CHAPTER ONE

Stepping off the subway, the pollution swallowed us up in a yellow smog. The few people on the streets wore gas masks, but most people just stayed home where their home air circulation system was set up to filter out the toxic particles. But people like me, the shunned, couldn't afford either. However, I couldn't complain when the alternative could have been so much worse. It was worse for Bella, who had been taken from me, taken from us a year ago.

Lilly clenched my hand as she coughed hoarsely. The toxic air got to her even through the gas mask that I'd bought her. Again, I felt guilt at not being able to afford the best mask for her. In my old life, affording it wouldn't have been a problem.

I didn't even have enough money for one of my own. The grit in the air invaded my lungs and I'd spend hours at night coughing and gagging on the dirt that coated my mouth and throat. I knew the pollution would eventually kill me if I kept breathing it in, but I had to wait for a few more paychecks before I could afford one.

Squinting into the city street, I looked for a break in the traffic. Lil coughed again, so I pulled her up into my arms to carry her and made our move to cross the street before her coughing got any worse.

Lifting her mask, she pressed a noisy kiss to my cheek.

"I love you Daddy," she said with a happy smile.

"I love you too, Lil. Now put your mask back on," I said, squeezing her tight.

Her smile turned impish and for a moment she looked exactly like Bella.

"Can we get an ice cream?"

"Not today, sweetheart," I said with a sigh. "Maybe tomorrow when I get paid."

"Okay, Daddy," she said with a sigh, pulling her mask back on and resting her head on my shoulder.

Reaching up, I brushed her long hair out of my face.

A gut-wrenching longing hit me at the action because it reminded me of the countless times I did the same thing when Bella's hair would be in my face as I nestled her against my chest.

I missed Bella so much it was like a sickness on most days. It was an ever-present hole in my heart that could never be filled. At night after putting Lilly to bed, it would grow into a feeling of panic. Alice told me that I had to be patient because I couldn't give away our plan by not being able to control my desperation, but time was running out.

It was tragically unfair that by the nature of my birth she was the one punished for our shared mistake, the mistake that had become our miracle nestled in my arms. Yes, I was shunned by my kind, but Bella's punishment was so much worse.

I worried that Lilly wouldn't remember her mother. I told her stories about her, and we would make up new ones about things we wanted to do when we got her mother back. However, I could tell that Bella was becoming less of a reality for Lilly and more like part of a fairy tale.

"Daddy?" Lilly asked, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck. "What are we gonna do when the ship gets here?"

"We're going to leave on it. Uncle Jasper and Auntie Alice, you, me, and Mommy," I said as confidently as I could. I could only pray that I'd be able to find her mother before then.

"Why?" Lilly asked.

"It's an adventure, baby, just like we talked about last night. A whole new planet to explore," I said, hoping it was just that. Kepler was so far away that no one really knew what life there would be like. Several exodus ships had left, but each one lost contact after they'd been travelling for a few years. However, it had to be better than this, a dying world that controlled who lived in the lap of luxury and who struggled to survive, even who could reproduce based on their genetic compatibility.

"Ashka," people hissed at me as I walked by with Lilly leading to our small apartment.

The only reason I was accepted here at all was because of Lilly.

I didn't mind. I'd always been an outsider even amongst my own people. However, instead of being despised like I was here, I had been practically worshipped for my genetic uniqueness. I could never hide it even if I tried. There was no one that looked like I did or could do what I do.

I'd hated it in my old life, constantly wanting to hide who I was.

Four years ago

"Have you looked at any of the applications?" Elizabeth asked, not looking up from the papers that were strewn across one end of the dining room table.

"No," I grumbled, not wanting to get into it again.

"Edward, you know it's expected of you. Normally, the eugenics department doesn't give people a choice. It's only because of your father that you can pick a candidate."

I shook my head, grabbing a piece of toast and shoving it in my mouth.

"I'm not interested, Elizabeth," I said. "Why do I have to contribute? Doesn't the world have enough people?"

"Edward…" she growled. "It's our duty as eugenie to-"

"Gotta go, Elizabeth. Can't be late for school," I said, sidestepping her and hurrying towards the door.

"Take your vitamin!" Elizabeth called out behind me, so I whipped back into the room and grabbed it off the table swallowing it dry before dashing out of the house.

It felt like it was stuck in my throat, but I couldn't be in the house with my guardian a moment longer to get a glass of water.

Yanking on my gas mask and then my hat that would hide me from the stares of others, I threw open the door and practically ran into the yellow air of a Monday morning.

Like always, even with the gas mask, the smog felt like it was strangling me. The oily taste could still seep in. It was such a stark contrast to the sterilized environment inside my house.

I knew my two guardians were going to press the issue when I got home, but for the moment I tried to push it out of my mind.

Eugenie were expected to be matched with a compatible donor by their 21st birthday. However, because of my uniqueness, they were trying to make me decide now.

I'd been harassed by the government for close to two years already and I was only nineteen.

I knew that I had to make a decision because if not I could be arrested and then it would be forced upon me. Our kind didn't mess with the eugenics department.

Demetri couldn't understand why I was fighting it so hard.

"It's just a donation, man. It's not like you have to be a part of the whole process," he said, with a shrug.

He'd been matched close to a year ago and already the woman he'd been assigned to had a child. He said it only took two donations. He didn't have anything to do with his child. It was an option for all involved. When my guardians chose to raise me together, people were surprised, even shocked. It was not a common occurrence. Sometimes, children were not even raised by either of their donors. They lived at the eugenics school and were taken care of by professionals whose job was to educate and train people like us to be a useful member of society. My guardians who chose to raise me together were unusual. They'd been lucky to find a friendship between them when they were matched.

"Why do we need any more people?" I asked, as I sat on the bus with him.

"Look at all the people wandering the streets," I said, pointing out the beggars and panhandlers.

Demetri tsk'd in disgust, "Those are not people. They're vermin."

"They still need food, shelter, and air," I said.

"Whatever, man," Demetri said, hauling out his tablet to look at his notes. We were both enrolled in the medical program. I was following in my father's footsteps, choosing the role of doctor for my future life.

It was a day like any other. Classes were boring, having learned a lot of it already from my father. The only good moments were seeing Jasper and Alice who had been my close friends since childhood. We were all born on the same day, so we had the same case worker who we all met with once a month for mentoring. That's where we were all headed at that moment.

Dr. Cullen worked with my father, but I didn't think they were ever friendly. Whenever I mentioned my meetings with him, Edward Sr. would ignore what I was saying or even walk away.

I didn't understand it. Dr. Cullen seemed like a nice man who was always easy to talk to and seemed to genuinely care about us.

"How was your month, Edward?" Dr. Cullen asked me with a genuine smile.

"It's been okay. Nothing much to report."

"I heard from Elizabeth that you are refusing to choose an applicant for procreation. Can you tell me why?"

I scowled at the fact that she was tattling on me.

"I'm not refusing. I just don't understand why it's such a big deal. Can't it wait for a few years?"

Dr. Cullen frowned and looked at his chart.

"You're still young, but you know that the eugenics board want to capitalize on your genes. They have since you were a child. You know what will happen if you dig your heels in, Edward," he said, resting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"I know, I know," I said with a sigh. "I just keep feeling like there should be more than just this. More than just school, work, procreation. I feel like there is something missing. Something that all of us are missing."

Dr. Cullen froze in his perusal of my chart and looked up at me seriously.

"Are you taking your vitamins?" he asked, intently.

"Of course," I said, straightening up. "I'm not stupid. I know that it's important for my health."

"Good, good," he said, making a notation on my chart.

"Let's bring in the others, okay?"

After our meeting, I wandered through the atrium with Jasper and Alice.

The dome was blue to mimic the way the sky used to look. Energy pumped in from solar panels above the smog layer gave the energy for the plants to grow and the animals to thrive. Clean air was now courtesy of the scientists rather than the trees.

"So, you haven't looked at any of the applicants?" Jasper asked.

"No…" I said, looking down at my feet and hunching my shoulders as I heard whispers and giggles from others around me.

"You're lucky, man. You get to choose," Jasper said in his quiet voice. "I'm dreading the day that I get matched. I won't even get to see the woman who is going to bear my child. What if she's horrible? Genetic compatibility doesn't take into account personality. I want to be involved in my child's life. It doesn't seem fair that I'll be saddled with a complete stranger."

"You guys have it easy. I'm going to have to carry a stranger's baby in my body for nine months and then raise him or her, probably on my own," Alice said with a sigh.

"I wish things were different," I said with a huff.

Both Alice and Jasper nodded their heads.

Alice was the first to break the somber mood.

"I say we take a walk on the wild side and go get ice cream," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Why Miss Alice…" Jasper said with a dramatic gasp. "Are you actually suggesting that we deviate from our meal plans?"

"I won't tell if you won't," she said with a smile.

"Yes, ma'am," Jasper responded. "Lead the way."

We didn't leave the small restaurant until close to dusk. My house was in the opposite direction from the homes of Jasper and Alice, so I made my way through the dark streets alone.

I'd been walking for about ten minutes, when I got a strange feeling that I was being followed.

My side vision was affected by the gas mask I was wearing, but it was almost as if I could sense that someone was stalking me.

I started to walk more quickly, but whoever it was, was keeping pace with me.

I was just about to duck into an apartment building when I was grabbed from behind and dragged into a dark alley.

"Give me your wallet, ashka, or I'll slit your pretty throat," a voice growled practically in my ear.

Anger filled me. How dare this person attack me.

"No," I snarled, trying to push away the arms that had me in a tight grip.

However, the fight went out of me when I felt a sharp metal object pressed against my throat.

"Okay, okay, take it easy…" I said, my voice quivering slightly in fear. "I don't have much."

I reached into my pocket and hauled out my wallet and then gave him my watch.

"Thanks for the donation, freak," the harsh voice said, shoving me and knocking me to the ground.

I watched as the shadowy figure bolted out of the alley and across the street.

Looking down at my bare wrist that was missing the watch that my parents had given me on my name day, I growled in anger and climbed to my feet.

In a moment of rash anger, I decided to chase down the bastard.

I followed the thief through dark alley after dark alley, not noticing until it was too late that I was going into a part of town that my people didn't enter. By the time I realized how stupid I was being, a crowd had begun to grow, and then there was no way I could turn back as I was swallowed up by the crowd.

I had never been claustrophobic before, but in this crowd of bodies I felt the panic rise in my chest. It was like being caught in a current; I was carried forward and no matter how I struggled I couldn't get out of the mob.

I saw up ahead a large brick building that was a crumbling ruin. An orange glow bled out onto the street painting the crowd swarming towards it in red. I couldn't see what was inside because the door was covered with a tarp, but I heard the roar of a crowd and the sound of drums.

Again, I tried to turn around to leave, but the crowd wouldn't give up its grip on me. I was too afraid to fight too hard because I was scared about drawing attention to myself. From what I'd heard, my kind were murdered if they were found in places like this.

Suddenly I was blinded by the lights inside the building. Through my watering eyes, I was amazed at the chaotic splashes of color and textured fabrics. It was so different from the pristine order of my home, and I found that my eyes didn't know where to focus.

Because of the air filtration system, I saw that the people around me were removing their gas masks. I realized that I would have to as well if I didn't want to draw attention to myself. Slipping into the shadows at the back of the large open room, I cautiously took off my mask and quickly pulled up the collar of my jacket, trying to block my face from the others. However, I needn't have bothered. Everyone's eyes were focused on the front of the room where I saw that there were drums set up.

The people around me were so different than my kind. Unlike them, my world was more streamlined. Due to genetic engineering, my kind shared similar features and characteristics, tall, thin, pale. We even dressed the same in our utilitarian suits. These people were all different shapes and sizes. They reminded me of a field of flowers that I'd once seen in my textbook. Again, the dichotomy of how my people viewed them and the colorful unique beauty before me didn't make sense. These were the same people that Demetri called street rats.

My thoughts were interrupted when the drums began, and my eyes were again drawn to the people at the front of the room.

There were three of them. An older man with some kind of stringed instrument. He had dark hair and a mustache that pulled down his mouth in a perpetual frown. Another was a woman with pale blonde hair and a voluptuous body that these people sometimes had. The final man who was at the drums was huge with curly hair and an open, friendly smile, which was a stark contrast to how these people usually looked at me,us, with barely disguised hatred.

Suddenly, the room fell silent as the blonde woman began to sing. Her voice was deep and rich, but her lilting words were in a language I couldn't understand. The melody sounded almost sad at first, but as the drums began to fill in the spaces between her words it turned into something more, something intense.

There was an indrawn hiss from the crowd as the curtain at the back of the room opened and a person stepped out.

It was a small woman with long brown hair that fell almost to her waist in waves of dark browns and reds. In the muted glow from the lanterns that surrounded the stage, she looked almost alien with her darkly smudged eyes and swirls of greens and reds painted up her arms, shoulders, and neck. Her arms were bare as well as her stomach, but she wore layered tattered skirts that almost dragged on the floor as she swayed to the music.

As she stepped more into the light, her eyes closed, stretching her arms out in front of her and then to the sides, letting her dark hair slide over her arms. She began to sway to the rhythm of the drums, her hips moving with each syncopated beat. Then, slowly she began to turn in a circle lifting her arms higher and higher until her hands were raised above her head.

As the music grew louder, her movements became bolder. Then, as it hit a crescendo, she kicked her right leg forward with pointed toes, pivoting in a revolving whirl, her hair flaring out around her.

Her stomach hollowed out before she popped her hip to the left and then right in time with the music. The beat grew until I could only hear it as it reverberated through my chest. I was breathing heavily for some reason as I watched her body undulate and twist in an exotic rhythm.

Hips still moving, she bent at the waist letting her hair fall forward before arching upwards onto her toes, raising her skirt enough that I saw she was barefoot.

With each swaying movement of her hips, with each alluring twist of her body, I felt myself leaning forward towards her. I barely noticed that the music had quieted again until I saw that she was moving towards the crowd.

Her body had returned to swaying as she moved through the crowd, casually touching the audience, a hand on their shoulder, fingers in their hair, a hand on their cheek.

With each touch, money was being given and hidden somewhere in the layers of skirts.

She looked into the eyes of each man and woman as she touched them.

As she got closer, I wanted to run but I was frozen in place.

When her eyes met mine, they widened momentarily before looking away as she continued to speak quietly to people in the audience.

I was both relieved and chagrined when she walked past me. I was fascinated by her, and I didn't know why. There was just something about her that seemed to have me hypnotized.

I watched her until she disappeared back behind the curtain and the crowd began to leave the building.

Before I had a chance to pull my gas mask back on and join the leaving crowd. I was grabbed by the arm and dragged behind a curtain.

"You should not be here," a soft feminine voice hissed.

I looked down startled to find that I was now face to face with the dancer.

"You are ashka. They could kill you for invading our area," she said.

"I got lost looking for a thief," I said as explanation.

"You could lose more than your wallet in a place like this," she said with a frown.

In the shadows of the partitioned off area, she still had me hypnotized. I could barely see her eyes past the dark make up, but I could make out the rest of her. She was such a mixture of features that individually were not perfect. Her chin was a little too pointy, her upper lip had an uneven cupid's bow, her forehead was a little too broad. However, put together all of these slight deficiencies were an intriguing mix.

"You're such a unique combination…" I said, but then blushed furiously when she snorted.

"Are you not a great the poet?" she grumbled, but then fell silent as there was a sound of rustling on the other side of the curtain.

"Bella?" a man's voice called out. "Are you in there?"

Eyes wide with fear, I tried to shrink further into the shadows.

However, the woman who looked panicked for a moment as her eyes flickered between the curtain and me, suddenly pulled me forward and pressed me down onto a small stool.

Pulling up her skirts slightly, she straddled my lap. Then, much to my astonishment she pulled my face to hers and pressed her lips against mine.

I froze startled and confused by the gesture.

However, I didn't have a chance to pull away because suddenly the curtain was pulled open and a gruff man's voice spoke.

"Jesus, Bella. Can you not do that somewhere else? You do not want Dad to catch you."

Bella simply grunted in understanding and threw herself more into pressing her lips to mine and wrapping her arms around my neck, covering the exposed skin.

With a growl of frustration, the curtain dropped, and Bella released me.

We stared into each other's eyes for a few moments without saying anything. Then, she stood up and peeked through the curtain.

"Okay, come with me, edorra," she said.

Tugging me by the hand and through the curtain she pulled me towards the back of the building and into another room.

Looking around the rows of clothing hanging on the walls, I knew we were in her dressing room.

I didn't understand what was happening, but I knew that I had to leave before the man returned.

"I need to go," I said, looking for another way of getting out.

"I know, edorra," Bella said with her back to me as she suddenly yanked off her shirt and threw it on the bed.

I spun around startled and confused by her actions. But before too long, she was standing in front of me in clothing that was much more akin to what I was wearing.

"Let us go. I will take you to your part of town," she said, confidently.

Pulling on her gas mask, she gestured for me to do the same.

Then, she led me out into the night and down winding streets. She took me another more direct route towards the city center where I lived, and I found myself cataloguing the names of streets as I passed them.

Finally, I saw the familiar signs of my neighbourhood.

I reached out and took her arm as she hurried ahead of me.

"I know where I am now," I said.

She turned towards me and spoke.

"Good," she said, pulling her arm out of mine.

"Your name is Bella?" I asked her, wanting to know more about this woman.

"It does not matter, edorra," she said, stepping away from me.

"I'm Edward," I said, even though she didn't ask me.

"Do not come back, Edward," she said and then spun on her heel and started walking away.

However, before she disappeared, I called out.

"What does 'edorra' mean?"

She turned so that she was walking backwards and grinned at me.

"It means 'handsome.'"

I smiled back but before I could say anything else she was gone.