15.
As I stood in the darkness, watching Jag disappear into the light, I remembered the time my dad told me about light and dark and how God had separated them. I didn’t get what he meant then.
But as Jag’s front door swung closed with a loud click, the light was separated from the dark. That’s when I realized that someone can’t be both good and bad, just like darkness can’t exist in the light.
Which meant I had to make a choice.
Bad or good? looped endlessly in my mind. Another voice joined mine, taunting.
Leave me alone! I commanded, and Thane’s voice receded. The thought of him possibly listening to my every thought unnerved me.
I sat on the steps, determined to keep Thane out, to regain control of my own mind.
Noise-that-must-be-music filtered from the back of the house. Jag’s roommates had a serious party raging. I waited through four songs.
Then five. Then six.
Jag didn’t come back.
So I allowed myself to freak out. Which basically means I crept around the side of the house with my heart leaping in my chest. The music grew louder, with people gyrating and laughing in the backyard. I crouched below the only lit window. I took a deep breath and peeked inside.
I knew Jag shouldn’t have gone in. Because now the stupid boy was tied to a chair.
I stared a lot longer than I should have, mostly because his bare—and sculpted—chest distracted me. After that initial shock, I noticed the two round labels secured on either side of his breastbone. Tech monitors. A green light flickered on one. So far, whatever he’d said was the truth.
His kiss still lingered on my lips, and his scent was embedded in my Goodie shirt. I wanted to help him, but I had three great reasons not to.
Baldie, the Hawk, and a Mech.
The Mech must have sensed me, either my body heat or the bar code in the tag, because an alarm wailed.
I ducked and ground my teeth together. Stupid Mechs. I was so sick of them ratting me out for merely existing. I hated that they could sense body heat. I despised them for their ability to read bar codes. For everything.
All the anger and fear and desperation raging inside flooded to the surface. I focused on the mechanics of the robot now standing at the window. The siren pounded in my brain.
Stop! I screamed inside.
And it did.
I suddenly felt like I needed to puke my guts out. But I didn’t have time for that. Baldie’s shout mingled with the Hawk’s as they burst out the back door.
Ignoring Thane’s voice in my head, which said, Leave Jag. Save yourself. Don’t make the wrong choice—again, I crawled through the window. Thane’s encouragement to leave Jag made me that much more determined to stay together. Maybe Thane needed us to be separated before he could make his next move.
Maybe I’m not the monster you think I am.
Thane’s words jumbled up my feelings. He could clearly control others, and I’m definitely not a fan of Thinkers. But with Thane on the inside, protecting me . . . having him on my side would be beneficial.
In the room, I fell hard on my knees next to the despondent Mech, overwhelmed by the amount of tech in the house. It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water in my face. My breath didn’t fill my lungs. A hand scrabbled on my backpack and I jerked away.
“Stop!” I commanded. Baldie’s eyes glazed over, fogging as if made of glass. I saw the Hawk’s big beak before she turned and moved toward the backyard.
Scrambling across the room, I punched the low-class lock on the door. So useless. One good kick would bring it down. And I’ve seen the way the Hawk kicks.
“Jag?” I knelt and began untying his hands. “Holy tech overload.” My fingers fumbled on the tight filament knots. The air-conditioning billowed over my neck, mingling with the tech-burn inside my chest. I felt like I was trying to undo knots of thread with winter gloves on.
“You were right,” he said.
I didn’t answer. Of course I was right.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“I’m a Goodie, remember?” It doesn’t take a Thinker to figure it out. Oh, and all the tech buzz was a dead giveaway. The sound of the machines grinded in my head. The smell of Jag’s spicy gel was so strong, I thought I might vomit.
I finally released the knots on his hands and he started working on his feet. I tiptoed over to the door. Footsteps approached.
“Hurry!” I hissed, passing him as he stood. He opened the window all the way and pushed me through headfirst. That didn’t hurt nearly as bad as having Jag land on my stomach, forcing all the air out of my lungs. Or his boot on my thigh as he pushed himself up.
“Ouch!” I complained. The door rattled and the Hawk’s angry shout filtered through the window.
“Come on!” He didn’t have to tell me twice. We ran as the door splintered open.
I gripped Jag’s hand as we wove through backyards and deserted streets. After a few minutes he grunted as he ripped the electronic patches off his chest. I expected a siren to wail or red lights to flash, but nothing happened.
Pretty soon we left behind the houses and streetlights and ran under nothing but trees. If it could be any darker in the forest, it was. Jag half-dragged me beside him as he somehow maneuvered over the uneven ground. Branches and limbs scratched my face and clawed at the mostly empty backpack, but I pushed them away.
I’d spent days in the woods while crossing through the City of Water, but the forest here felt scarier. Darker. Dangerous.
My lungs burned, and my legs felt detached from my body. “Jag,” I gasped, leaning against a tree trunk. “I gotta stop.”
“Just a little further,” he whispered.
I shivered as the chilly air brushed my face, turning the sweat into liquid ice.
Jag pulled me against his bare chest; his heart thumped against my arm. I tried to calm myself. The woods frightened me, but what I felt was not fear. More like pure anticipation for the next time Jag would kiss me, hold me like he’d held Sloan, put his feet in between mine so our knees touched and we connected along every point of our bodies.
Yeah, I was falling for Jag Barque.
He led me to the largest pine tree on the planet. By way of instruction, he gestured up. As if that were adequate.
“We’re climbing a tree?” I asked.
“Only about halfway.”
Heights are not my thing. Privileged to have a teleporter on our block, I never needed to learn how to ride a hoverboard. The only time I’d been in the air was in the hovercopter, and that wasn’t a memory I wanted as I climbed this very tall tree.
Jag moved faster than me but waited as I struggled to find footholds.
“No, try that one,” he whispered, tapping on my left elbow and pointing to a branch I couldn’t see.
We progressed up the tree little by little until I felt like the air was too thin to breathe. On the next reach, my hand hit solid wood. A tree house.
“Did you make this?” I was whispering. Because someone is always listening.
“My brother did, a long time ago.” He sounded tired as he stepped onto the platform.
I wondered which brother—Blaze or Pace—but of course I didn’t ask. The tree house had four walls and a roof, but no windows and only a small opening in the floor for the entrance. Jag could stand upright in it, though. He pulled a blanket from the corner, shook it, and lay down.
He opened his arm for me to join him, but I remained standing near the entrance.
“It’s gonna get cold and there’s only one blanket,” he said. I translated that to, “I’m a nice guy, but not that nice.”
I wanted to sleep next to him. Too much. But good girls don’t throw themselves at boys. Especially bad ones. How did Jag feel about me? He’d kissed me, but only so the recognizer couldn’t scan our eyes. Right?
And what did a kiss mean in the Badlands? Because in the Goodgrounds it meant something. It meant you’d committed yourself to someone. The way I’d pledged myself to Zenn.
I pulled my backpack off, found the blue prison shirt, and tossed it to him.
“Hey, you kept this?”
I gave a shrug he didn’t see because he was pulling the shirt over his head. I couldn’t get my voice to speak coherent words anyway.
He yawned and lay down again. “Vi? Come on, please? I know I’m gross, but—”
“You’re not gross,” I said, sitting down next to him. My skin itched to touch his, and his plea indicated that our kiss meant something to him. Still, my mind screamed to maintain a respectable distance.
“Well, I’ve been sweating up a storm for an hour.”
“I want to, I’m just . . .”
“Nervous?”
More like scared as hell. “I guess.”
He pulled me down next to him. “That’s rubbish,” he said, his lips in my hair. “You stood in a cold shower for two hours. You elbowed that woman last week. You crossed into the Badlands by yourself without getting caught. You don’t get nervous about anything. You can lie next to a sweaty guy.”
I tried to tell him that wasn’t it. That I really wanted to lie next to him, sweaty or not, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Ah,” he said, throwing his other arm over me and adjusting the blanket so it covered us both. “You’re warm.” He spoke in a drowsy tone, comfortable, happy.
His lips were so close—right at my ear. A shudder that had nothing to do with the cold ran through my body. Jag pulled me closer, nestling his arm under my elbow.
“Jag?”
“Mmm?”
“What’s gonna happen now?”
“We’re going to sleep.” He sounded like he was already halfway there.
“Yeah, but what about tomorrow?” What I really wanted to say was, What about finding my dad? What does Thane Myers want with us? When are we leaving for Seaside? We can’t stay here.
“It’s not important.”
I twisted to look at him but found only blackness. “How can you say—?” His mouth met mine, cutting me off.
“Only you’re important,” he murmured, his breathing deep and even on my cheek, his thumb tracing circles on my arm.
The bad boy is right, the voice mocked. You’re very important. What will you choose to do?
I silenced it, determined not to answer Thane, the stupid Thinker who still believed he could control me.
Yeah, he can’t.