Abandon

Always Jag.

  I knew now that she’d always choose him over me. Over her parents. Over Ty. Over everyone.

  “I didn’t pick him over Ty.” Barely contained fury accompanied her words.

  “You did,” I said, still holding out my hand for the teleporter ring. “She died, and he didn’t.”

  “You’d be happy then, wouldn’t you, Zenn? If Jag died.”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “What do you want me to say? That I wish he were dead? Of course I don’t. Do I wish that I meant more to you than him? Damn right I do. But I’m sick of wishing for something that won’t come true.”

  “My mother is at the safe house,” Vi said, her voice strained and filled with pain. I knew what it cost her to talk to me about her mom. She’s the reason Vi left her house in the middle of the night and came to my bedroom. But I wouldn’t be the one to help her—not this time.

  “Another reason for you to run to Jag for comfort.” Bitterness permeated my words.

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “Me?” I asked. “Who did you come to when your mother treated you badly? Who made you birthday cakes when she wouldn’t? Fixed your broken heart when Ty left? Dried your tears and told you he loved you? Took you to the Abandoned Area just so you wouldn’t have to sleep in that house alone with your memories and your mother? Was it Jag? No. Does he even know about all that stuff?”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

  “Does he?” I challenged.

  She shook her head, her jaw clenched tight tight tight.

  It hurt me to open her wounds, but it seemed like she’d forgotten everything between us as soon as she’d met Jag. And she hadn’t even tried to remember in the months since. I’d thought she’d seen me—really seen me—down that dark alley in Freedom. Why couldn’t she see everything I’d done for her? Couldn’t she feel the love I reserved only for her?

  “I remember,” she said, shifting her feet back and forth. “I remember everything about us.”

  “Yet you still choose him.”

  “Zenn—” She shook her head, as if saying my name said it all.

  I stepped closer. “I want you to choose me.” I released everything I’d boxed up so she could see. Every emotion. Every dream. My frustration with Vi faded, replaced with only the love I felt.

  She refused to look at me. I put my arms around her and she melted into my embrace. I breathed in the scent of her hair. My brain felt fuzzy, and my legs ached. I hadn’t slept in forever.

  But with Violet, none of that mattered.

  “I will always choose you,” I whispered. “And I want you to choose me.” When she looked up at me, I seized my opportunity.

  I kissed her.

  My desperation transformed into euphoria—at least until my head snapped back. Blood spurted from my nose.

  Vi rubbed her knuckles. “Don’t ever do that again,” she growled. She tossed the teleporter ring at me and blinked into oblivion.

  Jag

  31. Something shifted in the bed where I slept. Darkness blanketed everything, but I knew a warm body had joined me. A body that vibrated with life, with energy, with anger.

  I started to ask Vi what was wrong.

  “Go back to sleep,” she whispered. So I slid my arms around Vi, and slept.

  * * *

  I woke when Zenn snapped, “Get up, Jag. We need you out here.” He didn’t linger to see if I got up.

  The space next to me was empty and cold. I stumbled out of bed and into the hallway. Emergency lights set into the floor illuminated the path toward the conference room. I entered, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Only one chair at the head of the table remained vacant.

  “Report, Laurel.” I sat down and leafed through the stack of papers in front of me. Saffediene’s writing adorned the top sheet. Zenn’s decorated the second.

  Laurel recapped the night’s events, beginning with the evacuations in Castledale and Baybridge. “The Goodgrounds, the Badlands, Cedar Hills, Arrow Falls, White Cliffs, and Oceania have also been completely emptied of Insiders. Those Directors have their cities and remaining Citizens in full compliance.”

  “On today’s docket for evac are Harvest, Lakehead, Northepointe, and Fort Houston. Our small contingencies in Buffalo Ridge, South Gulf, Lobster Bay, and Highland Ranch are relocating to the nearby cities of Lava Springs, Rockwelle, New Boston, and Tri-Rivers.”

  “Fantastic,” I murmured, still studying the report Saffediene had submitted from Harvest. “Pace, tech update, please.”

  “Our rings are holding their power pretty well. The evacuations should continue without a problem. The falsified feeds have been rerouted through Trek’s hub inside Freedom.”

  I half listened as I flipped the page in Saffediene’s report. She’d scrubbed something out several times and written over it.

  I glanced up at Zenn, who was watching Pace. My brother smiled when I looked at him. “Everything is set. We can completely wipe our caches, make them untraceable by the Association. I’ll set a new frequency, one only we can use to communicate with each other.”

  Gunn frowned. “What does that do to my ability to chat with Starr?”

  “It makes it impossible. If she has intel, we’ll need to get it before we reset your cache,” Pace said.

  Gunn looked at me. “Go,” I said. “Find out all you can. Tell her we’ll be invading on March twenty-eighth.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Raine said quickly. I understood, really. He was the only one she knew. Gunn had been working with her to get her memories back. My reports said she’d made great progress.

  “No, you won’t,” I said. “No way you’re getting anywhere close to Freedom.”

  She stiffened. “I’ve been checked for trackers. I’m not carrying anything.”

  “I realize that,” I said. “You’re simply too valuable to the Association. Which means we can’t lose you. Gunn can go with Thane or Indy.” I could tell Gunn wasn’t happy about that—and I didn’t blame him.

  Indy glared. “I’d love to get out of this hellhole,” she said. “Count me in.”

  “Super,” Gunn said. “We’ll leave after the meeting.”

  “Find out everything you can about where Hightower is, what his schedule is like, what’s going on in the major Rises,” I said. “We probably won’t talk with Starr again before we launch.”

  I flipped another page in Saffediene’s report before setting it down and starting Zenn’s. I skimmed the details on Cedar Hills and found his Harvest notes.

  I glanced up, knowing we needed to begin planning the invasion of Freedom. “Thane, Raine, do we have a detailed map of Freedom?”

  “Let me bring it up,” Thane said. The tabletop shimmered and turned into a p-screen. Snaking lines cut across the surface, drawing green areas and streets and buildings.

  I kept reading Zenn’s report. My breath came quicker as I realized his report didn’t match Saffediene’s. She’d said Director Benes met them in the air, overlooking the city; Zenn said he met them on the roof of a building.

  I stole a glance at Saffediene. She had her finger pinned to a building on the map, and she was talking with Vi. Raine traced a path where the tech barrier lay, and Gunner put X’s on possible locations to hunker down and hide.

  Zenn circled the Confinement Rise, the Evolutionary Rise, the Medical Rise, and Rise One, and then they glowed red. He turned Rises Twelve, Nine, and Six blue, claiming these were safe spots where Insiders had coded flats and scrambling devices.

  Neither Zenn nor Saffediene seemed the least bit worried that I was reading their reports. I shuffled them to the bottom of the pile. The next several sheets of paper held information I already knew. Lists of talents from the incoming Insiders, Hightower’s plans to shut down school, a compilation of Darke’s hideouts across the Association.

  I slid that one to Zenn. “Let’s try to ruin as many of these as we can during the attack.”

  He studied the list. “Our people have been p
ulled from these cities already.”

  “Friendly Directors?”

  “Mostly. But Jag, if we start blowing up General Darke’s refuges, he’ll know we’re coming after him.”

  “He’s going to know anyway,” I said.

  Zenn folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Consider it done.”

  I almost allowed myself to smile. I imagined Ian Darke, traveling from one of his precious cities to the next, only to find that those cities didn’t belong to him anymore. That the people who lived in them had taken control of their own lives. And when he just wanted to go home and have a drink, he’d find his flat a smoldering heap of cement. Just like so many Citizens in his Union had.

  Was I evil for thinking that way? Probably. But Vi didn’t chastise me, or even look my way.

  I listened while the group discussed Freedom and the best way to get as many people as possible into the city and positioned in key areas. While I hated Freedom, I knew every intricacy of it. I’d been there a few times, and I didn’t always stay in the Confinement Rise.

  “Let’s lay low,” I said, tapping the map to erase it. “Laurel, have we got enough food for those coming in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir,” I said. “I’m sixteen years old.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again, and Vi actually started laughing.

  “Nice,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Meeting’s over.” As everyone stood to leave, I called, “Zenn, Saffediene. I’d like a word.”

  * * *

  “A riot?” I asked for the third time.

  Zenn rubbed his face and winced when he touched his nose. There was another story there, another secret he was keeping from me. “A labor dispute. Something with the Transportation Director. We didn’t think it mattered, and it doesn’t. Benes—”

  “Sent his Insiders,” Saffediene finished for him. “And the report they brought with them says that the riot was worked out. The elected official is Director of Transportation. The people chose—”

  “And their decision was upheld,” Zenn finished.

  I would’ve thought their little finish-each-other’s-sentences thing was cute, if they hadn’t lied to me. If Zenn wasn’t tenderly touching his nose. If Saffediene didn’t keep stealing glances at him. If they didn’t have caches they could use to make their story line up.

  “What else do I need to know?” I asked them.

  “Nothing,” Saffediene said. Zenn remained silent—the first indication of a lie.

  “You’re my prime traveling team. I trust you to tell me everything,” I said, infusing a heavy dose of guilt into my voice.

  Saffediene cast her eyes down. She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do not call me sir.”

  Zenn held my gaze, his jaw clenched. His nose was a little off-center, and definitely swollen. “You can start by telling me what happened to your face.”

  “Nothing happened to my face.”

  He was brilliant at playing both sides. At acting cool and collected. Had he fooled me in the past? Undoubtedly. But he wasn’t tricking me now.

  “Who hit you?”

  Saffediene swallowed as she scooted away from Zenn. “I think I’ll try to catch Gunner,” she said, standing up. I waved her away without comment. She was innocent, a new recruit. Anything she’d done was because of the guy sitting next to me.

  “She follows your lead,” I said. “And you’re teaching her to lie to me.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then what do you talk about when she’s lying in your arms at night?”

  Defiance and fury emanated from him. I’d struck something sensitive. “You think I don’t know?” I asked.

  “What do you know, Jag?” His question sounded like a threat.

  “She’s in love with you. If you asked her right now to leave here and fly north across that dead border and start a new life with you, she would.”

  He drew a sharp breath. “Saffediene is not in love with me.”

  “She is.”

  “Well, I am not in love with her.”

  “So, you’re using her, then. Getting her to doctor reports and say what you think I need to hear. Is that it?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, but some shame leaked from him.

  “Did she punch you when you tried to kiss her?”

  Zenn sat very still. “No.”

  “Then who did?”

  Zenn pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and left. I watched him go, thinking, I can’t trust him.

  I gathered my papers, remembering the one Zenn had given me that read Should I say yes? He’d been asking me if he should let Hightower recruit him, mold him into a Director.

  As I went to find breakfast, I wondered if Zenn wouldn’t be better off on the other side. He could lead his own city, without having to report every detail of his life.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said to myself. “No matter what, he’ll have to deal with me.”

  Zenn

  32. The next six days passed slowly, having to watch Jag holding Violet’s hand while they whispered preparations for the invasion of Freedom, and not having any chance to escape and be alone.

  Gunn was awful company, as he’d learned that Starr had been sent to Baybridge as Hightower’s representative. He and Raine spent most of their time huddled together in a corner somewhere, talking.

  I felt terribly alone. Before, I’d had Vi, and together we’d blended with other couples. Now, I felt abandoned by the friends I’d had in Freedom, simply because I didn’t have a partner.

  I avoided Saffediene. I didn’t want to be the guy Jag had accused me of being. I would not use Saffediene’s crush on me to influence her behavior. I knew what rejection felt like, and I couldn’t do that to her.

  Vi hadn’t told Jag about our kiss. If she had, I would’ve been punched again. And Jag is considerably stronger than Vi.

  I spent most of my time following Jag’s exact orders and lying on my cot, wondering if I wanted to return to Freedom as Director Hightower’s protégé.

  Finally, March twenty-eighth arrived.

  * * *

  Jag found me in the weapons room, getting my cache reset and the Resistance frequency uploaded. Pace scurried around, activating belts and vests and making sure we had all the equipment we needed for the attack.

  “Zenn, you and I will stick with Vi.” Jag stood just out of the fray, dressed in black from head to toe, not a stitch of tech anywhere. Typical Jag. He wasn’t exactly anti-technology, just cocky.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, stick with Vi. Got it.”

  “Between the two of us, she’ll be safe.” He stepped toward the door.

  “Did it ever occur to you she might not want me around?” I called.

  “More than once,” he said. “Vi doesn’t hold much back, you know.” He looked straight through me. “But I know you’re the one person who’d rather die than allow her to get hurt.” Then he left before I could respond.

  I didn’t have a defense anyway. He was right. Over the past few days I’d tried to imagine a situation where I’d leave Vi in danger. Where I’d fly away while she bled, or where I’d turn her over to Director Hightower to save myself.

  I hadn’t succeeded. Vi didn’t want me—she didn’t even like me—but I couldn’t stop loving her. I was pathetic.

  Pathetic and alone.

  While Pace plugged a line into my transmission portal, I thought about what life could be like north of the dead border just beyond Cedar Hills. I could build a house. I could scavenge for food. I could live a simple life, full of nothing but breathing and chopping wood and purifying water. I wouldn’t have to worry about girls or Thinkers or Jag Barque.

  I could simply take the backpack Pace had given me, get on my hoverboard, and fly away. Far, far away.

  It sounded like the best idea I’d had in a long time.

  I also knew I’d never do it.

  I worry too much about
what people think of me. And I want my life to mean something. I want to be important.

  * * *

  Armed with my backpack and my hoverboard, I joined the others in the open field behind the safe house. Stars twinkled overhead, partially eclipsed by clouds. Close to two hundred Insiders had arrived over the course of the last week, and everyone was restless for the invasion of Freedom to begin. Tense whispers filled my ears, but I didn’t join the groups of people surrounding me.

  I stood behind Jag—forever behind Jag—and Vi, waiting for who-knows-what. Part of me died a little when he turned and kissed her. The rest of me wanted to howl in pain.

  Finally, everything was in place, and Jag gave the signal to lift off. He’d assigned everyone a specific spot in the advance party, and everyone had a task in the city too. Voices were flying up front, so I nosed my board between Gunn and Thane while keeping an eye on Vi.

  Jag flew in the lead position, with Vi just behind him.

  Where’s Raine? I chatted to Gunn.

  She’s staying here.

  Bet she’s happy about that.

  Actually, she is, he said. She doesn’t want to run into her father.

  I nodded in response. All I wanted to do was run into my father. I wondered where he was right now. Did he still work in the Transportation Department in the Goodgrounds? Did he still have clearance to the best tech?

  I could’ve sent someone to find out. I hadn’t. If I didn’t know for sure, then I could imagine the best possible scenario.

  Hey, you okay? Gunn’s question sliced through my thoughts.

  Yeah, I chatted. Just great.

  It’s going to go fine, Gunn said.

  We only have four voices, I said. Me, him, Jag, and Thane.

  That’s all we need. He sounded so confident. I allowed his enthusiasm to infect me as we flew around the tech barrier.

  The ocean below me felt dark and sinister. The water chopped toward the shore. The lights emanating from the Rises gave the city a false sparkle, making it almost seem inviting.

  I caught bits of conversation from the others around me, but I didn’t join in. Speculation just isn’t my thing. I didn’t want to stew about what I might or might not encounter in the city.