She pushed against him. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m turning you in.”
Jake pulled her closer and a current of electricity pulsed through her chest. “Please.”
Miya pulled her hand back as though she’d touched a flame. He had no business requesting anything from her. He was Leadership, she was…nothing. She didn’t owe him anything.
He gently squeezed the wrist he still held; the pressure of his fingers against her skin spoke more words than a thousand fragmented pleas falling from his lips.
Broken bits of light caught the bright white parts of his shirt where it stretched tight across his chest, and for a brief second her fingers threatened to reach up and touch him again. To feel the slight ripple of muscle in his chest that rose and fell with each rapid breath.
Her pulse thrummed beneath his thumb. Suddenly, she didn’t want him to feel her heart racing. She didn’t want him to feel the vulnerability that pounded out its rhythm every time he touched her or looked at her a certain way. She wanted to end the tension that continually hummed between them.
Before she changed her mind, she pulled her arm from his hand and touched her wrist to the scanner. The panel flashed green and the door whooshed open. Jake stepped into the corridor. With his breath in her hair and the memory of his touch still lingering on her skin, she watched him turn and walk away.
CHAPTER 29
Miya
Miya lay on her bed, listening to the tink, tink, tink of the pipes. She rolled to her side and looked across the room in the dim light at the empty bed. The agony of missing Raine had grown to a dull ache. She tried to concentrate instead on the drip and gurgle in the recirculator and the softly tinking pipes. The monotony of the rhythm in the pipes eventually lulled her to drowsiness.
Tired and groggy from a fitful sleep, Miya stepped into the hot shower early the next morning. She let the water pour over her thick hair and onto her face. Two minutes was all she had in the shower before the autotimer turned the recycled water off. Two minutes to let the steam and hot water wash every last trace of Jake’s touch from her skin. His face from her memory where he haunted her dreams.
She tipped her face up to the shower just as it clicked off. She sighed. The timer had run out before she used any soap. She stepped onto a thick white rug and let the water drip off her skin until she began to shiver. All night, she’d gone over the details of the last several days.
She shivered and scooped up her wet hair with one hand and twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck then secured it with an elastic band. She dressed quickly in a fresh white shirt and pants, then fastened her circular pin to her shirt collar.
She caught her reflection in the shiny steel bathroom wall and stiffened. Her flawless skin, perfectly straight nose, and flaming red hair seemed to mock her. She might look perfect on the outside, but inside she was a mess. Jake occupied far too much of her thoughts.
She smoothed back a wayward tendril of auburn hair and fixed the collar of her shirt, being careful not to touch the imperfection that lay beneath the thin fabric.
She stepped out from the tiny bathroom and screamed. Someone was standing in the room.
“Raine!” She flung her arms around her roommate. “Where have you been?”
She stepped back and looked at her friend. Raine’s pale face was stained with tears.
“I can’t stay, Mi-pie. I came back to give you a message. From Thunder Manor. It’s important you listen.”
Miya frowned. “Are you okay? You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry this is abrupt, but there’s something you need to know. Jake isn’t who you think he is.”
Miya bit her lip. But that’s just it. I don’t know who he is. I only know who he isn’t. It was the raw brokenness in Jake’s eyes that initially drew her. But it was his dark intensity that haunted her. The best thing—the right thing—was to report him. She’d threatened to report him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Yet. He wasn’t Leadership, but it seemed Leadership was afraid of him. Why else would they be looking for him? He was a threat to them in some way.
Of course he’s a threat. He’s a killer. He admitted it. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to believe he’d actually taken someone’s life. For all of Jake’s cold looks and hints at violent impulses, there was a certain softness he didn’t bother to hide when he was around her.
Raine took Miya’s hands and pulled her to sit on the bed. “Remember when you asked me why only you and me could touch, but no one else could without getting punished?”
“Yes, but—”
“Miya look at me. Really look at me.” Raine’s big eyes held Miya’s. “The reason why I can touch people is because here, in the Outerlands, I don’t exist. I’m only in your mind.”
“What? No…no…no. You’re not making sense. That’s crazy talk, Raine. That makes me sound like I’m losing it.”
“Miya, listen! Think about it. You’re the only one who can see me.”
“That’s not true! Jake has seen you! He told me so!”
Raine sighed. “Yes, that’s true. But…that’s because Jake and I are… from the same place.”
Miya shook her head. “What? Same place? What are you—”
Raine held up a hand. “Mi, I don’t have much time. Everything will make sense soon, I promise. The only thing I can tell you right now is I was sent here as Elchai’s messenger.”
“Who…who’s Elchai?”
“I have to go, Miya…coming…for you.”
“Who is? Leadership?”
“Jake…don’t…Something happened…he—”
Raine’s words kept getting cut off. She stood and reached a hand out to touch Miya’s cheek, but Miya felt nothing except cool air. Raine flickered; her body became a filmy silhouette. Then, she was gone.
“Raine!”
Someone knocked on her door.
She opened it to find Nathan standing in the corridor. “Mr. Roc wants to see you. He asked me to accompany you to Leadership headquarters. For protection.”
She glanced sideways at Nathan as she stood in the elevator, waiting for the doors to open onto the seventh floor. She’d never been above level one before.
Nathan was quiet on the slow ride up. He hardly glanced at her, only giving her a quick grin when she thanked him for escorting her. The elevator door finally slid open, and Miya stepped into a corridor identical to her own. A shadowy blur caught her eye to the left as though someone was hurrying around the corner.
“Did you see that?” Miya asked Nathan, her heart in her throat.
“See what?”
“Nothing. I’m just jumpy, I guess.” What was Raine saying about Leadership coming for her? She figured she was safe with Nathan, since he wasn’t Leadership, but being summoned to HQ was enough to make her heart race out of her chest. And what about Jake? Should she trust him? Or not?
Leadership headquarters were located halfway around the seventh level. Everything looked identical to her own level except where there were numerous screens on the metal walls of her corridors, here there were none.
Nathan tugged Miya’s arm to signal her to stop when they’d reached a wide silver door marked with the Leadership symbol. A guard stood stationed by the door, dressed in a white uniform with a silver emblem on his collar. He acknowledged them with a curt nod.
Nathan seemed to ignore the guard. Or maybe he’d been up to Leadership HQ before and being there didn’t unnerve him like it did Miya. He laughed lightly, the sound carrying in the empty corridor.
“You’re definitely jumpy, but I’d be too if I had to be escorted up to headquarters.”
She flashed him a look that made him duck his head. This wasn’t a joke to her. She raised her hand to signal to the guard that she was ready to enter, but Nathan caught her arm. She looked down at his hand gripping her shirt sleeve. He let go and took a step back.
Miya notice his upper lip was dotted with sweat.
“Did you locate the
killer?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
Nathan leaned against the door and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Look…I’m sorry about…everything. I caved.” He scratched his neck. “They’re pretty persuasive.”
She chewed the inside of her lower lip. “I should get in there.”
“Sure, sure. No problem.” Nathan moved aside. “Oh, hey, there’s a guy named Kael who’s been asking around for you. Do you know him?”
CHAPTER 30
Miya
“Kael? No…I’ve never heard of him.” She twisted the bottom button on her long white shirt and tried to keep breathing normally.
Nathan shrugged. She tried to step around him to get to the scanner on the wall, but Nathan put his arm out to block her. His action startled her. For someone afraid of being zapped, he was going out of his way to keep her close. Nathan licked his lips and looked up and down the corridor, then leaned forward and said, “I didn’t want to do this, but like I said, Leadership’s very persuasive.”
“You said that, now excuse me. I need to get in there.” She put her hand on his arm, thinking the touch alone would make him jump back, but he didn’t move.
“Sorry, but I have to do this.”
Miya frowned. “Do what?”
Nathan pulled a syringe from his pocket and pulled the cap off.
Miya backed up, her hands out in front of her. “Nathan, don’t. Whatever they told you to do, don’t do it. We’re friends.”
Nathan raised his eyebrows in a smirk. “Friends? Not really, Mi. Friends don’t keep secrets, do they? You never told me you’re offline. I had to find out for myself.”
“I swear I never knew.”
“No? Then why are you the only one with the ability to touch people and not get punished? Do you know how useful that would’ve been? Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve worked together to find a way out of here.”
“Touching without consequences isn’t an…an ability, Nathan. It’s just an implant glitch. I had an infection, that’s all. I’m no different than you.”
Nathan’s mouth twitched. “Yes, you are. I know all about you, Miss Thorne.”
She swallowed the bitter taste and forced her mouth to form her next words. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Please, Nathan let me go. I promise, the Leadership doesn’t have to know about this.”
She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the guard, but he remained riveted to his spot, eyes forward.
Nathan laughed. A stiff-sounding, bitter laugh. “No one’s going to help you. Who do you think ordered me to do this?”
Miya swallowed. She looked at the syringe still in his hand. It looked empty except for a tiny black dot. Her knees weakened. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself. Inside the syringe was a tracker: a tiny robotic spider that found its way into the brain and extracted memories. Trackers were used before execution.
She pushed Nathan backwards. “You are not putting that thing in me!”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you do. You always have a choice.”
Nathan’s eyes darkened. “That’s just it, Miya. You might be able to do what you want to do, but the rest of us can’t. Everything we do is monitored, tracked, and analyzed. One wrong move or one illegal thought and we’re dead.”
Miya glanced around, looking for a way out. “What did they promise you? What deal did they make with you?”
Nathan shrugged one shoulder. “They knew I was talking about escaping that day we were talking in the Food Bar. The same day I got zapped for testing my theory on you. So they hauled me in. Gave me an ultimatum.”
Miya noticed Nathan had leaned against the door again. His stance was relaxed. If she could somehow get around him, she might have a chance at running to the elevator before he caught up with her.
“To bring me in or they’d kill you?”
Nathan grinned. “They don’t need me to bring you in. Oren could’ve done that himself. I’ve seen the way you look at him. You’re attracted to him. You’d do anything he asked.”
Miya shook her head, taking a small step away from Nathan. “I’m not attracted to Leadership, Nathan. I’m just trying to stay under the radar. The Leadership just wants puppets, but I refuse to be one.”
Nathan’s face clouded briefly.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Instead of killing you, they offered you a position as one of them, didn’t they? In exchange for what? Sticking me with a tracker? I told them I don’t have any information.”
She took another step back. Now there was enough space between her and Nathan for her to run. But Nathan’s face changed. He’d seen her attempt and, before Miya could react, he grabbed her wrist, then pulled her to him. She pushed him with her other hand and tried to kick him, but the biting grip on her wrist made her realize he would crush bones if she struggled. She glimpsed a fleshy red lump right below the shiny new tattoo on Nathan’s neck. It was a tracker mark. She almost stopped fighting when she realized Nathan hadn’t willingly surrendered her to the Leadership. They’d stuck him with a tracker and forced the knowledge from him. He was right, he didn’t have a choice. But becoming one of them? She’d rather die. Obviously Nathan didn’t feel the same way.
Nathan’s face reddened as he struggled to inject her. He used his body to pin her to the wall, crushing the breath from her. The tracker burned as it entered. Its tiny legs scratched and skittered inside her, clawing its way up her neck and into her head. When Nathan finally released her, she grabbed her hair. Wild screams tore from her tight throat.
“Get it out! Get it out!”
Nathan’s voice almost sounded sympathetic. “It hurts less if you don’t fight it.”
CHAPTER 31
Miya
Nathan shoved Miya into the elevator and she stumbled inside. The last thing she saw before the door closed was Nathan’s face. Handsome, but lined with fatigue and guilt.
She waited for the elevator to make its slow descent and wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve. She leaned heavily against the door, scanned her wrist again and jabbed her thumb on the Level One button. The heat in her neck and head was bearable, but the scraping and clawing of the tracker’s claws as it embedded itself in her brain made her wild with desperation to get it out.
The elevator bumped, made a horrible screeching sound, and came to an abrupt halt.
Its door slid open slower than normal. She stepped out and nearly collided with someone rushing down the corridor.
She stumbled backwards into the wall. Vaguely familiar green eyes set in a golden face gazed back at her. His cheeks and chin were all angles and shadows. The young man’s chiseled features softened a little.
“Are you okay?” he whispered and glanced around. Before she could answer, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the corridor. She was too stunned to resist, and in a moment she found herself swung into a small alcove with a steel bench.
He pulled her onto the bench beside him before he let go of her hand. He regarded her for a moment with a look she couldn’t read.
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“I…I need to get…to my room.” She began to stand, but he pulled her back down by her elbow.
“Please, I just need a minute.”
“I’m sorry. I’m very tired. I…I have a headache.” She rubbed her neck.
“When I first saw you—” the boy looked at her again, his expression a mixture of pain and sorrow “—I had to find out if it was really you.” He touched the collar of her shirt with a careful index finger. “It’s definitely you, but you look…different.” He glanced around. “I always thought the Camps were…I don’t know…creepier.”
He leaned forward and looked her in the eyes. “Did they suck out your pigments? You do look pretty pale—”
Miya drew back and his face swam in front of her. “What? You must have the wrong person. I don’t know you. I mean…I saw you…that day—” At the inspection, she wante
d to say. But her mind clouded for a second. She shuddered as a prick at the base of her skull told her the tracker had found its mark.
When the boy spoke again, his voice was low and soft. “What did they do to you? It’s me. Kael.”
She frowned. Kael. Where had she heard that name before? “You…have me confused with someone else.”
He took a deep breath and slowly expelled it.
Miya gripped the bench. Everything blurred and took on a strange yellow hue. “Could you please…take me…back to my room?”
He brought his eyes back to hers. They were green. Not Jake-green, but a paler, less intense version.
Jake.
Kael ran both hands through his hair. Was that a…scar on the inside of his wrist? It was shaped like a crescent. Where had she seen that before?
After a minute he said, “Okay. Take my hand. I’ll help you up.”
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t touch.”
He put his hands together, seemingly unsure of what to do with himself, then slowly reached out and took her hand. His skin felt warm and dry. Calloused.
He licked his lips and took a deep breath. “It’s okay. Look, we can touch and nothing will happen. I’m not one of them. I’m not…I’m not from here. You can trust me. I’ll help you to your room.”
She dragged her free hand along the slick walls of the corridor for balance as Kael led her back to her room. No one seemed to notice or care that she was clinging to his hand, or maybe she was the one who didn’t notice whether or not people were noticing. Everything was such a blur. Dull and confusing.
Kael turned down Miya’s covers on her bed and stood watching while she climbed into them. His body was tall, lean and stiff. She noticed then how ill-fitting his clothes were. The white pants were cinched tightly in the middle and bagged around his slender thighs while the shirt hung miserably off his narrow shoulders. He’d misbuttoned it, so the collar hung askew.
“Where…are you from?” His face swam before her eyes. His answer got lost in the fog that clouded her head.
The pillow felt good when she laid her head on it. Kael sat beside her and kept taking deep breaths. She wondered briefly—stupidly—what the toxicity levels were.
Her eyes fluttered closed, and she heard Kael’s faraway voice say, “Aliah’s in love with you. It took me a while, but I finally figured out why he couldn’t stand the sight of me. Because he’s in love with you too.”