I love this part, but for all the wrong reasons. Boundaries? Seriously? I just hijacked someone’s wireless device. The irony is effing hilarious, but Norcut looks serious, Alex looks serious, the Bookends—Connor and Jake—look very serious, and Kent? Kent looks like he’s sleeping with his eyes open.
“We haven’t heard much from you, Kent,” Norcut says, recrossing her legs and tugging down the hem of her navy skirt. “What do you enjoy most about working with systems and computers?”
“Computers are their own world and that world has no choice but to adore me.”
The agency woman scribbles more in her notebook, but Norcut seems pleased. “You’re living up to your potential here, aren’t you?”
Kent nods, smiles.
Alex kicks my ankle and I almost giggle. The weird feeling from earlier is gone, replaced with something that . . . honestly? Something that feels normal. And it can’t possibly be normal. None of this is remotely normal. We’re a bunch of computer nerds locked in an office building. It’s either the start of the world’s geekiest horror flick or the world’s geekiest X-Men movie.
But everyone else seems chill about it so that makes me . . . the crazy one?
After therapy, I follow Alex to our room. Once inside, she kicks off her tennis shoes and climbs—fully clothed—into bed.
“Talk to me.” I stand between Alex’s bed and her dresser. “Please? You know there’s more going on here than they’re telling us.”
She groans. “If you want to go off the deep end trying to figure this place out, go ahead, but you’re not taking me.”
“Give me some credit here,” I say, watching Alex arrange her physics notes into neat, little piles. “I’m not planning a protest march. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“I already told you: Play the game and you’re in. You’ll have a degree. You’ll have a new life.”
“I’ve heard those lines before. It never works like you think it will. Or like you want it to.” I played the game with my dad, with Joe, with Carson. I kept thinking if I did this one last thing, if I pushed just a little bit harder, it would all be okay.
It very rarely was, and in the end, it wasn’t okay at all.
I take a step toward Alex. “Why would they let us go if we’re doing what they want? What are they getting from this?”
The pause is so long I think she isn’t going to answer.
“Don’t care,” Alex says at last and touches her fingertips to the first pile of notes and then the second. “I know I’m getting three meals a day and safety. You want the truth? You go get it. But I’m not helping. I know men like Hart. They all carry themselves the same way—that’s how you spot them.”
I study her. We really are alike. I know exactly what Alex means. “They do, don’t they?”
She nods, eyes inching over me. If Alex is going along with this maybe I should too. Down the hallway, the elevator dings and both of us stiffen, turn toward our bedroom door.
“You hear that?” Alex asks. “Someone’s coming up from the garage.”
She pushes off the bed and cracks our door open, leaning close to the wall to see better. “That’s weird.”
“Oh good. Something else is weird.”
Alex smiles. “You’re really, really going to want to see this. He’s very pretty.”
Later, I’d tell myself it was the way her voice tilted low that told me who was in the hallway. I’ve heard it before after all. When it comes to him, girls can’t help it.
I can’t help it.
I nudge Alex to the side and peek through the crack between the glass door and the jamb. Hart’s standing in the hallway, back to us. One hand pinned to a taller boy’s shoulder. Hart’s holding on to him like he’s afraid he’ll run.
Or bite.
“I thought they only caught you,” Alex says, and I turn. Our eyes meet. “You know him?” she asks.
I don’t answer. Actually, I’m not sure I can. Of course I know him.
It’s Milo.
10
They “caught” him. Interesting word Alex used. I should ask her about it, but I can’t take my eyes off him.
Milo.
I open our door a little wider and his shoulders straighten like he heard the whisper of glass on the carpet. Or like he feels my presence.
Slowly, slowly, he turns . . . and our eyes lock. His gaze is hot—hotter—and I can feel every space on me it touches.
I’m standing still, but everything in me is leaning toward him, and like Milo somehow knows, he shakes his head once.
It’s so subtle Hart doesn’t notice.
I do. It’s a warning. He doesn’t want me to say anything and the realization turns my insides cold and liquid. Why would he warn me? What’s going on?
Hart’s hand tightens on Milo’s shoulder and Milo turns to him. The elevator doors open and both of them disappear inside. Are they going to see Norcut? I step into the hallway, watch the lights above the elevator illuminate and go dark.
“You do know him,” Alex says.
“No.” I swallow, feel my throat catch. “I thought I did.”