Forget Me Not

by Stacey Nash

  I pull it over my head and give it away.

  The life movie starts again. It’s like I’m outside of my body watching it happen. This time I’m lying in a ball on my bed, ignoring a noise across the room. Will comes in and sits on the window seat. He talks. I don’t listen. The wall is a single color—cream. No pictures, no wallpaper, no marks. Boring and nothing to see, like me. I sigh and roll over, my back to Will. Something thuds into me, and he’s shouting.

  “Stop it. Just stop it, Mae.”

  I don’t roll over. I close my eyes. Go away.

  “You can’t live like this. Snap out of it,” he says. “If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for me.” His voice drops, and I barely hear his next words, “It’s tearing me apart.”

  There’s a lump in my throat, but when isn’t there? I open my eyes and stare at the wall.

  He appears inches from my face. “This is not the end of the world. We can find a solution, a way out of here. We just need to work on it together.”

  My face is wet. Tears trickle down it and soak into the bed.

  I can’t find myself, and I don’t want to.

  Chapter Twelve

  SUN STREAMS THROUGH MY window from low in the sky when Jax knocks on my door.

  I jump, startled by the sound. Something dull, muted, runs through my tummy, and I frown.

  He doesn’t speak, but something buried inside me knows it’s him. My heart warms at the knowledge that he’s here, but the rest of me remains hard, cold, and closed off.

  I run a hand over my hair, smoothing it down. It wasn’t brushed today, and maybe not yesterday or the day before either.

  He eases the door open, peeks in, and smiles. When he walks in, he takes my hand without a word, leading me out of the room and out of the house. Walking along in silence, I’m thankful he doesn’t expect me to speak. I don’t think I’ve got any conversation in me, but I can’t help glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. It kind of feels good to be walking beside him. I almost feel like I’m waking.

  Ace bounds along beside us, his head lolling up and down.

  Jax takes me to the barn.

  The training area’s empty, all the equipment put away. Everyone must be done for the day. He leads me out of a small door at the back of the barn which I’ve never noticed hidden under the overhanging top floor. When we step outside, we’re in a copse of trees. The further we walk from the barn the taller and closer together they grow.

  Side by side, fingers entwined, we walk through the forest. His hand feels warm in mine, and I suck in a deep breath of fresh air. Life stirs inside me. We reach a spot where the trees open up to form a natural clearing, and Jax pulls our walk to a stop, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. I crane my head back, expecting to see the sky, but only the ground’s clear. The trees still come together in a thick canopy far above our heads. The way they curve and arch makes me think they must have been manipulated to grow this way, to form a dome.

  Splashes of deep orange afternoon sunshine stream through a million tiny gaps in the canopy. The breathing, pulsing beauty of this place wakes the emotions I’ve spent the past week blocking out, and suddenly I feel everything at once. I blink, and the warmth of the clearing seeps through me, forcing the cold emptiness away.

  There’s nothing with such living, natural beauty like this in the city. If only my Nikon weren’t still lying on my desk at home.

  I look up and around, noticing rope walkways high in the trees. They create a circle all the way around the edge of the amphitheater. Ropes crisscross each other through the middle to make a series of paths and join up at the circle’s sides. The ground’s heavy with fallen leaves. A large log rests across the clearing near boulders clumped like fallen marbles.

  Jax drops my hand. His eyes light up, and he raises his lips in a smile. “Welcome,” he says with a sweeping gesture of his hand, “to The Ring.”

  “Wow.” My hand presses against my chest. “It’s beautiful.”

  The air smells of must and earth, like fresh compost. The dampness makes goose bumps rise on my arms. I inhale a deep breath.

  “I have to come here with my camera. If I ever get….” I can’t finish the rest of that sentence, not even in my head.

  Ace runs circles around Jax as he walks around the perimeter of The Ring, releasing ropes secured to tree trunks with knots. “It’s another section of the training area. We use it for a different style of training. I thought you might be ready to learn a little more.”

  I kick at a stone with my toe, my eyes focused on the ground. “Beau said it’s no use.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, Mae. It’s over, it can’t be undone.” He slides out of his jacket and hangs it over a large rock. “You have to get back out there and keep fighting. Don’t let it kill who you are.”

  My gaze is drawn to his arm, no longer covered because his white T-shirt has short sleeves. An angry red welt puckers the skin with the ends of white threads sticking out. The bandage is gone. Tightness pangs in my chest. I distracted him and he got hurt. It was my fault.

  Ace rubs up against his leg, and Jax reaches down, scratching the dog’s head. Jax looks around and moves with a lazy confidence, like a lion walking through its pride. He’s alive here. “There aren’t enough of us to fight them openly. The most effective way is to cut away at them bit by bit. Be a pain in their necks.”

  A bud of hope blooms inside me. Maybe I can find a way. Beau mightn’t be right.

  “It might be by stopping an event they’re manipulating, or by stealing a piece of tech, or even by relieving a drought,” he says.

  “Manipulating events, relieving droughts?” I screw up my face. “The Collective have that kind of power?”

  “Tech is a tiny part of who The Collective are and what they do. There’s a lot more to them than just hiding the existence of tech.” He climbs up a rope with the agility of a monkey, his strong arms bunching with the effort. “It’s the way they use the tech that matters. It’s just a tool, not the real secret.” He stops moving. His lungs visibly fill as he takes a huge breath.

  “The real secret? What are you saying?”

  “They manipulate every event. They decide which countries war and famine ravage, if people live or die. They twist the world to their wishes, the way they think it should be. They play God.”

  My neck aches from peering up, but the usual magnetic force holds my gaze to him. I jump onto the log. This Collective is crazy. It’s like some sort of insane conspiracy. If they’re so powerful, I don’t really stand a chance. “Now I see why Beau said exposing tech isn’t the answer. These are the secrets that need to be exposed.”

  “Yes, they are. And you can do it.”

  “Me? That’s insane, Jax. Beau’s right; I can’t do anything. I’m just one little person.”

  “Where’s your fight gone, Mae? A few weeks ago all you wanted to do was take on The Collective and get your life back. If anyone can do that, it’s you.”

  A laugh, more like a scoff really, bursts out of me.

  “I’m serious. Come on, remaining unseen on missions like this is the key to success,” he says.

  I look up but can’t see where his voice is coming from. My eyes scan the trees, the rope nets, and the ground, but I still can’t find him. Maybe he’s right. I could expose their secrets, even if I have to do it bit by bit. If I can’t, well then, maybe I can make their lives hell. They’ve ruined mine after all.

  “This is your training ground. You can learn to sneak through the city, hide in the jungle. Stealth, agility, and how to attack from above.” His voice comes from different directions, like he’s moving.

  A whoosh of disturbed air hits my face.

  I still can’t see him.

  “Think of it like a game of hide and attack, instead of hide and seek,” he says.

  My eyes widen. My heart beats faster, and for the first time in weeks I’m alive, prepared, and hopeful. “Where are you?”

  He blinks into existence
so close I could reach out and touch him. The trademark smirk curling up his mouth brings one to mine.

  “Cheat, you have my cover-up.”

  He throws his head back, the sound of his laughter echoing around us. “Marcus is finished with it. I thought you might like it back.” His eyes are alight with mischief.

  He holds his hand out with my chain dangling off a finger.

  I reach out to take it, but he snatches it away.

  “First you have to earn it.” He springs from a boulder to a rope, which he scales up and into the trees.

  No way. He’s going to make me go up there. My legs feel a little weak, but the desire to chase him overrides it. I rush to the same rope, grab it, and pull myself up, but it slips through my fingers, and I fall to the ground in a heap.

  Ace sits on his hind legs and yaps at Jax, upset he can’t follow. His sulking barely lasts a second before he pounces on me and licks my face. Yuck. Dog breath.

  I close my hand around the first knot, but it slides through my fingers. I can’t grip it. I groan and squeeze my hands into fists. He made it look so easy, just like flicking out of sight with my cover-up. Oh gosh, he’s using it.

  “Hey. How come you can use it here without The Collective attacking? You never did tell me,” I shout up into the trees.

  “We have hide-alls.”

  “You have what?” I twist around to look up, and there he is. Sitting with his legs dangled over a rope walkway, looking relaxed.

  “They’re cloaking devices. When placed around an area at certain positions they create a dome which cloaks the vibrations active tech gives off.”

  I wind the rope around my foot and push myself upward, grabbing the third knot. It pushes me high enough to reach the first with my other foot. I look down to hide the small smile crossing my lips. I can do this. “Can you see the cloak?”

  “Not if you look directly at it, but sometimes if you catch it out of the corner of your eye it has a transparent sheen, like a rainbow.”

  A small twig whizzes by me, landing on the ground.

  “That’s pretty neat. So it’s safe to use tech here. But can The Collective see the hide-all? Wouldn’t it expose this as a resistance base?”

  “You can see the cloak out of your peripheral vision, you know, the corner of your eye. They’d have to suspect a location to know where not to look. They’re not going to walk around the entire country, not looking at places just to find one.” He leans back on the rope at ease. “They know safe houses and resistance bases exist, but they don’t know their locations. Are you coming up here or what?”

  “Wait a second,” I say, my mind ticking. “What about tech vibrations? The hide-all is tech, can’t they pick up its vibrations?”

  “Here we go with the inquisitiveness again.” He smirks. “It’s a cloaking device, Mae. Cloaking devices cloak, it’s what they do.”

  “Oh.”

  The sunlight fades while I climb, falling long, curved shadows over The Ring. Maybe finding out more about The Collective is the right way to sort out my problems. Then I can do something about our predicament. I’ll know how to fight against them. Fight for Will and me to go home to our families. The thought makes a smile creep up on me; Beau was right to confiscate my tech. Damn right I’ll use it again if I need to. I won’t let some group of dictators determine how and where I live my life.

  I reach the top of the rope and, when I look to the ground, Ace is curled in a ball, his nose tucked under his tail. He looks more like a cat than a big dog. The rope sways, and I grab at it for balance. It’s so high up here. I walk along the slated walkway, clutching the handrail. Don’t look at the ground. I stare at my feet instead, trying not to shake. Finally, reaching Jax, I sit beside him. The ropes sag under my weight, and I squeal. We’re both going to fall. We don’t. The drooping rope just pushes us together until our arms touch. Goose bumps from the contact cover my arm so completely he must be able to feel them.

  “Well done.” He holds the chain out to me.

  I snatch it and pull it over my head. “How the heck do I get down from here?” My voice shakes.

  “Wills as strong as yours find a way.” He jumps up, making the rope sway back and forth like a swing.

  “Hey, don’t go yet. I just got here.”

  He laughs and moves along the rope bridge, then makes a series of jumps all the way to the ground like a bird hopping from branch to branch. If only I had half his confidence. My legs tremble. I’m rooted to the spot, shaking. Unable to stand, let alone get down.

  When I glance down, he’s already on the ground sitting on the log and patting Ace. He pulls out a knife and carves into the timber. I take a deep breath. Be brave.

  I pull myself onto my feet and inch back across the ropes. I need to find a way down. Shuffling along the bridge, it takes forever to reach the hanging rope, but finally I get to it and slide to the ground and to Jax.

  * * * *

  The light has already seeped out of the day as we approach the farmhouse. It makes everything dull and colorless. In stark contrast, the chatter of voices floats on the breeze as we approach the front door. Jax holds it open, and I duck under his arm and inside. The smell of cooked food makes my stomach growl. It feels like so long since I last ate.

  Will sits with Lilly and Marcus at the back of the dining room, all leaning in together, the cadence their voices rising and falling. The drawn look and dark circles hanging under his eyes flood me with guilt.

  “I thought you’d be stuck up there all night,” Jax says from behind me. As we weave our way through the room to join them, he pokes me in the side, right on the tender spot above my hip. I squirm, squeal, and jump away.

  Will’s gaze flies to mine, and I meet it with a smile. He springs up and throws his arms around me. “Mae.”

  I squeeze him to me.

  When I pull away, he’s looking at Jax. “Where have you been?”

  “I took her out, showed her a good time,” Jax says.

  “Hi, Lilly.” I sink into the empty seat beside Will’s.

  “Hey.”

  Will gives a slight shake of his head and returns to his seat. “So the pretty boy snapped you out of it.” His words, each snapped short, come through clenched teeth.

  “Aw, look, he thinks I’m pretty,” Jax says with a bemused smile.

  Will glowers, and Jax smirks.

  I exchange a brief look with Jax. He shrugs half-heartedly, the mask of indifference plastered onto his attractive face once again. No answers there. What’s with Will? He’s never mean to anyone, so why Jax? Surely he doesn’t still distrust him, not after all Jax has done for me, for us. He’s not a jealous friend, but it’s like something about Jax just irks him.

  “Boys, that’s enough,” Lilly says and turns to me with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you’re back to yourself.”

  Will mutters something under his breath which I don’t quite hear. He pushes his plate away, knocking over his glass. Juice pools on the table. His chair scrapes across the floor as he shoves it back and stalks out of the dining room.

  “Thanks for letting me examine your cover-up,” Marcus says like nothing happened.

  “No worries.” I snatch up Will’s glass and set it upright while Lilly mops up the mess.

  I really don’t understand what’s going on with Will or what that was all about. I can usually read him so well, but lately it’s like parts of him have been rewritten in a foreign language. It could just be his over protectiveness again, but, really, he’s got nothing to worry about with Jax. He won’t hurt me. I push my chair back; better make sure he’s okay.

  Lilly reaches across the table and grabs my arm. “Let him go.” She takes a plate from the pile, scoops something brown and lumpy from a pot in the center of the table onto the plate, and pushes it toward me. “Eat.”

  I look at her across the table, the delicious smell making my tummy grumble.

  “He will be okay. You’ll make it worse if you run after him.”
<
br />   “But—”

  “Leave it.”

  “But—”

  “No. Eat.”

  Sighing, I swallow a mouthful of the delicious stew. Will’s never needed space. It doesn’t make sense he needs it now. We’ve both always been there for each other. Solid, steady, strong. That’s our friendship.

  “The pendant is the key which activates the projector, the brooch,” Marcus says.

  “Huh?” Is he talking to me?

  “Your cover-up.” He sighs.

  “Oh, right.” Concentrate, Mae. But I can’t pull my thoughts away from Will.

  Marcus keeps talking about keys and projectors.

  Does he mean like a data projector? It makes me think of the conversation with Jax about how the hide-all projects a shield to keep us hidden from The Collective. The Collective… if they have control of society as a whole and they manipulate every event in this world, then they must pull massive political power. My mind races faster than I can think. This is good; there’s always corruption in politics. If Dad’s said it once, he’s said it a million times, ‘where there’s corruption, there’s opportunity.’

  Something jabs my shin. It hurts, and I yelp. My head shoots up, and Lilly looks at me like she’s waiting.

  Marcus continues talking. “It opens up to project an electromagnetic field which bends the light around an object, giving it the illusion of invisibility.”

  Lilly laughs. “I think you lost her somewhere around key.”

  Marcus continues, oblivious to my previous lack of attention. “If you remain still, you are completely invisible. If you move, you will shimmer like a wavy heat pattern.”

  I nod and continue to eat my dinner. Hopefully he won’t ask if I understand.

  “Like a road on a hot summer’s day.” Jax slouches back in his chair.

  I’m not listening anymore; a plan’s growing in my mind. The roots searching, seeking, sinking, taking hold until it’s fully grown.

  Collective, corruption, exposure, opportunity.

  Chapter Thirteen