I pressed into the alley-shadows. Who’s there?
No names, the guy said. Come farther down the alley.
The way he said no names reminded me of Raine and our Insider rules in Freedom. I strode down the alley, tech itching beneath my skin, making my fingers tingle.
At the corner a man a few years older than me loitered against the building. He wore knee-high boots of black leather with large silver grommets and bulky laces over his jeans. His jacket covered obviously bony shoulders and zipped all the way to his nose.
His eyes shone bright green in the navy darkness. A Thinker. Or at least someone who wasn’t brainwashed.
You’re not from Castledale, are you? he asked.
No.
You need a hoverboard, right?
Yes. I kept my answers as short as possible.
I don’t know you, the guy said, and I thought I knew all the runners.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t know him either, and I had no idea what runners were.
I’m from Freedom, I thought, taking a chance. And I’m not a runner.
Those green, green eyes searched me, and I swear they saw beneath my skin. Who’s your handler? The one who communicates outside the city?
No names, I thought back.
The man grinned, not that I could see his mouth. But the crinkles around his eyes made the gesture apparent.
But it’s been a long trek, I thought.
The man snapped his fingers, gestured for someone/something to come from around the corner.
A hoverboard appeared. I held my breath, flicking my gaze from him to the board, him, the board. He held out a bottle of water. I took it before mounting the craft, bowing my head in thanks.
Your destination should be the Goodgrounds, the man said. I’ll alert your handler of your journey.
Super, I thought. I imagined Trek and the grim look he’d have when he got that message. He wouldn’t waste a smile on me, even if it was great news that I’d escaped the city. What did Starr see in him, anyway?
Travel safe, the man said, yanking me from the thoughts of Trek and Starr. He put his hand on the board before I lifted off. His eyes blazed with a need so strong I couldn’t look away.
Remember, we’re here. And we’re ready.
* * *
By midday I’d probably relived the weird convo in the alley of Castledale—a city on my father’s list twice—a dozen times. I wondered if Jag had left me the message about the Goodgrounds, or if Trek was still assisting me this far from Freedom. I knew he’d get the message from Castledale to Zenn. Hopefully it would help ease Raine’s worry. I switched my thoughts to her and what she might be doing.
I thought five days had passed; it must be Friday. She’d probably be sitting in genetics class, ignoring the Educator and plotting her Insider agenda for the weekend.
Starr and I should be participating in our “mandatory free time” later today. Part of me actually wondered what that might entail. A bigger part wouldn’t go back to Freedom for anything.
Not even Starr? Or Raine? I thought, and I seriously couldn’t answer. The clouds morphed into each girl’s accusatory expression as I sailed through the sky.
By evening I wished I’d asked the guy in Castledale for food before jumping on the hoverboard. The water was great and all, but not super life sustaining. I probably should’ve asked for a map too. A grid. Something.
Though the borrowed hoverboard vibrated, I kept it flying all night. I slept on and off, half-awake when asleep and half-asleep when awake. I wasn’t sure if the things I thought/saw/felt were real or not. Sometimes I felt like I’d just eaten a large celebratory meal. Other times my stomach cramped and complained for food.
I alternated between hot and cold, alive and dead, moving and standing still.
I thought I was more awake than asleep when the sun rose. A city glinted under the morning rays. Tall buildings, like the ones in Freedom, blanketed the southern part of the land.
Strong messages entered my mind. Everything had the word “good” in it.
Good Citizens don’t go out after dark.
For the good of all, Citizens must labor in their appointed occupations.
Keep the blinds drawn; sunlight damages delicate Goodie skin.
The hoverboard shook now, the whine a constant annoyance. I saw two of everything on the horizon. I blinked, but the images stayed dual.
I tried swallowing, but my throat stuck together and I ended up coughing. When I heard Thane’s voice say, Unauthorized teleporter use is unbecoming a good Citizen, I choked.
Could Thane have gotten here ahead of me? How long had I been asleep in Castledale?
I didn’t hear his voice again, and I couldn’t even be sure I’d heard it the first time. Shadows covered my vision, then the brightest light I’d ever seen blinded me.
I saw Raine’s face, all curves and soft lips. She said my name, kissed me good-bye. Then Starr crossed my line of sight, her cheekbones as sharp as her eyes. “You’re mine,” she said before disappearing.
My mom swam before me. And in my hallucination I pictured her standing next to my dad. I placed his flecked eyes and long nose, then invented his hair, his height, taking pieces of myself and inserting them into someone my mom loved.
The sun burned so hot. My throat hurt so bad.
The hoverboard quit.
“Glide,” I rasped out, seeing nothing but forest under me. I had a half second to wonder how much damage trees could do before I crashed into one. I fell. Branches attacked my body until at last, I landed on solid ground.
Still, I breathed. Frost covered the forest floor, melted into my jeans.
Hands clawed at me. I opened my eyes and saw that golden ring Thane always wore. His fingers tightened around my throat.
“Get him in here,” he said.
Raine
36.
Minutes Hours Days A lifetime later the sound of voices pulled me back to the state of nearly awake. My father sounded close, then far, far, then close. Vi’s voice stayed in one place—away, probably near the bathroom or the doorway into the living area.
She didn’t sound afraid.
Dad sounded angry, but in a seething-under-the-surface kind of way. (I was pretty familiar with this level of fury from him.)
I listened to the come and go of their voices. But when Vi said, “We know there’s nothing dangerous past that wall, Director,” I pushed toward the surface. What was she doing? Didn’t she know she needed to pretend to be Brainwashed Vi around my dad?
And no way could I leave Freedom. The mere thought of it terrified me, especially now that I remembered what had happened to my mom when she dared to think about it.
And then what I’d done to Assistant Director Gage Walker.
Despair threatened to drag me back down into a hole so deep I would never be fully awake again. I’d lost much more than a mother that day. I’d lost a father too. He’d just brainwashed me so I wouldn’t remember.
I remembered now.
“You came from beyond that wall, Violet,” my dad said. He didn’t even try to conceal the venom in his tone.
“Exactly.”
I imagined them squared off, Vi with her arms folded and an expression of don’t mess with me etched on her face. Dad would be towering, looking down his nose at her, his hands loose and casual, but the jumping muscle in his jaw telling a different story.
When I finally managed to break through the thick water and open my eyes, that’s exactly what I saw.
I mumbled something incoherent. Vi pushed past my dad and came to my bedside. “Raine, don’t talk, okay? Everything’s fine.”
But everything wasn’t fine. I could never leave Freedom. I knew it, felt it as surely as I felt the hot tears gathering in my eyes.
She placed one long finger on my lips, silencing me and breaking protocol in front of my father. “Just play along.”
I nodded, hoping I’d know what to say—and when to say it—to make it t
hrough this act.
Vi gave me a tiny nod before she stood and faced my father. “She’s agreed to conform.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I heard the triumph in her voice.
“I told you I could do it,” she said next, and I felt like she’d gone shady on me.
Zenn leaned in the doorway of my bedroom, capturing me with his eyes. I wanted to leap out of bed and rage at him. Seeing him here in my flat combined with Vi saying she “could do it,” and everything I thought I knew splintered.
Suddenly I remembered something I’d heard in what felt like a different lifetime.
Don’t believe everything you hear, okay? Those were probably Cash’s last words after he’d defied my father, sabotaged the army of embryos in the Evolutionary Rise, and then got his innermost thoughts splashed across a p-screen.
How could I decide what to believe and what to discard?
“She needs to get cleaned up,” Vi said. “Don’t worry. I’m in control here.”
Dad said, “Fifteen minutes,” and left the bedroom with Zenn. The door hadn’t completely closed, and I hadn’t moved, before Vi flew into action.
“Come on, Raine. Shower.” She pulled me from bed and supported me as we shuffled into the bathroom. She started the water and began pawing at my pajamas.
I slapped her hands away. “I can manage.” I glared at her, unsure of where we stood. I mean, she was “in control here.”
“This is the only secure place right now,” she said, so softly that the words didn’t echo off the tiled walls. “Bathrooms are unmonitored while in use.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Zenn.” Her eyes burned with a life I’d never seen before. “Listen, Gunn and Jag got away, but from what we were able to glean from Zenn’s medicated mind, Jag’s hurt. And Gunn has nothing but a hoverboard. Thane returned with their backpack of supplies and an extra board. You’ve been asleep for four days, and I’ve been attending Insider meetings every night.” She spoke so fast, I could barely keep up.
Gunn has nothing looped in my head.
“Wait,” I said. “Insider meetings every night? Not just on the weekends?”
“Every night. The government is in complete chaos. We’re taking full advantage by setting off the barrier alarm each evening.” She grinned and pointed at the streaming water. “You’re losing your shower time.”
I undressed quickly and stepped into the shower as the alerts came up in my cache. Every night the barrier breach message had been sent out. “Keep talking.”
“We don’t have time to discuss Insider stuff right now. You need to act like you’re repentant. On your dad’s side. Brainwashed. Can you do that?”
As I scrubbed my hair, I thought about it. I wasn’t sure how much of an act it would be. I didn’t want to leave Freedom. I didn’t want to die the way my mother had. I didn’t want to give my dad any reason to make me drain Cannon—or anyone else—and then claim he’d “protect me” when I killed them.
The water turned off, and Vi held up a towel for me. “Well?”
“I can do that,” I said, my throat tight and my voice hardly my own.
Vi scrutinized me, her all-knowing gaze as frightening as my father’s. “You have great power here, Raine. You know so much about your dad and how he runs this city. We need your strength to survive.”
She wasn’t a Seer; her voice didn’t go all freaky when she said it. But her words still rang true in my heart.
I didn’t know if I could be strong enough to help anyone survive. I didn’t even know if I could help myself.
I mean, I never had before.
* * *
Precisely fifteen minutes after my father marched out of my room, a knock rattled my bedroom door. “Let’s go, Raine,” he said through the metal.
Vi pulled the enhancer through my hair one more time, dyeing the last strand the color of fresh snow. “Go on. Good luck.”
She hugged me before I left, triggering a flash of memory.
My mom hugs me, hugs me hard. I’m tiny, hardly up to her waist, but I cling to her, somehow knowing that this is something important.
“You’re five years old now, Raine. A big girl.” She wipes tears from her eyes. “You’ll have new transmissions tonight, and if you have any questions, you must ask me in secret, okay?”
“Secret?” The word sits on my tongue strangely. There are no secrets in Freedom. Daddy is always watching. Daddy knows everything.
“We can talk near the food-dispenser or in the bathing chamber, okay?” Her eyes radiate the same urgency as her voice.
I nod. “Okay.”
That night my transmissions are brand-new, and they loop through, Touching is against protocol for anyone who is unmatched, over and over again.
I never approach my mom about the new message. I never hug my mother again—until the day she dies.
* * *
Enforcement Officers escorted me up to my father’s office. The door hissed open and sealed shut, adding to my anxiety. With the break in my brainwashing block, so many memories were surfacing. Things that had long been hidden from me.
Four e-boards pulsed with green and blue screens, sending colored patterns onto the glass where my father stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
I slunk into the ergonomic across from his desk, partly playing my role, but mostly scared out of my mind.
“How are you, daughter?” My dad pulled the curtains closed, turned from the windows, and settled into his desk chair. He glanced at the e-boards before powering down two of them.
“Fine. Tired, maybe.”
He half-looked at me, his eyes hooded and dark. “You’ve been asleep for days. Surely you’re not tired.”
“No, I’m not tired,” I said automatically. Too fast. He’d compelled me.
He proceeded to grill me with questions from, “When is Cannon’s birthday?” (August 4) to “How are your marks in ancient civilizations?” (uncomplimentary), and then “Have you ever unclipped your cache from the transmission portal at night?” (I hesitated the longest on that one before I admitted that I had).
I didn’t know if I passed the session or not, but Dad dismissed me back to my flat unescorted. Vi and Zenn weren’t there, but they’d left a microchip on my pillow. When I plugged it into my port, a single message flashed across my vision-screen.
Tonight: your father’s office. Get as much info as you can on your mother and Gage Walker.
I destroyed the chip thinking, Sure, no problem, even though I had no idea how to get into his office or find the files or pretty much anything else.
Gunner
37.
I only woke up because my stomach was severely pissed that I hadn’t eaten yet. My head hurt in at least four places, and I couldn’t hear out of my right ear.
The room I lay in had no heat. A single tech unit poured light from the ceiling. The wind whistled along the wall where I lay. I forced myself to my elbows and then into a sitting position. My muscles didn’t like the movement and told me so.
I scanned the surrounding walls for an exit. There wasn’t one. That launched me into a standing position, adrenaline pumping through my veins.
“Let me out!” I slapped the wall closest to me, which curved in a twisted rocky smile until it met another one. This wall wasn’t made of rock, but sounded the same. Solid, caging.
The only thing in the room besides me was the ratty blanket I’d woken up with. I sat on it, pressed my back into the curve of the wall, concentrated on finding the emotions of the closest person. Immediately a buzz of nervousness filtered through the not-made-of-rock wall.
I got up, strode over to it. I pounded. “I know you’re there! Let me out!”
Not five seconds later a snick! filled the room and a panel lifted from the wall.
A girl walked in, her hair the brightest pink I’d ever seen. Her holy-bare skin stretched from her shoulder to the tips of her fingers in a smooth cocoa color. She should’ve been freez
ing, but she simply regarded me with steely eyes the color of coal.
“Who are you?” I barked.
She swept her gaze from my messy hair to my shoeless feet. Which reminded me…
“Where’s my stuff?” I fingered the loose shirt. The fabric felt foreign, too light. And the color of oatmeal definitely wasn’t my favorite. At least I still had my own jeans. I dug in the pocket and sighed when I felt the microchip Starr had given me.
“You’re the one Jag left in Castledale, aren’t you?” Her words made me take a step back.
“How do you know about Jag?” I asked.
Something weird crossed her face. “How did Jag get busted up?” An even weirder quality hid in her voice. Almost like she had a thing for Jag.
The fact that neither of us was answering questions wasn’t lost on me. “Okay, fine. I’ll go first.” I ran my hands over my face, through my hair. “I’m Gunner Jameson. Jag was with me, but Zenn tased him as we were leaving Freedom. I did what I could, but all I had was med-gel. We stopped in Castledale to power up and rest. When I woke up, Jag was gone.”
She took the information without flinching, without any reaction at all. And she didn’t offer an explanation for where I was, who she was, or anything. “And I swear Thane Myers was the one who captured me.” I glanced over her shoulder to the seamless wall. “He’s not out there, is he?”
“No,” she said, like I was just supposed to accept her at her word. “I found you.”
I must’ve been hallucinating, because this girl didn’t look or sound like Thane. “So?” I asked. “Your turn.”
She scowled at me. “I’m Indy. I’ve been running the Resistance since Jag went missing ten months ago. This is our forest hideout in the Goodgrounds, and it’s actually safer here than in the Badlands these days.”
Indy! I almost sank to my knees in relief. “I’ve been looking for you.”
If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Why are you looking for me?”
“You have a journal I need. My father’s journal.”
She looked away before quickly refocusing her gaze on me. An unsettling feeling crept back into my muscles. “You do have a journal, right?”
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