Chapter 2

My breathing slowed. My heart stopped racing.

See? Not dead yet. The pills helped us live better lives, true, but no one ever said not taking them would kill you.

I’d be fine. I told myself this over and over again until I started to believe it.

I closed my eyes. A full minute or two later, when my muscles began to relax, the light in my room dimmed, then extinguished.

What difference could one little pill possibly make, anyway?

* * * *

Sleep usually came within ten minutes of lying down. Like a screen on standby, the mind would slow its normal functions, eliminating all sight and sound while the body recharged. In the morning, I’d wake after the prescribed eight hours of downtime, refreshed and ready for another day’s work.

Without the little blue pill, the cycle was interrupted.

I lay awake for what felt like hours. The first time I opened my eyes, the light in the room brightened slightly, in sync with my body. I shut my eyes quickly, and pressed them tight to keep from opening them again. If my light stayed on for too long, the screen would come to life and a concerned head would appear, someone from the Monitor Center to inquire after me. Was I ill? Unwell? Had I taken my pills?

No. Best to pretend, keep my eyes shut, the lights out. Fake it. I’m asleep, see? I’m asleep.

Eventually the thought became reality, and I felt myself spiraling down…where, exactly? I wasn’t sure. Sleep had always come at me in a rush before. By the time my head hit the pillow, I would already be gone. Turned off. Recharging.

But tonight I felt my consciousness slipping away. I lay on my back and felt as if my thoughts were pooling in the nape of my neck. My heart slowed to a steady rhythm that sounded like footsteps when I pressed my ear against my pillow. My mind whirled at first, anxious, nervous, but as my vitals evened out, everything behind my eyes emptied until I stared at a vast darkness, a black so complete, it made me feel miniscule to stare into it. I felt myself shrinking, disappearing, dissolving, until I was just a tiny speck against all that nothingness.

And then I winked out.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the edge of my bed beside someone. I couldn’t look up and see who, but I saw my legs in their familiar, loose, white linen pants, and I saw another set alongside. A hand lay on the other knee, a hand I could almost recognize. I tried to move and couldn’t. Tried to stand or scream or shout—nothing. I had no memory of getting out of bed, of sitting up, of even wakingup, and then it hit me.

This was a dream. I was dreaming.

I coulddream.

From the beginning of our lives, we were told dreams were bad. They made for lazy, unproductive people. They created distraction and desire, both of which were bad for the Colony. They tired the mind when it should be resting. The pills stopped dreams, and distraction, and desire. They kept us alive, made us function. Made us Whole.

But this dream wasn’t a distraction. It felt real. I saw my hands on my thighs, and could feel the linen beneath my palms. The person beside me was saying something I couldn’t quite hear, but I couldn’t lean closer or ask them to speak up. My mouth felt dry, but my hands were damp with sweat.

Who was it?

The other person’s hand rose off the knee and hovered a moment, indecisive, before crossing the distance between us to land on my knee instead.

A flush of heat spiked through me at the touch. It was the first time anyone outside of my family unit or my Other had placed a hand so casually on my body, and every nerve tingled at the sensation. Even through the thin pants I wore, I could feel the heat the other person’s hand gave off.Wasit my Other? It would make sense, wouldn’t it, that my first dream be of Brin, who was conscribed to me at birth. But her hand was daintier, more feminine, her nails oval and not quite so blunt.

“Aine,” someone sighed.

Dream or no, I heardmy name spoken out loud, and I felt the breath against my ear. I knew the voice. It wasn’t my Other beside me at all, and the hand steadily rising up my leg until it covered my own wasn’t Brin’s.

Warm fingers enveloped mine and finally, finally, I moved. I glanced over and saw who sat so close to me, who held me so tight, who made my blood burn and my heart race in strangely sensual ways, as they had never done before.