WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Leda tasted the name on her lips for the thousandth time as she waited for the skycar to plummet all the way back to the lower levels. She had already looked him up on the Newsweb and what she had found should not have done anything but make her want to stay as far away from him as possible.

And yet, the recall of his hands was burned onto her skin. The small window of their apartment was dark as the car floated above the dirt. She wondered how long it took to clean off all the dust and soot that now coated the previously polished surface. The hovels left a stain on anyone who ventured there, except hers could not be as easily washed away as mud would off the skycar.

“Thanks for the ride,” she muttered, voice heavy with sarcasm, before banging the door shut behind her. Cythia had promised not to wait up, saying she wanted to be rested when the guardians arrived to tell her that Leds had been taken to detention. As much as the nagging annoyed her, she had to