“Then I think you should stick with it,” Hunter says. “It sounds like your biggest obstacle is your own insecurity. But I bet if I asked your friends at the Hub, they’d tell me you absolutely fit in and you’re absolutely ready.”
He’s right. Kudzu have shown nothing but faith in me. Naz is prickly, but she’s only one person out of a couple dozen. Everyone else just wants to help. “I just hope it’s as important as I think it is,” I say cautiously. “It’s a lot of work for something that ends up being”—life-threatening?— “a waste of time.”
“But only you can be the judge of that,” he says. “And you strike me as someone who has a good grasp of what’s important and what’s not.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. You’re smart.”
The hairs on my arms prick up a little. “Thanks,” I murmur, smiling self-consciously. “I, um—I liked the way you said that.”
He tips his head to the side, smiling at me quizzically.
“Sometimes when my best friend—or maybe, former best friend—used to say that, it sounded more like an accusation than a compliment. Even though I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way.”
“Former best friend?”
I wince, although a part of me knows I said that because I knew he’d ask about it. “Her name’s Izzy. I caught up with her a few days ago, and it didn’t end well. We had a fight.”
“What about?”
I regard him, sitting very still in my chair. I’m not about to break the law again. I choose each word with precision. “About Eden,” I say. “And the Badlands. We used to be the same. But now . . . Now things are different.” I pinch my fingers on my forehead, pressing them into my skin. “Maybe I overreacted,” I say with a frustrated groan. “Maybe it was stupid to fight. It’s just—she’s just—”
“Different,” he supplies quietly.
“Yeah.” I sigh heavily. “But we were friends for so long. How can that just change?”
“Because people change,” Hunter says. “And friendship is based on shared values. It sounds like you have more in common with the people at the Hub than with Izzy.” His voice softens with kindness, eyes bright with genuine compassion. “You’re being too hard on yourself. People change, and a year in the Badlands would change anyone. You’ve had experiences your friend will probably never have. You see things differently now. Take, for example, the scratch.” He gestures at it, in front of us both on the table. “What is it to a regular Edenite?”
I shrug. “I don’t know—an everyday thing. Something you think you can’t live without but you actually can.”
“And what is it to someone in the Badlands?”
I finger the thin gold scratch, raking my fingernails over its surface to produce a soft vvvvvv sound. “Something you’d fight for.”
“Exactly. The meaning and value you’ve assigned to things has changed,” he says.
His face is open and warm, displaying no judgment whatsoever. People do change. I’d changed. I didn’t mean to hurt Izzy. I wrap Hunter’s words around me like a cozy blanket.
“I have to go,” he says, glancing at the clock. “I have to go over some notes with Professor Rockwood before I leave.”
I’m surprisingly disappointed when he gets up. But before he disappears into Abel’s study, I say, “Hunter.”
He turns to face me. In the glow in the living room light, I can see the finest spray of freckles across his nose, only noticeable because his skin is so pale. I’m not sure why I called after him, and in the absence of anything planned, I just blurt out, “I really like talking with you.”
He smiles, a warm and almost delicate smile. “I like it too, Tess.”
For a moment the air around us feels twenty degrees hotter. Then his expression undergoes a complete metamorphosis. A myriad of emotions seems to flash across his face at once—confusion, embarrassment, nerves. He spins around and barrels straight into the wall with a muffled crash.
“Are you okay?” I gasp.
“Fine. I’m fine,” he stutters, stepping back. After another awkward glance in my direction, he turns and darts into the study.
Hunter’s advice stays with me. I resolve to have faith in myself, and it makes the next few weeks of my life some of the best ever.
I love spending time at Milkwood. I love the muggy hike at the beginning of each day, and the way my boots start to find the path that Ling knows so well. I love the first glimpse of Moon Lake, and how the clear morning light makes it shine like a diamond. I love the looks of genuine enthusiasm my arrival inspires in Benji and Lana. I love being part of a mission team. I love watching Achilles work on cracking the Liamond system and listening to Bo play the guitar. I even love how much Naz doesn’t like me.
The messy shared bedroom, Achilles’ darkened tech room, the unwieldy veggie garden—everything about Milkwood feels more and more like home. By comparison, the clean streets of Eden seem unimaginative and sterile. As Ling puts it, we live how we want to live at Milkwood, like the rabbits that run wild in the woods.
One day I arrive to find everyone choosing code names; Kudzu never uses real names on missions. “What’s yours?” I ask Ling.
“Samurai.” She grins, miming a sword fight.
Benji and Lana pick each other’s; Benji is Monkey. Lana is Angel.
Naz picks Bulldog.
Achilles wants to be Big Daddy.
“No,” Ling says flatly.
“Why not?” he protests.
“Because it’s silly and this is serious,” she says, exasperated. “Pick something else.”
“Dr. X.”
“No.”
“Chilly Willy.”
“No.”
“Gyan’s Lovechild, Tranq ’n’ Wank, Guilty As Charged, I’m With Stupid.”
Ling smiles sweetly. “You can just be Stupid.”
Achilles sighs. “Fine. I’ll be . . . Spike.”
I pick Storm. I’ve never seen a real storm. I think I’d like them.
After a few weeks, Gem and Kissy show me the Kudzu stream. I’ve never seen anything like it. Streams are soft and pretty: pastel clouds that soothe and relax. The Kudzu stream is a shove into oncoming traffic, a wake-up call. No new life until all life is equal leaps out, demanding the viewers’ attention. A spiky black-and-red design tells the story, with names changed to protect the guilty. Diamond-shaped boxes make the connection between artilects, Simutech, Moon Lake, and the Badlands.
It’s not just the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, it’s also the most eye-opening. An uncensored, unauthorized stream. Edenites won’t know what hit them.
Naz and Ling will have razers at Simutech. I won’t. Our plan doesn’t involve razers, Ling tells me, so it’s unnecessary and dangerous to have me wielding the powerful weapons. When I push as to why she and Naz will have them, she allows that in a worst-case scenario, she only wants the two most experienced people on the team using them. She can tell I’m disappointed, so as a compromise, she’ll teach me some basic fighting. When I tell her I already know how to fight—a year in the Badlands, remember?—she just shrugs. “Then hit me.”
I shake my head wryly. “I’m not going to hit you.”
“I know,” she says, with a cheeky smile.
Okay. Challenge accepted. I pop one fist out lightly.
She whirls out of the way. “Told you.”
I laugh, impressed. But this time, I’m going to try. I lunge at her again, quick as a fox. Again, she disappears from the end of my fist, spinning behind me. With a vise-like grip, she grabs my wrist and yanks it up behind my back. I gasp, relenting. “Okay, okay!”
She lets me go. “See, the thing about—”
Before she can finish, I swipe her legs out from underneath her with mine. She lands on her butt, and instantly I’m on top of her, arm against her throat. This time, I win.
She’s laughing as I let her go. “What’s so funny?” I ask.
“You fight like Naz.” She pulls bits of leaves out of her hai
r, grinning at me. “Dirty.”
I grin back. “Let’s go again.”
And so I learn how to fight. As Ling puts it, it’s more about how to defend yourself or overpower someone bigger or stronger than you. I learn that if someone chokes me from behind, I’m to lean forward, pull their arms off me, then spin around to knee them in the balls. “All the power in a choke hold comes from the thumbs.” Ling shows me. “But you don’t want it to become strength versus strength. You want to use your speed and agility to get out of it.”
When I ask her if she’s ever had to do this “in the field,” she just laughs. “Of course!” she exclaims, all bravado. “Guiders think they have a right to detain us, just for breaking the law.”
I ask, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
Ling’s smile disappears. I haven’t just touched a nerve; I’ve mauled one. She glances back in the direction of the house, and makes an excuse about having to check in with Achilles.
I tell myself I’m putting up with Hunter’s tutoring sessions to score a place to crash and appease Abel. But every night, I find myself returning home to Liberty Gardens more and more eagerly.
I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I’ve also never had a boy friend.
I like how engaged Hunter is with the world. We can talk about anything. And we do. It’s easy to get us to stop studying and talk about life. All I have to do is dangle a morsel of information about myself or a particularly strong opinion I have, and he’s in. And I like this. I like being the most interesting person in the world to someone.
My favorite thing about him is his eyes. Not just the color or the shape, but the way they move. Quick and darting; I can see him thinking. I wish I could be in his head, to know the thoughts he’s examining from every angle.
And we do actually study. Abel’s right about Hunter—he’s a great teacher. We jump around: natural sciences, psychology, expression, health and longevity. I’m delighted to learn he’s terrible at drama and music. I leap on this chink in his perfect armor, and pry it apart by insisting we perform passages from Romeo and Juliet out in Abel’s tiny courtyard. His wooden rendition is hilariously bad. I find myself replaying the stiff way he read Romeo’s flowery declarations of love for Juliet, and giggling to myself for days afterward.
Even though I hate admitting it, I’m dying to know if Hunter has a girlfriend. I keep picturing her: one of those irritatingly pretty girls who always had guys and girls interested in them and doesn’t even know that’s not what it’s like for everyone. Or maybe his girlfriend is one of those quirky arty types who wears long skirts and has a stream dedicated to her own poetry and is called something like Vivienne or Rain.
But obviously I can’t ask him about any of this. His love life feels extraordinarily off-limits. Besides, he never asks about mine.
At first, I don’t know how to act around Abel, so I do my best to avoid him without seeming like I’m avoiding him. Which, for someone who should be consumed by working on making an artilect for his buddies in the Trust, is actually pretty difficult. He pins me down for breakfast most mornings. I usually recap my tutoring session with Hunter while eating as fast as I can, and this seems to suffice. The Longevity Hub I’m allegedly spending all my time at is a good cover—a kickboxing class explains any strange bruises. I’m furious at Abel theoretically, but it’s hard to maintain it practically. Ling warned me not to ask him anything or spy on him at home. I find the best way to behave around him is to believe my own lies—that I really am his returned niece, grateful to be back in the city’s protection and slowly moving toward a complete recovery.
The only dark times are the nights. Some evenings I’m lucky, and the day’s events have me asleep before my head hits the pillow. But some nights are long. Sleep eludes me for hours and in its place are thoughts of my mother. I think about how she’d feel about what I’m doing now, if she’d approve, if she’d understand. I think about Magnus, standing to attention two floors below me. And I think about what happened. I only have to touch on it—those last twenty-four hours I spent in Eden—and I’m socked with enough guilt to know beyond the whisper of a doubt that I don’t actually deserve any of this.
I don’t deserve Kudzu’s faith in me. I don’t deserve Hunter’s interest. I don’t deserve Abel’s misplaced love.
As the cold, gray light of dawn edges over the horizon, I finally fall asleep with one thought repeating itself.
I don’t deserve love at all.
“Greetings.” Hunter smiles up at me from the dining room table and my stomach does a little backflip. Seeing him makes me feel relieved and relaxed, but also strangely anxious and excited. Like I’m coming home and leaving on an adventure at the same time.
“Greetings yourself,” I say, dumping my backpack on the floor.
He’s been waiting out my habitual lateness by playing chess against himself, moving the floating black and white pieces with his eyes. But now that I’m here, he closes the scratch and instead focuses on me. “How are you, Tess?”
My hands are rubbed raw from a few extra hours of intense roping. I keep them closed so Hunter doesn’t notice.
“I am excellent,” I tell him. “Is Abel here?”
“He’ll be back later,” Hunter replies. “He’s food collecting with Kimiko.”
“So, we have the house to ourselves, eh?” I say, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Want to riffle through Abel’s stuff? Raid the liquor cabinet?”
For a split second Hunter’s face flinches into alarm; then it relaxes into a patient, if amused, smile. “Or,” he says, “we can start on history.”
“Yours or mine?” I ask innocently, and am rewarded with a stern frown.
We spend the next hour testing my knowledge of ancient and modern history, from the collapse of the Roman Empire to World War 3. I name brutal kings and psychotic politicians—all men, I point out to Hunter—who were responsible for the messed-up societies of the past. I’m not bad at history, but the year away from education has left me a little rusty on exact dates. Hunter is unsurprisingly great with them. “Let me guess,” I tease him, after he corrects me for the fiftieth time. “You’re a history buff, as well as being a science geek.”
“I find history very interesting,” he concedes. “You have to admit, Eden’s history is quite fascinating.”
“I just wonder if we’re getting the whole story,” I say without thinking.
Hunter glances at me. “What do you mean?”
Hunter and I are alone in the house. I make an educated guess that this conversation can safely remain between us.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” I begin carefully, “that Eden has maintained a virtually crime-free city for decades?”
“What do you mean, ‘odd’?” Hunter asks.
“Considering the Trust controls . . .” I’m about the say “the streams,” but stop myself—I’d have to explain how I know that and I definitely do not plan on mentioning Kudzu. “So much of our daily life, isn’t it possible they’ve manipulated our understanding of history? Re-created the streams to say whatever they want?”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Hunter says slowly. “But it seems unlikely. The Trust has no need to manipulate anything. What you’re saying sounds a little paranoid,” he adds, with the gentle assurance of someone who knows he’s right.
“Maybe,” I muse, biting my lip. “It just seems weird to me. The history of the world is this fantastically awful tapestry of wars and injustice and cruelty, and then—bang!—along comes Gyan’s grandfather’s grandfather and suddenly, the Trust is the first perfect system of government ever?”
Hunter shrugs. “That doesn’t sound weird. That sounds clever.”
“A peaceful, crime-free city, and yet we still need Tranqs?”
“Protection ensures peace.”
“No member of the Trust has ever committed a corrupt act?” I push. “No Edenite has ever wanted to revolt or question the system?”
“We’ve evolved, Tess,” Hunter
says patiently. “The Trust showed everyone how to live in a cohesive harmony.”
“C’mon Hunter,” I say. “You can’t say that without addressing Mr. White Elephant in the corner.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Trust isn’t actually a perfect system, is it?”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re letting the Badlands starve to death,” I say simply. “No matter how well Eden functions, it’ll never be perfect while the Badlands is what it is.”
Hunter rubs his chin with just a hint of agitation. I can tell he disagrees with me. For a moment I think he’s going to start arguing. But then he drops his hand and his face clears. “Tell me about the Badlands.” His eyes pierce mine, seeming to drill right through me.
And so I do.
I tell him about peyote parties with moon worshippers, out near the shimmering Salt Flats in the west. I tell him about learning to gamble with the Yaquero, a foul-mouthed gang who ran a black market way down in the Valley, and how I had to skip town after losing a stupid $1,000 bet to them. I describe sleeping under the stars and waking up when the sun rose, majestic and brutal, over the horizon. I describe learning to handle a knife, dress a wound, and avoid being groped in a crowd. I tell him about learning Malspeak and how to steal and how not to get your stuff stolen.
I entertain him with my best horror stories. The night I sucked snake poison out of a total stranger’s leg, or the week I lived on nothing but ancient sweets in an old, abandoned candy factory, but then got disgustingly sick to the point where now, just looking at a piece of licorice makes me want to throw up.
And I tell him about the loneliness. The fear. The sadness. The way my life became both so small—the sum parts of a backpack—and somehow infinite and enormous.
“I’d never felt as alive as I did out there,” I say. “There was always something to do, someone to help, something going on. If anything got too much, or a routine got so easy that I had time to think too much, I’d pack up and move on.”
He nods, absorbing every word.
“But a year out there felt like ten,” I admit. “It wasn’t home.” And, I add silently, neither is Eden anymore.
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