She paused, and before she could think of how to speak the thoughts running through her mind without being unnecessarily cruel, Jared interjected. “But?”
“But I don’t know. You hurt me. Part of it was the Project, the compound, Ryku, what happened to Mei. All of it. And then a lot if it was me. But it’s all wrapped up around you, and I just don’t know if I can give you another chance. Not the way you’re asking. It’s not fair, and you deserve better. But I don’t know.”
“Would you at least be willing to try?”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I really just don’t know right now.”
“I understand. Thank you for being honest.”
There was no malice in his voice, but she wished she could give him a better answer, a real answer. “Look, I’m glad you’re okay, and part of me is unbelievably happy you’re here. There’s just a lot going on, and I need to take care of him first.” She looked at Tripp in the other bed and took a few seconds to watch the rise and fall of his chest. Still breathing normally. That was a good sign.
“You should get some rest,” said Jared.
Zira shook her head. “I think I’ll stay up a while longer, just to make sure he’s okay.” In prison, she’d overheard too many stories about people who had gone to sleep after using heroin and never woke up again. Tripp seemed to be doing all right, and she suspected he just needed time for the drug to wear off, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
“I can stay up with him, if you want.”
“No, but maybe you could stay with him tomorrow? I’m supposed to report to my parole officer back in the South Atlantic region, and it’s a long bus ride. If I don’t show up, they can arrest me.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
“Thanks.” She stood up and switched on the lamp in the corner before turning off the overhead lights. “Go ahead and take the bed. I’ll wake you up before I have to leave.”
He moved to the bed and removed his shoes and jacket, then stretched out on top of the covers. Zira settled into a comfortable position on the couch.
“Hey, Zira?” he said, staring up at the ceiling.
“Yeah?”
“What do you want from me?”
She thought about it for a moment. “This is going to sound silly after everything else I said, but since we’re being honest with each other, I think what I really want is for us to be friends again.”
Jared closed his eyes. “I think we can manage that.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Zira. Zira, wake up.”
Her eyes flew open as she jerked her head up. She sat on the couch in the same position as before, but the sky outside was now tinged with a faint gray light. She must have dozed off at some point. She yawned and looked to Tripp’s sleeping form on the farthest bed.
“He’s okay,” Jared said. “Heartrate and breathing seem normal.”
She nodded. “What time is it?”
“Five in the morning. I just woke up. I wasn’t sure when you needed to leave.”
She stretched her legs and arms out in front of her and yawed. “Probably in about an hour. I should get ready.”
“I’ll go see if I can find us some breakfast.”
When he left the room, Zira checked Tripp’s vitals herself for personal reassurance. He seemed to be doing okay for now, though when he woke up and started craving more heroin, that could change. Beyond providing emotional support, she wasn’t sure how to make the withdrawal process easier for him.
She took a shower and changed back into the clothes she’d worn yesterday—the same ones she’d been wearing when the rebels took the compound, which had been returned to her upon her release from prison. They were in desperate need of a wash. She’d meant to find something more presentable to wear to her meeting with her parole officer, but there wasn’t any time now. She combed her fingers through her hair and let it fall free over her shoulders, then left the bathroom.
Jared sat on the couch eating a bagel. He handed her one along with a bottle of water and some cash. She took the food and water but not the money.
He raised an eyebrow, still holding the bills out to her. “What are you going to do about bus fare?”
She’d used what little money Tripp had put in her commissary account on his last visit to pay for the bus ride here, and even then, Jared had had to cover part of the expense. He kept saying he didn’t mind, but she did. The lack of independence made her feel like a part of her was still stuck in her cell. “I’ll figure something out,” she muttered.
“Don’t be stubborn. Just take it.”
She tried to ignore her stinging pride as she took the money and stuck it in her back pocket. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
She broke a piece off her bagel as she sat down beside him. “How did you end up with money anyway?”
“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She hadn’t been, though now that he’d brought it up, the possibility that he’d been driven to do other disreputable things to survive as a fugitive wasn’t out of the question. “I just meant you couldn’t have had a normal job.”
He nodded. “I stole food for a little while, just in the beginning. After a few weeks, I found a job working security for a smuggling operation on the west coast. They said my skills were more valuable to them than the reward they could have collected for turning me in.”
“Smuggling what?”
“I never knew for sure, but I don’t think it was anything too bad. When the Republic announced they were going to allow foreign trade and travel, my employers were able to move their dealings to legal channels. Less risk that way, so I knew they wouldn’t need me much longer. I took everything I’d saved and left before they could change their minds about handing me over to the Republic. That was almost three months ago.”
Zira counted back the months in her head. That would have been just before Chase came to see her for the last time. “I don’t suppose that’s when you helped Revolver escape from that testing facility.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said flatly.
“They’re onto you. Right after it happened, President Bradshaw came to ask me about it.”
“They can have their suspicions. They never should have turned him over to those scientists in the first place.”
The vehemence in his voice at the Republic’s treatment of Revolver didn’t match Zira’s mental image of the genetically modified superhuman. She still remembered the terror she’d felt as she and Tripp ran from him, how slow they’d seemed compared to him. She remembered the broadcast where he’d forced Aubreigh and the other rebel sympathizers in the compound to their knees just before Ryku shot them. “Maybe you should have left him in there,” she said. “He’s dangerous.”
“He was only dangerous when Ryku was using him as a puppet. And Aubreigh wouldn’t have wanted him locked up for the rest of his life like some lab rat.”
That last remark stabbed at the still-raw hole in Zira’s chest. “How do you know what Aubreigh would have wanted?” she snapped.
Jared shook his head. “Sorry. It’s just that the two of them were close, or at least as close as anyone could get to Revolver.”
“A lot of good that did her. He just stood there and watched when Ryku shot her.”
“I don’t think he knew he could do anything else.”
Zira scoffed at the excuse. A valid one, maybe, but an excuse nonetheless. “So where is he now?”
“I’m not sure. We traveled together for a while. I tried to teach him how to blend in better. He helped me figure out where you were being held and when you were scheduled for release. He was planning to head north soon anyway, maybe leave the country, but when your release date got changed, we went our separate ways.”
So he was out of reach, even if Zira had wanted to reach him. Not that it would change anything. Would Aubreigh have been glad to know he was alive and free? Was that really what she would have wa
nted, even after Revolver had allowed her to die? Probably. Aubreigh had never been one to hold a grudge, and short of killing Ryku, there really wasn’t much any single individual could have done to stop him from carrying out those executions.
Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, she regretted not killing him herself when she’d had a chance.
She looked out the window. The sky had shifted from gray to a pale pink fading into blue. She finished the last of her bagel and stood up. “I should get going. Are you sure you’re going to be okay here with Tripp?”
“Yeah. I’ll make it work.”
She recalled the pitifully short list of things she’d learned about opiate withdrawal during her last few days in prison. “He’s probably going to be sick. And agitated. He’ll want to go and get more drugs just to feel normal again. Don’t let him. Just keep him in here for now.”
“Like a prisoner?”
“Whatever stops him from going out and getting high again. Call me or send a message if you need anything. I’m going to try to contact Seth or someone else who can help, so hopefully I’ll have more answers by the time I get back.”
“We’ll be fine. Go take care of whatever you need to take care of.”
“Okay.” She opened the door and stepped outside, then turned back one last time. “Hey, Jared?”
“Yeah?”
She meant to thank him again, but upon remembering all the times he’d let her down before—intentionally or not—she changed her mind. “You can still bail if you want to. You don’t have to do this.”
“I told you I wanted to help.”
She believed him, mostly. Or she wanted to. “Just…if you change your mind, wait until I get back, okay? Don’t leave him here on his own.”
He waited until she looked him in the eye to respond, his gaze true and steady. “I’m not going anywhere, Zira. I promise.”
* * *
She opted to sleep during most of the bus ride back to the South Atlantic region. As anxious as she was to start figuring out how to help Tripp, she was so tired she could barely think clearly, and meeting her parole officer in a dazed stupor wasn’t likely to give a good first impression. She set an alarm on her CL to wake her before they got to her stop.
When she got off the bus, she walked the remaining distance to the office, where she was called back to speak with her parole officer almost immediately. It was an uneventful meeting. The rules he outlined weren’t any different than she had expected. No weapons, no drugs, no associating with anyone involved in illegal activity. She suspected she’d already broken that last one by associating with a fugitive and a heroin user. She wasn’t about to say anything about it, though, nor did she have any intention of following the rule in the future. She’d just have to avoid getting caught.
She was also required to get a job, or at least provide proof that she was looking for employment. She’d already planned on doing just that, but she wasn’t sure where to begin. The Republic had recently discontinued the practice of assigning employment or continuing education to every citizen over the age of eighteen on the premise that doing so was an example of government exerting unnecessary control over people’s lives. Instead, everyone was now free to pursue work and educational opportunities as they saw fit. But the transition hadn’t been an easy one, prompting the Republic to provide additional support to help people navigate the shifting economic system.
Zira’s parole officer sent a digital info-sheet on the job-seeking process to her CL, along with a list of Employment Support Centers in the area. Just glancing over it made her feel overwhelmed. She’d never had a job before, or at least not a normal one. Her skills might translate well to a career in law enforcement, but the fact that she now had a criminal record was going to make that difficult if not impossible. She was willing to try just about anything, though, and the sooner, the better. As much as she appreciated Jared’s generosity, she’d feel a lot more secure knowing she had the means to take care of herself. And Tripp, at least for the time being.
She was still mulling over her options when she left the office. She had about an hour to kill before the bus arrived, so she stopped at a little diner and bought a bowl of soup with some of the leftover money Jared had given her. She found a table in the corner away from most of the establishment’s other patrons and sat down to eat.
Now that she was rested and had taken care of her own business, she shifted her focus to her other, more immediate problem. The memory of Tripp curled up on the floor in that cold, derelict house last night made her chest ache. He was so far removed from the good-natured, easygoing friend she knew that she feared he might never be the same again. But he’d been through this before, and he’d been clean for six years afterward. He just needed help—more help than she could give him on her own.
She turned her attention to the CL strapped around her wrist. Maybe some of the people who had been there when Tripp was going through this the first time would know what to do. She might as well start at the top. After all, what good was being on a first-name basis with the most powerful man in the country if you couldn’t call in a favor from time to time? And considering everything Tripp had contributed to the rebels’ cause, Chase owed him.
Zira searched the Net and eventually tracked down a communications code for President Bradshaw’s office. There was no answer, and she doubted Chase actually listened to any of the messages left on a channel that was so easily accessible to the public, so she didn’t bother leaving one. It had been a bit of a long shot, anyway.
Next, she called Seth. He was probably sick of hearing from her by now, but she didn’t care. He answered after just a few seconds. “Zira, I was just about to call you.”
She sincerely doubted that but opted to let it go.
“Did everything turn out okay last night? Were you able to find Tripp?”
He sounded so casual about the whole thing, as if she’d been searching for a lost pair of shoes rather than their mutual friend. She curbed her annoyance and answered as calmly as she could manage. “No, it didn’t turn out okay. I looked around in the freezing cold for hours and finally tracked him down in an abandoned house lying next to a syringe he’d used to shoot up again.”
Seth didn’t respond right away, and when he did, he looked and sounded considerably more subdued. “I’m sorry. I misjudged the situation. I really thought he’d be okay just staying in the hospital for a little while.”
“I don’t know what to do for him. I was hoping you could help, or at least point me to someone who can.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
“He told me the rebels found him after he overdosed six years ago and helped him get clean. Do you know what they did, exactly?”
Seth shook his head. “That was before I joined the rebellion, and I didn’t even have any contact with Tripp until a few years ago. He and Alma worked together for a long time, though—maybe even since the rebels found him. She might have answers.”
“Can you give me her CL code?”
“Sure.” He gave her the number and Zira repeated it back to him before disconnecting. She entered the new code into her CL and waited.
Moments later, Alma’s face appeared on the display, her thick, dark curls framing an animated expression. “Zira? What a surprise! How are you?”
Despite everything she’d gone through over the past twenty-four hours, the warm greeting made Zira smile. “I’m okay. It’s nice to be out here in the world again.”
“I bet. I’m glad Seth was able to get you out of there. Where are you? Have you seen Tripp yet?”
“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you.” She briefly explained everything that had happened the previous night, taking care to avoid any mention of Jared. “He’s not in good shape,” she concluded, “and I don’t know how to help him. Seth said you might have some ideas.”
Alma’s brows knit together in concern. “Maybe. What did you want to know?”
“Were you
there when the rebels helped him get clean before? Do you know how they did it?”
“I was there, but I didn’t know him very well back then. I was still pretty new to the rebellion myself. When Chase sent people out to get him, most of us thought it was a waste of time, but he said it would be useful to have a former Project member on our side.”
Useful. As if that was the only thing that had made Tripp worth saving. “I guess he was right about that.”
If Alma caught the bitter tone in Zira’s voice, she didn’t respond to it. “He was a mess when they brought him in. Heroin definitely isn’t easy to quit. But he didn’t have a choice. The only drugs we had on the base were locked up in medical and highly restricted—Chase always made sure of that. Tripp just had to suffer through it.”
It wasn’t the answer Zira had been hoping for. “That’s it?”
“Pretty much. There was a lady who worked with him afterward. She was probably the biggest reason he didn’t relapse once they started sending me and him out on missions all over the country. Her name was Rita. Rita…Jefferson, I think.”
“Worked with him how?”
“Just talked to him, supported him. See, before the war, the government didn’t just lock up everyone with an addiction and leave them there to rot. Well, some of them, they did. But they also tried to help them get better. There were these facilities where people could go to get the drugs out of their system, talk to counselors, and figure out how to avoid relapsing.”
That sounded like exactly the kind of thing Tripp could benefit from. It also sounded too good to be true. “Seriously?”
“Pretty strange, right? Anyway, Rita used to be a counselor at a place like that. She was one of the first people to join the rebellion, actually. She was already fed up with the way the government kept cutting funds for those kinds of programs in the years leading up to the war. When the Project did away with all of it, she took up with the rebels. I hear she’s been working with the National Health Department to try to get funding for new addiction recovery programs.”
It was a great idea, but it wouldn’t happen fast enough to help Tripp through the next several days. “Any chance they could put a rush on that?”
Survivors of PEACE Page 3