“I don’t remember anything I say when the Seer takes over. I hate that part the most.” He cleared his throat, and when I looked at him, I was surprised to see his bottom lip trembling. “I hate being a Seer.”
Fear blazed through my veins. “Cannon, don’t say tha—”
“But I do.” He gripped my fingers now, painfully. “What if I say something hurtful? What if I cause someone to do something they normally wouldn’t? Do you understand how heavy that burden is?” He leaned forward, squeezing my hands harder. But when he spoke, I could barely hear him. “Your dad reamed me for letting you see Cash.”
The breath solidified in my lungs. “But I—I was in the lab with him. Of course I saw him.”
Tears (real, genuine tears) filled Cannon’s eyes, and he turned away. “My job was to get you out of there as fast as possible. But you saw him control the EOs, heard him speak …” He shook his head, dodging to wipe his face. He inhaled deeply. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
It doesn’t matter? It’s over? “Nothing is ever over with my father,” I whispered.
Cannon met my gaze. Naked fear lived in his eyes. “I know.”
The silence that followed felt so heavy. So full of nightmares—all of them featuring my father.
I moved closer until only a few inches separated us. “It’s okay. Everything is okay. We just have to play smarter than my dad.”
“What if—?”
I pressed my finger to his lips so he couldn’t finish that sentence. He’d be Watched, then I’d be Watched (as if I wasn’t already), and then my dad could do anything. Anything at all.
After a few moments of tension, Cannon exhaled. He released my hands and nodded. I hugged him quickly, just enough to reassure him that we were okay. He felt thinner than I remembered. And he’d just skipped his snack too. I wondered when he’d last eaten.
“We may have more trouble,” I said, moving to sit in the ergonomic across from him. What I needed to tell him required distance.
He caught my eyes with his. Suspicion and surprise resided in them simultaneously. “What?”
“Well, I need a cover story.” I fiddled with the fingertips of my gloves.
He rubbed his right hand up his left arm the way he always did when he was preparing for bad news. “For?”
I dropped my gaze to the polished floor. “A guy.”
The silence that followed wasn’t angry or awkward. When I chanced a look at Cannon, I found him leaning back, resigned. Something registered in his expression—fear? Maybe. But it dissolved quickly into concern.
“Who?” he asked. That was our policy. We got to know who we were lying for. I’d helped Cannon sneak out to meet Flare Riding more times than I could remember. Too bad she got so jittery a few months ago. Cannon hadn’t seen another girl since.
“Who?” he repeated.
I hated the cool note in his voice but appreciated his steadiness, his willingness to help.
“Gunner Jameson,” I said. “I’m meeting him tonight.”
Cannon stood up and turned away, sighing in a way that said I was more trouble than I was worth.
“Do you really think you have time for another guy in your life?” he asked.
Another guy? Cannon was, well, Cannon. My best friend. A guy, sure, but not a guy.
“I can help you too,” I said.
He spun around. “With what, exactly?”
I hesitated at the flicker of resentment in his eyes. Maybe I’d crossed a barrier—except Cannon and I had never had any barriers before. “You’re skipping meals.”
He looked like he might argue, then his shoulders sagged. “I can’t talk about it.”
My brain couldn’t process those words, not from Cannon. We talked about everything. I’d just revealed my crush on Gunn! If that wasn’t proof enough, I didn’t know what else Cannon needed. But I found myself nodding. “Okay.”
He moved toward me and gathered me into the comfort of his arms. “Be careful here, Raine. You mess with Gunn, you’re taking on more than a guy.”
So many things jumbled in my mind. Cannon was right. If I started acting differently, my dad would suspect something.
“You’ve done it lots of times,” I said.
“Yeah, but you haven’t,” he said. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Like, really careful.”
“I promise. Will you do the same?”
Cannon inhaled slowly, as if the extra oxygen would bring him to his senses. “We can keep each other safe.” His hands quivered against my back. His arms trembled, and a strangled note escaped his throat.
I leaned out of his arms to find him squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his jaw. “Cannon?” I ran my fingers down the side of his face.
“You control the information,” he declared in a voice that was hardly his own. “No one can keep secrets from Raine Hightower. Secrets hold power. Raine holds all the power.”
After Cannon spoke, the room fell silent. But the prophecy echoed in my soul in time with my heartbeat.
Pow-er, pow-er, pow-er.
I felt it—the power—coursing through me. I’d lived my life in a way so as to have access to as much power as I could. Power to recruit those whose names sat on my father’s list, power to keep the most talented from truly helping him.
And then Cannon said, “Every person has a season for knowledge.”
Again.
I knew he meant that I held the power to reveal the secrets I kept when the time was right. Information was power in Freedom. And I had information no one else did. But now that I had an idea of the measure of influence I could have, I wasn’t sure I wanted it.
Scratch that. I didn’t want it. Not even a little bit. Who was I to decide what someone needed to know, and when? Who was I to see the innermost desires of someone’s heart?
“And Raine?” Cannon sounded like a little boy about to cry. “I don’t want you to leave Freedom.”
I jerked backward as if he’d branded me with his words. I wasn’t going to leave Freedom. Thoughts of my mother’s name on that list and warnings from the transmissions blended with images of Cash and his fake rash.
A tiny, quiet voice asked, Can I?
I forced it into silence. The very thought of crossing the wall terrified me. No, I wasn’t going to leave Freedom. Ever.
* * *
At precisely two a.m., Gunn separated from the shadows at the base of Rise Five just as I melted into them. My breath quickened at the simple sight of him, and in the next heartbeat he walked next to me. We both wore long coats and scarves to keep the nasty wind snaking through the Rises from searing our skin.
“Cold,” Gunn murmured, edging back into the darkness—and closer to me.
I nodded, something he couldn’t see, because I didn’t dare speak yet. During the walk from Rise One, I’d battled with myself about what to tell Gunn. What did he need to know? What did he want to know? Were they the same? Did that matter?
“Sorry about this weekend,” he whispered.
I shrugged, bumping him with my shoulder. We felt our way along the edge of the building toward an outdoor stairwell. I ducked under the steel beams and finally drew a full breath when Gunn joined me in the confined space.
“You look like hell.” Gunn spoke so softly I had to lean forward to hear him.
“Thanks,” I hissed. My desire to share everything with him evaporated.
Several minutes passed in icy silence. I opened my mouth to speak half a dozen times, each time snapping my jaw shut again, unsure what to say.
Then Gunn surprised me by wrapping both arms around me and pulling me into his chest. “Tell me,” he said, his whisper tickling my ear. He stroked my hair, and his heart beat against my cheek, calm and slow.
For some stupid reason, I started crying. Before I knew it, I’d spilled everything about Cash, that I’d seen his name on the Alias list Trek had cached me.
I didn’t tell him about my ability. I just couldn’t. The shame of it welled up in m
y throat and blocked the words. I kept the horror of my mother’s name on the Alias list to myself too.
When I finished, he still held me, his fingers entangled in my hair. “I wonder if my dad’s name is on that list.”
I read the hurt behind those words. Saw it fly across his features, even in the navy darkness. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“I think I already knew.” Something grew in Gunn’s eyes I didn’t like. Something sharp. Something dangerous.
My suspicions solidified when he said, “I’d like to leave this city.”
Arguments flew from one side of my head to the other. I didn’t say anything. While I couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving Freedom, Gunn was already planning his escape.
Incoming Enforcement Officers, a voice said over my cache. One look at Gunn and I knew he’d heard it too. We separated without speaking, moving as far away from each other as possible.
The voice sounded slightly like Trek, but a little deeper and with more echo behind it. How long? I asked, hoping Trek didn’t have his full system hooked up. I shouldn’t be mixing Insider work with my personal life. A flicker of embarrassment warmed my cheeks.
Before the voice could answer, my watch beeped. Not long enough.
“You go,” I told Gunn. “You can’t get caught out here.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll work it out with my father,” I said, hoping I actually could. How far could I push him before he decided I wasn’t worth the trouble?
The beeps became a constant alarm. “Stay here. I’ll distract them.” I dodged under the steel supports, already running away from Gunner and the stairwell. Amplified voices demanded that I surrender to search.
I had to lure them away from Gunn. I knew why they were after me. Dad always sent for me in the middle of the night when he needed a shady drain.
I sprinted toward the corner and headed down the next street toward Rise Six. And then Seven. Flashes of light, sirens, and voices followed me.
I slammed into an invisible barrier and flew backward. My coat smoked with tech sparks, and I slapped them away before true fire could start.
Behind me, footsteps crashed against the ground. Tasers whined. “Citizens must surrender to search after curfew,” blared from about forty sources.
No less than eight EOs advanced toward me. I squared my shoulders and remained silent, even though I felt like exploding. When they tech-cuffed me twice, I didn’t flinch. When they flew me back to Rise One, I didn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing I was about to wet myself.
But when we ascended to laboratory seven, I freaked out.
With so many of them, I couldn’t do much. I screamed and kicked, but that only made them back up so they wouldn’t get hurt. While I paused to inhale, one EO’s gloved hand wound around my throat while another two pressed my shoulders into the wall.
I thrashed my head from side to side. “Stop it! Let me go!” I spit in the officer’s face, but he didn’t remove his hand from my windpipe. The world went soft around the edges. I drew a shallow breath and screamed as long and loud as I could.
I stopped when Thane’s furious face swam before me. “Release her,” he barked.
Immediately the EOs removed their hands from my body. I slumped to the floor and refused to look up at Thane.
“Stand up, Raine. Stop this infantile behavior.”
I stayed on the floor, hot tears signaling my infantilism.
Thane crouched in front of me. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Stand up.” When I didn’t, he said, “I’d really hate to have to brainwash you into that room. We both know I can—and I will. Your choice.”
I hated him so much it infected my bloodstream. It pounded through my body with every heartbeat, every breath. “I hate you,” I choked out.
“As if I didn’t know,” Thane retorted coldly. “Now let’s go.”
I drew my knees to my chest and locked my hands together around them. “You can go to hell.” I glared up at him. “I’m not entering that lab.”
His face sharpened into jagged angles of rage and hatred before he smoothed it back. “Yes, you are.”
“You’ll have to brainwash me.” Help me, I thought to Trek, desperately hoping he’d been the one who’d assisted me earlier.
Thane leaned down, closer and closer, until his face hovered only inches from mine. “I need this, Raine. Please.”
I closed my eyes against the fire in his.
* * *
I woke up strapped to the ergonomic in the lab. The only sound was air forcing its way through vents in the ceiling. I smelled nothing but pasty perma-plaster and metallic tech.
When my vision cleared, I found the lab empty. No EOs standing guard along the wall. No doctors prepping me. Panic boiled in my stomach, working its way up my throat to my mouth. I swallowed hard but couldn’t help vomiting down my front.
That didn’t help the stench in the room. Being in the lab alone was infinitely worse than being surrounded by physicians. Where was Thane? Who did he need me to drain in the dead of night? Where was my father?
“Hey!” I wanted them to know I was awake. “What’s going on? Where are you?” I shouted myself hoarse before Thane appeared again.
He entered the room from the back, where the doctors usually congregate. He strode forward, each step full of purpose and self-confidence. I expected a team of physicians to follow him, but they didn’t.
The only person who did follow Thane made my skin tingle, and not in a good way. His was tanned deeply. He walked forward stiffly, as if his whole body hurt from the movement. He didn’t glance right or left but simply stared straight at me with icy-blue eyes.
His mouth had been secured with, get this, tape. Tape. So low class. As if the six silencers (three on each side of his jaw) couldn’t keep him from speaking.
My eyes lingered on his dark, matted hair before returning to his familiar face. I recognized him. When I remembered how I knew him, a strangled sob caught in my throat. I shook my head and helpless tears splashed my cheeks. “No,” I sobbed. “No, please, no.”
“Stop it, Raine,” Thane commanded. He eyed the sick all down the front of my shirt, puddling in my lap. “I’ll take care of that.”
The kind words didn’t make sense, not coming from Thane. But I didn’t have the energy to answer as he secured the leader of the Resistance to the table. Still, the guy looked at me, forever looked at me. I couldn’t escape that penetrating gaze of his.
“There you go, Jag,” Thane coddled, like he would to a toddler. “Just lie nice and still now.”
I can’t drain Jag Barque, I thought. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
Help me, I pleaded to Trek, to anyone listening. Someone had offered assistance before, why not now?
Only silence answered as Thane reached for my gloveless hand.
Gunner
15.
I ran faster than I ever had in my life, each footstep filled with guilt. You left her, you left her echoed in my head. Trek’s voice also bounced around in there. At least I thought it was Trek. He’d warned us about the EOs the night I’d left home, with the exact same words. His voice had sounded slightly off, but that could’ve been because of an encoded cache.
I hated that he was in my head, monitoring my activity, when all I wanted was a little time alone with Raine. Our meeting tonight had nothing to do with Insider business.
Everything has to do with Insider business. Now the voice sounded warped, half-high and half-low. You should try to be a little quieter, it warned.
Crimson spider eyes awakened in each doorway I passed. I didn’t care. Ignoring Trek, I didn’t try to be quieter, didn’t care who saw, listened, knew.
They all knew anyway. Someone had a record of every breath I took. I didn’t believe for a single second that Zenn and I could sneak out at midnight, toned faces or not. Just the fact that the window had been opened was recorded, monitored, corrected.
Zenn didn’t normally shower in the
wee hours of the morning. That would be investigated too. He would probably even get cited for it. Except Zenn didn’t seem to receive citations for anything. Not the mountain of toast he ate every day or the casual way he rolled his sleeves up.
So I wasn’t all that surprised when I burst into our flat to find him awake and dressed—in all black. He sat in an ergonomic reading on his e-board.
“Raine,” I panted. “Let’s fly.”
Without a word, Zenn abandoned his e-board in favor of his hoverboard. We launched from the balcony and set our sights on Rise One. Below me, I imagined alarms wailing and the scuttle of a thousand seeker-spider legs cobbling against the cement. But flying through the sky, all I heard was the wind whispering Coward in my ears.
Every second seemed to hold that word, weigh it, toss it back in my face. Even the brine in the air assaulted my nose with the smell of shame.
As I sliced through the night, I didn’t have a single thought that belonged to me. My mom’s last words—“I love you”—haunted me. Raine’s sadness still lingered in my nerves. When she’d said “I’m sorry” about my dad—
EOs en route to Rise One, Trek said. Raine’s there, in—
“Lab seven.” Zenn’s spoken voice sounded so foreign against Trek’s weird reverberations in my head.
I leapt off my board while it still hovered a few feet above the ground. “Half size. Follow.” I didn’t wait for the board to collapse before I stepped up to the front door of Rise One.
Tech vibrated under my skin, rattled in my teeth. A moment later the glass door slid to the side, allowing Zenn and me to enter the shiny foyer.
I strode past the gleaming-with-moonlight carpets and never-been-touched couches. The glowing ascender boxes in the back of the foyer provided an eerie backdrop to our breaking and entering.
From the barely lit hallway beyond the foyer, someone came forward. Their footsteps landed heavily, and Zenn shot me a look. A clone emerged into the light, his head cocked to the side. “Hello. State your business, please.”
“You didn’t see us,” Zenn said, his voice strong and powerful. “Go back to your station. Do not log this encounter.”
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