off my ring, the world shifting subtly around me as I tuck the metal band into my skirt pocket and reach out. Pressing my palm flat against the door, I can feel the strangeness, the hum of two worlds meeting and reverberating through the wood. It makes my fingertips go numb. Wesley fishes his key out from under his polo; he slides it into the rusted lock—a real, metal lock—and turns.

“Anything I should know about?” I ask as the door swings open onto darkness.

“Keep your eyes peeled for someone named Elissa,” he says. I cast a last glance around for Eric, then follow Wesley through.

The Narrows are the Narrows are the Narrows.

The fact that Wesley’s territory looks and smells and sounds like mine—dark and dank and full of distant echoes, like groaning pipes—is just a reminder of how vast the Archive system is. The only differences are the markings he’s made on the doors—I use Xs and Os, but Wes has drawn broad red slashes over every locked door, green checks over every usable one. And of course there’s the fact I have no idea where I’m going. It looks so much like my territory that I feel like I should know every turn, but the halls and doors are a disorienting almost-mirror.

“Which way home?”

“Your home is this way,” he says, pointing down the hall.

“And yours?” I ask.

He gestures vaguely behind him.

Curiosity tugs at me. “Can I see?”

“Not today,” says Wes, his voice strangely tense.

“But we’re so close. How can I pass up the opportunity to see inside the life of the mysterious Wesley Ayers?”

“Because I’m not offering,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Look, it’s a big house. Soulless. And I hate it. That’s all you need to know.” He seems genuinely a

He starts walking away, and I follow. We move in silence through the Narrows, our senses tuned to the dimly lit corridors around us. I try to make a mental map of these new halls. It’s not enough to know the number of rights and lefts—Da taught me how to learn a space, make a memory of it so I could find my way through in both directions and correct my course if I strayed. It’s harder this time, since there’s already a nearly identical territory mapped in my head.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to your hands?” asks Wes.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“You promised me a story.”

“It isn’t a very nice one,” I say, but I still tell him. His steps slow. Even in the dark, I can see him pale as he listens.

“I would have killed them,” he says under his breath.

“I nearly did,” I say. I carved Eric out of the story. I don’t want Wesley to worry, not until there’s a good reason to. Luckily the appearance of the territory wall saves me from having to say more.

The boundary between Wesley’s territory and mine looks like a dead end, bare except for the keyhole set into it. It’s strange, I think, how separate Keepers are kept. Crew may be paired up, but we’re isolated. Each on his own page.

Wes slides his key into the small, glowing mark on the otherwise bare wall; as he does, the door takes shape around the lock, the stony surface rippling into wood. The lock turns over with a soft metallic click, and he pulls the door open to reveal my section of the Narrows. The same—a mirror image—and yet different. More familiar.