Soul Mate Service (boyxboy)

Chapter 20

ARIA

For the millionth time that night, I tapped my travel tablet. The blueish glow of the screen bounced off of the pale planes of my face and I squinted through the darkness of the room as my pupils adjusted. But – inevitably – the bright surface still read the same thing that I knew it would.

10:48 PM it read, underneath which a bold, bright red symbol indicated that Free Period was long over.

This time, I was able to keep from checking the time for precisely five minutes. That was definitely a record, but it was hard to celebrate the small victory when every little corner of my brain was occupied with something much bigger.

It had almost been forty-eight hours since they took Thad.

All of my life, I'd been raised underneath the careful eye of The Elders – bred to believe and follow them unconditionally. Being one of their most important possessions was a privilege that yielded both a strange sense of comfort that existed directly alongside a heavy responsibility to set an example of the 'perfect society member' who followed every rule with blind obedience.

But no matter how deep my belief in the Elders' righteousness ran, I simply couldn't stop my overstimulated brain from conjuring up the wildest postulations about what they could be doing to Thad right now.

Even my little Instructional sweethearts sensed that something was off over the past two days, some resorting to pulling adorable pranks like hiding my pencils behind their backs in an effort to make me smile. It took a lot of concentration to make the overwhelmingly worried part of my brain cooperate long enough to conjure up even a weak grin, but somehow I still managed it. After all, none of this was their fault.

But here – in the darkness of my room, where no one else could see the way my eyes filled to the brim with salty fluid – I had broken down countless times.

After sending her a comm just like Thad had told me to do, Andrea came to hold and distract me whenever she could, but even she was not above Society rules. Once Free Period was over, my best friend was always faced with no choice but to leave me on my own, curled up underneath the grey, standard-issue blanket that draped atop my bed.

'I promise I'll be back for you.'

Thad's voice echoed around in my skull, and a quiet sound of discomfort traveled up from the back of my throat as I turned my head, burying it deep into my pillow as if smothering my vision could make the entire world disappear right along with it.

It was honestly ridiculous how much I was thinking about him. Thaddeus was the embodiment of an abrasive personality, and most of his actions were motivated by selfishness above anything. But regardless of the fact that I knew this, flashes of him going out of his way to deliver my travel tablet, of the chicken soup he made for me... Of the way he touched me as he stared down at my body with eyes filled with fire...

I quickly tapped the dimmed screen of my Travel Tablet once again, desperate to steer my rapidly devolving thoughts elsewhere.

10:50 PM.

Dang it! How had only two minutes passed?!

I flopped over on the bed, kicking my restless legs out from underneath the cover until I laid – spread eagle – on top of it. However, just as I began to sink into the covers, the familiar 'woosh' of a door sliding open caught my attention.

My entire body shot to attention as I bolted upright, and before I knew it I was smashing my hand against the control panel to open the door of my bedroom and rushing into the hallway, only to see...