Crossed (Matched, #2)

by Ally Condie

Peers listed Xander Carrow’s name as the student they most admired 87.6% of the time. Favorite color: red. That’s a surprise. I always thought Xander’s favorite color was green.

to a clump of tangled dark bushes I see something lying on the ground. It’s the boy. The one who ran with us to the Carving and then came into this canyon instead. He’s curled up on his side. His eyes are closed.

“Cassia,” someone whispers, and I whirl around. It’s Indie. I breathe out in relief. “It’s that boy,” I say. Indie crouches next to me. “He’s dead,”

“We have to get out of this canyon,” I say. “The Society’s in it. I can tell.”

The wasp’s nest, I think. “You’ve kept it safe,” I say. “What?” Indie asks, startled. “Your wasp nest,” I tell her. “It’s not broken.”

It seems like Indie and I might be the only two living people in the Outer Provinces.

“If we’re careful,” Vick says, already moving, his eyes on the stream. “That stream’s different from the one in the canyon. I bet the fish here are big ones.”

I’m from he can tell me where he started, too. “I’m from Camas,” he says. “You should see it. The mountains are bigger than the ones over there.”

he slides his hand into the water, behind the fish, little by little moving his fingers upstream until they’re under the fish’s belly. Then, quick, he flips the fish out onto the bank. It flops and gasps for air, its body slick. We all watch the fish die.

It’s the first real fire we’ve made and Eli loves holding his hands to the licking flames. It’s one thing to be fired upon and another to be warmed. “Don’t get too close,”

“There’s a kind of fish called rainbow,” Vick says, his face reflective. “Most of them died out long ago in the Warming, but I caught one once up in Camas.”

“Were your parents Officers before they were Reclassified?” Vick asks me. I laugh. My father, an Officer? Or my mother? For different reasons, the suggestion is ridiculous. “No,” I say. “Why?” “You know about the guns,” he says. “And the wiring in the coats.

“Some of it he learned from the Society for his work.” Most of it he taught himself. “What about your parents?” “My father was an Officer,” he says, and I’m not at all surprised. It makes sense: Vick’s bearing, his ability to command,

What could have happened to cause the Reclassification of someone in such good standing—a member of a family of Officers?

“How?” Vick asks. “My parents got sick. They died in a medical center in Central. And then I got sent away. If I’d been a Citizen, someone could have adopted me. But I wasn’t.

That wasn’t supposed to happen—didn’t happen, as far as I knew—to people as young as Eli’s parents must have been, not even Aberrations.

“Eli, I’m sorry,” I say. I was lucky. If Patrick and Aida’s son hadn’t died and Patrick hadn’t pushed so hard, I never would have been brought to Oria. I might be dead right now. “I’m sorry too,” Vick says.

“They’re heavy, so I couldn’t bring many,” he says. “Only two. But look. They’re books. With words and pictures.”

think my father told me about one of these books,” I say. “The stories were for children. They could look at the pictures while their parents read them the words. Then when the kids got older they could do it all themselves.”

He seems to be telling us I brought these here and you can see them on my terms.

Eli’s breathing slows as he falls asleep. “I loved someone too,” Vick says to me a few minutes later. “Back in Camas.” He clears his throat.

But there’s something about the fire tonight that makes us all talk.

“What was her name?” I ask. A pause. “Laney,” Vick says. “She worked at the base where we lived. She told me about the Pilot.”

spot where I wrote Cassia’s name over and over in the dirt. “I wish I could do that,” he says. “We never had anything but scribes and ports in Camas.” “I can teach you how.”

“She used to fish, too,” Vick says. “I’d go to meet her at the stream. She—” Vick stops for a moment. “My father was so angry when he found out.

“People fall in love,” I say, my voice hoarse. “It happens.” “Not Anomalies and Citizens,” Vick says. “And most people don’t celebrate their Contract.” I draw in my breath. She was an Anomaly? They celebrated their Contract?

“But when the time came I chose not to be Matched. And I asked her parents if I could Contract with her. They said yes. The Anomalies have their own ceremony. No one recognizes it but them.”

rainbow,” Vick says. “I pulled it out of the river and saw the colors flash in the sun. I put it back right away when I saw what it was. When I told her parents about it, they said it was a good omen. A sign. You know what that is?”

haven’t seen one since,” Vick says. “A rainbow trout, I mean. And it wasn’t a good omen after all.”

turns the piece and studies the way her name looks right now—LAN—almost all straight lines.