I can see her trying not to flinch. “Juliette.”
“Doesn’t hurt,” she says, and it’s a lousy lie. “Just the standard stuff everyone uses for costume parties.” She finishes up then swipes down the window and tosses the wand outside.
Only rich kids would give themselves real bruises for a party.
I rub at a tension headache that’s sprung up since I left Jackertown. I rushed off to pick up Juliette at Aaliyah’s Home, thinking the bruises on my face would make a good cover story. I didn’t expect her to match them. But she’s been waiting for the right time and cover story for us to return to her father, and this is it. At least, I hope so.
She’s staring out the window now, her body still, bruised wrists lying on her bare legs. She left her shoes behind, saying that would make the lie more convincing. Meanwhile, my legs have a crazy urge to bounce.
“You’re sure you can keep all this under wraps?” I ask. Juliette’s a reader, and so is her father. Lying is not easy for mindreaders, but she’s become a pro.
Juliette drags those blue eyes away from the window and glares at me. “I’m sure.”
“Let’s go over it again.” I stop rubbing my temples because it’s not helping.
She sighs. “My jacker girlfriend jacked us both, made us run away, and now we’re back.”
“Details.” I squeeze my hands into fists and press them into my thighs to settle them. It’ll be easy to broadcast the right thoughts for Tiller, but that won’t matter if my body language gives me away.
Juliette groans but then twists on the seat to face me. “I was in love with Sammi, and I thought my dad’s anti-jacker tech had killed her. Turns out it didn’t, not even turning her into a reader—which should totally piss him off, by the way—and when she woke up in the foyer, she jacked both of us into running away with her. She’s been holding us captive ever since, using us as lurid sex slaves.”
“What?” My legs stop their bouncing. “That was not the story we agreed to.”
She smirks. “Details. The kind my dad won’t want to pry into.”
My eyebrows lift. “Okay… that makes actual sense. Sort of.”
She sighs again, wistfully. “No offense, but having you in the equation kind of ruins it for me. I’m taking one for the team here.” I’m not linked into her head, but the look on her face says she’s replaying that ruined fantasy.
“All right. All right.” I put up my hands for her to stop. “Those are details I don’t want to know.”
“See? It works.” The smirk is back.
I shake my head. “And the rest of the story?”
She bites her lip and gives another sigh. “You found a helmet while she was sleeping and managed to break us free. My bruises are from the abuse. Yours came when she attacked you physically, trying to rip off the helmet, but you overpowered her, and we made it out. Now we’re coming home, chastened and penitent, having finally seen the dark side of jackers, just as Daddy said all along.” She puts her hands to her throat and motions like she’s gagging.
I nod. “And once we’re in?”
“I’ll work on finding a true way to defeat my father’s vile anti-jacker mind-blaster tech.” That’s what she calls the black-orb drones, and I figure the description fits. Plus she’s Tiller’s daughter, granddaughter of the original MINDWARE inventor—given access to her lab, she has a reasonable chance of decoding and defeating Tiller’s tech.
The jitters are back in my leg. “While you’re doing that, I’ll jack whoever I need to in order to get access to his office and hopefully find out what he’s planning with these mind-blaster drones. Or find a way to disable them. I need something I can take back to Kira.” Tiller demonstrated the horrifying use of his drones on Sammi, but that breaking-edge technology news was subsumed by the jack attack on the president.
Juliette frowns. “What about your dad?”
“With any luck, I’ll find something on him as well.” I shake my head because I can’t imagine us getting that lucky. “Wright was going to hand my mom over to Tiller—it’s possible she told him where my dad is, too.” I’m rubbing my sore jaw as I think. “Maybe we can just smuggle out some of the drones and expose your father that way. If they’ve really got jacker AI, and we get that word out, it has to freak out readers.” Sammi was spooked by the tech, and I get it—if Tiller has invented artificially intelligent machine jackers… that can be deployed en masse…
Juliette scrunches up her face, making the bruises crinkle. “With all the anti-jacker hate out there? Trust me, my father will frame it as fighting the devil with the devil’s tools. People—especially the Fronters—will cheer him on. And you need to be careful with jacking inside the estate, Zeph. It’s not going to be me who blows our cover.” Her body is still, calm, in control—unlike me and the jitter that seems to be traveling all over my body.
I grimace. “Then I’ll get to experience the tech first-hand, like Sammi.”
Her face slacks into an epically cold stare.
I shouldn’t have brought up Sammi, but we really need to stop dancing around the subject. “Have you two talked?”
“I told you—not going to happen.” She huffs then twists to face the window, turning her back on me without leaving the autocab.
I sigh and fish out my phone. Sammi’s been off the grid since Juliette broke up with her, and it’s been so long since anyone’s heard from her, now I wonder if she’s actually gone missing. Before Sammi left, we set up an invisi-chat channel—the kind that operates on the darknet and leaves no record—but I haven’t used it yet. I kept waiting for Juliette to change her mind.
I jack into my phone and scrit a quick message on the dark channel to Sammi. Going back to Tiller’s with Juliette. What’s your status?
Juliette is busy glaring death at the trees passing by.
The answer comes back quickly. Working at MINDPRINT. That’s the company run by Sammi’s mom—Tiller bought them out, but she’s still the CEO. Sammi made me keep that tidbit secret from Juliette—if Tiller found out, Sammi’s mom would lose her business. But since they’re broken up…
Jackwork or work-work? I scrit. And does Juliette know?
Jackwork. Sammi’s ability to jack electrical systems including software must be coming in handy. Working on anti-Tiller tech.
I snort, which draws Juliette’s attention. She scowls at my phone—her own was ditched as soon as we went on the run, which is why I have the channel set up, not her.
I wave the phone at her. “It’s Sammi. Last chance to talk before we go undercover.”
She gives me the look a jacker has when they’re going for a kill jack.
“All right, fine.” I shrug and scrit to Sammi. You dodged my question on Juliette.
If you tell her, I will find you, MacCay.
I sigh. Not that I’m afraid of Sammi’s ability, even if she can short out my brain—I just want them to patch things up. I hold up my phone and snap a picture of my face, then send it to Sammi. I’m telling Tiller you beat me up.
She sends back a vid of her busting up. The sound snaps Juliette’s attention, and my heart sinks at her look of betrayal. Her hands are balled up on her knees.
“Sorry,” I rush out, then hastily scrit to Sammi, Signing off. I wipe the whole thread and stuff my phone back in my pocket.
Juliette’s staring out the window again, only now her fists are grinding into her thighs—hard enough to make real bruises. There’s a tear running down her cheek.
Dammit. “I didn’t know the sound was on… Juliette.” I wait until she glares at me again. “You can’t be mad at me. Not if this thing with your dad is going to work.”
She reaches over and socks me in the shoulder. Hard.
I wince and lean away. “Okay.”
“Jackhole,” she says. And means it, too.
“Come on.” This is very not fair. “Why won’t you just tell her you care? You know, before you go back into the bigot’s den.”
“Because We. Ca
n’t Be. Together. You jerk.” Her anger dissipates into this mystified look like I’m a complete idiot. Which maybe I am for hoping it can work between jackers and readers, least of all, Sammi and Juliette. She counts out the reasons they’re doomed, one finger at a time. “My dad hates jackers. He literally tried to kill Sammi. He’s out to kill all jackers… or at least destroy everything they are and turn them into readers. You don’t know him like I do. He’s never letting me go—I’m the heir, the legacy, the one who’s supposed to carry on this empire he’s built by giving him lots of little Tiller grandbabies. No way he’s letting me out of his grasp. And he’s got too much power, too much money, and resources I can’t even imagine. The only way I can break his hold is by bringing him down, totally and completely. And once that happens…” She chokes up, and the tears are back.
“You’ll be free,” I whisper. I thought this was about revenge for Sammi, but I had no idea. “And then you and Sammi…?”
She shakes her head, violently, and swipes at her tears. “She won’t want me then.”
“What?” I blurt out. “How does that even make sense?”
“Do you know what she’s doing? Why she left?”
I frown. “You said you broke up with her.”
Juliette huffs a laugh. “She beat me to it. She left me. And now she’s back at her mom’s company.”
“Wait… you know about that?” My heart lurches, but I’m dead certain I didn’t tell her.
Juliette rolls her eyes. “I’ve known all along. Do you think I don’t check out the hot girls I’m dating? Like stalker level check out? I’m a Tiller, Zeph. Come on.”
I just gawk. “Does your dad know?”
“Of course not.” She throws her hands up in disgust then tucks them over her chest.
“Okay, good.” Relief trickles through me. But where does this leave us, exactly? “So you know her mom is screwed if your dad finds out, right?” She nods. “Alright then. So you bring down your dad’s crazy tech, and then you do what you want. Simple as that.”
Juliette grits her teeth. “I’m bringing down my dad. I’m betraying my family. She’s protecting hers. Sammi’s loyal to a fault. You know that, right? She’s not going to want me after I basically screw over my own father. Why would she want someone like that?”
I cock my head, and the only thing I can figure is that being hurt makes even smart people stupid. “Because you’re doing the right thing? Because you’re saving people, specifically her and her family? Okay… what’s this really about?” Because the more I think about it, the less I buy this.
Her arms lock tighter. “She doesn’t want me, Zeph. Not enough.”
My shoulders slump. “Yes, she does.”
Juliette turns her back on me again.
“Wait… so you’re going to prove your love by doing this? Like some grand gesture?” Man, this is even more messed up than I knew.
She ducks her head against the window. She’s practically curled into a ball, an armadillo with her armor protecting all the soft spots. “Stupid. I know.” It’s a whisper.
“Hey.” I reach across the seat—it takes three tugs on her arm before she’ll unfurl. I give her a one-armed hug and a pleading look for her to just stop. “It’s not stupid. Well, okay, it’s kind of stupid. But in a cute and stupidly dangerous way.”
She blinks, holding my gaze, then shoves me away, but it’s half-hearted. “I hope you lie better than that to my dad.”
The autocab’s pulling up to the gated entrance to Tiller’s estate. We’re still a long winding half-mile drive from the actual buildings, but it’s close enough to kill the moment.
And run that itinerant jitter right up my spine. “Don’t worry. I’ll lie like my life depends on it.”
I switch to broadcasting my thoughts from the empty, secondary mind I generate to fool mindreaders into thinking I’m one of them. I’m a jacker, remember? I broadcast to Juliette. Pro level liars, all of us. Just like Sammi was a lying-ass liar when she said she wanted to break up with you. But forget all that for now. The person who needs to get their lying A-game on is you.
She slides over and gives me a hug like she’s never going to see me again. I won’t let you down, Zeph.
Now I’m kind of a mess, too.
Which, I guess works because we’re crawling back to Daddy Tiller. Supposedly, I’ve been terrorized by a jacker for days—in sexual slavery no less. I’ve seen what real mental abuse looks like. Jiaying is still hanging out at Aaliyah’s house, unwilling to return to the world of mindreaders where her abuse would be open to every prying mind. Her mental anguish is horrifying and traumatic, and there’s no way I can simulate that with my vacant secondary mind. I’ll just have to hope that a powerful man like Tiller has no clue what real mental abuse looks like, despite all his fanatical bigotry against jackers.
Juliette swipes open the gate with some handprint scanner tech, and I put on my best haggard look to go with the fresh bruises. My side still aches from the punches there, so I’ll just favor that and flood Tiller with simpering thoughts about how he was right all along.
Next to me, Juliette’s tensing up, clenching and unclenching her fists as they work the tops of her knees, but she’s doing it on purpose now. Her thoughts are winding up, a vortex of anger and fear and more anger. Tiller must know we’re coming—or at least his head of security, Richards—so we need to be in full form before the autocab reaches the wide expanse of granite steps in front of the main building. It’s the middle of the day, so the sun gleams bright off the white stone, making it hard to see anything in the glare. But even as my eyes adjust, I can see the front doors fly open. The autocab is still rolling as a dozen of Richards’ security goons hurtle out that door and the building wings as well. They’ve got helmets and drawn weapons, and they’re running at us full speed. The autocab jerks to a stop as they surround it.
Juliette gestures rudely at them, then she starts yelling for them to back off.
My hands are already up, and I’m not bringing them down until Richards clears us.
He takes his time creeping up to the autocab like he thinks it’s rigged for explosives. His gun targets me through the windows as he circles the vehicle. He hand-signals his thugs on Juliette’s side, and suddenly, two are yanking open her door and hauling her out.
“Hey!” I yelp. “What are you doing?” My body is a live wire, spasming but unable to move.
“Let me go! You bastards!” Juliette’s screaming her head off, but they’re just dragging her away, up the steps, toward the large double front door.
Tiller’s standing there.
He watches impassively as his thugs drag his daughter into the house.
She disappears through the darkened doorway.
Air is frozen in my chest.
My whole body twitches when Richards opens my door. He stands back as his goons shout at me to get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the car, all while reaching in with their black-gloved hands to grab me. I’m pulled out like a vacuum has sucked me into the air, then my face is slammed down against the pristine black pavement. Pain shoots through my head, the bruises crying out their complaints. I’m pinned under the collective weight of at least two thick-muscled guards in tactical gear, my arms pulled to the sides, my legs trapped under someone’s boots. I can’t even think of moving. My only thought is breathing, or trying to breathe, and how suddenly, I don’t know how many breaths I might have left.
I’m held down forever. An eternity of labored breaths and pounding heart beats in my ears. Just as my arms go numb—or maybe my heart is simply giving out—sharp-shined black shoes scrape the pavement at the edge of my vision. Hands pull me upright, so swift it’s like flying, and I’m held aloft, imprisoned by their grip and the rush in my head.
Tiller’s bald head glints in the sun. “I’m a little disappointed, son.”
My stomach clenches just before one thug plows his fist into it. I double over, still suspended, vision blurring as the pa
in of my abused gut makes me dry heave. Then a pinch that’s too sharp to be fingers and can only be something metal stabs into my shoulder. My vision clears just in time to see the dart sticking out… then everything tips sideways, and the dark rushes in.
Coldness and pain.
I twitch before I even open my eyes because something is pressing on my face. Dull, throbbing pain defines the surface of my skull. One eye creaks open, the other still smashed into something cold, hard, and blindingly white. Logic seeps into my brain as the room comes into focus—I’m lying on the floor, dumped in a featureless room after Tiller’s goons tranq’d me.
I never got to say a word.
Not a single one. Tiller snatched us out of the autocab, hauled away Juliette, and treated me like he knew. All of it.
I am so very screwed.
My heart jumpstarts, and I try to sit up, but something slices cold against my wrists behind me, the warning of a blade, so I freeze—which topples me face-first against the floor again.
A snort ruffles the silence.
There’s someone else in the room.
I scramble to form a secondary mind to broadcast thoughts, then slowly lift my head. One of Tiller’s security goons stands by the door of this small, thoroughly-white room. White walls. White tile floor. White plasma lights bouncing glare everywhere.
He has a helmet.
I drop the thought broadcast and focus on trying to sit up. Whatever’s binding my hands behind my back flashes icy pain across my skin, like one wrong move will slice off my hands. I’d ask for help, but Tiller hires jackholes for security.
I make it up to my knees.
The guard smirks and taps the side of his helmet. “He’s awake.”
If only I could surge through his helmet like Olivia… but even Sammi couldn’t manage that. With a jolt, I realize I’m in the exact same room where Tiller held her—before he trotted her out for a live human trial of his mind-destroying weapon. Crap, crap, crap. I walk on my knees back from the guard, but there’s nowhere to go. My bindings are some insane tech that’s going to amputate me, my guard is helmeted, and as my belated mental scan tells me, the room is shielded.
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