Jag dreams of his brother Blaze.
And even though Ty is dead, I can’t help thinking about her. What might she be doing right now if she were still alive? Would my mother have been different? I know I would have been. Maybe I wouldn’t have turned bad. Maybe I wouldn’t be in the Badlands staring at the Director on a p-screen. Maybe I wouldn’t have met Jag. Maybe Zenn and I would have been married in a few years.
So many maybes.
As I looked at the Director, I thought of Ty. She was dead, she wasn’t going to come back, but I’d never had the chance to say good-bye. No closure, no funeral, nothing to seal that chapter of my life. No wonder my mother is the way she is—angry, bitter, mean.
But killing the Director wouldn’t bring Ty back. Wouldn’t erase the years I’d lived with a hole in my heart that only she could fill.
I rubbed my neck where the silencer had been. Sticky, warm blood trickled over my shoulder.
“Oh, come on.” Disgust dripped from Jag’s voice.
On the screen, another man had joined the Director. I forgot about the blood and pain.
“Dad,” I whispered, moving forward.
He didn’t look anything like Lyle Schoenfeld’s photo on the back of Jag’s book.
At the lab, Thane had kept his eyes covered and his skin had been shimmery, pearly. I realized he’d probably teched it up in the Goodgrounds so I wouldn’t recognize him.
Because in the projection, my dad’s lopsided smile looked familiar. He watched me intently, as he always had. His brown hair was neatly trimmed, just the way I remembered.
But he had stained skin.
“Hello, V.” His words didn’t hold the fatherly quality they should. “I see you made it to the Badlands. It’s about time.” His voice sounded the same, low and crackly. He looked so happy. “We’ve needed you for a while now,” he said. “You should have pulled a better prank a long time ago.”
“Thane,” the Director said. “We couldn’t arrest her for petty shoe thefts and unauthorized teleporter use.”
“But a walk in the park—”
“She was up to eight offenses.”
“Seven,” I argued. The rage woke, smoldering through my veins.
“That you were arrested for,” the Director said, his eyes all-knowing.
“Still, the park?” Dad asked. I wondered what in the world he needed me for. And would he protect me, like he always had? Or was he Thane-posing-as-Lyle-Schoenfeld, and I’d never really known him?
Dad and the Director argued over my lack of serious offenses and whether or not walking in the park was severe enough for removal.
Jag and I looked at each other like we were watching a comedy that we weren’t quite sure was funny or not. I opted for not.
“Um, I hate to break up your little argument,” I said. “But . . . what the hell?”
“Yes, yes,” the Director said. “We won’t discuss it over a projection. We have some business to conclude, and we’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Where are you?” Jag asked at the same time I yelled, “Discuss what?”
“The Goodgrounds.” Dad eyed him like he knew Jag’s lips had tasted mine. “Tomorrow. Cam, you have my orders.”
“I do, Director.”
The screen faded to white. Some of the burning in my chest lessened. Except now my heart felt like it might bust open. My dad . . . with sun-kissed skin. My dad . . . addressed as Thane. Being called a Director.
Seeing him hadn’t answered any of my questions, which fueled my anger. I turned to Jag. “What the hell is going on?”
“Hey, don’t yell at me. Ask your buddy over there.” He thrust his chin toward Baldie who was busy nodding at the walls.
“Jag, don’t be such a high-class jerk.”
“I’m not. You’re obviously on better terms than me. I’m the one who’s cuffed.”
“Like that’s my fault.”
“Get him to take them off.”
I was about to turn around when something clicked in my mind. Get him to take them off.
I’d gotten Baldie to get Jag by willing it.
I’d silenced that Mech at Jag’s house.
I’d forced the crowd to part when I ran away from the iris recognizer.
I’d broken tech-cuffs in the prison bathroom.
I can get what I want just by thinking it.
The room spun in a dangerous kaleidoscope of colors and feelings and patterns.
I am one of Them. I steadied myself by leaning against the desk. “How do I do that?”
“Mind control.” The stupid bad boy rolled his eyes at me.
“I—I can’t. You’ll have to get out of this by yourself.”
“No way. I don’t use my control like that.”
“Oh, but it’s okay if I do?” I wiped the blood on my neck again. “Wait a second. You have the ability to control?” I tried to think back over the past few weeks with Jag.
He looked away for a second. When he met my gaze again, a blush colored his face. “It’s not really mind control. My voice . . .”
His voice? His damn voice?
He’d put me to sleep.
He’d told me he was a great liar.
He’d told me I could touch him.
He’d told me lots of things.
“Oh man, Jag. You’re dead.” I took a step away from him so I could swing with more force.
He stumbled backward, unable to defend himself because of the cuffs. “Stop, Vi! I didn’t mean to, and you—you resisted most of it anyway.”
“Don’t talk to me anymore,” I said. “And I’m not helping you get out of your stupid cuffs. Do it yourself. You’ve got such a nice voice.”
“You led them straight to us.”
“That was an accident! I didn’t know I had that damn ring! They did MemMod on me—you can’t blame me for that.”
He shrugged. Apparently he could.
I sank against the nearest wall, closed my eyes, and wished for a hot bath and a warm bed.
“Come on, Violet,” Baldie said. “You can shower and then rest.”
Jag smirked. “Nice.”
“Shut up. Don’t talk to me.” Horrified, I watched Jag battle with himself. He really couldn’t speak—because of my command. This was so bad. I reached for him, but he turned away.
“Are you ready, Violet?” Baldie asked.
“No. Yes. Let’s go,” I said, following him around the desk and into another barren hallway. Five doors down on the right, he paused and pushed open the door.
A large bed sat in the middle of the room, with warm red blankets and puffy white pillows. Next to the dresser, another door led into the bathroom. Thick blue rugs covered the floor and heavy curtains fluttered at the open window. Breakfast was the only thing missing.
“I’ll bring you something to eat,” Baldie said. As he left, my mouth watered for hash browns and watermelon and ten protein packets.
I ran a hot bath, and nothing had ever felt so good in my entire life. I wished all my problems would swirl down the drain with the dirty water. Yeah, they didn’t.
After eating breakfast—hash browns, watermelon, and ten protein packets—I changed into the pajamas I found in the top dresser drawer. Just as I was pulling down the soft covers, Baldie opened the door. “Sorry the accommodations aren’t spectacular. Are you comfortable?”
“Sure,” I said. “Everything’s fine.” He turned to leave. “Wait, where’s Jag? Can I see him?”
Baldie shook his head. “His room is down the other hall, and my orders are to keep you two apart—at least until the Directors come.”
“What’s gonna happen to us?”
“I’m surprised you have to ask. Jag figured it out already.”
“Yeah, well, Jag is just wonderful, isn’t he?”
Baldie didn’t answer. He looked at me blankly until I shooed him from the room.
The ten protein packets turned out to be a big mistake. Sleep wouldn’t come because I had to use the bathroom every fifteen minutes. M
y mind raced through the events of the past twenty-four hours.
First, everything with Zenn. A fake invitation. A real kiss. A traitorous birthday present. A modified memory.
Then Jag. His voice. His nightmares. His Resistance.
The accusation each harbored in his eyes when he looked at me.
Everything was upside down. Dad had been in the Goodgrounds—with brown skin. He’d controlled me. Whispered lies in my ears, in my mind. His name was Thane. And Jag said Thane was the bad guy.
But he was my dad.
Now it wasn’t my bladder keeping me up. More like the bitter taste of anger. Seven years worth of abandonment. Of living without a dad. Of having him steal my memories, brainwash me, control me.
But my dad loved me. He’d always protected me. Maybe this time hadn’t been any different. Even though my dad was Thane, he still could’ve used his control to help me.
I fell asleep with tears on my cheeks, thinking that no matter how I spun it, my dad wasn’t quite the hero I needed him to be.
When I woke up, darkness drenched the room in shadows. “What time is it?”
“Eleven-thirteen,” the walls answered.
“A.M. or P.M.?”
“P.M.”
“What day?”
“June fourteenth.”
“Where’s Jag Barque?”
“Hallway eight, room four.”
I had no idea where that was, or how big this facility was. I didn’t even know if I could open the door without forty Mechs whizzing down the hall, alarms blaring.
Just shut them down, I told myself, thinking of the Mech I’d disabled at Jag’s house. I slipped out of bed and pulled on my sneakers. No sirens sounded when the door opened, nobody came down the hall when I stepped out, no Mechs intercepted me as I made my way back to the lobby with the silver desk.
I couldn’t see another hallway. “Where’s hallway eight?” I asked, turning in a circle.
The walls shifted and moved, revealing another corridor. Glancing behind me, I hurried toward it.
“Show me room four,” I said. A yellow light pulsed around the second door on my right.
Jag’s room had the same blue rugs and drapes on the windows as mine. But his bed was at least twice as big and covered in fuzzy blue blankets.
He sat propped up by a mass of comfy pillows, reading (of course).
“Jag,” I whispered as the door closed behind me. “You still need me to get your cuffs off?” I asked, hoping he could still decipher Vi-talk.
He looked up and ditched the book. “Vi, I’m sorry too.” Then he ran to me, the same way Sloan had launched herself at him a few days ago. He held me tight, swinging me around in a circle until my feet came off the ground and I laughed out loud.
He put me down, and he looked fine. He wore dark jeans with a white tank top, which contrasted nicely with his skin. He climbed back into bed and picked up his book. I sat on the other side, staying on top of the blankets. Something felt wrong about being on his bed with him. But I was bad now, so maybe it was right.
“Tell me what you know,” I said.
He remained silent for a while, his gaze lingering first on me, then on his book, then the bedspread. Just when I thought I couldn’t wait one more second, he spoke.
“The Association wants me to make their transmissions. They have for a while now. I can . . . sorta make people do whatever I say.”
Talk about a lot to digest. I think I did a pretty good job, because my voice sounded normal when I said, “What about me?”
“They need you for the mind control. What you want, you get. You can bend the will of the people to your own. You can Direct.”
I couldn’t answer. Because I didn’t want to Direct.
“You don’t really have a choice, Vi,” Jag said, cutting into my thoughts. I looked at him, wondering how he could see inside my head.
“I can sense feelings in others. Yours especially. I think because we’re both free. Maybe our birthdays . . . I don’t know.” He paused. “But we may not have a choice. Help Them or die.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “That’s exactly what makes us different. We do have choices. It’s everyone else who doesn’t.” Something about Jag’s parents clicked in my mind. “Your mom and dad. They had choices too, didn’t they? They knew what we know.”
He stiffened. “Yes, they knew. They tried to tell others, but Thane was too strong and he countered them with louder transmissions and harsher rules. The people allowed themselves to be told. Changed.”
Everyone knows about the change. We’re taught the sequence of events in school until we want to puke. You see, the first change started out subtly. The Thinkers recruited and controlled those They wanted on their side. At first, people resisted having their minds taken over, but They became too powerful. Wars between races and religions started, and people grouped together behind the Thinker they believed in.
War spread through the world, Thinker against Thinker, brainwashed army against brainwashed army. The fires marked the beginning of the Great Episode, and it killed almost everyone. That’s when the General Director organized the people into cities to establish peace and rebuild the human population. He set up the Association of Directors, a governing council to oversee regions. Regional Directors governed ten cities. Each city had a Director who reported to the Association. We were told that the General Director was our savior—the only reason humans survived the thick smoke and years of darkness during the Great Episode.
Receivers were implanted in our ears. Transmissions were recorded about loyalty and trust and how wicked awesome the Director was. Another reason I stopped listening—I don’t think Director Greenwood is all that great. Because I pretty much hate all Thinkers.
And now I am one.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Thane made the rules? Didn’t your parents live in the Badlands?”
Jag held up the book. “According to Lyle Schoenfeld, the good and bad used to be united. Thane split us up twenty-five years ago. My parents were the leaders of a movement against your dad that triggered the separation.”
“So . . . who’s Lyle Schoenfeld?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I think Thane stole his identity to go into hiding.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to order my thoughts. “Hiding? Thane’s clearly not hiding, Jag. He runs everything.”
“Now, babe. He runs everything now. He’s from the Association, and they have so many identities no one can keep them straight.”
“How do you know?”
His face closed off. “Let’s just say I know,” he said, meaning it had something to do with either his brother Blaze or the Resistance (or both), but I couldn’t push it because, technically, I didn’t know about either.
“We need to stay together,” Jag continued. “I can feel your fear about controlling others. Alone, we can be influenced by the Thinkers with more training and experience. But together, we can remind each other of the injustices that have happened. Maybe we can finally be strong enough to do something about them.”
I touched his cheek. My fingertips traced over his eyebrow and down his jaw. “I don’t want to be like Them.” I couldn’t mask the terror in my voice, but I didn’t feel embarrassed. “Promise me we’ll stay together.”
“I would never leave you, Vi.” His voice sounded forced. He leaned back against the headboard, and I couldn’t search his face.
“I can’t control anyone,” I said, settling my cheek against his chest so I could hear his heartbeat. “I just can’t do that.”
He finally tilted his head down to look at me. “I don’t want to use my voice to brainwash people to live a specific way, with a thousand stupid rules.” The muscle in his jaw twitched.
“Me neither.”
“Then we won’t do it. I’ll never control anyone, not even you.”
“Deal.”
The edges of his mouth softened. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”
23.
Before I processed the L-word, Jag’s mouth caught mine. He moved with precision, slipping his hands around to the small of my back. His touch felt dangerous.
He kissed my jaw up to my ear and murmured, “Violet.”
It didn’t bother me; if anything, I loved my whole name when he spoke it in his velvety voice. I forgot everything except that he was here with me, and we would always be together. I shivered at the thought.
“You cold?” he whispered, his lips brushing mine.
“A little,” I said, but the shaking came more from nerves. I’d never thought beyond kissing. Good girls don’t even go that far. Stealing and trespassing tops the list of Bad Stuff I’ve Done.
His blanket lay thickly between us, a barrier I couldn’t cross. His hair slid through my fingers like silk.
“You’re nervous,” he murmured, and that raised the embarrassment factor.
“How do you know?” I trailed my fingers along his jaw.
“I can hear your heart racing,” he said.
He could hear my heart? Like superhearing to go with his supervoice?
I pushed him away. “What does that mean?”
His hands rested on my waist. “I can hear your heart beating, that’s what it means.”
“Nobody can hear a heart beating,” I said. “I can’t hear yours.”
“I can feel your feelings too.”
“Do you have high-class smell as well?”
He laughed, and I curled into his chest to feel the reverberations from that wonderful sound.
“I’m not a superhero.”
He was to me. It felt safe to lie in his arms, his hand massaging my shoulder. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of his skin. He smelled musky and clean. Very guy. He hummed a soft melody, sending sound waves from his chest into my cheek.
“I love you, Vi,” he said, kissing my forehead. “I really do.”
Knowing I loved him too, I wanted to tell him, but my voice didn’t work the way his did. Those three tiny words choked in my throat, and I couldn’t get them out. I pulled away so I could see him better.
“Jag, I—”
“I know. Lie back down. That was nice.”
Jag fell asleep. I lay next to him, thinking about what we needed to do next. I wondered what business the Director and my dad needed to finish, afraid it might have something to do with me. My dad could’ve invented who knows what over the past seven years—and I knew from firsthand experience that his tech-inventions aren’t always pleasant. But they do require extensive testing. Could that be why he hadn’t immediately teleported here?
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