He released my hands as we sat on one of the rocks. The silence was comfortable. It seemed like no time had passed, we’d never been apart, and he hadn’t abandoned me to cross the border by myself.
“You want me to fix your hair?” he asked. I interpreted this as Jag-speak for, “Please forgive me, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever met. I’m so, so sorry, and I’ll do anything if you’ll let me kiss you later.”
“Sure.” I sat on the dusty ground in front of the rock with him behind me, his knees gently pressing into my arms. Jag’s touch sent a thrill from the top of my head to my throat, where my breath caught. When he finished, he put his hands on my shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” His words in my ear made me shiver.
“Me too,” I said, getting up before I turned to total mush. “I didn’t know different meant bad.”
“Let’s just forget it, okay?”
“Forget what?”
He laughed—exactly the way Ty used to when I did that to her—and took out the first aid kit. “Let me doctor you up.”
As he spread cream over my burnt face and checked the status of the cut along my hairline, I watched him. Conversations passed between us, things we couldn’t say out loud but that patched up all the holes in the silence.
When he finished, he carefully laced his fingers through mine. “Come on, I’ll show you what my city is like.”
Holding hands with Jag was nice. He’d touched me lots of times, but he’d never taken my hand and held on skin to skin. The transmissions are crystal clear. No human contact past age eight, until you’re married. That rule is the first imprinted, starting at age three, when the transmissions become mandatory.
I’d hugged my dad before he’d left. He broke the rules, at least when no one else was around. And Zenn had held my hand and kissed me. But always in secret.
Jag pointed to things with his free hand while we walked. People sat on curbs or benches, chatting. Some of them ate at outdoor cafés, or loitered on emerald green grass with blankets and pets and friends.
In the distance, houses stretched in neat rows of straight streets. Orange lights showered each corner, continuing as far north as I could see. There were more Baddies than I’d ever imagined, but the people milling about didn’t seem that bad to me.
I kept glancing from face to face, hoping to find one that looked like my dad. No one paid any attention to me, and none of them looked remotely familiar. I gave up the search and tried to decipher the things Jag said. Some of it made sense, like, “That’s where I used to sit and feed the ducks when I was little.” He pointed to a small white-brick building. “That’s where we get mail.”
“Like e-comms?”
“Yeah, but no. We have some tech, phones and computers and stuff, but nothing like your comm. Mail is like, a message on paper.”
Several people came out with white paper squares in their hands. A girl with spiky red hair laughed when she looked at hers. Then she ripped it open, and I looked away. Didn’t she know how many trees it took to make paper? Didn’t she know most of the trees had burned in the fires?
Even as I thought these things, I wondered if they were true. I was making a judgment based on projections I’d seen in school about papermaking and logging. But I’d also been shown what prison was like, and that had been wrong. Maybe everything I’d been taught was a lie.
Could everything be different from what I knew? Different, different, different. In the Goodgrounds, I’d longed to be different. Here, I wanted to blend.
Without thinking, I reached over and traced a fingertip up Jag’s arm. He stopped speaking midsentence and gaped at me. The shocked look on his face felt like a slap. I pulled away. Good girls don’t touch boys, not even good ones. And Jag wasn’t good.
He reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Hey, you just surprised me. You can touch people here. It’s okay.”
Something inside crashed and burned. I don’t know what. Maybe it was the shock of leaving the only life I’d ever known. Or maybe because deep inside I’ve always wanted to be a bad girl, but actually becoming one hurt too much.
I shook my hand out of his. He looked like he’d been punched. I wanted to apologize, but the words wouldn’t form in my mouth. Somehow he understood, because he flashed his Jag-winner smile and clasped his hands behind his back.
I fell in step beside him. He continued talking about the buildings we passed. “We sometimes watch movies in there.” Pictures—printed on paper—adorned the bricks. I stared at women wearing tops with no sleeves, men with guns, and two people who had their hands all over each other. I couldn’t look away.
“Movies?” I choked out.
“Yeah, they’re like really long TV shows.”
“TV shows?”
Jag’s face shone with happiness, and the next thing I knew, his hands slipped around my waist. We stood too close, touching all along the front of our bodies.
“Like your projections,” he said softly, tipping his head down. He moved his hand to my wrist and pushed my sleeve up as far as it would go. “Virgin skin,” he whispered.
Jag pushed the other sleeve up, staring at that arm too. The last of the sun warmed my skin, and I liked it—too much. I’d stopped listening to the transmissions. I’d walked in the park—with a boy—after dark. I’d pulled plenty of pranks, but I had never allowed the sun to touch my skin.
I felt dirty.
Now Jag was touching my bare skin, rubbing both his hands up and down. They felt as dangerous as the sun. A shiver ran through my body.
“Sorry,” he murmured, stepping away. I quickly pulled my sleeves down, feeling the heat from his touch build in my face.
“You’re almost one of us, you know.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “All you need is a new shirt and some tanned skin.”
He was right. People stared at me in the Goodgrounds because of my hair. Here, I stood out because of my covering clothes and the milky skin they hid.
Two girls walked by, their fingers flying over their phones. Something beeped, and one girl squealed. She showed the screen to her friend. Both of them threw their heads back and laughed in a way I’d only heard from Jag. Uncontrolled.
The girl who’d gotten the message started typing in a response. She wore a short skirt and knee-high boots. Her sleeveless shirt revealed golden skin that didn’t look as rough as Jag’s. Every strand of her shoulder-length hair was a different color. Bleached, brown, red, black, even a streak of purple.
The other girl had bright pink hair. I liked it and wondered what she’d used for dye. Her beige shorts could barely be counted as a piece of clothing. She’d tied the bottom of her green shirt in a knot. Her dark skin was natural, not tanned from the sun.
“You gonna walk by without saying hello?” Jag asked.
The girl with the multicolored hair looked over, and her face split into a grin. “Jag!” She launched herself at him and he caught her around the waist, her legs wrapping around his torso as he lifted her off the ground. They seemed to blend into one person. I watched, torn between envy at their relationship and longing to see Zenn so I could hug him like that.
“You got out,” she said once he set her down. She pocketed the phone and kept her hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged. “This is Vi,” he said, indicating me with a wave of his hand. It lingered for a moment, like he expected me to grab it. I didn’t. The girls appraised me, scanning from my blue-black hair to my sunburned face to my ridiculously long sleeves.
Jag pointed to the girl wearing the hideous boots and sporting the rainbow-colored hair. “Vi, this is Sloan,” he smiled at the pink-haired girl, “and Indy. My friends.”
The smile Indy gave him in return looked a lot more than friendly.
“Hello,” I said. (Yeah, I can be polite when the situation calls for it.)
“A Goodie? You brought another Goodie with you?” Sloan’s wide eyes flicked back and forth between me and Jag.
“
Shut up, Sloan. She’s almost bad,” he said, defending me. He spoke in a voice I’d never heard before. Casual, light. No pleading tone, no sexy undercurrent. Nothing that would cure insomnia. He wasn’t the Jag I knew at all.
“Another Goodie?” I raised my eyebrows.
Jag shrugged again. I walked away, my polite-meter on empty. When I reached the end of the street, Jag, Sloan, and Indy had formed a tight triangle.
Jag gestured with his hands, his eyes wide and his mouth moving fast. He was spilling. Maybe I’d misinterpreted his Jag-speak earlier.
I expected him to have friends, but I didn’t think they’d be girls. Jealousy burned in the back of my throat no matter how hard I swallowed. With it came the disturbing thought that maybe Jag hadn’t told me the truth. Certainly not all of it.
My anger uncoiled, rocketing into full-blown rage when Thane spoke in my mind, He’s bad, and you’re not. You made the wrong choice.
I almost believed him. Which infuriated me even more. I narrowed my eyes and looked down the street, thinking that somehow I’d see Thane standing there.
People crowded onto the sidewalk as they left the movies, and I lost sight of Jag.
“Hmm, you look different,” someone said from behind.
“Different” echoed in my ears as I turned around. “Different” definitely meant bad.
The bald man stood in front of me. The man who took Jag’s brother.
The same man I’d tased and left for dead. Judging from the look on his face, he remembered.
14.
“No,” I said, backing away.
Baldie’s face broke into a cruel smile. “Where’s Jag?” He scanned the crowd, his plastic grin cemented in place. I edged into the mass of bodies, pretty sure I could lose this guy in a footrace. Baldie flipped out a red iris recognizer and activated it. I squeezed my eyes shut and shoved my tagged wrist in my pocket as I turned and ran.
Screams and pounding feet echoed around me as the Baddies scattered. Yeah, the glare of a recognizer has that effect. People bumped into me, and I opened my eyes. An unearthly crimson glow illuminated the street in front of me.
My dad had told me about Moses parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could pass through on dry ground. That’s what I thought about as I pushed through the crowd. Miraculously, they cleared a path. I ran through the gap, willing it to close behind me so Baldie couldn’t follow.
Jag and his friends were gone.
The buildings along the unmoving sidewalk were dark and the sky bled that unsettling shade of charcoal. What if I couldn’t find Jag? Sleeping alone in the forest in the Goodgrounds was one thing. Sleeping alone in the Badlands with a maniac Greenie after me was quite another.
Deciding alone was better than caught, I joined two guys as they sprinted toward the stream.
“Vi!” Jag stepped forward and pulled me into a doorway on the outskirts of the city. Sloan and Indy had disappeared.
“That bald guy is here!” I crumbled into him.
“Shh!” He peered around the corner. The light grew brighter, turning his face the color of blood.
He pushed me further into the shadows. The bricks were cool and biting, even through my thick shirt. Jag stepped in front of me, the red light almost upon us. Recognizers can’t detect temperature, only irises and electronic devices. I could only hope Baldie wouldn’t pass by close enough to pick up the bar code in my tag.
“This is bad,” Jag whispered. Without warning, his body pressed against mine, all the way from foot to shoulder. “Don’t move.” He looked over his shoulder, the red light pulsing now. My heart sped up. I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. Both good things.
Because he kissed me. He wrapped his arms around my body and rubbed my back. The tag was sandwiched between his stomach and mine, also good. His body heat combined with mine, and everything felt too hot.
Maybe the temperature rose when he ran his hands through my hair. Or maybe because of the salty taste of his lips on mine. He kissed me long after the danger from the recognizer had passed. I had no complaints. In fact, I kissed him back, my free hand automatically moving to touch his cheek.
When he stopped, I took a deep breath.
“Nice,” he said breathlessly.
Yeah, that didn’t even begin to cover it.
“I think it worked.” Jag moved to the corner of the doorway. I forgot about the red light of death. What did he mean by “it worked”?
“Come on.” He stepped into the street and squeezed my hand hard. “Can you run?”
“Do you think I arrived on a hoverboard?”
He cocked one eyebrow before leading me through darkening neighborhoods. He turned down a deserted sidewalk with a small screen at the end.
“Hey.” I slowed in front of the terminal. “This sidewalk used to move.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s why I was in the Goodgrounds last time they caught me. You saw the picture.”
I frowned. “That one with all the Goodies around you?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get the tech to fix this?”
“No. Come on, my place is just down here.” He turned toward a single-story house with a sliver of golden light falling through the crack in the door. Jag suddenly stopped at the top of the steps.
“Oof,” I said as his muscled arm whacked me in the ribs.
He pushed lightly on the door with two fingers. It swung in too easily, revealing a long hall with all the lights on. Bright tech lights. Voices floated toward us, soft and slurred.
Jag didn’t breathe. “Stay here.”
“Yeah, right.” I clutched his arm as the white spots crowded in my vision from the increased tech.
Jag’s eyes softened and his lips turned upward. “What? You’ll miss me too much?”
Blushing, I looked away. The darkness seemed thicker since I’d been staring at the lights.
“Vi, this is my house. It’s fine. My roommates are just having a party.”
“You’re wrong. You go in there, you won’t come out.”
He smiled, the way a parent does when their child says they’ve seen a ten-foot monster covered with brown fur.
“I gotta have my phone. I’m dying without it. We need supplies for the trip to Seaside. I’ll be right back. Promise.” He wrenched his hand out of mine and stepped through the door.
That’s pretty bad. You should never go into the light. Especially tech-induced light.
15.
As I stood in the darkness, watching Jag disappear into the light, I remembered the time my dad told me about light and dark and how God had separated them. I didn’t get what he meant then.
But as Jag’s front door swung closed with a loud click, the light was separated from the dark. That’s when I realized that someone can’t be both good and bad, just like darkness can’t exist in the light.
Which meant I had to make a choice.
Bad or good? looped endlessly in my mind. Another voice joined mine, taunting.
Leave me alone! I commanded, and Thane’s voice receded. The thought of him possibly listening to my every thought unnerved me.
I sat on the steps, determined to keep Thane out, to regain control of my own mind.
Noise-that-must-be-music filtered from the back of the house. Jag’s roommates had a serious party raging. I waited through four songs.
Then five. Then six.
Jag didn’t come back.
So I allowed myself to freak out. Which basically means I crept around the side of the house with my heart leaping in my chest. The music grew louder, with people gyrating and laughing in the backyard. I crouched below the only lit window. I took a deep breath and peeked inside.
I knew Jag shouldn’t have gone in. Because now the stupid boy was tied to a chair.
I stared a lot longer than I should have, mostly because his bare—and sculpted—chest distracted me. After that initial shock, I noticed the two round labels secured on either side of his breastbone. Tech monitors. A green light
flickered on one. So far, whatever he’d said was the truth.
His kiss still lingered on my lips, and his scent was embedded in my Goodie shirt. I wanted to help him, but I had three great reasons not to.
Baldie, the Hawk, and a Mech.
The Mech must have sensed me, either my body heat or the bar code in the tag, because an alarm wailed.
I ducked and ground my teeth together. Stupid Mechs. I was so sick of them ratting me out for merely existing. I hated that they could sense body heat. I despised them for their ability to read bar codes. For everything.
All the anger and fear and desperation raging inside flooded to the surface. I focused on the mechanics of the robot now standing at the window. The siren pounded in my brain.
Stop! I screamed inside.
And it did.
I suddenly felt like I needed to puke my guts out. But I didn’t have time for that. Baldie’s shout mingled with the Hawk’s as they burst out the back door.
Ignoring Thane’s voice in my head, which said, Leave Jag. Save yourself. Don’t make the wrong choice—again, I crawled through the window. Thane’s encouragement to leave Jag made me that much more determined to stay together. Maybe Thane needed us to be separated before he could make his next move.
Maybe I’m not the monster you think I am.
Thane’s words jumbled up my feelings. He could clearly control others, and I’m definitely not a fan of Thinkers. But with Thane on the inside, protecting me . . . having him on my side would be beneficial.
In the room, I fell hard on my knees next to the despondent Mech, overwhelmed by the amount of tech in the house. It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water in my face. My breath didn’t fill my lungs. A hand scrabbled on my backpack and I jerked away.
“Stop!” I commanded. Baldie’s eyes glazed over, fogging as if made of glass. I saw the Hawk’s big beak before she turned and moved toward the backyard.
Scrambling across the room, I punched the low-class lock on the door. So useless. One good kick would bring it down. And I’ve seen the way the Hawk kicks.