Regenerate

  “Look how well that worked out for them,” I say. There’s a bitter flavor in my mouth and I glare up at the extinguished light. “When are they going to wake up and realize artificial anything will never work? There’s no substitution for the real thing; the results are always a disaster.”

  Lander is quiet for a long moment. “Good night, Averi,” he says, and rolls his back to me.

  “Good night,” I say.

  Dad really did love me, and I really did love him, and someday I’m going to find him.

  I glance over at Lander’s sleeping outline and draw a deep, slow breath, till it fills my chest. I chose Lander today. I chose him over my lifelong best friend. I think I like Lander a lot more than I’ve let myself realize. But why is he doing all this, risking all this, for me? If he can see that my dad and I loved each other, does he know what that’s like too? What’s his life been like, and why would he help me get away?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It’s been an entire a day and we have circled this hill at least a dozen times, but still there’s no sign of Rax and Jett. The air has gotten colder just in the time we’ve been here, and if I’m not mistaken, it looks like it might start snowing any day.

  “Do you think they got caught?” I ask as we take a lunch break next to a big boulder.

  “No way to know, I’m afraid. If they didn’t get caught, they need to find us before the snow comes or dehydration sets in. Otherwise it’s not going to be good.”

  I swirl the water in my bottle before taking a swig. “Are you sure we can’t set up some sort of a signal?”

  He shakes his head. I’ve asked this a few too many times, I think. His answer is similar to the others he’s given each time. “If you can think of a signal they will see or hear, that the Organizers who are also looking for us won’t, I’m all for it.”

  I frown, cross my arms, and kick a pebble down the hill.

  Lander puts his arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know you’re worried about them. I can’t think of anything more to do besides what we’re already doing. Even this, honestly, is a big risk.”

  We pack up our food and continue our march around the hill.

  I can’t stop watching him as we hike. He looks rugged and cut. His golden hair is bright, even against the grey backdrop of sky. His skin is slightly darker than I remember it being when he arrived, like he’s been outside a lot. What is he really doing here with me? After how he’s acted this last week, it doesn’t make sense. “Lander, why did you dump me at the party? And why come back to save me afterwards?”

  He looks back at me, giving a squinty scowl. “I didn’t dump you. Like I said, you needed space.” He stops walking and looks around, gauging the terrain.

  I stop beside him and cross my arms. “I never said I did.”

  He smirks and begins picking his way down one of the less steep slopes of the hill. Even this is pretty straight up and down though. “Not in words,” he says.

  I cautiously follow after him. “I don’t believe you.”

  He glances back at me and offers his hand to help me down a sandy part. “I don’t want to spoil the illusion of your life, Averi.”

  “And this hasn’t already?” I gesture to the forest around us.

  He keeps ahold of my hand as he explains. “Once I was assigned my group of focus—”

  “Meaning me and my friends,” I interject.

  “Right. My Overseer informed me they’d been hoping you and Raxtin would eventually be a matched pair.” His jaw muscles bulge in between his words. “But since that wasn’t happening, they agreed to allow me to try and keep you ‘afloat,’ as they put it.”

  Yeah, this is definitely destroying the illusion of my life. My stomach twists with nausea. “So I was your assignment?” I say, failing to keep the disgust out of my tone.

  “You were my ‘in’ with the group.”

  And that’s worse. He was using me the whole time. If I wouldn’t fall flat on my butt, I’d pull my hand away right now.

  “Everything after that was something I couldn’t help,” he continues. “You were way too interesting to leave alone. Besides, I couldn’t let you keep moping in your favorite fantasy of unwanted-ness. It was too stupid.”

  I jerk a step back. “Excuse me?”

  He laughs and glances at me. “I mean it. You were turning every head at school and wouldn’t let a single guy close enough to make you drop your ‘reject’ sign.”

  We keep walking, Lander still in the lead.

  An indignant pant escapes my gaping mouth. “I didn’t have a ‘reject’ sign! And I wasn’t turning anyone’s head.”

  “Yes you did, on both accounts. It was right next to your ‘look out, I bite’ sign.” His voice pitches with amusement.

  I roll my eyes as my steps trudge and scrape the ground. “Wow, sounds like I was a walking news post. I didn’t have an ‘I bite’ sign either, Lander.”

  He bursts out in a guffaw of laughter and nearly slips down the last stretch of the hill. “Are you kidding? You nearly stabbed me with pruning shears the first time we met!”

  I suppose in that he has a point. “Fine. I guess that part is true. But we’re off topic.” I duck a low pine branch. “Why did you ditch and then ignore me after my party?”

  He sighs and comes to a stop as we reach the foot of the hill. He hangs his head and keeps his shoulder to me. “The Organizers suspected I liked you for real. If I didn’t hand you over to Rax the second he finally got smart and openly showed interest, they would’ve pulled me out and watched you like a hawk.”

  I bite my lip, studying him with narrowed eyes. “Why would they do that?”

  Slowly, he turns towards me till his eyes catch hold of mine. “So I couldn’t do something like this.” He gestures to our surroundings.

  A wintry breeze picks up, carrying the fresh scent of wild pine trees. The wind’s temperature contrasts the sudden warmth in my chest. Emotion pinches my throat. He did all that to save me?

  His eyes watch me take in his words. “Jo asked me to look out for you. Once I saw how you felt about things, I couldn’t let them do that to you again. Take everything from you.” He drops his gaze and works his jaw like he’s got something more to say.

  I decide to take a guess. “The Organizers weren’t going to let you transfer with us, were they?”

  He looks up at me with a raised brow and a crooked smile. “And then there’s that. True.”

  My mouth opens to speak, but someone else’s words fill in.

  “That would’ve been a nice perk,” Rax says, startling me nearly to death.

  I jump back and Lander and I instantly drop hands, though Rax and Jett have already seen us.

  The two emerge from a stand of trees. Jett has one foot off the ground and Rax is helping support his weight.

  I exhale a huge sigh of relief seeing them alive and free. My feet are moving before I even know it, rushing to give them each a hug. “What happened?” I say, noting their dismal state.

  Rax speaks with great effort, like the strain of talking is painful. “After about five hours, we finally ditched those crazy dogs and started heading this way.”

  Lander comes over and slips an arm under one of Jett’s shoulders then helps him to the ground.

  Rax collapses next to Jett.

  Jett winces and straightens his leg. “I twisted my ankle near the river and we had to take it easy. We’ve been dodging search parties the whole way.”

  They look terrible, muddy, pale, and exhausted.

  “Are there any search parties close by now?” asks Lander, his eyes already scanning the surrounding wood.

  “Not that we saw,” says Rax. “Last one we spotted was about two hours that direction and headed south.”

  “Hey, you guys have any food? I’m starved!” says Jett, holding his stomach.

  Lander grabs the bag off his shoulders and hands it to the guys.

  As they eat, Lander does a quick perimeter check and I fill
them in on the relocation program and the fish toxin. Raxtin has a furious scowl on his face the whole time I explain the last part. I’m glad Lander is out doing his check or I think Rax would probably punch him.

  The guys are just about finished when Lander comes rushing back. “We’ve gotta go, now. There’s a group of security officers headed this way with scanners.”

  Lander throws the pack back over his shoulders and helps Jett to his feet. He takes one side and I insist on taking the other so Rax can have a break, and we start to scramble back up the hillside.

  Below us, crunching steps and raised voices announce their approach. “We got a hit. Four warm bodies this way,” says one.

  “Probably deer,” says another. “But we’d better check it out.” He radios it in.

  We climb as fast as we can, but we can’t lead them straight to our hideout and we can’t hide our body heat unless we submerge in the icy stream. My heart is pounding. Lander has a grim look on his face. Even he’s trying to figure a way out of this.

  They’re closing in. Since we can’t outrun them, maybe if we hide, Lander, Rax and I can jump them by surprise.

  I scan our surroundings and notice the small mouth of a cave buried behind a fallen tree, moss and branches. “Over there,” I whisper.

  The guys nod and we slip inside.

  A four-legged machine resembling a headless deer ambles into view. It has packs of supplies loaded on its back and a small tube on either end that twist in all directions, like a tail with an eye on the end of it. Three men appear not far behind, scrambling to keep up.

  I’ve never seen anything like their robotic animal. It scurries up a cliff face and then jumps off and over several logs like a spring-loaded antelope.

  Its eyes suddenly point right towards us.

  My stomach sinks and my blood feels cold. No, please don’t let it find us.

  It makes a beeline for our hiding place. Then suddenly, the machine stops. It puts out a strange buzzing sound and begins turning in disjointed circles.

  “What on earth?” one of the men says. From our hiding place I can see him fiddling with a remote in his hands.

  “What’s the matter?” asks another, coming up beside him.

  “I don’t know, it was fine and then it started doing this.” He points to the creature wobbling and stumbling like it’s sloshed.

  The other man takes the remote, presses a few more buttons, and then hits it.

  “Allister,” says the other one, who looks like their leader, “radio in that we’re down our scanner on a hot trail. And Boshe, stop hitting it. You know that never works.”

  The four of us sit watching, holding our breath and trying to be as still as stones.

  Allister presses the side of his vSpecs and radios in the situation.

  The response is so loud even we can hear it from their earpieces. The voice on the other end is a garbled mess of half words and half static. Instantly the three men yank out their earpieces with an angry shout.

  Allister presses the side of his glasses again. “What was that?”

  Once more, the garbled response crackles indecipherably.

  The leader of the group lets out a string of curses. Wow, safety officers never talked like that back home. And who are these guys? By their age they could be the Lost, or maybe even younger. But there wasn’t anyone younger till GAPs, so that’s not possible. Is it?

  “All right, Allister and I will head back to base squad and pick up a new scanner and radios. Boshe, you stay put in case there’s more movement, and see what you can do with Rove twelve,” says the leader, pointing to the robot.

  Boshe pipes up. “Sir, you do realize if there is any trouble I won’t have a way to call for backup, right?”

  “I said stay with the rover.” And with that, the two men march off and leave the third.

  We wait quietly for a few minutes till we’re sure the others are gone. The four of us look at each other. Lander palms a large rock, raising it with a head toss to ask if he should throw it as a diversion. We all nod our consent. He waits until Boshe isn’t looking and tosses it.

  Boshe jumps and clings tightly to a hand-sized device that looks like a weapon. He spins in every direction, holding it out in front of himself. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

  As soon as the man is facing away again, Lander tosses a larger rock, farther this time. It makes a crashing sound as it hits some trees.

  Boshe swears. “It’s a bear. I know it’s a bear.”

  One more toss does the trick, and Boshe cautiously sneaks down the hillside, a different direction than his companions went.

  The four of us ease out of our hiding spot. We take one final glance at the Rover before we keep going. Whatever that thing is, it seems like really bad news for us.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Down in the bunker, we’ve almost got dinner ready, but Lander hasn’t returned from his perimeter sweep.

  “I’m starved!” says Jett, rubbing his stomach. “Are we going to eat or not?”

  I push away from the table where we’ve been fixing the food. “I’ll go get Lander.”

  I climb the ladder and cautiously step out of the shack. My eyes scan the forest for anything amiss. “Lander?” I say softly.

  No response.

  I try again, a little louder this time. “Lander, are you out here?”

  “Be right down,” he says from above my head.

  I look up into the tall pine and see his shadowy, muscular form shimmying down the trunk. He lands on the ground beside me, as graceful as my neighbor Mrs. Geller’s pet cat. Wow, he’s really agile. I never got half that high as a kid before some Grand or safety officer would order me down and scold me.

  He straightens and dusts his hands, then bumps his shoulder against me with a grin. “Don’t be too impressed; it wasn’t that high. I know a girl who scaled down a pipe only this wide”—he holds up his hands to demonstrate—“and at least twice that tall. Now that is skill to be reckoned with.” He winks.

  I blush, unable to help my smile. “What were you doing up there?”

  He glances at the tree again, as if it helps him remember. “A little recon. I don’t see any search parties out. Which is concerning. They wouldn’t give up like that just because one rover went down. Either they’re implementing a stealthier search—in which case we’re all screwed—or all their rovers are acting glitchy. Which, if that’s the case, begs the question as to what could cause a mass malfunction.”

  “That is concerning. I wonder which it is?” I stare up at the evening sky. Storm clouds are gathering, but something does feel slightly off. The atmosphere is a little too charged. Or maybe that’s because Lander is watching me right now. I turn towards him. His approving smile makes me feel warm despite the icy temperature. “What? Did I say something weird?”

  He moves closer till he’s in my personal space. “No. I just like watching you. You’re really cute when you concentrate like that.”

  I tuck my hair behind my ear and my hands fidget at my pockets. “Thanks.”

  He steps even closer, canceling the remaining distance between our bodies. His hand brushes several strands of my hair from my cheek, leaving a trail of warm tingles on my skin.

  “Don’t worry, Averi, it’ll work out. I’m not going to let them take you.” His blue eyes search mine. “Not unless you want to go.”

  My pulse is racing as his lips inch closer. The anticipation makes my limbs feel heavy with adrenaline. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you.”

  He pinches my chin between his fingers and presses his lips to mine. I kiss him back, my lips reciprocating the movement of his. Lander’s fingers slide across the lines of my jaw and around to the nape of my neck. It sends a thrilling shiver through my shoulders and over my whole body.

  He pulls back and smiles at me, his eyes dancing with joy. Then his gaze flicks to something behind me and the light in his eyes is instantly extinguished.

  Just as I
turn to see the cause, a rough hand yanks me away from Lander, and Raxtin is between us. He releases my arm and shoves Lander backward.

  “Keep your hands off her!” Rax shouts, his face red.

  The push moves Lander back several steps, but he doesn’t stumble at all.

  Raxtin stalks towards him, the forest debris snapping and crunching beneath each heavy step. He shoves Lander again with both hands, and Lander takes it once more, standing even straighter after.

  “Leave him alone, Raxtin,” I say, grabbing at his shoulder.

  Rax shrugs me off without breaking his dead-cold stare at Lander. “Stay out of this, Averi. This guy has been lying and tricking us for months. I’m not going to stand by and watch you fall for his deceptions anymore.”

  I jump between them. “Raxtin—” But he steps around me and swings his fist at Lander.

  Lander easily slips out of the way.

  “Put up your fists and fight me, you rotten fraud.” He brings both fists in front of himself and gestures for Lander to do the same.

  Thunder cracks above us, and its deep rumble echoes the feeling of anxiety welling up inside me. I press both hands to my face. This is all my fault! “No. Guys, please, don’t fight. This is stupid!”

  Lander’s shoulders visibly relax and he nods my direction. “At Averi’s request, I’m not going to fight you, Raxtin. Besides, we’re on the same team.”

  “We’re not on the same team,” Raxtin snaps. He jabs an accusing finger towards Lander. “You march to your own set of plans.”

  Lander sighs. “Fine. Then if it will make you feel better, you’re welcome to take your best shot.” He raises his hands to either side of him and waves Raxtin forward with a cunning smile.

  More thunder claps, this time accompanied by an icy wind.

  Raxtin rushes at him with a flurry of swinging fists and jabs.

  Lander crosses his arms over his chest and maintains a serene expression as he ducks, dodges, and practically dances out of the way. He’s not even breaking a sweat.