by Sarah Noffke
“Yes, mine.”
“I missed you like crazy,” I say as I kiss along his jaw, enjoying the way he presses into me, savoring my touch like a treasure.
“I missed you, babe,” he says, a warmth in his gorgeous almond-shaped eyes.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I only wanted to do something to make you better,” I say and realize my hands are so tightly wrapped around him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I push his hair back from his eyes. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Right now, I’m absolutely perfect,” he says, gazing into my eyes, making me feel crazy.
I can’t help the squeal that escapes my mouth when he leans in and growls against my neck. He slides his nose along my jaw and then brings his eyes level with mine. “I think we’re gonna have to finish this reunion later though.”
I nod, but don’t let go until I squeeze him into me once more. “I love you, Rogue. That’s why I did it.”
He pulls me to a seated position fast enough to make my head spin. “I know. And if you didn’t do beautifully ridiculous stuff like this I probably wouldn’t love you so much.”
Chapter Eleven
When we exit the tent Zack is on the far side of the camp staring out at the forest. He turns when Rogue approaches and extends a hand to him. “Good to see you.”
“You too, my favorite friend, who would never desert me in the middle of the night,” Rogue says, a sly smile on his face as he turns around and looks at me.
I take a seat by the maps again, intent on getting them right before Nona arrives. Rogue traces his way back to me, giving a wolfish grin. He tucks himself in the spot behind me, a leg on either side of mine. Then he encircles my torso in his arms and tugs me into him. “Gonna have to sleep with one eye open from now on,” he whispers behind my ear.
I nuzzle backward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He looks up at Zack, who’s toeing the dirt with his leather loafer. “Seriously, this one stole my horse. Can you believe this girl?”
Zack darts his eyes at me and then away. “Not most of the time,” he says with a soft laugh.
“I did it to get you help,” I say, already tired of defending my actions. “But now that you’re here you’ll see Parker when we meet him down by the trail.”
“The hell I will,” Rogue says, a laugh in his voice.
I whip around. “But you’re here now. You have to see him. He might be able to help you.”
Rogue’s eyes drop. He picks up my hand and holds it against his lips, kissing it once. There’s a new ache in his every movement. “Look, Em, I don’t wanna see Dr. Parker. You may not understand but please trust me when I say seeing him has to be a last resort for me. The very last.”
“But Rogue?”
“I’ll manage and maybe when we’re in the lab we’ll find the right meds or different ones, but—”
“Please listen to reason—”
“Em, I need you to trust me on this. I can’t see Dr. Parker. Not yet anyway. That guy and I need to stay as far apart as possible. Believe me on this,” he says, his voice coated in conviction.
I regard him silently for several seconds.
“Look,” Rogue says, his voice a little lighter. “Stop harassing me on this. Stop stealing my horse and sneaking off and just love me for the pain in the ass that I am.”
This conversation leaves me with an uneasiness in my stomach. There’s everything wrong with what Rogue is asking but there’s no way to argue with him on it. I want to get reinforcements from Zack but I can’t turn away from Rogue’s strange eyes, which look too wise all of a sudden, lacking his usual lightness. As much as I want to, I can’t make him do anything. I can’t force him to see Parker or get help. And the more we argue about it the more I feel like I’m pushing him away. It had been like this for months, and now I realize I have to acquiesce to his stubbornness. He’s won this one.
Finally I lay my head against his chest and sigh. “Fine. Whatever you want.”
He smooths back the knots of curls from the side of my head. “It is what I want. Thanks, babe.”
I know that Zack is witnessing all of this, but I can’t keep myself from snaking my arms around Rogue and pulling him in closer. He’s my pain and strength in this moment. He’s my reason for wanting to be a Rebel and also the reason I think we should travel as far from this valley as possible. He makes me perfect and so very flawed in my love. Makes me realize all the ways I could love him better, but in this moment we are perfect. Reunited. Happy in each other’s arms. Accepting of each other’s stupid decisions.
“Hey, Em?” Zack says, and I recognize his tone. It’s a light one, full of curiosity.
I straighten out of Rogue’s arms and rotate my head in the direction Zack is looking. Whipping into a standing position, I take off in a sprint at the sight of her. She’s maybe taller, probably my imagination though. My sister is me in every way: long flowing, unmanageable blonde curls, average height, and scrutinizing blue eyes. Freckles still grace Nona’s arms and cheeks and she has a rebellious demeanor that was inborn. I fling my arms around her with a death grip of a hug. She smiles into my shoulder. Her smell. Her laughter. Her tears fill me up. Also, like me, she’s always been quick to tears. Unlike me, she’s usually ashamed to cry. Not now though. Not when the tears are full of joy. I haven’t seen her in a long three months. That’s too long. An almost unmanageable length of time to not hear her laughter. To not watch her grow.
I put her at elbow’s distance and regard her with a quiet concern. “You’re all right?”
She slides a tear back with a knuckle and smiles. “I love surprises. I’m super all right.”
I tug her in for another hug, but just then she must spy something that’s of more importance. She tears out of my embrace and races over to the camp. “Roguey!” she says, and connects with Rogue in an assault of hands and arms and loving embrace.
Roguey. I forgot about that silly nickname Nona had for him. He’s standing now and hugs her back fiercely, picking her up off her feet and spinning her around. When he sets her down she has new tears flowing down her cheeks.
“I believed Em when she said you were alive, I just didn’t really believe until now,” she says, pushing away the overflow leaking from her eyes. Red blotches mark her swelling cheeks.
Rogue squeezes her to him again, patting her on the back. He claps a hand on her shoulder and kneels down so they’re eye to eye. “Believe it, Nona. I’m here.”
A grin so wide it shows most of her teeth spreads across her cheeks. “Did you see that I’m almost as tall as Em?” Nona says, throwing her thumb in my direction.
“I did,” Rogue says, winking at her. “You’ll probably tower over her one day.”
“Probably,” Nona agrees with a confident nod.
I roll my eyes at this ridiculous exchange.
“You’re taller too,” Nona observes. “At least more than I remember.”
“Yeah, just a bit,” Rogue says, draping his arm around my shoulder as I pull up next to him. Nona’s eyes flick from me to Rogue, back and forth several times. And then her mouth pops open.
“Oh…” she says, drawing out the word, a silly grin lighting up her freckled face. She’s just figured out what I kept out of the messages I left for her over these long three months.
Chapter Twelve
“What do you mean?” I say, my voice vibrating with shock.
Nona wears an expression too old for a thirteen-year-old. One taxed with the weight of a criminal world. “It just happened,” she says. “They converted the first Defect this week. I was going to put it in my next message to you, but you’re here now.”
Converted. Vider is actually stripping Defects of their ability to dream travel. He’s convinced Defects that by being converted to Middling they’ll have a race to belong to instead of being outcast. I was supposed to be the first Defect converted, but I escaped. And now…
“Did you know about this?” I spin around to Zack, my tone accu
satory.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” he says.
“You had every chance,” I say.
“Why does it matter? We knew this was coming.” He’s changed his tone. It’s the one I picture he uses at meetings with my father and his minions.
“It matters because we have to stop this. We can’t allow Vider to steal gifts and dream traveling abilities from innocent kids,” I say, my voice erratic. “Who was it?” I ask Nona.
“Scott,” she says, a speck of trauma in her eyes.
“The kid from your class?”
She nods. “He elected to do it though. He was tired of getting the injections. Of the pain. And he’s not unique in that way. There’s a lot kids who are willing to sign up for conversion early. They’ve offered incentives for Defects who convert before occupation age.”
“Like what?” I say, a weighty anger in my tone.
“For one, they can pick their own Middling occupation,” Nona says, holding up a finger.
Damn. That is compelling. Even Dream Travelers can’t choose their own occupation. They’re assigned.
Nona ticks off another finger. “And they’re moved into these new apartments in the Middling neighborhood. They’re sparkling and new,” she says, rolling her eyes. She holds up a third finger. “And better than all that, there’s no more parental guardianship. The kids are considered adults, even though they’re not. Most of the Defects I’ve talked to love the idea of not having to answer to their parents anymore.”
“So it’s only a matter of time…” I say.
She nods. “And Defects aren’t even deterred by what the conversion did to Scott. They think it’s cool, like he’s all grown up now.”
“What did it do to him?” I ask, drawing out each word, afraid of her answer.
“He’s a robot,” Nona says, her voice full of offense.
I turn to Zack, who nods in agreement. “You really should have told me about this,” I say, scowling at him before turning back to Nona.
“Go on,” I encourage.
“I saw him when he was released from the lab,” she says, a vague disapproval growing in her tone. “His head was bandaged, but he said he felt fine. He was walking and talking, but there was something vacant in him. I tried to make a joke and he didn’t laugh, only stared at me blankly. Since then, when I see him he’s not interested in talking to anyone or doing anything but operating, like a robot. And the other kids say it’s because he’s all grown up now and doesn’t have time to play. They think that’s cool. But I think he’s hollow inside, like they pulled out his soul.”
A sharp shiver runs down my arms. My eyes find Rogue’s. He’s wearing a quiet expression of outrage.
“What do they do to them? For conversion?” I ask to the group.
Nona shrugs, as does Rogue. Zack chances to look at me directly, although he knows he’s in trouble with me. “It’s supposedly an easy surgery. There’s a part of the dorsal lateral cortex that when removed takes away dream travel ability.”
“Brain surgery!” I say louder than I should in these woods. “Removing a part of a human’s brain doesn’t sound easy, Zack.”
His expression hardens. “I realize that. I’m simply relaying what I discovered snooping around.”
My fingers find my temples and press into them. “All things you could have told me.”
“Look,” Rogue says, his tone calm, soothing. “Zack isn’t the enemy here.”
“I know. I know,” I say in a rush before turning back toward Nona. “All right, well, where are you with your plans?”
Her shoulders shrug with defeat. “This plan is harder than I thought. I say that we just destroy the labs altogether.”
“And how are we going to do that?” I say, shaking my head at her a bit incredulously.
“Well, one of my jobs is to locate explosives,” she says.
“And how’s that going?” Zack asks.
“Poorly. You’d think at least one Dream Traveler in this valley would know how to make a bomb,” she says, tying her arms across her chest.
“Actually I wouldn’t,” Zack says, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Why don’t you see if one of the newly recruited Middlings has any expertise on the matter? But be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” Nona says, a clever grin on her mouth. “I’ve got the perfect story. It doesn’t raise any flags.”
“This should really be my job,” I say, trying to breathe past the weight lying on my chest.
“I can do it, Em,” Nona says with conviction.
“Fine,” I say with a heavy sigh. “But we aren’t going to blow up the entire lab. Firstly, that would involve too much explosives and I only want you finding small ones. Like firecrackers.”
“Okay, okay,” Nona says, looking slightly disappointed.
“Also, there might be people in the labs when we break in and no one can get hurt. Our bomb can’t harm an innocent Reverian.”
Nona grunts with frustration. “Fine, no killing blameless people,” she says with a mock reluctance. “All right, you find the locations of the Defect injections and I’ll find some explosives.”
“Piece of cake,” I say, finally allowing a smile to flick to my lips.
Chapter Thirteen
After Nona and Zack left, Rogue was all too happy to let me go off to meet Parker alone. We’re supposed to rendezvous by the river half an hour after dusk. I’ve never seen that look of avoidance in Rogue’s eyes. He didn’t want me out of his sight the last time we were hiding in the Valley, but now he’s fine to let me stroll off on my own. At every mention of Parker’s name Rogue clams up. His eyes grow distant. But as far as I know there’s nothing nefarious about the doctor. He’s the one, of everyone in the labs, who I’ve chosen to trust.
I’m slightly remorseful that I had Parker hike this far into the woods. He will expect that we’re leaving the Valley. We aren’t. He’ll have made arrangements for the trip, which will be unnecessary now. And after I talk to him, he will have to turn around and hike the three miles back to town. But now I know what his role is. Though convincing him of it might be harder than asking him to leave the Valley to save Rogue.
Parker is tucked beside a madrone tree when I wrestle my way through the brush. From the overhead light of the moon and stars I catch his eager expression. The reflection off his glasses makes it impossible to read his eyes, but the tense smile tells me enough.
“You ready to go?” he says, injecting a false enthusiasm into his voice. Then his eyes search me, a calculated scrutiny in them. I know at once he’s wondering why I’m not carrying a bag like him or dressed for a hike.
I approach Parker carefully, like a dog I’m trying to pin and afraid might dart another direction if I’m not careful. I’ve always trusted Parker. His nurse, Tammy, never garnered much favor from me. But Parker cared in a way that was hard to fake. He sincerely felt that he was doing something of importance, not merely a job. Most days he’d stare at me with his quiet kind eyes and give his uninterrupted attention, listening to my stories, my jokes, my current affairs. Parker is young enough that I think he related to me. Toward the end of our time together things were more rushed, but only because he couldn’t keep up with the demands of the labs.
“Do you need to stop off and get your gear?” Parker says as I approach, a skeptical look in his eyes. He appears ready for what was going to be a long journey, in khakis and a sturdy leather jacket. However Parker is too bony to appear fit for the eight-mile hike out over these hills. I’m relieved I don’t have to make him endure it.
“Parker,” I say when I pause a few feet away, “Rogue returned to the Valley today.”
“Oh,” he says with a squeak. “That makes this easy. Where is he? I’ll go to him now.” He hitches his bag higher up on his shoulder.
I shake my head at him. “I’m not sure why, but Rogue refuses to see you.” I pause, study him. And only hesitate a second before asking my burning question. “Did you do something to h
im?”
His head tucks back on his neck, giving him the appearance of double chins. He straightens. Shakes his head, his thick brown hair falling loose from the gel. “Rogue and I always got along fine, although I was a bit tentative with him since he was the first Defect.”
I nod. I’ve spent more time with Parker than most people. We’ve seen each other every day for over three years. He’s never, not once, given me a reason to dislike him. His bedside manner is perfect, neither overly casual nor robotic.
Rogue’s reaction earlier truly doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he want to see a person who I trust, who also has the experience to help him? Why wouldn’t he want to do something to relieve the headaches? At the farm he refused to travel to Austin Valley, saying it was an extra burden he didn’t want to endure right then. We fought about it off and on, usually with me stalking away, seething. That’s why I risked our love and my life to return to Austin Valley to get the one person who can help Rogue. But after getting so close to a solution, I’m having to turn Parker away. This feels like a waste, but how can I make Rogue do anything? He was more adamant about not seeing Parker than anything else and that’s saying a lot.
“So, you don’t want me to go see Rogue?” Parker asks, squinting at me through the darkness.
I shake my head. The babble of the river is a soothing music but I don’t feel especially relaxed right now. I’m confused. Unsure. “He’s here now, but he refuses to see you. I don’t know why. Probably because he likes to torture me.”
Parker gives me an uncomfortable glance.
I dismiss my remark with a wave of my hand. “Rogue thinks he can handle everything on his own. He’s being difficult. Maybe I can change his mind.”
Parker pinches the bridge of his nose and stares at the ground. “Well, I won’t be here to help. Sorry,” he says, giving me a half-apologetic shrug. “If I’m not leaving with you right now then I’m leaving anyway.”
“What?” I say, caught off guard by his full shift since last night. He had signed on to help, but still seemed terrified by the idea of leaving and going against Vider by helping his outcast son.