Page 71 of Dark Chains: First Link
Freedom. Choices. Helplessness. The words hung in the humid air between them.
Yaaf was looking at her with an intensity that made the skin on the back of her neck prickle. It wasn't threatening or intimidating, just focused.
Too focused.
And he didn't say anything in response.
"What's it like outside this island?" she asked, to fill the awkward silence.
His expression changed again. The attentive focus dimmed, replaced by something that took her a moment to recognize as embarrassment.
"I can't answer that," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I've never left the island."
Sullha stared at him. "You've never been anywhere else?"
"I was born in the enclosure, the same as you, and taken to the training camp at thirteen. After I was done with that, I moved to the barracks on the military side. My world is this island, and it's not such a big place. In fact, it's quite small."
She almost laughed, but it wasn't funny. In a way, they were both prisoners. His cage might be bigger, and their restrictions were different, but they both looked at that same horizon that never changed.
"What do you know about the outside world?" She adjusted her question.
He must at least know more about the world than she did.
"Not much. We were shown maps and satellite images, and I realized that there are many bigger islands in the Indian Ocean alone. Then there are the continents. The commanders describe the places where our soldiers are deployed, and we are shown movies to absorb foreign languages and local customs so we can blend in when we are deployed. Now I know what some of the places look like, but that's not the same as standing on a street or walking into a building that isn't on this island."
The parallel was startling. She had seen some old movies and read some books with descriptions of different places; he had seen movies, satellite images, and deployment reports. Both of them were constructing mental images of a world they'd never touched.
Sullha reached for a weed at the same time he did, their fingers arriving at the same stem within a fraction of a second. Her fingertips brushed the side of his hand, and the contact sent a jolt through her that was entirely out of proportion to the physical reality of skin touching skin for less than a heartbeat.
She pulled back. He pulled back. They both looked at the weed as if it was poisonous.
"Sorry," she said.
"Don't be."
Her heart was hammering, and the sensation in her fingers where she'd touched him was still buzzing, a phantom warmth that lingered like the memory of a burn. But it hadn't hurt. That was the confusing part. Every association she'd had with male touch was painful and repulsive, but this brief contact had been the opposite of that, and her body didn't know how to categorize it, so it was defaulting to alarm.
The silence returned, but it was a different kind now. Charged with the awareness of what had just happened and the mutual decision to pretend that it hadn't.
"If you had the chance to leave," Yaaf said, "would you take it?"
The question was so unexpected that she turned to look at him. He was watching her with that intensely focused expression again.
"In a heartbeat," she said. "But only if Tomek came with me. I won't go anywhere without my son."
"Of course. Aren't you afraid to leave, though? This place is all you've ever known."
She snorted. "Anywhere is better than here. Soon the renovations will be finished, and the visitors will return, and I'll be forced to..." She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to. He understood.
They sat in silence, the meaning of what she'd left unsaid loud in both their minds.
A shadow fell across the garden row. "Sullha," Feyla said. "It's time for lunch."
