Adam Crain's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Adam went to the baths because he could not sit in his bunk one more hour. Willem had not answered a message in three days. Not since the security office. Not since the head of security had made him a leash and pulled once to see if he flinched. He took a towel and the small pouch he kept under his mattress. He told himself he was going to soak. He knew he was going to look for Willem. The bath complex rose off the corridor in pale stone and gold trim, arches stacked over arches, too grand for what it was. Inside, the air went warm and wet. Adam crossed the tile to the big soaking basin in the back room. Willem sat alone in it, arms spread along the rim, head tipped back. Steam moved across his face. He did not look up. Adam stopped at the edge and felt the old habit kick in. He needed to know if Willem was angry or only careful. He sat on the bench by the wall and opened the pouch. He laid three crystals on the towel beside his knee. A clear one for what was true. A blue one for what was held back. A pink one for what was wanted. He moved them in the order his mother had taught him, watching the light hit each face, waiting for the small pull in his chest that told him which one had gone heavy. "You're reading rocks at me," Willem said. Adam looked up. Willem had lifted his head. He was smiling, just at one corner. "They work," Adam said. "They don't. Come here." Adam left the crystals on the towel. He stepped out of his clothes and into the water. Willem made room. The heat closed over Adam's shoulders. Willem caught his wrist under the surface and pulled him in close, slow, giving him time to stop it. Adam did not stop it. He kissed Willem once, then again, and put his forehead against Willem's. He said the head of security had called him in. He said there was footage. He said he was being watched in every room with a camera, and that was why he had not come, and that was why he was here now, in the one room she did not film. Willem listened all the way through. He did not let go of Adam's wrist. When Adam finished, Willem said, "Then we don't use the corridors. We don't use the library. We meet here, and we meet at the farm shed after the second bell. I'll leave the side door open. You come in from the back field." He paused. "And you stop testing me with rocks. You ask." Adam laughed, wet and surprised, and said he would. They sat in the water and made the rest of the plan in pieces, quiet, mouths close.