Up ahead I spotted the air duct. Zenn had already removed the vent. Two feet from the opening, my board bucked. A new pain radiated from my thigh. I lifted my body enough to peer over the edge. A grappling spider spread its legs, hooking itself to my craft.
Ian would then reel me in like a bloated fish. Cage me in that capsule again. Death would be better. My breath clogged my lungs. I couldn’t think clearly; I’d lost so much blood.
“Deactivate,” I said, brushing at the spider with my hand. “Dislodge.”
The spider obeyed my voice, retracting its legs before the green lights of its eyes winked into darkness.
A small—possibly pointless—victory. My board now vibrated because of the damage, my thigh was bleeding, and I’d passed the air duct.
I looped back around and positioned myself below the opening. An electro-sphere landed on the board next to my head. I snatched it up, intending to launch it right back to the floor.
Instead I held it. Felt the humming tech beneath the ball’s aluminum surface. If I timed it just right . . .
I checked my position again. Straight up to freedom.
I dropped the e-sphere. Said, “Up.”
My board obeyed, and the sphere detonated about five feet below me, sending a shock wave of techtricity in all directions.
Including up.
I rode the wave through the duct system as far as I could. After that I twisted and turned and doubled back inside the ventilation system until it spat me out into the too-bright sunshine.
Oxygen greeted me, and I couldn’t suck it in fast enough. I expected EOs to be hovering, but a commotion on the ground had drawn them all away.
I recognized River’s tangled hair in the fray before I nosed my board toward the ocean. Clever girl.
I did not have the strength to sit up. Or speak. For now, breathing was enough.
The soothing sound of the ocean called at me to sleep. What can it hurt? I thought. I closed my eyes against the malicious sunrays bouncing off water.
I thought, I’ll just rest for a minute.
I thought, It’s a twenty-minute flight anyway.
I thought . . .
Zenn
10. After our return to the hideout, Vi had attended to Raine, who’d lost consciousness on the flight.
Then Vi turned her attention to her father. Neither of them looked good, but at least Vi was alert, which was more than I could say about Thane.
Now she chewed her nails as she paced the length of the war room. Back and forth, back and forth. I couldn’t watch Vi anymore, worried about her beloved boyfriend. I returned to the hospital nook, where Pace was working over Raine. “How is she?”
Gunn wouldn’t leave Raine’s side, and he didn’t glance up when he answered. “She thinks she’s Arena Locke.” His sigh came out in bursts. “She seems to remember me, though. She called me by my name. When I said her name was Raine Hightower, she . . .”
“She’s been Modified,” Pace said. “It’ll take time.” He put his hand on Gunn’s arm and gently pushed him back a step so he could administer meds to Raine. She lay on the bed, her eyes closed. Her skin looked like white plastic, and her hair like translucent strands of wire.
Raine and I may not have seen eye-to-eye on some things, but she was a dedicated Insider. A friend to Vi. A friend to me. “What can I do?”
Pace stepped back and Gunn filled the empty space next to Raine. He stroked her hair and leaned close. “Your name is Raine Rose Hightower,” he whispered. “I’m Gunner Jameson, and I love you.”
Pace swallowed hard and wouldn’t look at me. “Gunner is going to stay here and tell her what her life used to be like. Sometimes the unconscious mind can recover more than when it’s awake.” He returned to his medical tools, leaving me with Gunner and Raine. I’d spent the better part of the last two months with them. My chest felt so tight. What would I do if that were Vi?
I knew what I’d do. I’d do exactly what Gunner was doing. I’d hold her hand and tell her I loved her and beg her to come back to me.
“Gunn,” I said. He glanced up. “Come get me if you need me.”
He nodded and returned his attention to Raine. I strode back to the war room, catching Vi’s hand as she paced past me and looking her in the face. She opened her eyes in surprise as I leaned forward. I didn’t want to kiss her—fine, I did—just get close enough to achieve some measure of privacy.
“I love you,” I whispered, in case she had forgotten, or didn’t know, or just needed to be reminded. She didn’t say it back, but her icy demeanor melted a little. She searched my face for an answer I couldn’t give, and then collapsed into my arms. I comforted her without words while the minutes ticked by. I wondered how long we’d have to wait for Jag to come back. If he came back at all.
Vi pushed away from me, anger in her features because of my thoughts. “He’s going to come back.” Vi extracted herself from my embrace and resumed her pacing.
“Maybe someone should fly out and see if they can find him,” Saffediene suggested from her position at the table.
“I’ll go.” I practically leapt toward my hoverboard. I couldn’t stomach staying in the cavern for another second, with Vi’s anger and the equally awful and exciting promise of becoming Jag-less.
“I’ll come with you,” Saffediene said. I didn’t care. I just had to get out—now.
* * *
After flying for twenty minutes over open water, my nerves had settled. But now my gut was rolling with uncertainty. Jag had been missing for an hour and a half. He could be anywhere. He could be dead.
Saffediene voiced my thoughts. “We should’ve seen him by now. The barrier should’ve ended back there.”
I slowed to a hover, turned, and searched the distant city skyline. Dark clouds engulfed the sky, blotting out the sunlight we could’ve used to recharge our boards.
“Where are you?” I whispered. True, the General Director was in Freedom, and no one had been expecting him to be so far from his stronghold. But Jag was notorious for being able to get out of any and all situations.
But he got caught in the Goodgrounds, a doubtful voice said in my head. And who knows where he’s been for the past eight months.
He certainly hadn’t been on vacation. When Gunn and I busted him out of his holding cell last month, Jag was covered in blood and could barely stand. He’d also refused to say anything about his whereabouts or what had happened. Anyone else would have to report, tell every little detail. But not Jag.
He lived with his demons, just as I lived with mine.
But where was he now?
“Wouldn’t Starr alert Gunn if Hightower or Darke had him?” Saffediene asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “If she could.”
The city stood serenely against the storm clouds rolling in, all smoke from the explosion erased. Seconds became minutes became who knows how long. I half expected to see Jag come careening from one of the tall buildings, but he never showed.
“There,” Saffediene said, pointing out toward open water. “Come on!”
She launched her board farther out to sea. I followed at a slower pace, scanning the endless water and finding nothing. We flew toward something only she could see. “Can you see him now?”
I couldn’t. But I trusted Saffediene.
Finally, after another few minutes, I saw a flash of light on the horizon. “Is that . . . him?”
“That’s him,” Saffediene said.
The glimmer got bigger and bigger, until I could make out a hoverboard holding a white blob, which became a board with a bleeding, unconscious Jag riding it facedown.
The blood was dry, the hoverboard stationary.
Jag looked dead, what with the whole back of his white jacket shredded and plastered with dried blood.
A hot wind blew over the ocean, unsettling me further. Wind should be cool, refreshing. This wind stank of death and the promise of horrible things to come.
“Jag,” I whispered, silently pleading fo
r him to take a breath, wake up, anything.
Saffediene hovered next to him, her fingers pressed against his neck. Tears streamed down her face, her hands fluttered from his shoulder to his back, and she hiccupped when she turned to me. “Zenn, help him.”
I snapped to attention, tearing my eyes from Jag’s limp body. I descended next to her and slapped her frantic hands away. “Let me,” I said. “Let me.”
She sobbed, but withdrew her hands enough for me to see the gentle rise of Jag’s back. Relief flooded me. “He’s alive. But he needs help.”
I didn’t know how much charge I had left in my board, but it couldn’t be much. Jag’s board was dead in the water, literally hovering inches above the waves, and Saffediene’s board probably had less charge than mine. Even the weather was against us, as the clouds continued to block the sunlight we needed to recharge. I cupped my hands around the charge light, and felt my stomach lurch.
The red light blinked, which meant I had less than 10 percent of reserve power.
“Let’s go,” I said, quickly pulling Jag’s board onto the front of mine. I shifted to a sitting position so I could assess his wounds while we flew.
“My board is almost dead,” Saffediene said. At least she’d composed herself. I didn’t know what to do with crying girls. Non-crying girls either, for that matter.
“Mine too.” I opened the emergency first aid kit from my board’s storage compartment and set to work cleaning the dried blood off Jag’s face. “I’m gonna use the wind. Tether your board to mine.”
She followed my directions as I found the head wound a few inches behind Jag’s hairline. It looked like a clean cut. Pace could stitch him up when we got back to the cavern. There was a flesh wound on Jag’s leg to tend to. The series of slices on his back spoke volumes about why he’d passed out.
Jag also bore burnt tracks along his arms. Black streaks spiked over the back of his hands, like claws reaching for his fingers. He’d been tech-shocked.
I twisted to look over my shoulder, whispering under my breath for the air current to come rescue us. It happily agreed, tousling my hair before wrapping itself around me, Saffediene, and Jag.
“Land,” I whispered to the wind, meeting Saffediene’s eyes as we began to soar across the water.
“So you can control the elements, huh?” she said, not really asking and not really accusing either, which I appreciated. We stared at one another for a few long breaths. Long enough for me to notice the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Long enough for me to forget I was a twenty-minute hoverboard ride from safety. Long enough for me to wonder why I’d never seen her properly before.
Then the moment broke. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and directed the northerly to take us away from prying Freedom eyes.
* * *
Vi launched herself at me and cried into my neck before bustling off to sit with Jag. She and Pace disappeared into the hospital nook, leaving me and Saffediene alone in the war room.
The cavern permeated sadness. It seeped from the very rocks themselves, clogging everything and everyone with melancholy. I inhaled slowly, but the thought of staying in the confines of this sadness choked me.
I turned and strode toward the exit, desperate to escape. Escape the cavern. Escape the sadness.
Escape my life.
* * *
Saffediene found me a half hour later, my back against a skinny tree trunk, facing away from Freedom. She sat down without speaking. She picked at the wild grass, and strangely, I didn’t mind her presence.
“Gunner asked me to go with you to Harvest. We’re leaving at dusk,” she said.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. Whatever, I wanted to add. The Director of Harvest could wait. Saffediene must’ve heard the pain in my voice, because she slipped her hand into mine.
Her skin felt startlingly cold; her hand was dwarfed by mine. I loved Vi, but this was the first meaningful human contact I’d had in a long time, and I didn’t want to let go.
So I didn’t.
We sat that way under the tree, palms pressing together, until the sun started its arcing descent to the west.
Jag
11. Walls surround me on every side. Above, below, there is no escape. And it’s wildly hot. So hot, my fingertips feel blistered from touching the metal several hours ago. Maybe they are, I can’t exactly see.
There’s only miles and miles of darkness; endless metal, smooth in every direction, maybe without corners, maybe not.
I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know how much time has passed. I made it all the way to the vineyards in White Cliffs before the vanishing tech had worn off. With the teleporter ring, I’d escaped scrape after scrape, always landing in an unknown city.
I could figure out my new location pretty fast. I mean, I have the entire Association memorized, and whenever I used the ring, I always had the image of Vi in my head. I liked to think my destination had something to do with her.
The first time I teleported, back in early July, I landed on the beach. Violet loved the beach. I didn’t know if she was on a similar beach at the time, but that’s what I imagined.
That way, our separation didn’t hurt so much. That way, my heart didn’t feel like a fish out of water, flopping and useless.
The teleporter ring ran out of juice by August. Who knew that could happen? Well, me now, I guess.
I’d flung the ring at the approaching guard in Baybridge, nailing him in the left eye. That’s how I’d made it out of that alley. Seemed everyone in the whole blasted Association was looking for me.
I spent the fall on the run, moving from one Midwestern city to another. No one would hire me—my skin held too much sun, and that called everything about me into question. Then officers/guards/patrols would be summoned, and my picture would come up on every screen.
Forcing me to run again.
Sure, I relied on my network of Insiders every step of the way. I knew the hideouts. I knew most of the leaders, if only by name or picture. They certainly all knew me.
My hair went from black to blond to brown and back. An Insider in Northepointe provided me with eye enhancements in October. I got a work permit. I shoveled snow for months.
And I hate being cold. But the bulky suits—and hats—kept me off the radar. It’s my mouth that always puts me back on it.
I choke inside the capsule. There’s not enough air. They know it; they come fill it every few hours.
How long has it been? I don’t know. I take another breath, but I can’t tell if it’s filled with oxygen or only my own exhalations.
There’s only darkness—and the memories inside my own head.
I don’t like remembering. It makes me feel weak, like I should’ve done something different—like I could’ve done something different, if only I had been stronger. Better.
Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.
I’ve been buried alive. I try not to think it, but the horror is always there.
The capsule is so permanent.
The darkness is so heavy.
It’d be so easy to die.
My eyes are already closed. My body is already in the tomb. My girl is already gone.
At the thought of Vi, I force another breath through my body. Her face, fair and fierce, floats in the recesses of my mind.
I can’t give up on her. On us. She’s sustained me through difficult situations before, maybe she will this time too.
I can’t feel my feet now. Or my fingers—even the painful, blistered ones. I slump against the metal behind me. Hot, burning threads snake down my back, but I can’t move. Don’t even have the energy to whimper.
I’m dying, I think. They’ve won.
Pure, unadulterated fury accompanies that thought. I thrash against the darkness, but I can’t clear it away. My eyes are open; my voice screams.
“They will not win!” I yell so loud my throat rips. “You will not win!”
Inside my metal prison, I’m met with only an echo. No one com
es. No one comes. No one comes.
There is no rescue from this hell.
* * *
I clawed at something that had been put over my eyes. My heart pounded in my throat; I swung my free arm to feel the space around me, and I made contact with a soft body.
“Jag, it’s Indy.”
My head throbbed. I blinked, trying to see. Indistinct shapes hovered in the room; the lights were too dim to really see who was there.
The light meant I was not in the capsule. I inhaled. Oxygen existed here.
“Relax, bro,” someone said. My brother.
“Pace.” An endless depth of relief surged through me. “Help me.”
“We’re trying,” he said. “You’re beating us back.”
My leg pulsed with my heartbeat. The skin along my back pulled, as if a thousand little teeth had found a home there. “What happened? Where’s Vi?”
“She’s here,” Pace said. “She just stepped out to get a bite to eat.”
“You’re all busted up,” Indy said. “Pace has been attending to your injuries.”
Little by little, my vision cleared. I felt a bandage on top of my head; my fingers brushed another binding on my thigh. Indy and Pace knelt in front of me, worry etched into their eyes.
“My head hurts,” I complained.
Pace chuckled. “I bet it does. Just a sec. I’ll drug you up again.” He stepped out of the hospital alcove, leaving me alone with Indy.
I couldn’t catalog all the body parts that hurt. “Hey,” I said, looking at Indy and trying not to cry.
She inched closer, one hand held tentatively toward me. When I didn’t punch her in the face, she threaded her fingers through mine. Her chest rose with a deep breath. “I was so scared.”
Those four words said it all. Indy had a whole I-never-get-scared thing going on. And she usually didn’t. I choked back my own fear—my own memories—and gathered her into a hug. Fire erupted along my shoulders where she touched me. I gave a strangled moan.
“Sorry,” she murmured, removing her hands, but not moving away. “Your back is sort of shredded.”