Read Online The Variables by Shelbi Wescott - Free Book Online

forward. He made eye contact with Cass for the first time.
    She smiled.
    “Oui,” she said, “Vous y êtes.” Then she leaned down, inches from Ethan’s face. He narrowed his eyes, tightened his mouth. And Cass wrinkled her nose. “Je vous vois, Ethan. Je vous vois.” Then she reached up and cupped Ethan’s face, her dark hand such a stunning contrast to Ethan’s paleness. He didn’t flinch at her touch, but he stared at her—his gaze wary and full of caution.
    Lucy cleared her throat, and Cass turned her head, leaving her body close to Ethan while pulling her hand away.
    The two girls exchanged a look, Lucy questioning and Cass expectant of reproach. Cass had a way of pulling people to her and helping them feel safe. Lucy, after all, had followed her blindly through the underbelly of the System and into darkened passageways without knowing if she was friend or foe. If anyone could convince Ethan to give up his silence, it would be the Haitian beauty and her charm. Cass made Lucy feel simultaneously empowered and inferior, and Lucy wished she could just hand over Ethan’s fragile spirit and let Cass work her magic. She wanted her brother back.
    Lucy left Oregon in a hot air balloon and left her brother, Darla, and Teddy on the hunt for a doctor. Did the amputation mean they had found one? Or did it mean they hadn’t? Had he asked for friends, plural, like the doctor recounted to Maxine? At one point, she had Ethan as a conspirator in this adventure. Now, he looked at her with disdain, barely concealing the contempt.
    “I just want to know what happened with you,” Lucy whispered. She rubbed her eyes. “I just want to know how I can help you. You’re not alone here...there’s so much to tell you, and so much we need you for...and we can’t talk in here.” Lucy gestured around the room, and Cass nodded solemnly. “We need you out. We need you safe.”
    “She is right,” Cass continued. “You can be angry and confused, dearest Ethan King. But if you want our help, you have to be willing to leave this room.”
    Ethan put his hands down on his wheelchair wheels and spun himself back to the wall with an angry swipe. He took his hand and brought it to the picture and began to outline the buildings with his pointer finger in one fluid line.  
    “Please, stop, Ethan,” Lucy called. She couldn’t hide the tremor. “It’s not just Teddy who needs you. I need you too. I did everything I could to bring you here...I thought...I just...I knew things. You’re safer here, Ethan. I can’t explain it now,” she said, looking upwards as if searching for the invisible listening devices, “but someday I will, and you’ll see.”
    Ethan’s hand froze against the picture, his index finger poised at the top of the Empire State Building. He turned his head toward her, his finger unmoving, and his eyes locked onto Lucy’s. She swallowed and felt a coolness trickle down her spine. She saw what was underneath Ethan’s tortured glances. Not fear, not spite. Blame. Lucy tried to say something to respond to his look, but there were no words to deflect the shame. She trembled and felt a distinct shift. Lucy could almost see the compassion seeping from her body. Her face went hot.
    “You don’t understand. How can you look at me like that...you don’t know what this place is...what I went through here.” The image of the water closing in over the top of the tanks filled her memory for a brief second before she shook it away. Her lungs seared as if the drowning had just happened, as if Blair had tried to kill her only yesterday. “Can’t you trust me? Can’t you see through your own misery for just one second to think that maybe I knew something you didn’t? You think you’re the only one who has suffered?”
    Ethan didn’t blink. He held her gaze. And Lucy let out a frustrated groan. It was Cass who stepped forward between them and raised her hands to call a truce, as if Lucy and Ethan were in danger of flying