My hand went to my eyes again, curved like a visor.
I did see a sailboat.
But there were two instead of one, and neither was in any shape for travel. I descended the hill, my feet sinking into the coarse sand, sharp bits stinging my skin. The closer I got, the more broken the tiny boats looked, as if they’d been battered by a terrible storm. There were holes laced through their hulls. The sails were shredded and the masts were bent in ways that were irreparable.
If both boats were here, then where was Inara?
I looked behind me, next to me, everywhere around me.
The only other thing I saw in this landscape was the island. Like before, it rose up out of the water in the distance. A great gray cloud heavy with rain hung directly above it. I walked up to the tide’s edge and stripped off my tunic. Slowly, I waded into the water, my eyes searching the bottom, wondering what unfriendly creatures lurked in the depths of this foreboding place, but the farther in I got, the rougher the waves became, kicking up the sand and making it impossible to see anything. When a great gray wall curled up to at least twice my height, I dove underneath before it could break and began to swim as fast as my arms and legs could take me. Slimy, slithery things darted across my skin but I didn’t slow down, not even when, as I came up for air, I spied a pair of triangular fins skimming the surface a little ways off. I kept going until the island grew bigger and bigger, so big that it nearly eclipsed my view of the sea. The harder I pushed, the clearer my mind became and the more confident I was that despite the nightmare landscape around me, I would be rewarded by finding Inara when I reached the shore ahead. Fear was right now filling Inara’s mind like a relentless demon, I was sure of it, because Inara-specific kinds of fears were governing this version of Odyssey.
There was no other explanation for these circumstances.
But if Inara really was here in the App World, she should be living her normal life just like Jude promised she would, that everyone would, both before and after their bodies were removed from the plugs. Inara shouldn’t even remember what happened to her in the Real World.
None of this made any sense.
I swam harder, until finally my toes grazed the rocky bottom and the water was shallow enough for me to walk. Something sharp pinched my big toe and I shook it off, going faster now, not caring whether my feet got cut and scraped in the process. I wanted out of this angry sea as quick as my legs could take me. Raindrops began falling here and there, quickly turning into a steady torrent that pattered the surface of the ocean and dripped down my face. I wiped my eyes and tried my best to see through the mist and the gray. The island was mostly beach, but at the center of it was a thick cluster of trees. I headed toward them, first at a walk, but as the rain came down harder I picked up the pace until I was running.
“Inara?” I called through the din. “Inara, are you out there? It’s me, Skylar!” I strained to hear something other than the pounding of the drops hitting the plants and the wilted flowers hanging on to their stems, but there was nothing. “Inara! Inara! I’m here!” I was screaming. I ran and ran, hands in front of my face, unable to see through the wall of water falling down around me, until I reached a place where the rain no longer drenched my skin and I stopped. I wiped my palm across my eyes, trying to dry them enough so my vision cleared, and looked up. A canopy of palms stretched overhead, a sturdy protective roof.
I took another couple of steps forward, turning all around.
A weak voice sounded nearby, close to the ground.
“Skylar?”
I turned again.
There, just a little ways off, eyes wide and terrified and disbelieving, was Inara, curled into a ball at the base of one of the trees.
33
Rain
likeness
“THERE HAS TO be another way,” Kit was saying to Trader.
I didn’t hear Trader’s response because I was too busy staring at Kit. It was as though each time he moved, I got a glimpse of something, the ghost of someone, like the flash of silver that catches the sunlight, then dims immediately. My brain kept trying to hold on to it, that sense of familiarity, to prod and to shape it until whatever it was I could name out loud.
Kit turned to glare at me. “What are you looking at?”
I glared back. “Nothing much at all.”
Kit shrugged, then returned to his conversation with Trader and Zeera.
I walked up to Adam and Parvda. She was sitting on the floor next to Skylar, monitoring her. Her deep-brown hand was holding Skylar’s golden-brown one, and she leaned into Adam, who sat next to her.
“Do you guys notice anything familiar about Kit?”
Adam looked up at me and shrugged. “He has an attitude similar to yours?”
I rolled my eyes. “Funny.”
“I wasn’t necessarily kidding,” he muttered.
“I keep seeing something in his face,” I went on, undeterred, “something I’ve seen before, but I don’t know where. I’m right on the edge of it and then it slips away.”
Parvda shook her head. “Honestly, I’ve been so focused on Skylar I haven’t paid much attention to him.”
I walked over to Zeera, who was tapping the screen linked to Skylar’s mind, trying to capture the data needed for shifting. Kit leaned against a nearby wall, watching Zeera’s every move. She was so engrossed she barely noticed I was there.
“Zeera,” I prompted.
When she finally looked up, her eyes were glassy. Dark circles were forming underneath them. “Huh?”
“Can you focus for a minute?”
A shiver ran through her. “Um. Yeah. Yes.” She nodded.
I turned her around so she was staring at Kit. “Do you see anything in his face that you’ve seen somewhere else? Like, on somebody else?”
Zeera was quiet. She blinked quickly. “You know,” she started, but then stopped.
“What?” I prompted, wanting someone to solve the mystery of this nagging feeling.
But she only shook her head. “Nah, nothing,” she said, and went back to work.
An hour passed, my mind picking through every other face I’d ever seen in both worlds and coming up with nothing.
It was Lacy who finally figured it out, Lacy, who wasn’t even trying.
She walked straight up to Kit, looked him full in the face in that demanding, entitled way that only someone like Lacy could, and pronounced the very thing my mind had been reaching for ever since I arrived at this broken-down house.
“You,” she began. She got up on her toes to peer closer into his eyes, the left side of his face, then the right side, inspecting Kit like he was a statue and not a living, breathing person standing in front of her. “You look like that girl being held prisoner on the monitor in the weapons room.”
I stared at Kit again and a light in my mind went on.
Kit took a step backward, as though he’d been struck.
Lacy came off her toes and turned to me. “I mean, not exactly like her, but I’m not the only one who sees the resemblance, am I?”
“No,” I replied, shaking my head in wonder. “You aren’t.”
34
Skylar
aching
I CAME TO from the App World, gasping.
Morning light streamed through the windows of Trader’s house.
Everything in my body ached, this time worse than before. My head throbbed like I’d been banging it against something hard and metal.
I sat up and looked around. My mind spun.
I waited for it to settle.
Parvda and Adam were lying on the floor. Rain and Lacy were nowhere to be found, probably off somewhere on their own. Zeera and Trader were standing at his workstation, their fingers flying quickly across the screens in their hands, so bleary-eyed they didn’t even notice I was back. No matter which way I turned the person I most wanted to see was nowhere to be found.
Kit was gone.
Everything about my body throbbed and groaned an
d this suddenly seemed right. My heart had fled, leaving a gaping hole in my center. Maybe he’s in the other room, I thought. Out front. Sitting on his bike in the wintry air. I knew this shouldn’t be my first concern, that there were other things so much more important than Kit’s whereabouts.
But how does a person do anything when their heart is gone from their chest?
“You’re back,” Trader said, suddenly next to me.
I was slow to react, like when I’d first woken at the Keeper’s house and my words wouldn’t come. I blinked at Trader, trying to speak. What finally came out of my mouth in reply to his comment was, “Where is everyone?”
Trader’s dark eyebrows arched. “By everyone, you mean your two boyfriends? They left together to go back to Rain’s grandpa’s mansion.”
With great effort, I sat up and swung my legs around off the cradle so my feet touched the floor. The movement produced a dizzy feeling, but then it passed. “Kit left with Rain?”
Trader nodded.
I dragged myself to a standing position and limped over to the window, flicking it open. Cold air washed over me and I tried to breathe. Kit hadn’t even waited to see if I’d woken up alive or never came to again.
Maybe he didn’t care as much as I thought.
Maybe I shouldn’t care as much as I did.
I slumped a little.
Trader crossed his arms. “Well? How did it go?”
I pushed my thoughts about Kit aside. “I found Inara,” I said.
His eyes widened. “She’s okay?” he whispered.
“Inara is alive,” I corrected. “I don’t know if okay is the right way to describe her virtual state at the moment.”
Worry filled Trader’s bottomless black eyes. “Just alive?”
I hesitated. “She’s hanging on. She knows we’re coming.”
“Tell me, Skylar. Tell me the truth.”
I shifted from one foot to the other, my muscles straining, my body unsteady without a heart to anchor my center. I took a deep breath and told him everything I knew. “She’s hiding out in Odyssey because she’s afraid for her parents, and for herself. She knows too much.”
“But I thought—”
“—that she’d have forgotten everything?” I shook my head. “Sadly, no. Inara remembers it all. That mind-wipe never came about, as Jude promised. Or at the very least, it didn’t work.”
“She’s all alone.”
“Inara is stronger than you think,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt after seeing my friend huddled under a tree on that deserted island. The best I could manage before I left her again was to ease her mind enough that the landscape shifted for the better. The rain stopped, the sun peeked out from behind the thick gray clouds, and the smell of rotting fish had dissipated some. “We’re going to get her back.”
“This is my fault.”
“No, it’s mine,” I said, truly confident this time. “Jude is punishing Inara for my escape. But the good news is, Inara isn’t willing to do Jude’s bidding anymore, and she wants to fight back. She’s had a lot of time to think and said she can’t bear the thought of someone in the Real World taking over her body, or using it for parts. She wants to make her own decisions about her body’s fate.” I placed a hand onto Trader’s arm. “Inara doesn’t want to lose the possibility of being with you, Trader, even if here is where you want to live. She misses you. She’s worried about you.”
Trader made a pained sound, then shook his head. “She’s worried about me?”
I nodded. Then my knees nearly buckled.
Trader caught me before I could fall. He looked at me knowingly. “Shifting is hard on a body.”
I stretched out one leg, then the other, concerned I might collapse or pass out. “You didn’t mention that before. Then again, you seemed fine after you shifted.”
“You get used to it,” he said. “Also, I didn’t do it twice in such a short time.”
I tilted my head up to the cold air filtering down from the window.
Zeera came over to join us. She leaned in to give me a quick hug. “Welcome back.”
“How did things go on your end?” I asked her, once the spots had faded.
She glanced over at Trader. She seemed nervous. “I think we got everything we needed.”
I eyed the two of them. “You think or you know?”
“Yes,” she said.
Zeera didn’t sound as excited as I’d expected. “Which one is it?”
“We need to head back to Briarwood,” she said carefully, ignoring my question.
If Kit was at Briarwood, I wouldn’t mind going there myself. Then maybe I’d find out what could be so important that he would just up and leave me here.
Adam and Parvda stirred across the room. The two of them stood and ambled over. Adam still looked half asleep. “Did it work?” he asked Zeera. “Did you get what you needed for the App?”
She nodded, but then busied herself with the tablet in her hand.
Parvda gave me a worried look. “Skylar, you seem exhausted.”
“I’m okay,” I lied. “I could shift another twenty times today, no sweat.”
Parvda narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe that one bit.”
Adam slipped one of his long arms around me. “I’m glad you’re alive. Though I still think your plan is crazy.”
Adam’s comment reminded me of the other thing I wanted to tell everyone. “Speaking of crazy,” I began, “there were protests outside of Trader’s house, protests in Loner Town. They’re against the border closing and the removal of the bodies. There were police lining the streets. People care. Well, at least some of them do,” I added.
Trader seemed thoughtful. “It makes sense they’d be in Loner Town.”
I shot him a quizzical look. “Why do you say that?”
“Think about it,” he said. “I bet the government funneled them there, so the more desirable folk don’t have to witness the unrest, or think about whether any of the protestors might have a point.”
“That actually seems reasonable,” Adam said.
Zeera was still absorbed in whatever was on the screen before her. “Let’s go back to Briarwood like Zeera said,” I said, watching her. “I don’t want to wait around any longer.”
Parvda slipped a jacket over her thin shoulders. Then she waved an arm in the air, gesturing for all of us to follow. “All right. I’m driving.”
One by one, we shrugged on our own coats and disappeared after her.
I fell into a dreamless sleep on the way there. The next time I opened my eyes I was curled into a chair. I rubbed my temples in slow circles, trying to get my bearings. My body was stiff and exhausted. I sat up, my muscles groaning against the movement, and looked around.
I was in the weapons room.
So were Lacy, Zeera, Rain, and Trader.
And Kit. Kit, too.
A surge of anger went through my tired limbs. He’d left me at Trader’s to come here with Rain. What could be so important that Kit would agree to do anything with someone he hated that much?
Trader was tapping away on the little tablet he’d brought with him from his house, but everyone else had their eyes glued to the monitor that showed the girl.
Kit, in particular, seemed fascinated by it.
I got out of the chair to go and join them, my legs unsteady.
Rain was the first one to notice I was awake. “Skylar,” he said, when he turned and saw me there. “I was starting to worry.”
I shrugged. “I’m fine,” I said, but this was a lie. The pain in my body warred with my confusion about Kit’s actions. I left Rain and went and stood next to Kit now, but he didn’t look at me, or refused to. A sickening feeling gnawed at my stomach.
His eyes were all for the girl up on the screen.
I stared from Kit to the girl and back to Kit again.
“Oh,” I gasped, in sudden understanding.
Kit turned to me then, as though he’d just realized I was standing t
here. “Skylar,” he said, his voice strangled. He blinked his eyes quickly, and a tear fell down his cheek as he told me what I’d just figured out without a shadow of doubt. “It’s Maggie up on that screen.”
35
Skylar
the bad news
“KIT, I’M SO sorry,” I told him, and reached out for his hand right as Maggie disappeared from the screen. “My sister . . .” I trailed off, at a loss for words to describe the things my sister did.
“It’s one thing to know that Maggie is a prisoner and it’s another to have to see it, live,” he said, and went back to watching the screen.
But before he did, he wasn’t able to hide the helplessness in his eyes.
Lacy smirked as she took this in, Kit and I together, our fingers intertwined. “I’m the one who figured it out,” she said to me. She sounded accusatory, like I hadn’t done my job by realizing this girl was Kit’s twin any sooner. “Didn’t I, Rain?” she added, and went and pressed herself against him, resting her head on Rain’s shoulder with a smile.
And wasn’t Lacy right? Shouldn’t I have known? I’d seen Maggie’s picture at Kit’s cottage. Now that I’d made the connection, the resemblance was obvious.
I tried to catch Rain’s eyes, wondering what he thought about all of this, but he was avoiding my gaze. Then I glanced at the monitor showing the Body Market, almost hoping to find I was wrong, that Maggie was there instead, as if that would be a better fate somehow than being Jude’s prisoner, but the screen had gone dark.
Zeera’s eyes went to the same place. “Yeah. We lost that feed.”
Something in me tightened with worry. “You can’t get it back?”
She shook her head. “Not so far.”
I swallowed. “That’s not good, is it?”
“It’s not ideal, no.”
I turned my attention to the monitor that showed Maggie again, waiting for another sign of Kit’s sister, or even for a sign of mine. For the longest time, there was nothing. Lacy fidgeted, but Rain stayed silent, while Zeera and Trader worked quietly together. Then out of nowhere, a girl darted across the screen, blond hair flowing behind her.
The Body Market Page 21