Read ARC: Essence for Free Online

paralyzed by uncertainty. Leave? Like, really leave and go with them?
    I had never left the Bay Area in my entire life. Now, here, surrounded by strangers in the middle of the night… Was I actually considering this?
    Amneet tossed her blanket to the floor and stood up. “That’s it; I’ve heard enough. Your community sounds like some kind of cult, and you guys seem like recruiters.” She paused with one narrow hand on the doorframe. “I don’t know what you guys are trying to sell here, but I don’t like what I’m hearing. I’m going home.”
    I shifted my gaze back to Ryder, expecting to see frustration or disappointment in his eyes. Instead, he simply shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Be careful on your way out.”
    Anger creased Amneet’s eyebrows, and I detected something in her stance I could hardly process. Is she waiting for him to protest? Does she actually feel scorned by him? The idea sounded strange, but somehow – in the curve of her stance, in the pursed line of her lips – it seemed to hit home.
    Before I could make sense of the energy that seemed to pulse in her eyes, Ryder turned his back and reached for another cigarette. Within seconds, Amneet was gone.
    Continuing as if she had never existed, he said, “Tell you guys what. Think on it. We aren’t leaving until tomorrow morning, so you don’t have to decide right now.” He glanced toward the window. “Besides, the rain’s about to let up, and we have some very important business to attend to in Sharon Meadows.” He cocked his head. “You guys ever heard of a Slip ’n Slide?”
     
    Javi and I cowered beneath a Monterey cypress while Ryder, Cody and Jett untangled something large and dark on the water-clogged grass before us. The rain had lessened to an intermittent drizzle, and the air smelled strongly of grass and eucalyptus leaves. Javi held a blanket over both our heads, and his body felt warm as it radiated heat beside me.
    I felt unsettled. And nervous, yet privileged somehow, to be standing here under this blanket so close to a boy, smelling the scent of cooking spice that lingered, indistinct, on his skin. It wasn’t even a particularly good smell. It was peppery and earthy, a shade shy of unpleasant, but it was Javi’s smell. For some reason, the knowledge that I knew it made me feel like I’d been let in on some kind of secret.
    Watch it, Autumn. Seriously. What are you doing right now?
    “What do you think about all this?” Javi finally asked. He kept his eyes focused forward as Ryder straightened the corners of a large plastic tarp. “Think it’s true?”
    I swallowed. “I don’t know. They certainly seem confident about it.”
    “Yeah. They do.” A thoughtful expression crinkled his forehead. “I just… really want to get away from this place. So I’m not sure if that’s clouding my judgment or not.”
    “Yeah. Me, too.”
    Something hummed between us – fluttery and expectant – before Ryder cried, “OK, we’re ready for you guys! Do you want to try this or not?”
    “Of course they don’t want to try this,” Jett said. Her unnaturally dark hair was plastered in wet rivulets against her forehead. “Not this time, anyway. But maybe next time. Guys, watch this. Slip ’n Slides are pretty much the most amazing inventions ever. We set them up all the time back home in the Sierras.”
    She took a few steps backward and began kicking out of her boots. They sloshed and protested, but soon she was barefoot. The sight of mud creeping between her toes was so strange that I found myself staring.
    She unzipped her purple sweatshirt, and then she was only wearing a thin, lavender tank top – which quickly plastered itself to her small breasts. Then her pants were gone, and she was standing serene and long-legged in the middle of the park, in nothing more than her underwear.
    My jaw dropped, and Javi’s sharp inhale told me he was equally stunned by her lack of modesty. No, even more stunned, because