Rose’s lips curved up in a dark smile below the blindfold. The movement held neither warmth nor mirth. “They talked about finding my other half,” she said. “Some girl in the desert. But she got away. Did they mean you? They were saying there’ll be hell to pay at the Council Meet this year.” Her next words were sing-song and malicious, although the malice wasn’t directed at Lena. “Someone’s in trouble.”
Lena’s heart stuttered. Lucas and the Councilor had strapped her to the table. What was it Lucas had said? They wanted to know her limits?
They wanted to know if she was a match for Rose.
The memories of that day in the room flooded back. Air on her naked skin. Pain and shame at her helplessness. The look on her mother’s face. The smell of the dust, thick in her nostrils.
They had been testing her, the same way they would have done if her parents hadn’t hidden her as a child. Lena’s stomach heaved, the spasms fighting against her tight throat. The same way they tested every high-powered girl Spark? The same way they’d tested all of these girls?
She gulped away the nausea. She looked at the girls, at Marin and Phoebe, holding hands without even seeming to be aware of the contact. The twins clutched at each other. She noticed Marissa, sitting alone, too. She shook her head to clear it of memories and fear.
“Look, Hania,” she told the thin girl before her, somehow even more desperate to make the girl let Lena help her, “Marissa doesn’t have a match, and she’s better now.”
Hania shook her head a third time. “She does. She got left behind.”
The bud of horror taking root inside of Lena bloomed, each petal unfolding, consuming the space in her chest her lungs needed to expand. She couldn’t catch her breath.
“What?”
“Jubilee got left behind.” Phoebe was too sadly matter-of-fact to be lying.
“What? No!” Lena shook her head at Marissa. “I counted. When you all came out, I counted!”
Marissa pulled her thumb out of her mouth. “She wasn’t with us. Her collar was breaking. They had to fix it.” The little girl’s eyes were too big, too wise in her toddler face. “She’s okay now. I can feel her still. She’s just sad to be alone on the boat.”
“Alex!” Lena whirled.
He had already lunged to his feet. His look of horror mirrored her own, but more than fury and desperation lurked behind his emotion. She could feel his regret.
“No, Alex!” She could hear her voice crack, but she didn’t care. “We have to go back. She’s a child!”
He held up his hands. “We can’t turn around. That’s not how the train works. But I can, and I will, send agents back to watch and wait as soon as we get back.”
“To watch and wait?” What was he saying? “For what? She’s a child. Being sent who knows where by monsters. If we don’t go back right now, she’ll be gone up that river, and we’ll never find her.”
Alex took a deep breath. He swept a glance over the girls. “If we go back to get her now, we’d have to take an army.”
“Then take a damn army.”
“We don’t have an army. Not yet. We’re moving forward using stealth, not force. We’re taking Zones from the top, not the bottom. And we’re spread out. We don’t have the men available at Fort Nevada. It looks like we do, I know. But we don’t.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “And they’ll be ready for a return force, anyway. We won’t accomplish anything. Until we have something, some way to fight that’s stronger than their bullets and numbers, we can’t.”
“We have me.”
“Until one sniper makes his mark. And then we don’t.” He nodded at the girls. “And neither do they.”
He was fighting dirty, and she could tell he knew it. They wanted her to train them all, and now they had her motivation.
“She’s a little girl. And she’s alone.” How could he not see?
“I know.” The thick emotion in his voice answered her own. He did see. The little boy who had refused to cry still lived behind Alex’s eyes. But the man he’d become could open up a compartment deep inside and put away the grief and rage and guilt. Once he closed the drawer, it was all gone. His face had simply emptied of it. In its place was Thomas’s perfect automaton agent, willing to do anything to further their cause.
When he spoke again, his voice reflected that brisk efficiency, and brooked no argument. “We cannot go back right now.”
All of the warmth Lena had felt moments before fled. It left behind a cold void in her chest.
Remember this, Lena. This is why you cannot develop feelings for him. He’s not capable of feeling them back. Remember this.
He waited for a moment, but she had nothing to say to him. It surprised her when he spoke again.
“We’ll watch.” He promised, his voice soothing but his single firm nod conveying the intensity behind the words. “As soon as an opportunity comes to follow those supply barges, we’ll track her. We will find her.”
Perhaps he wasn’t quite the automaton she’d thought? It would have to do. She didn’t have any choice.
It’s about time to start creating my own choices.
“We’re going to find Jubilee, Marissa,” Lena said.