Pretties

She couldn't let this happen.

"I'll take you on my hoverboard, Zane — we'll escape on our own if we have to." Her mind raced. She'd still have to get rid of the tracker somehow. She couldn't just bash it out with a rock…Tally looked around for some sort of tool, but the New Smokies had taken everything useful outside to be sca

Voices came from the darkness. It was Maddy, David, and Croy. Tally saw that Maddy was carrying some sort of forceps in her hand, and her heart skipped a beat.

Maddy knelt beside Zane and forced open his mouth. He whimpered in pain again as the metal tool probed his teeth.

"Be careful," Tally pleaded softly.

"Hold this." Maddy handed her a flashlight. When Tally pointed it into Zane's mouth, the discolored tooth was obvious.

After a moment, Maddy said, "This isn't good." She released Zane's head, and he fell back onto the blankets with a groan, his eyes closing.

"Just take it out!"

"They've rooted it to the bone." She turned to Croy. "Finish packing up. We have to run."

"Do something for him!" Tally cried.

Maddy took the light from her. "Tally, it's bonded to the bone. I'd have to shatter his jaw to remove it."

"So don't take it out, just make it stop sending! Smash the tooth! He can take it!"

Maddy shook her head. "Pretty teeth are made of the same stuff they use in aircraft wings. You can't just smash them. I'd need special dental nanos to break it down." She turned the flashlight on Tally, reaching for her mouth.

Tally twisted away. "What are you doing?"

"Just making sure about you."

"But I didn't go into the hos—," Tally began, but Maddy wrenched open her mouth. Tally growled at the back of her throat, but let the woman poke around for a moment; it was quicker than arguing. When she grunted and let go, Tally said, "Satisfied?"

"For now. But we have to leave Zane behind."

"Forget it!" Tally shouted.

"They'll be here in another ten minutes," David said.

"Less." Maddy stood.

Tally's vision swam with spots from the little flashlight. She could hardly see their faces in the firelight. Didn't they understand what Zane had gone through to get here, what he had sacrificed for the cure? "I won't leave him."

"Tally—," David began.

"It doesn't matter," Maddy interrupted. "Technically, she's still a pretty-head."

"I am not!"

"You didn't even take the right pill." Maddy put a hand on David's shoulder. "Tally's still got the lesions. Once they scan her brain, they won't even put her under the knife. They'll think she just came along for the ride."

"Mom!" David shouted. "We are not leaving her!"

"And I'm not coming," Tally said.

Maddy shook her head. "Perhaps the lesions aren't as important as we thought. Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain" — Maddy glanced at Tally—"and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it."

"Az was right," Tally said softly. "I'm cured now." David let out a pained growl. "Cured or not, Tally, you can't stay here. I don't want to lose you again! Mom! Do something!"

"You want to argue with her? Go ahead." Maddy spun on one heel and strode toward the observatory entrance. "We're leaving in two minutes," she said without turning around. "With or without you."

David and Tally were silent for a few moments. It was like when they'd first seen each other in the ruins that morning, neither knowing what to say. Though now, Tally realized, David's face no longer shocked her. Maybe the panic of the moment or the freezing bath had stripped her remaining pretty thoughts away. Or maybe it had simply taken a few hours to align her memories and dreams with the truth…

David wasn't a prince — handsome or otherwise. He was the first boy she'd fallen in love with, but not the last. Time and experiences apart had changed what had been between them.

More important, she had someone else now. However unfair it was that her memories of David had been erased, Tally had built a whole new set of memories, and she couldn't just trade them in for the old ones. Zane and she had helped each other become bubbly, had been imprisoned by the cuffs together, and escaped the city together. She couldn't abandon him now, just because he had been robbed of part of his mind.

Tally knew too well what that was like, being handed over to the city all alone.

Zane was the one person in her life she had never betrayed, and she wasn't about to start now. She took his hand. "I'm not leaving him."

"Think logically, Tally." David spoke slowly, talking to her like she was a littlie. "You can't help Zane if you stay here. You'll both be captured."

"Your mother's right. They won't do anything more to my brain, and I can help him from inside the city."

"We can smuggle Zane the cure, like we did for you."

"I didn't need the cure, David. Maybe Zane won't either. I'll keep him bubbly, I can help him rewire his brain. But he won't stand a chance without me."

David started to speak, but froze for a moment. Then his voice changed, his eyes narrowing. "You're just staying with him because he's pretty."

Tally's eyes widened. "I'm what?"

"Don't you see it? It's like you always used to say: It's evolution. Since your Crim friends got here, Mom's been explaining to me how prettiness works." He pointed at Zane. "He's got those big, vulnerable eyes, that childlike perfect skin. He looks like a baby to you, a needy child, which makes you want to help him. You're not thinking rationally. You're giving yourself up just because he's pretty!"

Tally stared back at David in disbelief. How dare he say this to her? The mere fact that she was standing here proved that Tally could think for herself.

Then she realized what was going on: David was only repeating Maddy's words. She must have warned him not to trust his feelings when he saw the new Tally. Maddy didn't want her son turning into some awestruck ugly, worshipping the ground Tally walked on. So now David thought that all that Tally could see was Zane's pretty face.

David still thought she was just some city kid. Maybe he didn't even really believe that she was cured. Maybe he'd never really forgiven her.

"It's not the way Zane looks, David," she said, her voice trembling with anger. "It's because he makes me bubbly, and because we took a lot of risks together. It could just as easily be me lying there, and he would stay with me if it was."

"It's just programming!"

"No. It's because I love him."

David started to speak again, but the sound choked off.

She sighed. "Go on, David. Whatever your mother said a second ago, she won't really leave without you. They'll all get caught if you don't start moving now."

"Tally—" "Go!" she cried. David had to start ru

"But you can—" "Get your ugly face out of here!" Tally screamed.

The echoes shuddered back at her from the observatory walls for a moment, and Tally tore her gaze away from David. She cradled Zane's face in one hand and kissed him. The shouted insult had the effect she'd wanted, but Tally couldn't bring herself to look up as she heard David's footsteps retreating into the darkness, first walking, then at a run.