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know it’s hard and seems impossible, but you will be absolutely everything Soc wanted you to be.” I try to pull my hands away, but she squeezes them tighter. “Carroll won’t be able to help you. He’s been out of society for years. They keep him so drugged he can barely feed himself.”
    I shrug. “I don’t care. I feel like I need to meet him.”
    A half smile tugs at her lips. “Socrates was like that. He always followed his intuition. If something felt right, it didn’t need to make sense, he just went with it. Like when he chose you.” She chuckles. “I thought he was crazy, given your past.”
    My face flushes. “Me too.”
    Eliot laughs a throw-your-head-back kind of laugh. She’s never laughed like that around me before. “I don’t know why I was so surprised. I wonder if he planned this for a long time or if it came upon him like some kind of epiphany. Soc usually didn’t overanalyze things, so I wouldn’t be shocked if it came to him all of a sudden and he decided to go for it. I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell me.” A twinge of hurt colors her voice. “I know you didn’t know him long, but he was a great man. One of the best.”
    I look away, uncomfortable. She’s right. I only knew him for a few days, nothing like the lifetimes they spent together. “He was always very kind to me.”
    “He was kind, for as long as I’ve known him, even to the other kids.”
    “Is that normal for Firsts?”
    Color creeps up her neck. “No. Most Firsts don’t care about the emotions of their Seconds. They’re only concerned about what the children can do for them. I’m not proud to admit it, but I was like that once.” She tears her attention from me to study the far window. “I think the burden is even greater on us because we are immortals. We should know better. Hell, we’ve seen it all before, and some of us had a front row seat on an number of atrocities.”
    The minutes stretch between us like the long, wispy clouds in the sky, tenuous and delicate, ready to break at any minute. “Are you afraid of dying?”
    “Were you?” Her voice is quiet, contemplative. She studies me, almost as though she actually cares about my answer.
    “Yes, I was terrified.”
    “Then why did you do it?” Her eyes bore into mine.
    I can’t meet her gaze any longer and break it to study my hands. “Because I had to.”
    “That’s a bullshit answer, and you know it.”
    I jerk my head up at the vehemence in her voice.
    “You know you could have turned him down. He’d have let you go and then… then he’d still be here.” Her voice breaks. “At least for a little while. At least until he could find another host body. ”
    “Because he’s still more important, right?” I let out a frustrated huff. I tighten my hands into fists, and glare at her. “I’d be an outcast to my own people. It’s such a great honor to be chosen, even if they don’t know the half of what happens. And if they did, I don’t think it’d matter. They’d still have expected me to go through with it for the good of my country and all that. I’d be lucky if I’d have a week, maybe two. But that’s not the real reason. Do you know why I did it?” My words tumble out in a rush, unable to wait for her answer. “I did it because my sister died to escape you people. My mom sent her off into the forest, hoping a rebel scout would pick her up and take her somewhere safe, but he never came. She died so she wouldn’t be chosen. Someone needs to stop this horrible procedure. At first, I thought it would be Socrates, but I guess that it’s my fight now. I want you people to have to live short, pointless, mortal lives just like the rest of us.”
    “And that,” Eliot says as she sits back in her chair, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Is why Soc picked you.”

Good Graces
    Will
     
    “I need you to go on a short trip with Soc tomorrow,” George Eliot says as she walks into the kitchen. Her trim