“Hey!” I say, darting in and pulling the weapon away from her. “Dammit, Bree.”
She looks up at me, eyes red. Her gaze trails to the gun and then back to me. She makes a small pshh noise, and says, “I was just thinking.”
“Are you drunk?” She keeps staring straight-ahead, like she can see through my torso. “Are you?”
“I’m upset!” she cries, leaping to her feet. “Is that not allowed? Does something have to alter my mental state before I’m allowed to get emotional?”
“Just answer the question.”
She glares. “No. I’m not drunk.”
She was crying then. I’m not used to seeing her like this, exhausted, eyes bloodshot from tears. Before she can turn away from me, I grab her arm.
“Why are we fighting?”
“Because he’s going to ruin us—you—and you can’t see it!” she says. “We have absolutely no proof that Harvey won’t turn on us.”
“Jackson helped us once.”
“Jackson did what would benefit him. Always. He saved you from Titus because he knew he’d die, too, if he didn’t, or be stuck beneath Burg. He let you climb the Wall because he thought the pursuing Forgeries wouldn’t hurt him. He thought he’d be able to run right back to Frank, that his family was there to take him home.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you see, Gray? There are Forgeries and there are people, but nothing in between. Jackson was always looking out for himself.”
But Bree didn’t hear Jackson’s confessions to me beneath Burg. She didn’t hear him talk about things he shouldn’t have been able to remember, or admit that he loved his younger brother—an emotion impossible for a programmed Forgery. He didn’t stay behind in Burg because he thought it would save him. He stayed behind because he knew it would save us.
And I would bet my life that Harvey is the same. Bree wasn’t there to watch his face come alive with awareness at the Compound, to see him undo my bindings in the interrogation room and let me walk free. He wants nothing more than to help us.
“The Sunder Rally’s in a week,” I tell her. “Sammy and Clipper are leaving for Taem soon—to be our backup inside.”
Her face pales.
“I want you with them. In that car. Having my back.”
“I do have your back, Gray. I’m telling you right now that I don’t trust Harvey.”
“But I trust him. Is my opinion worth nothing?”
“If it wasn’t your life on the line, maybe it would be different.”
“Blaine’s life was on the line once, too. So was my father’s. And Bo’s and Xavier’s and so many more. I made a promise the night we got back to Pine Ridge that I would avenge Blaine or die trying. That’s all I’m living for now. To make things right.”
“And what about the people you still have, Gray? Me and Sammy and Clipper. Are we not worth living for?”
“I can’t walk away from Blaine. I have to do this.”
“But he’s gone, Gray.” The heaviness in her voice reaches her eyes. “The only people you’ll be walking away from if you do this are the ones you have left.”
When I don’t say anything she lets out an audible growl and rips back her bedsheets.
“You can leave now. I’m kind of tired.”
“Bree . . .” I put a hand on her shoulder and she shrugs me off.
“Bree, I need you with me on this,” I try again. “Please don’t stay here with September. Please.”
She studies me, her expression torn. “When did I ever say I was staying?”
“But you just . . . and everything you said downstairs . . .”
“Is still true,” she finishes. “I think the plan’s stupid. I’m terrified it will backfire. And I’m furious that even with me admitting all that, you’re still going to run with it. But I don’t have a choice, Gray. When did I ever have a choice?”
I search her eyes, confused.
Bree pulls her shoulders into a defeated shrug. “The only thing I’ll regret more than handing you over to certain death is not being there to try to stop it. And if I can’t stop it, I want to be with you until the end.”
“That sounds self-destructive, especially for you.”
“Loving someone is self-destructive.” I must look skeptical because she adds, “Seriously. Love makes people irrational. I mean, the way I feel about you—sometimes it scares me, Gray. I stormed the Compound for you, struck down men, shot your double right in the stomach without a second’s hesitation, and I’d do it all again. I’d do anything not to lose you, and that’s dangerous.”
“I’d do the same.”
“Which makes us dumb.”
“Not if we keep our heads. We’ve gotten through everything before. We can get through this, too.”
“I hope you’re right,” she says. “I really do. Because every time I tell myself the same thing, it feels like a giant lie.”
I can’t sleep. In part due to nerves—there are no shortage of unknowns lying ahead—and also because I can’t shake the look of fear on Bree’s face, her unwavering opposition to the plan. Still, for the first time in months, I feel as though I am doing the right thing. I am exactly where I need to be, walking the only road left to be traveled. This sort of possessed nature reminds me of when I climbed the Claysoot Wall. My heart’s already somewhere ahead of me, and now it’s only a matter of letting my feet catch up.
“Anxious?” Sammy asks as I roll over again.
“Yeah. You?”
“Sure, but you’re keeping me up more than the nerves are, flopping around like a dying fish.”
The image makes me smile. Not that he can see it in the dark.
“She’s not really staying behind, is she?”
“No. She’ll come.”
Sammy exhales. “Thank God. Did you have to beg?”
“Luckily, no, because it probably wouldn’t have helped. Didn’t you watch me beg for her forgiveness the last two months?”
He laughs lightly, then adds, “Shit, man. Why is it that anything worth having is always a second away from being taken from you?”
“Just life keeping you nimble, I guess.”