Why did I have to lose the one person I loved most?
“I loved Zenn once, didn’t I?” Vi’s question brought me out of the dark trench inside myself where I was drowning in unrealized want.
“Yes,” I answered. “I think you did.”
“He loves me.” She said this simply, as if she might be commenting on the weather.
“Yes, he does.”
“Like Gunner loves you.”
I sucked in a breath. “Gunner doesn’t—he and I, we’re not—well, I mean, he’s matched to someone else.”
Vi tossed me a quick look. “They can’t dictate who you love.” She nosed her board closer to mine. “And I can feel something just under the surface of my skin. Like I know things about people I shouldn’t.” She paused, and I held my breath. She shook her head, her newly dark hair flopping slightly. “Besides, I don’t have to be a Thinker to know. The guy flew straight to you when he needed help. He could’ve gone to someone else. His match, for example. He didn’t. He came to you.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I let my hoverboard float aimlessly, mirroring what throbbed in my heart.
“I don’t know how to help him,” I finally whispered, more to myself than to Vi.
“Sure you do,” she answered. “Who knows more than you, Raine? No one I know.”
That wasn’t saying much. Violet didn’t know anyone. But suddenly, I remembered something Cannon had said: “You control the information.”
And: “No one can keep secrets from Raine Hightower. Secrets hold power. Raine holds all the power.”
And the real kicker: “Every person has a season for knowledge.”
Right then, with the stars twinkling overhead and the city of Freedom slumbering beneath, I decided it was Vi’s season for knowledge.
No matter the consequences, I had the power (and responsibility) to do two of the hardest things of my life.
1. Give up Gunn.
2. Unbrainwash my flatmate.
One of those would cause a slow internal death. The other might get me killed in a much more efficient way.
“Who taught you that song you sang earlier?” I asked, trying to remember the words, trying to grasp onto something to anchor myself.
Vi’s eyebrows creased. “I think … I think Zenn did.” She shook her head. “No, he just reminded me of it. I think my mom used to sing it to me.”
“Music is against protocol.” I lowered my voice with each word until I couldn’t even hear myself.
“I know,” Vi murmured. “Zenn and I do a lot of things that are against protocol.” She frowned again. “At least, I think we used to. Now we just watch projections, usually. We used to walk on the beach, I think …” Her voice trailed into uncertainty, and I let the winter air infiltrate my lungs to prove to myself that I was still alive.
“Who’s that?”
I twisted to find Vi pointing at a crouched figure zooming toward us.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not an Enforcement Officer, they’d have lights—”
Raine, a girl chatted over my cache. I figured you’d be here. It’s me, Starr.
Gunner
25.
Everyone wants a chance to express who they are, their individuality. That’s why Zenn ate toast for every meal, rolled up his shirtsleeves. It’s why Raine painted her fingernails blue every weekend, kissed me in the sky.
It’s why Starr lied, joined the Insiders years ago.
That’s why I grew my hair too long, tricked out my hoverboard with unique voice commands.
So when three pairs of hands grip my shoulders and face, holding me still, I thrash. One silencer skids across the floor, but the other two snake their way to my vocal chords and disable my only real weapon.
My muscles burn in protest as I try to get up. I can’t see anything, but I know what a pair of shears sounds like: Incarceration.
Tiny shards of hair itch my neck, tickle my nose. A slow fire builds in my stomach. It’s just my hair, but dammit, that takes time to grow back. And time is something I don’t have.
But I sit helpless. Someone wipes a cold cloth clumsily across my neck. Clatters and shuffles fill the air, but no voices. They’re probably all cache-convoing so I can’t identify them.
Fear strikes me hard in the chest. If they’re afraid I can ID them, then I know them.
Clawed fingers grasp my hair and pull back, making me tip my face toward the ceiling. My eyes are forced open, but only darkness stares back. Cold drops sting my eyeballs, and I twist my head to the side. Enhancements.
Immediately, gloved hands shove me back into position. More drops. Endless blackness.
Coiling,
waiting,
rising fury.
* * *
I woke to Raine’s timid smile. “Hey,” she said. She knelt next to her bed, using her arms as pillows. A loud, angry noise carried in from the bathroom. The balcony door gaped open, filling the room with the sound of driving rain.
“Hey.” Everything that needed to be said lived in that word. She searched my face as if trying to decide something important. I knew because she kept licking her lips, which was super distracting.
“You look beautiful.” Her hair—still white as ice with that one blue streak—was pulled back on the sides. Her pale skin looked almost translucent.
“Well, you look like … him,” she said just as softly. “Why is that, Gunn? Why do you look like him?”
The dream flashed across my vision-screen. “Because someone wanted me to.”
“Is there a new plan I don’t know about?” Raine asked, a dose of resentment creeping into her tone.
“Not that I know of,” I said. “What’s your plan?”
She regarded me with a lazy cloud of I could stay in this moment forever between us. “I’m hoping to distract my dad on Monday by being where I should never be. We think it will buy you some additional time.”
“We: you and Vi?”
Sourness puckered her mouth. “No. We: me and Starr.”
The hope I held deep inside dangled by a thread. “So did you get…? Did she give you…?”
Outside, thunder shook the sky. Raine closed her eyes; a shiver trembled in her hands. “Yes.” She breathed, and I felt like I could lie next to her forever, just breathing together.
“Okay, Gunn, I just have to say this,” she said, her eyes still pressed shut. “You won’t like it, but I can’t let you … I mean, you can’t … well, I just have to say it.”
She paused so long, I wondered if she’d changed her mind. The buzzing noise continued in the bathroom, the rain pounded down. Smart, I thought. They’re using the weather and tech to cover the conversation.
“I have a very bad feeling about you leaving. It just—well—it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.”
“That’s exactly the point, Hightower. It isn’t the right thing to do.”
She opened her eyes, and I found a secret lurking within.
“What did you see?” I asked.
She jerked as if I’d slapped her, straightened so we didn’t share the same breathing space. “Nothing. I didn’t touch you.”
I thought she may have emphasized “you” a little strongly. I wasn’t sure, but in this moment, Raine = a big, fat liar.
A sting of disappointment pricked at my mind. Why didn’t Raine trust me? What other secrets did she have locked up?
“Starr left this for you.” Raine held out the microchip. “But you still don’t have any clothes.” A hint of pink flushed her cheeks. “Vi messaged Zenn, and he’s bringing some of your things. He should be here in a few.”
“Sorry,” I said, taking the chip from her, flipping it over and over. “I’m still piecing together the events from last night.” Quiet relief grew inside me now that I had the chip back.
She cleared her throat. “It’s fine. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Laughter exploded out of my mouth. “Right, because here in Freedom, we get to choose our own
clothes! Our own meals! Our own—” I cut myself off before saying “matches!” but Raine heard it anyway.
Now a knot of tension filled my throat, and I coughed it away. “So, Raine, did you, uh, see anything when we, you know, when you kissed me?”
“I kissed you?” A barking laugh came out of her mouth. “I think you kissed me, Gunn.”
And I wanted to do it again. “Yeah, okay. So did you see anything?”
Her playfulness disappeared. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“For sure,” I said, hoping we were playing the same game where we said we wanted to do favors for each other, but we really meant I love you.
“When I refused to drain him, I haven’t been able to see anything since.” She lifted one hand toward me slowly. Both of us trained our eyes on the motion until her skin met my cheek.
“I think I’m broken,” she whispered. She was beyond broken. More like conflicted into so many pieces, I couldn’t separate them into recognizable emotions.
“I’ll put you back together,” I whispered back before leaning into her touch and forming my mouth to hers.
Raine
26.
Starr Messenger had been matched with Gunn when they were fourteen. They both got placed on the science track (like me), and the machines track (unlike me). Because only students from the science track have the opportunity to work in the Evolutionary Rise, all of us had that option. Only Starr wanted it. No big deal.
What was a big deal was how much she knew.
The conversation in the sky had me buzzing. Starr knew about the Insiders. She knew I was an Insider. She’d joined a week after her fourteenth birthday. Another win for her; she always figured things out first.
She knew about Gunn—about everything.
And damn, the girl talked so freakin’ fast. I’d barely had time to process anything before she was a streak against the horizon. I’d been left with Vi’s file in my cache, a memory chip in my hand, and a new theory about the identity of the assistant racing through my mind.
She had the tech to do it.
Because she had access to my father.
* * *
I kissed Gunn with the rain lashing the balcony and Vi tech-drying her already bone-dry hair so no one (Thane) could monitor the way my heartbeat spiked, no one (my dad) would log the moan of longing that emanated from Gunn’s throat when I trailed my fingers across his smooth shoulders, and no one (and I mean no one) could tell me who I may or may not kiss.
For those few minutes my life belonged to me.
Then the tech-dryer switched off, Vi marched into the room to pull the sliding glass door shut, and Zenn buzzed into our flat through the front door.
I left my bedroom so Gunn could get dressed. My body ached to be close to his in a way I’d never experienced before.
Vi served a stack of toast to Zenn and scrambled eggs to me.
“Morning, Raine,” Zenn said around a mouthful of bread.
I grunted a “morning” and wondered how long it took someone to pull on a shirt and some jeans. A few minutes later Gunn joined us at the table, his skin the color of old oatmeal.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“I look like—”
Silence pressed down. I glanced around the flat with the same jerky movements as Zenn and Vi.
Vi shot Gunner a glare. “You guys better fly.”
Zenn stood, kissed Vi on the forehead, and disappeared into our bedroom. Gunn sat there until the alarm sounded and the scarlet lasers of spider eyes beamed under the gap in the door. Then he scampered after Zenn real quick, leaving me and Vi to deal with the insects.
I didn’t get it. We hadn’t even said Jag’s name.
* * *
While Vi allowed the spiders to search our flat as part of their routine inspection, I stepped into the shower. I barely had time to wash my hair, because I’d opened Vi’s file. It started with easy things—school (algae collecting? Really?), her match (Zenn, since age fourteen), and her rule-breaking episodes (eight in all).
Her obsession with her hair was noted on page two. Her tendency to skip rocks in the lake and visit off-limits areas was fully detailed on pages four through eleven.
Her trial in the Goodgrounds and her subsequent escape with one Jag Barque took up the next fifteen pages.
All these things helped make Vi into a real person, not the brainwashed shell I’d been living with for eight months. Finally, on the second to last page, I found a list of “Possibly disconcerting items.”
1. Seems fascinated by the ocean.
2. Enjoys meat, especially ham.
3. Wishes on stars.
4. Particularly attached to Tyson.
5. Doesn’t give up.
The last one made my breath catch. The gasp echoed in the silent chamber, the five-minute shower long since over. I shivered as the circulators forced air across my damp skin.
I left the file open as I dried myself and got dressed. I settled on my bed, chewing on my thumbnail. I wondered about Tyson, and if he meant as much to Vi as Jag did.
Vi had a tangled net inside, with twists and knots of misinformation and brainwashing. I felt a tingling in my gut. I could undo this mess. I could make Violet herself again. She could be free.
And if she could be, then maybe, just maybe, so could I.
“They’re gone,” Vi announced from the doorway. “I hate the routine inspections.”
I swung my head toward her, taking in the scattered hairdo, the slightly baggy jeans, the standard-issue, eggshell-colored, long-sleeved shirt. Her face held no inkling that anything odd had happened here last night.
“Great, thanks.” I motioned her to join me on the bed. “So, Vi, what shirt should I wear today? The green one or the red one?”
She crinkled her face and kneaded her fingers on the fabric of her jeans. “I don’t understand. The closet just gives you a shirt. They aren’t even colored.” She looked down at hers, as if to make sure it hadn’t been dyed.
I sighed. I didn’t understand how she could be so lucid while flying with me, but now didn’t even understand the concept of choice. “But if you could choose, which color would you pick?”
“But I don’t choose. There’s no need to even think about it.” Her words could’ve streamed from Thane’s mouth. And I realized that they probably did.
“Turn off your cache,” I murmured. I felt certain Vi was on the Watched list, and she probably didn’t even know it.
Vi balked, leaning away from me with her pulse bobbing in her throat. “I don’t know how.”
“Sure you do.” My words ghosted across the widening space between us.
Vi stood up, moved toward the balcony, and closed her eyes in a long blink. When she opened them again, I thought they seemed a little clearer.
“Forget clothes,” I said. “Which do you like better: Red or green?”
A frown marred her face, and I wanted to scream. So I did. Loud and long, I let my frustration out in one high note.
When I finished, Vi stared at me like I’d sprouted horns in my forehead. I took a step toward her. “Don’t think. Just answer. The first thing that comes to your mind, okay?”
She swallowed hard, fear skating through her eyes. But she nodded.
“Okay, good. Red or green?”
“Green.” Her answer came out in a rush.
“Blue or yellow?”
“Yellow.”
“Eggs or pancakes?”
“Pancakes.”
“Long hair or short?”
“Short.” Her voice gained strength with this answer.
“Morning person or night owl?”
Her hands relaxed. “Night owl.”
“Happy or sad?”
Confusion darted across her face. “Right now I’m okay,” she said.
“Right or wrong?”
Another wave of confusion passed through her eyes. “Neither.”
“Then what are you?”
“What am
I? Or who?” Vi scrutinized me, and I could hear her saying, “About time, Gunner,” in my head in that same tone. The one that held a hint of cockiness, of pure authority. I felt the slow burn of Gunner’s hand in mine. I saw the individual raindrops on his skin when he pressed his lips to my forehead. I smelled the smoke as Freedom burned below us.
“Who are you?” I amended.
“I’m Violet Schoenfeld. Who are you?”
“I’m Raine Hightower,” I said, as if I were someone important.
Vi took quick steps toward me. “You are important, Raine.”
“Can you read minds?”
“Yes.”
“What else can you do?”
Vi’s gaze lasered into me, burning, probing, controlling. “Everything,” she said.
I winced, though I tried not to. My next question included the name Tyson, but I bit it back in favor of something more pressing. “Why can’t you remember these things all the time?”
She shook her head, like she was trying to dislodge the memories so she could examine them fully on her vision-screen. “I don’t know. But with the cache off, it’s much easier.” She glanced behind her. “What’s that whining noise?”
“Our warning,” I said. “You’ll have to turn the cache back on, Vi. They’re monitoring you.”
“Who is?”
“Thane, my dad, lots of people.”
She nodded, her mouth set into a grim line.
“Just one more question,” I said quickly. “Zenn or…?”
She didn’t answer.
Gunner
27.
Once again, I flew away from Raine when she needed me most. I hadn’t detected any frustration from her, or any hurt feelings, but still. What kind of guy abandoned his girl? Once, maybe. But this was, like, the third time.
Zenn navigated toward our flat, but I couldn’t go there now. I needed to be out in the open, not confined by walls. So many had sprung up in my life, and not just physically.
Every relationship boxed me in, made me say good-bye when I didn’t want to.
Every feeling reminded me that I was someone special. And never, ever alone.