“Do you like it?”
“Well, it does get right to the point.” I peek up. His smile is wide, and the hot flash climbs out of my chest and starts to heat my face. I do my best to ignore it. “In any event, your chat-cast should have jackers streaming into Jackertown by the weekend.”
His smile dims. “Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know. Jackers have been hiding for so long. There are so many who think it’s better to rook as a mindreader than to come out as a jacker, much less sign up for a revolution.”
“Okay, so maybe not by the weekend. But soon.” I stop fidgeting with the edge of the desk and look up into his clear blue eyes. “They don’t have to be geniuses to figure it out, even on their own. Senator Vellus’s anti-jacker rhetoric gets more vile every day.”
Julian leans in, closer than I’m comfortable with, but I try not to show it. “Which is why I need you on the chat-cast, keeper. Jackers know you.”
“They hate me.” There are plenty of jackers, like Sasha, who would be happy to get a kill jack on me for exposing the underworld of jackers for all the world to see. And fear.
“They respect you,” he says, eyes sparkling. “Even the ones who would rather stay hidden.”
Julian is half-demens if he believes that. “They’re not going to sign up for your revolution just because I’m part of it. And besides… I just got here. Vellus is still expecting me to do his chat-cast. You know, the one he forced me to agree to and that I skipped town to avoid? I’d be surprised if he doesn’t already have an all-points bulletin out for me. I’d be putting your new Jacker Freedom Alliance in jeopardy if I got on the casts and bragged about being part of the revolution.” I pause. Being this close to him is making my heart pound. I try to breathe in and out, calming it down. It annoys me to no end that he’s making me literally breathless.
“The chat-casts are important, keeper,” he says softly. “If they don’t work, if I fail to bring jackers together… I meant what I said about not being able to do this alone.”
“You’re not alone,” I say. “You’ve already got a dozen jackers willing to give their lives for the cause.” I fling my hand out, gesturing to the headquarters beyond the tiny chat-cast room.
His eyes bore into mine, like he’s trying to decide if I include myself in that list. If I would give my life for his cause. I don’t want to admit that it’s practically all I’m living for right now. I drop my gaze back to the desk. “More jackers will come. I’m sure of it.”
“I need your help to make that happen.”
“I’ll help any way I can,” I say, avoiding his gaze. “Just not on the chat-cast.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I’m forced to drag my gaze away from the invisible swirls of non-slip surface and back to his entirely-too-close face.
“You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” he asks. “From when I…” He swallows. “…manipulated your instincts.”
And there it is. My face is on fire with embarrassment, but I force myself not to shrink away. Is it obvious? Can he tell that it keeps surging back again and again? “Yeah, well… I am kind of wishing that didn’t happen.”
“I’m sorry, keeper,” he says, and I know he means it. Making him feel bad about it, especially with all his other worries, just makes me cringe. Then I wonder if that’s the instinctual thing flaring back again.
I take a deep breath and let it out slow. This is so messed up.
I shrug. “Hey, it’s over and done with now.” I wish. At this point, I’m just hoping it will fade with time. The last thing I want is him to know it’s still bothering me. He might want to get back inside my head to fix it, and there’s no way that’s happening. Not with the mess that’s in there.
“I’m hoping you won’t hold it against me forever,” he says. “I’d like us to be… friends.”
“Friends?” The hot flash part of me shrinks a little, disappointed that he doesn’t want more than that. At the same time, I’m glad to see it go. It gives me a surge of hope that the hot flashes might get starved out of existence by being explicitly “friends” with Julian. “What exactly would that entail?”
He smiles. “Well, you’d have to tell me when I’m about to do something stupid.”
I smirk and point a chastising finger at him. “It’s stupid to have me on the chat-casts.”
“I didn’t think that part would be hard for you.”
“You’re also stupid for not having me on the mission,” I add.
That kills his smile. “I don’t need you on the mission.”
“Yes, you do.” My voice hikes up. “I can jack farther than anyone you’ve got.”
“We won’t need extended reach once we’re inside.”
“I can fight off the gas.” My words speed up.
“We have the adrenaline patches for that.”
“I’ve… I’ve got a new skill.” I swallow, the words out before I could stop them. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tell him this yet, but it might convince him to put me on the roster.
His eyebrows hike up. “A new skill. You realize that coming from anyone else, I wouldn’t believe that unless I saw it with my own eyes. But with you… well, you’ve already got a wider range of jacking skills than anyone I know.” He’s watching me keenly now.
“You know the adrenaline you have in those patches?”
He nods.
“I can trigger it. The release of the adrenaline. Without the patch.”
“You mean, trigger its release into your own bloodstream? You can mentally command that?” He absently taps his finger against his lips with that fascinated-professor look he often gets when he’s diving into the details of jacking. “How does that work exactly?”
“It’s… complicated.” It’s not that I don’t want to explain. But I’m not really sure how to describe the spaghetti mess in my head without sounding slightly demens. “But now that I know how to do it to myself, I’m sure, with practice, I could trigger it in someone else as well. Just like I can help them fight off the gas.” It should be simple enough. I haven’t actually done it yet, but…
“That’s very intriguing,” he says. “We’ll definitely have to explore that further. It could be useful in later missions.”
No, no, no. “I could use it on this mission. It’s not too late. I could train—”
He cuts me off with a severe look. “No.”
I want to reach out and shake him. “I can’t go on the chat-casts, but I can do this. This is how I can help the cause.”
“No.” The set of his mouth and the hardness in his eyes makes my stomach clench. If I keep pushing him, he’ll only dig in deeper. I know him well enough to know this is true. I try to rein in the urge smack some sense into him.
“Don’t you think this Friend-in-Chief thing should come with a few perks?” I ask, trying to lighten things up. “Like, say, a special pass for one free mission of my choice.”
“No.” He scowls. Digging in.
“Julian… please.” I’m begging. Gazing up at him, looking pathetic. I don’t care. It works a little. I can see the determination weaken. I look deep into his eyes. “I need this.”
His face softens. “Which is precisely why I can’t let you go, keeper.”
Can’t? Or won’t? I bite back the words before they can spill out.
He looks at me almost tenderly. “Being my friend also means forgiving me when I can’t give you the things you want.”
Disappointment leaks out of me in a long sigh. “This is starting to sound like a pretty lousy job.”
“It probably is.” He drops his gaze to the floor, and I can’t stand it. I don’t know if it’s the left-over instinctual response or just common, human decency, but it makes my heart ache. The boy has the weight of creating a future for jackers on his shoulders, and I’m harassing him about a mission he’s determined not to send me on, for whatever misguided reason. He looks like he really does need a friend, and I’m being anything but.
“Well,” I say, trying
to put some cheer back in my voice. “I hope the perks get better as time goes on. Sasha’s too surly to be your Friend-in-Chief anyway.”
He peers at me. “Sasha’s not afraid to tell me what mistakes I’m making either.”
“Well, at least there’s that.”
The heaviness seems to lift from his shoulders. Relief trickles through me. I can’t afford for Julian to be angry with me… at least not until after the mission. Until I’m sure Kestrel has paid for what he’s done.
Besides, Julian has just inadvertently given me two insights: he needs an indisputable reason for me to be on the mission, and I need Sasha to tell Julian he’s making a mistake in leaving me home.
I shrug on a white jacket and put up the hood, letting it hang over my face. It’s not cold out—the crisp fall air and turning leaves of Chicago New Metro are still weeks away—but I don’t want to be too easily identified going for a run through the streets of Jackertown. Just in case one of the less-friendly clans decides to respect me into an early grave. Julian may not want to believe it, but there are jackers who would take their chances on angering him and his mages to have a shot at Kira Moore, Revealer of Jackers Everywhere.
Sasha gestures to my hoodie. “Are we going on a covert op that Julian’s forgotten to tell me about?”
“No, just a run,” I say. “I appreciate you going along for backup, though. I haven’t had a good run for weeks.”
“Not a problem.” He tightens the strap on his running shoes and seems to buy my excuse to get him alone and away from headquarters for my little demonstration. Following Julian’s chat-cast, I spent the better part of the afternoon practicing in secret: triggering the adrenaline; seeing how much I could dose and what it would do; surreptitiously lifting excessively heavy door manufacturing equipment in the back of HQ. I only hope it will be sufficiently impressive to Sasha.
He straightens up from his shoes. “I doubt Julian would let you go alone, anyway.”
“Did you tell him we’re going out?” We’re lingering by the front door, and it’s after dinner, so the kitchen is vacant. I cast a look down the length of Julian’s cavernous converted door factory. Metal racks-turned-bunks fill the center and grease-crusted, ancient machinery line the edges, but Julian is nowhere to be seen.
“Why? Are you avoiding him?” Sasha’s eyes are dark, almost black, like wells that dive deep into his soul. Sometimes they seem empty and sometimes they seem to see right through me.
“You know how he is,” I say, quickly. “Let’s go.”
Sasha’s dark eyebrows draw together, but he pulls open the front door for us, and I dart outside. I jog in place, warming up, until he secures the door, then we take off down the main drag in front of the mages’ headquarters. Jackertown is small—only a half-mile square of occupied buildings at this point—but it’s growing fast.
I reach out mentally to nudge against Sasha’s mind barrier, to let him know I want to mind-link rather than talk aloud. I’ve never linked into his head before, so I’m taking a chance in even asking with that gentle push. From the way Ava talks, that’s not something he normally does. But after a moment of surprise, he slowly lets me in. His mindscent is a wild mix of a hundred different flavors. I can’t pin down any single one of them.
Wow, you’re mindscent is… unique. That thought wasn’t the first one I was planning on linking to him, but I’m startled by the sensation. It’s like swimming in bath filled with a thousand different teas. Or maybe wandering into a perfume factory.
Every soul I scribe leaves a residue, he thinks.
Really? I link to him. So, it’s like you still have a piece of them with you? I’m stunned. I can’t imagine carrying around a reminder of every mind I’ve jacked.
Something like that. He gives me a sideways look as we cross a street, keeping to the sidewalks as we jog past boarded-up brownstones intermixed with occupied ones. I can sense the minds inside, tracking us as we go past. So did you bring me out here to learn more about scribing? His thoughts are tinged with the bittersweetness of sarcasm.
No, I link back. Actually, I wanted to show you something.
He glances at me, waiting for me to continue. We turn a corner and start running the perimeter of Jackertown. It looks the same, except all the buildings are boarded up and there’s no one in sight. Even the occasional wandering demens have learned to keep their distance from Jackertown. In the distance, the lights of downtown Chicago are starting to come on, sparkling in the darkening sky.
I pull back out of his head and say, “It will take me a minute to get ready.”
He frowns but doesn’t say anything, just keeps pace with me as our shoes slap a rhythm on the grime-covered sidewalks. The steady in-and-out of my breathing works to focus my mind quickly, and I dive deep inside it, searching through the spaghetti mess for the string that leads to my adrenaline release center. My heart is already pounding, but when I pluck the string and dose myself, I don’t hold back… and it makes my heart feels like it’s going to break my ribs on its way out of my chest.
I pull ahead of Sasha, even though I don’t mean to—I’m trying to keep the energy pouring into my muscles leashed until I’m ready to release it. Just as Sasha steps up the pace to match, I let it go.
And then I’m running on air, sprinting ahead like I’ve got rockets for sneakers. I dash a full block in front of him before grabbing a light post to pivot around. I swing too far, spinning full circle, so I decide to climb it instead. I’m halfway up before I look back down. Sasha’s staring at me gap-mouthed. Suddenly, my muscles are jittery and weak. I’m not sure I can keep hold of the pole much longer, so I shimmy down and leap before I can fall. My muscles are like rubber—I rebound from the sidewalk and start running toward him. I reach deep inside my head and turn off the adrenaline. I’m not sure what would happen if I kept pouring that much into my bloodstream, but I don’t need it anymore.
The wide-eyed look on Sasha’s face is all I need.
When he catches up to me, he’s winded. He curls his hand, beckoning me back into his head so we can talk. I mentally scan the area—there are no hidden clan members within earshot—but I link into Sasha’s head anyway.
What was that all about? His eyes are narrowed, and while he’s still catching his breath, I’ve got his full attention.
Adrenaline. I figured out how to dose myself.
And you brought me out here to show me this because… why? You don’t want Julian to know? A frown is carving deep into his forehead.
I throw my hands out, and I can feel my pulse still pounding through them. I told Julian, but he doesn’t get it. Just think what I could do with this, Sasha.
Run away fast? The sarcasm is back, but I can sense his thoughts ricocheting around in his head. He’s imagining tricky scenarios where a little extra burst of speed could come in very handy. Where it would have come in handy the first time, when Kestrel got away.
I try to keep my excitement at bay. Disable a guard before he knows I’m there? Carry someone I normally couldn’t? Even if you scribe half the staff, you can’t get them all. Who knows what new anti-jacker tech they’re going to have this time? This adrenaline dosing does more than the patches. It’s better than just fighting off the gas. And I can do more than just make myself freakishly hyped and strong. I can dose other people, too. Lots of other people. That might be a stretch, since I haven’t even dosed one person yet. But it should work. In theory.
You can? His thoughts show he hadn’t gotten that far with it yet, but it vaguely horrifies him.
Yes. I’d suggest trying it on him, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea, given his reaction. Here’s the thing. This mission to break into Kestrel’s prison and liberate the changelings… it’s important.
I know.
And Julian’s not going to let me go.
He frowns. He has his reasons.
Not good ones. My leg starts to tap with the excess energy still boiling off. Think about it: Julian needs something to brin
g jackers together. Liberating the changelings and the other jackers Kestrel’s tormenting will do that and getting Kestrel will seal the deal. It’ll show we have the ability to change things. If we don’t use every jacker talent we have at our disposal, and we end up failing… it will have the opposite effect. People will see us as weak. They won’t believe anything Julian says after that.
The idea of losing Kestrel keeps me awake at night, but I can’t even think about what it would be like if Julian’s revolution never got out of its infancy. It makes a shiver crawl up my back, and I have to start pacing back and forth on the broken sidewalk, clenching my fists.
You’re right, Sasha thinks. We need this mission to succeed.
I stop and turn to him. Exactly! I can’t tell if it’s the excess adrenaline or relief that’s making my hands quiver, but I prop them on my hips to keep it from showing. You need to convince him to let me go, Sasha.
He shakes his head. I could tell Julian you’ve suddenly discovered how to teleport, and he’s not going to change his mind. He’s not worried about missing out on your unique talents. He’s worried about you getting hurt. You need to prove to him you’re not going to. In front of a crowd. Make it obvious that he’s worried for no reason. Otherwise… let’s just say, I don’t think he’ll put you at risk unless he’s forced to.
I’m nodding with his thoughts. What do you have in mind?
He nudges me out of his head, and I reluctantly pull back. “Has Anna ever given you lessons in how to fight with a knife?”
My eyes go wide, and I swallow. I slowly shake my head.
He just smirks.
“Knife training?” Anna looks me over like she thinks I might have a head wound. “I thought we might cover some close combat skills first.” She gives an even more concerned look to Sasha standing next to me, like she thinks he’s setting me up.
Which he is, in a way.
“Sasha just mentioned it,” I lie. “It was my idea. I was thinking about what you said about fear being my friend. Knife training sounds pretty scary, so…”
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