His lips curve in a grin, but the haunted look is still there in the shadows of his eyes. It tears at me, so I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hug him close, hold him like I’ll never let go.
His hands stroke my arms and slide down my sides, trailing over me. “Your skin is so soft.”
I smile against the tantalizing warmth of his shoulder, feeling slightly drunk, giddy with sensation and the rumble of his voice.
“Davy.” He breathes my name, tastes it like it’s something delicious. I kiss him again, lose myself in the pressure of his mouth on mine. His hands. His body. Whispered words and sighs. I savor the moment and wonder how I ever thought I could have him—all this—and walk away.
Gentle snores wake me. I smile and prop myself up on one elbow. Caden sleeps with one arm flung above his head and his other hand resting on his ridged abdomen. I shake my head. He really is beautiful. I watch him sleep for several more minutes, my fingers curled against my lips. I can feel my idiot grin against the backs of my fingers.
Sighing happily, I reach for his shirt and pull it over my head. I’m not going to fall back asleep any time soon. I slide off the edge of the bed and move to his desk, thinking I’ll find something to read. Reading always helped loosen my thoughts. Maybe I can help Caden come up with a new plan to catch our traitor. Our. Yeah. Because I’m in this.
My fingers trail the surface of the desk. I skim over his military history books. No light reading there. I open a drawer. My hand falls on a picture of a man in uniform with a young boy. It must be Caden with his dad. His father has the same amber eyes. Caden grins, adorable with one of his front teeth missing. His father’s hand covers Caden’s smaller shoulder, and there’s something so loving, so accepting in that pose that it makes my heart squeeze in longing for my own family.
Lowering the photo to the desk, I notice a paper with a LabCo insignia in the drawer. At first I don’t even understand what I’m looking at. I start to look away from it, but a single word, a sentence really, stops me. Subject HTS negative . . . I read it again, fully, starting at the top of the document, a lab report, absorbing it all with a terrible clenching in my stomach.
As comprehension settles, everything inside me wilts. The clenching in my stomach turns into a violent twist, and I think I’m going to be sick. All the euphoria of earlier evaporates, lifting from me like a melting fog. I turn. Still clutching the document, I gaze at him on the bed, still so beautiful, his face innocent, guileless. It’s the face of a liar.
Dropping the paper, I grab for my clothes on the floor and quickly dress myself, tossing his shirt off me like it’s poison on my skin.
I’m lacing up my boots with shaking fingers when his voice rumbles on the air. “Davy? What time is it? Come back to bed.”
I cringe, closing my eyes in a pained blink. I fumble with my laces and start over.
“Davy?”
Turning, I whirl around, my face hot with fury.
He props himself up on one elbow and scrubs at his eyes. “What are you doing, baby?”
“Don’t call me that.”
He focuses on my expression and frowns. He sits up, and the sheet pools around his waist. A distracting sight, the way the muscles in his abdomen ripple. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“You lied to me.” The words scream inside me for all that I whisper them.
“What are you talking about?”
“You. Lied. You told me to trust you.”
He drags a hand through his dark hair. “Davy, I don’t get it. What are you saying?”
I laugh brokenly at his bewildered expression. “I knew I was taking a risk. What did I really know about you, after all? Just that you’re a leader, a captain of the resistance. And a carrier. But nothing I couldn’t handle. I left a place surrounded with people who would rather slit my throat than lift a hand to help. But gradually, you made me believe this place was different. You showed me proof that carriers don’t have to be violent. They could be good. You were that proof. I began to think a carrier could be good because you were. But that’s not true. You’re not even a carrier. You’re just a normal guy.”
A normal guy. Normal. Something I can never be. Even he told me that—to stop longing for normal. And yet he’s just that. The gulf between us never seemed wider.
I grab the paper off his desk and wad it up and fling it at him. It hits him in the chest and drops to the bed. He picks it up, his face bleeding of color. He rubs a hand over his jaw. “Guess I shouldn’t have kept this.”
“Yeah. Not so smart. But I have to wonder why you were hanging on to it. Did you think it might save you someday if the Agency ever caught up with you?” I laugh thinly. “You could show them you’re not a carrier.” I shake my head slowly side to side, the betrayal hot and acrid in my mouth. “Why? Why would you want anyone to think you’re a carrier when you’re not?”
He drags a hand through his hair again. “My father didn’t want me to join the Resistance. He wanted me safe. With my mother. My sister. But I just didn’t see it that way. So I went ahead and got the imprint.” A faint smile hugs his lips. “Dad was so pissed.”
“Stupid,” I snarl, and come at him, hitting him in the chest with both fists. He pulls me down on the bed and flips me on my back, looming over me. “You could have been safe,” I rage into his face. “But you chose this? This life!” And ended up with me. “Stupid, stupid! You made me think we’re the same.”
“We are,” he insists. “We can be together.”
“No.” I hit him harder. “We don’t even belong to the same species! How could you do it? You shouldn’t even be here.” Then I would never have met him. Never have fallen for him.
He lets me beat him for a moment before grabbing both wrists and pinning them on either side of my head. “We’re not different species. We’re the same. We’re both people.”
“No!”
“I believed in the cause—”
“Why? Why?” I’m not sure what I’m even asking. Why did he choose this life? Why did he break down my walls and make me love him?
I’m sobbing now, and I realize it’s been a while since I gave in to serious deep-from-the-chest tears. They’re not like when Phelps dug a bullet out of my shoulder. Or when Caden found me in the desert. Or that other time in his room. Fine. I might have cried around him before, but these tears feel different. Because they feel like the last he will ever see. The last I will ever permit myself to shed in his presence. They feel like tears of mourning.
“No one would listen to me, no carriers . . . they wouldn’t let me lead them if they knew I didn’t have HTS. I had to do this if I was going to be of any use.”
I try to pull away, but he still clings to my wrists, pinning them to the mattress.
“Let. Me. Go.”
His eyes sweep my face, a nearly physical touch. Finally he releases me, but even as he does, he says, “I’m not letting you go, Davy. Ever.”
The determination with which he utters those words sends a ripple of sensation through me that makes me remember everything we did, everything we shared together in this bed. My cheeks flame hot at the memory. I scoot to the edge, dropping my legs over the side as I rub my wrists like I can rid myself of his touch.
“This was a mistake.” I moisten my lips. “I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have let myself—”
“No.” He closes the distance between us again and takes hold of my shoulders, his voice a harsh growl. “Don’t say that. You and I are not a mistake. We are fate.”
I shake my head with a snort, tempted to cover my ears. I can’t do this with him. Can’t hear any of this.
“I thought that we were alike, that we were coming from the same place, that we faced the same future, the same struggles.” I’m babbling now. Tears burning at the backs of my eyes. This is what I didn’t want to happen. What I refused to let happen. To love and die from pain when it all fell apart. When I end up alone. Again.
I realize now that I had been contemplati
ng forever with him.
His hands tighten and he hauls me against him, lifting me onto his lap. “We are! You don’t see that? You don’t know?” His eyes lock on me, looking deep, seeking something, everything. He takes my hand and forces it over the steady thump of his heart. “Don’t you feel it between us? You’re a part of me now, Davy. I’m a part of you. I’m not letting you go.”
I choke on a sob. “Don’t do this—”
He kisses me then. Not like the other kisses. This one is tender, pleading, soft and tormented. It breaks me. Or would. If I wasn’t already broken.
I wedge my hand between us and tear free. “No!” Standing, I jab a finger in his direction. “Don’t touch me again.”
Spinning around, I charge from the room.
“Davy! Stop!”
The door slams after me, muffling his cries. I don’t look back, just push ahead blindly, not thinking about where I’m going. About the fact that there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped in this tomb, and the one person I loved, who I thought could love me back, doesn’t exist. He never did.
* * *
Conversation between the United States chief of staff and Dr. Louis Wainwright:
SWITZER: The camps are finished. The president is ordering them disbanded.
WAINWRIGHT: You can’t do that! Where will we put the carriers? Where will—
SWITZER: It’s not really your concern anymore. Congress is opening a special investigation into your research data behind HTS. And Wainwright . . . you might want to start polishing up your résumé.
TWENTY-THREE
THE COMPOUND IS STILL AND SILENT. EVERYONE sleeps. I don’t think about where I’m running—that there is nowhere to run—just that I have to get away from Caden.
He’s not like me. He’s not a carrier.
Everything inside me shudders. I press a hand to my stomach. It hurts to breathe.
“Davy! Davy!” I turn at the hiss of my name. Junie stands in the doorway of her room to my left, blinking like she’s surprised to see me.
Behind me, Caden bellows my name, and there’s a ring of panic to his voice that tempts me—makes me want to turn and run back into his arms like that’s where I belong. I can see him in my mind, struggling into his clothes, his movements fierce and desperate.
But not as desperate as me.
He’ll be out in the hall after me any second, and that terrifies me. The idea of coming face-to-face with him makes breathing even harder. To see him now, knowing he’s normal, he’s good . . . someone I shouldn’t even be in the same room with. God. I can’t do this. I can’t!
Junie follows my gaze. “You two have a fight?”
I nod. A fight? Yeah. You could call it that.
She steps back into her room. “C’mon. You can hide in here,” she offers with a small jerk of her head, her twin braids loose and unraveling over each shoulder.
I plunge into her room. She shuts the door. We press our ears to it, listening together. Moments later Caden’s feet charge down the hall, loudest the second they come flush with our door; then they grow faint as they recede.
He’s gone.
“Thanks.” I sigh, staring into Junie’s probing gaze so close to mine. She smiles slightly and moves away from the door.
“Want to talk about it?”
I rub the center of my forehead. Do I want to talk about what a fool I was to trust someone again? To let someone inside?
I open my mouth, then close it with a snap, feeling suddenly so very tired. Drained, depleted. What am I supposed to do? Tell her Caden’s secret? That he’s not like us? As betrayed as I feel, I can’t do that. I can’t reveal that about him. Because I still care enough about him to protect him.
“Must have been pretty bad for you to run out on him in the middle of the night.” She moves to the table and unscrews the cap on a water bottle, takes a long swig. “Especially ’cause we’re talking about Caden. I’ve seen him without his shirt.” Her eyes widen meaningfully. “It’s impressive, you know?”
Yeah. I know. “Well, I guess it’s been an all-around crappy day.” I move to the bed, ready to sink onto the bottom bunk and wait for morning.
And then leave. Take what supplies they’ll give me, a map—with a scout or not—and just go.
“Are you so surprised that you’ve had a crappy day?”
I stop and turn, looking at her curiously. Usually Junie is the upbeat one.
“I mean, do you think you’re immune to crappy days or something? You’re a carrier no one wants in a place full of carriers . . . that kind of sets you up for misery.”
I angle my head. “Excuse me?”
She fiddles with the electric lantern sitting on the table, making the room a little brighter. “Well, I guess Caden wants you. Or wanted? Which is it?” She arches a fine eyebrow, waiting, hoping I’ll elaborate more about why I ran out of his room. I compress my lips. At my silence, she laughs harshly, staring straight ahead as she brings the bottle back up to her lips for another drink. “He always had shit taste in women.”
I hold my hands out in the air, shaking my head at this girl I’m suddenly not sure I like anymore. “What are you talking about?”
“First Tabatha. Then you.”
The air rushes from my mouth as understanding sinks in. I take a step back until the back of my skull bumps against the top bunk, feeling sucker punched. “You’re in love with Caden.”
She snorts. “Ding, ding, ding! Give the girl a prize.” Her gaze swings to me. “I’m not the first girl. But I’ll be the last. Once he sees how good I am for him. How suited we are.”
She faces me fully. “I thought Tabatha was the problem. That if she wasn’t around, he’d be more willing to move on. But her body wasn’t even cold before he started looking at you. You wove some kind of spell over him.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m leaving,” I whisper, my fingers digging into my palms. He’s yours, I start to say, but can’t. Even if he isn’t mine, I don’t want her to have him. Besides, he’s not some toy I can give away because I’m done playing with him. He’s Caden. And he’s better than all of us. Than everyone here. I don’t deserve him, but neither does she.
“You keep saying that.” Her lip curls up over her teeth. “Sorry if I don’t believe it. Tabatha told me she and Caden were finished, too, but that didn’t keep her from throwing herself at him every chance she got.”
I push away from the bunk. “I’m not having this conversation with you.” I cross the room for the door, but pain bursts through my head. I blink up at the ceiling, unsure what happened or how I even ended up on the floor.
A loud ringing blares in my ears. I lift a hand to my head and pull back my arm. Blood coats my fingers.
Light spins, shadows dancing on the walls. The electric lantern rocks on the floor beside me. Junie wraps her hands around it and carefully sets it back on the table.
I open my mouth, but words won’t come. A sick, withered little moan escapes me.
“You’re right. Talk is overrated. I’m more of an action person myself.” She steps over me, her boots squared on each side of my body. She grips a knife. “I got rid of Tabatha. I can get rid of you, too.”
Junie’s the traitor? The thought chugs through my throbbing head. That means she killed Terrence, too?
“Why? Why did you kill Terrence?”
“I’m sick of this place! Everything . . . everyone in it . . . keeps getting in the way of me and Caden being together. It’s too much pressure on Caden. If this place falls, then he can be free. We can slip away and be together.”
I stare up at her, one eye blinded by the blood running from the pulsing gash in my head, only one thought pumping through me. She’s crazy!
Rap! Rap!
The beat of knuckles on the door sends Junie’s head popping back up. Her wild eyes fasten hard to the left as Caden’s deep voice drifts into the room. “Junie, sorry to wake you . . . is Davy in there with you?”
I open my lips wide, but Jun
ie pounces on me, slams a hand over my mouth. I scream against her moist palm, manage to get out some sound before she digs the knife into my throat. The sharp point pricks my flesh, and I feel the warm ribbon of blood trail down my skin.
“Junie?” The door starts swinging open. My eyes strain from the door to her face. She does the same. I feel her panic. Getting caught red-handed by Caden isn’t part of her plan.
“Don’t come in,” she commands. “I’m not dressed.”
The door halts its progress, hangs open a half foot.
“Sorry, Junie. Have you seen Davy?”
“No.” Her gaze flicks to me, darts over my face in warning as she pushes the blade in deeper. More blood runs, a pulsing chug, hot on my skin. “No, I haven’t.”
The door starts to close again, and with it my hope dries up. Once he’s gone, she’ll finish me. Stick my body somewhere else. He’ll never know she’s the one. Life in the compound will continue with her by his side. She’ll keep trying to infiltrate her way into his heart. Nausea rolls through me. Temporarily. Because resolve sweeps in then, hardening in my veins. My hands curl into fists at my sides. I won’t leave him to her.
She’s going to kill me anyway. Either now or later. At least I can make sure Caden knows who did it.
Opening my mouth, I bite down on the inside of her hand until the metallic taste of blood runs over my teeth. She cries out. Her hand flies off my mouth and I scream.
The door flings open and slams back against the wall. I catch a glimpse of Caden’s horrified expression as I jerk to the side, trying to roll away as she pushes down on the knife. I knew it would come. The blade rips my flesh. Blood gushes. That’s the cost. The price I’m willing to pay. I know that, but it doesn’t stop the pain and terror.
I see the satisfaction light her eyes a second before Caden tackles her.
Her weight flies off me and I slap a hand over my neck, trying to stall the blood, frantically trying to force the skin and tissue back together. A wasted effort. It pours steady as a stream between my fingers.