Purity Read online

  “Jesus!” Boone shook his head. “That’s fucking horrible, K!”

  “It taught you to follow orders.” She tried to keep her voice expressionless. “Those who didn’t do as they were told reaped the consequences of their behavior. It also weeded out the weak. I told you there were twenty-six in my birthgroup, right?”

  Boone nodded.

  “Only twelve of us became Paladins.” K swallowed. “The others—the ones who were too damaged, who couldn’t obey orders or learn to control their feelings— they were purged.”

  “Jesus wept.” Boone jumped up and began to pace, his broad shoulders tensed. “No wonder you were afraid to take a shower. K, that is the worst, most inhumane thing I’ve ever heard. To treat children that way.”

  “We weren’t children—not really.” K watched him pace. “We were soldiers in training. Paladins. And only those that deserved to make rank survived.”

  Boone stopped pacing and turned to face her. “You can’t tell me you think what was done to you is right. That it didn’t hurt you.”

  “It was necessary.” K lifted her chin. “I became a better, more controlled warrior because of it.”

  “How can you defend what those Purist bastards did to you? They fucking traumatized you, K.”

  “They trained us,” she said stubbornly. “Trained us to endure, to feel nothing. And don’t forget, Boone, I am one of those Purist bastards myself, even if you have taken my suit.” She closed her eyes, trying to drive away the memory but it wouldn’t go.

  She could still hear the howls of the other children who had not yet learned to master their emotions as the freezing, burning water peppered their unprotected skin like bullets. Her jaw still ached from keeping it clenched tight, enduring in silence. But though she didn’t cry or beg she still hated it. One of the best things about being fitted for her suit had been never having to visit the shower room again…

  “K, honey…” Boone knelt in front of her and took her by the shoulders. “I know it’s how you were raised but it isn’t right. Children aren’t meant to be brought up in a barracks by machines with no one to hold them or love them. They shouldn’t be denied the right to touch, the right to feel or fear or love. And they sure as hell shouldn’t be tortured.”

  K opened her eyes and looked at him. “It is the Purist way. It’s the only way I know, Boone.”

  “And you think you’re a better person for it?”

  “I…I know I am.” She lifted her chin. “I am a Paladin. I fear nothing. I feel nothing.”

  “Nothing at all? Then what’s this?” Boone touched her cheek lightly. When he pulled his hand away K saw moisture glistening on his fingertips.

  “What…?” She stared at the droplets in confusion.

  “You’re crying, K,” Boone said in a low voice. “You have been since you started telling me this little slice of hell from your past.”

  “I’m not—I can’t be!” She felt a stab of panic. Feeling emotions was one thing but to actually manifest them outwardly…

  “Look in the viewer.” Boone nodded at the silvery reflective screen across the room.

  K stood stiffly and walked over to it, looking at her image in the viewer’s surface. Sure enough, there were tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. But as she looked closer, she saw that something else was wrong—very wrong.

  “My eyes!” She looked at Boone and then back at the viewer. “What’s happening to my eyes?”

  Boone came to stand behind her, looking down at her reflection. “Well, you can see a lot more of the white around the outer edges now.”

  “Exactly.” K leaned closer, her gut twisting like a clenched fist. “The black of Purity, it’s fading, leaving me. My eyes haven’t been this white since I was a second level Paladin.” She shoved away from the viewer in a sudden frantic movement. “I’m losing it—losing everything I worked so hard to achieve.”

  She wanted to run, wanted to get away from herself and everything else, from this whole frightening situation. But Boone wouldn’t let her. When she tried to leave he caught her and held her tight.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” K beat against his broad chest with her fists but it was like beating against a stone wall—he refused to release her. Finally she stopped, too tired to continue, too confused to know what to do next.

  “Take it easy, darlin’.” Boone pulled her close and held her. “Let it out. Just let it all out.”

  “Let what all out?” K tried to say but she found she couldn’t talk—her throat was too tight. She was crying again—she could feel the wetness on her cheeks—but she didn’t allow herself to sob. She could cry quietly, could retain that much of her dignity, at least.

  It was the best she could do but it wasn’t enough. Even as Boone held her, murmuring soothing nothings, K could feel the waves of shame and pain rolling over her. She was losing her hold on the person she had always been—was becoming a stranger, even to herself.

  “It’s all right.” Boone stroked her hair which fell like a heavy, damp curtain around her face. “It’s all right, baby.”

  K wiped angrily at her eyes. “Don’t call me that—it’s worse than your other nicknames for me. I am not your baby.”

  “No, and maybe that’s the problem.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face and looked at her seriously. “You were never anybody’s baby. Maybe it’s time you had some babying—some tenderness in your life.”

  K stiffened. “Why, so I can become softer than I already am? Look at me—having emotions and then expressing them. I’m crying for Purity’s sake.”

  “They hurt you, K.” Boone’s voice was quiet and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “It’s natural to cry when you’re in pain.”

  “I’m not in pain,” K protested but there was a feeling in her chest, a tightness like someone was gripping her heart and twisting it until she thought it might burst.

  “Your tears say differently.” Tilting her chin up, he pressed his lips gently to her wet eyelids—a touch so soft K could barely feel it. And yet, her heart skittered in her chest.

  “What…what are you doing?” she asked, her voice coming out soft and breathless.

  “Comforting you,” Boone murmured.

  “You don’t have to do that—I’m fine,” she insisted. “You can…can let me go now.”

  He gave her a long, appraising look. “Is that really what you want?”

  “Of course it is.” K glared at him.

  “All right. If you promise not to hurt yourself.”

  “I have already given you my word I won’t purge myself until I get my suit,” K said, sniffing. “I shouldn’t have to swear it again.”

  “Fine.” Finally Boone relaxed his grip on her and she was free. But for a moment—only a moment—she didn’t want to move. She wished she could stay there and take the comfort he was offering, could let her tears dissolve the bad memories and make new ones to take their place. The feel of his lips on her cheeks and eyelids had been so soft and yet they made her heart pound…

  That was her weakness talking. The growing Impurity that was eating her from the inside out. I must fight it, K told herself fiercely. I must hold out until I can find my suit!

  But how much longer could she wait? How much longer did she have before the balance inside her shifted and her emotions ate her ability to reason completely?

  How much longer would her eyes remain black?

  Chapter Eight

  After the shower incident, as Boone began to call it in his mind, things shifted subtly between himself and K and not for the better. Now she was colder and even more withdrawn than she had been to begin with. Boone feared that the emotional break-down she’d suffered after recounting her traumatic past for him might have pushed her too far. Shouldn’t have made her tell you, he told himself. Shouldn’t have pushed. But he couldn’t quite believe that.

  Bullshit—she needed to talk. Needed to get it out.

  Sure and that’s why she’s back to being as col