by Tarah Benner
He grins. “It takes a helluva lot more than an exploding board member to get rid of me. Anyway, I knew they must have arrested you, so I hightailed it down to Control to clear your good name. It looks like somebody beat me to the punch, though.” He shoots an amused look in Eli’s direction.
“You did?” I ask, twisting in his arms. I instantly wish I hadn’t, though, because now our faces are only inches apart.
He shrugs as if this is no big deal, and I get an odd fluttery feeling in my stomach.
Celdon is watching the two of us as though we all share a private joke, and I’m relieved when we reach the medical ward.
The lobby is a swarm of chaos. Systems people are everywhere — moaning, crying, and bleeding all over the place as nurses flit between them. I realize these must be all of the people who were caught in the explosion. The screens along the walls are filled with talking heads from Information giving a play-by-play of the explosion and speculating about what happened.
“Harper!” calls a familiar voice.
I turn in Eli’s arms and see Sawyer rushing toward me. Warm relief spills into my chest at the sight of her.
It doesn’t look as though she got to sleep after all; they must have called her in after the explosion hit. She’s wearing a fresh set of blood-red scrubs, and she’s got a stethoscope draped around her neck. Even with all the nurses running around, the incessant beeping of machines, and having to fight off a few injured people tugging at her sleeve as she passes, I can tell she’s completely in her element.
“What happened?” she asks, throwing a sharp look at Celdon, as though it’s his fault I’m hurt.
When she meets his gaze, it seems to take her a minute to realize he’s standing before her — and that he shouldn’t be. She lets out a strange little noise like a sob and throws an arm around his neck — a difficult feat given their height difference. She yanks him down until his back bows, and Celdon throws me a puzzled look over her shoulder.
When she pulls away, Sawyer’s wearing her trademark irritated scowl. “How are you here?” she asks, punching Celdon in the ribs. “I thought your compartment had been hit in the explosion. I was worried!”
“It’s a long story.”
She glances from me to Celdon to Eli, utterly bewildered, and summons an electric wheelchair from against the wall. Eli sits me on the edge, and I crumple in on myself, exhausted by all the attention.
Sawyer is suddenly businesslike again. “As you can see, we’re completely swamped. It’s going to take a while for the doctor to see you, but I can get you a room, at least.”
I glance over at the long, crooked line of bedraggled Systems people slumped around the lobby. “Can you do that?”
“There aren’t many perks to being an intern, but controlling the admissions charts is one of them,” she says proudly, flipping on her interface and making a few deft swipes in no-nonsense Sawyer fashion. “Let’s go.”
She wheels me down a tunnel crowded with injured people on gurneys into a tiny private room. I feel a little bad for jumping the line when these people are clearly in worse shape, but I’m too exhausted to protest.
Once he sees that I’m in good hands, Celdon pats my head and leaves to go reboot Systems’ security. Sawyer takes my vital signs like a pro and then dashes off to help triage the remaining bombing victims.
I’m left alone with Eli, and the weight of everything hits me at once. I drag in a deep breath. I can’t even absorb it all: what I learned in Sullivan Taylor’s office, the bombing, thinking Celdon was dead, finding him alive, Eli coming to my rescue. It’s all so strange, and I suddenly feel very exposed with him hovering over me like a sentry.
Summoning the shredded remains of my courage, I look up into his intense blue eyes. “I never had a chance to say thank you. I don’t know what you told them, but —”
I expect Eli to shrug it off or just say “you’re welcome,” but a wary expression clouds his face. He swallows once and glances at the closed door. Maybe I’m imagining it, but he looks worried.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says in a rough voice. “There’s something you need to know.”
eighteen
Eli
The room suddenly feels much too small. Harper’s sitting there in the hospital bed, looking like hell — probably hours away from being dishonorably discharged — and she’s thanking me.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what drove me to lie for her — to risk my rank to save her from Constance — and I certainly don’t know how to explain it. So I deflect.
“What was that all about?” I ask, though I already know.
“What do you mean?”
I raise an eyebrow. “The arrest. You broke into Sullivan Taylor’s office.”
“They can’t prove that.”
I throw her a look that says “drop the bullshit,” and I see a flicker of fear behind those startling eyes.
She sighs heavily. “Okay. I did. But you can’t tell anyone!”
“Why would I tell anyone?”
She looks a little lost for words. I’m sure being detained, tortured, and thinking her best friend was dead has made whatever she was searching for seem very insignificant. “I wanted to get a look at his computer to see if there was anything about the bid money.”
Glancing at the door and back at Harper, I know it’s time to come clean. “I might know something about that, actually.”
Her eyes grow wide. “What? How? You told me —”
“I know what I said. But I did some investigating.”
Now I’ve got her attention.
“You were right,” I say. “Something was fixed. Somebody transferred sixty thousand credits to Recon the day before the bidding, but they didn’t go through the proper channels. You were at the top of Jayden’s recruit list. Whoever it was always intended for Jayden to bid high on you, but I don’t know why.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Does it matter?” I throw a glance over my shoulder. I have this weird feeling that we’re being watched. “The point is . . . this goes up to the top. You need to stop digging before you get yourself killed.”
She looks shocked, even a little scared. “Do you think whoever planted the bomb knew about the bid?”
“I think it’s a safe assumption. We don’t even know if yours was the only one that was fixed.”
“Who would know that, though?”
I shake my head. I don’t have time to worry about who might be trying to take out board members, but it’s terrifying nonetheless. You’d have to be a maniac to plant a bomb in the compound.
“How did you get me out of Control?” Harper asks suddenly. “They think I had something to do with the bombing. They wouldn’t just let me go unless there was a good reason.”
I clench my jaw, contemplating lying my ass off. But I know Celdon will tell her what happened. He seems like the overly chatty type. “I . . . gave you an alibi.”
She looks confused again and then suspicious. “What did you tell them?”
I swallow, fighting the words that are about to come out of my mouth. “I told them we were together.”
“Oh.” She studies me for a moment, and then her face goes red as she catches my meaning. “Wait. What? What do you mean ‘together’?”
I clear my throat, trying to look anywhere but at her. “Uh . . . sleeping together.”
She sinks back into the pillows, looking horrified. “You didn’t.”
“I had to. It was either that or let them think you could be the bomber. They need someone to blame, and they’d sure like for it to be someone in Recon.”
“Why couldn’t you say something else?” she cries. “Anything else?”
For a moment, I almost feel insulted. “They wouldn’t have believed me. There’s no reason for me to be with a new recruit in the middle of the night. But incriminating us both by saying we were fraternizing throws suspicion off you.”
“You had no right,” she snaps, ey
es sparkling with anger.
“They were torturing you. What was I supposed to do?”
She looks flustered. Her face is still all pink, which is doing something weird to my stomach. “They’re going to discharge me. They’ll put me in ExCon.”
“Better ExCon than dead.”
“That’s a lie, and you know it.” She levels me with a furious glare.
“Relax,” I say, even though I’m a tangle of nerves. “Jayden isn’t going to discharge you.”
“Why wouldn’t she? I would discharge me. And what about you?”
I smirk, which just seems to make her angrier. “Trust me, Jayden will just give me a slap on the wrist.”
“How do you know? Have you done this before? I mean, actually slept with one of your cadets?”
“No!”
I can’t believe she’d even think that. I just risked everything to save her, and she’s being a brat. This girl is a land mine of trouble, and it’s as if I’m skipping through the Fringe with my head up my ass, about to get my legs blown off.
I take a deep breath, letting out all my pent-up frustration. “Trust me, whatever Jayden does to you is going to be inconsequential compared to what would have happened to you if you were the best suspect they had,” I snarl.
“What do you mean?”
I lean in and lower my voice. “It wasn’t just Control investigating. Constance is involved now.”
That does it. Everything seems to hit her at once, and her expression melts from fury to pure terror. I instantly feel guilty for yelling at her, though I don’t know why. I have absolutely no problem yelling at her in training.
She meets my gaze with a look of terrified acceptance. “Celdon,” she says. “What if they suspect him? He was up in Systems right before it happened.”
“Celdon’s not really my problem,” I say as nicely as I can. “You are.”
That was the wrong thing to say. She’s staring at me with a look of disbelief. I try not to care.
She’s naïve if she thinks anyone in the compound can afford to care about people who aren’t their own. I can tell they’re close, but he’s not her problem anymore. It’s Systems’ job to break him out of Control if they haul him in for questioning.
But her anger melts almost instantly. She buries her red face in her hands, and for once, Harper isn’t acting tough. “Oh my god,” she groans in a muffled voice. “Paxton Dellwood is going to give me so much shit for this.”
I’m shocked by the rage that flashes through me when I think of him saying anything to her.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask before I can stop myself. I shouldn’t be this furious — this protective — but I can’t help it.
Harper shrugs. “He tried. He’s a piece of shit.”
“Come on. You look like hell.”
“Why are you suddenly so concerned?” she snaps.
I don’t have an answer for that — at least not one that will make any sense to her. But Harper’s waiting for an answer, so I shrug. “You’re still my cadet.”
“So?”
“So I’m not heartless,” I say, feeling a little defensive.
She cocks an eyebrow.
“Look, Jayden makes us single out a cadet to scare half to death. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. Trust me, you should be glad it was me.”
She seems to consider this for a moment. “And all the ‘Harvard’ stuff?”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “That was pretty much just to get under your skin so you’d fight better. Encouragement works for some people, but anger is usually the best motivator.”
“Sounds like you make a lot of people angry on purpose.”
“You’re the third recruit class I’ve trained.”
“Your third?” Her eyebrows scrunch together, and my stomach sinks. I shouldn’t have told her that. Now she’s doing the math. “But you’re only . . . wait, you had two recruit classes last year?”
I nod reluctantly.
“But how?”
“Jayden drafted up from ExCon midyear.”
“Why?”
I fix her with a look, but she doesn’t want to make the leap — doesn’t want to consider the possibility. “The first class was sent out early, and most of them didn’t make it.”
She sinks back onto the bed, looking shocked and terrified.
“I have to be hard on cadets,” I say slowly. “I don’t have very much time to train you guys, and you don’t understand the danger. I have to break you down and build you back up fast. The easiest way to do that is —”
“Intimidation,” she finishes, raising an eyebrow. “Being a bully.”
“Is that what you think? I’m trying to keep you all alive.” I take a deep breath. “A bunch of you are going to die. I’ve seen it. I meant it when I said at least three of you would be dead after your first year of active duty. Numbers don’t lie.”
Harper’s gray eyes are fixed on me, and I cringe at the pity in her gaze.
“You detach yourself,” she whispers. “I get it now.”
“No, you don’t,” I snap, more harshly than I mean to. I hate that she’s analyzing me — feeling sorry for me. I’d rather she hate me.
“Yes, I do,” she says, her eyes turning to steel. “You think it will hurt less if you act like you don’t give a shit about us. You push people away because the people around you die, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Unnerved by her forceful tone — her understanding — I feel myself withdrawing. Lieutenant Parker is back. “Well, I’m more worried about you dying inside this compound than outside, to be honest. You have no idea what you’ve stepped in.”
I expect her to look panicked, but her clear indifference makes me want to throw something. “They have no proof I broke into Taylor’s office, and I didn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”
“Proof? You think proof matters to them? You’re in danger as long as they think you’re hiding something. If they knew what you know, they wouldn’t bother building a criminal case against you.”
“What would they do to me, Eli? Seriously. Send me out to the Fringe? They might be rid of me soon whether they want to be or not.”
“Don’t say that,” I say in a low warning voice.
“Why not? What are they going to do to me, Eli?” She shakes her long dark hair. Between the skid mark slashed down her cheek, the bruises, and the exhaustion taking hold, she looks a little crazy. “If I’m going to die anyway, I might as well take Constance down with me.”
And that does it for me. I knew I’d push Harper too far. She’s too much like me.
In a few weeks, she’s gone from being a survivor who didn’t take shit from anyone to someone who’s accepted death as an inevitability.
I can’t be around her anymore. I had hope for her — probably too much. I thought she might live, but Harper Riley is just like the others.
In a year, she’ll be dead, and everything will be the way it was before.
nineteen
Harper
Eli leaves abruptly after my little declaration. I really only said what I said to be dramatic, but the way he looked at me, you’d have thought I said I was going to jump off the observation deck.
I’m a little put out when he leaves. I still haven’t figured Eli out, and even though he can be an asshole, I liked talking to him.
Sawyer reappears to tell me I’ve got a few bruised ribs but no permanent damage. She thinks I was caught in the explosion and doesn’t ask too many questions.
When the attending physician finally makes his rounds, he orders a week out of training and discharges me without a second glance. Part of me wishes I could stay longer to spend some more time with Sawyer, but she’s busy taking care of the people who were wounded in the upper tunnels.
I go back to Recon and spend most of my time watching the newscast on my interface. According to the report, Control is still investigating the bombing. Other than Sullivan Taylor, there were
only two other casualties — both high-level Systems workers I’ve never met.
Now that I’m no longer the primary suspect, I can’t help but feel unnerved by the bombing. As the days drag on, the reports speculate about who might have had motive to target Sullivan Taylor, but they never say if Control has brought in any suspects. I can’t understand who would want Taylor gone badly enough to risk bringing down the entire compound.
Sawyer, Celdon, Lenny, and Kindra all visit me during my recovery. I don’t talk about the arrest. Instead, I elaborate on Sawyer’s assumption that I was in the upper tunnels visiting Celdon during the explosion. Nobody questions how I was injured when Celdon walked away unscathed. In fact, they absorb my story all too eagerly.
Everyone was shaken by the explosion. There hasn’t been an act of terrorism within the compound for more than a decade. In fact, I haven’t heard of a bombing within any compound in years.
I’m dreading returning to the real world. I know Eli wouldn’t tell a soul about my fake alibi, but I have no doubt that Paxton Dellwood has already spread it around that I’m sleeping with my commanding officer.
As soon as I emerge from my bunker, I’ll be assaulted by the rumors and mocking looks. All the other cadets will probably hate me.
I avoid the canteen on my first day back for that very reason. But when I pull myself out of bed and shuffle into the training center breakfast-less, I’m met by a tide of relief.
Lenny rushes over to me with a huge smile plastered all over her face.
“You’re back!” says Bear brightly. I haven’t been gone that long, but he already looks a little stronger and slimmer since I last saw him.
I roll my eyes and grin. “With bells on.”
“I’m glad,” says Lenny. “Eli’s been extra moody with you gone.”
I stifle a laugh.
Luckily, Lenny told the boys the details of my absence, so I don’t have to recount the lie I told her and Kindra. Seeing them all together in the training center makes me happy, and I realize I’ve actually missed them.
“Well, well. Look who it is,” says a sharp, familiar voice from the doorway.