“I know,” she whispered, her lips skating along my ear.
“Irvine . . .” I said into the recess of her neck.
She stiffened just the slightest bit. “No word,” she said, and this time she let her mouth linger on my earlobe. She planted tiny kisses down my neck and across my jaw.
I let her. I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t.
Two inches separated her mouth from mine. “Jag,” she breathed.
“Indy,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Tears filled her eyes. She knew “I’m sorry” meant
When I said “I’m sorry,” she heard
And my “I’m sorry” also meant
She understood all of it. Acceptance replaced the adoration in her dark eyes. Before she could move away, someone coughed.
“Vi, wait,” I called, stumbling into the hall. My back seared with pain, and my leg didn’t fare much better. She disappeared around the corner in the direction of her room.
I hobbled after her, waving away Pace’s protests, the needle he held in his hand, and the pull of bandages up and down my back.
I turned the corner to find Vi standing in the doorway to her room, her arms folded tightly. “Vi, come on.”
She moved out of my way so I could step/hop/collapse onto her bed. My breath hurt going in and coming out.
“I didn’t know you and Indy were still, you know,
“We’re not. It was a long time ago.”
“Jag, don’t lie, okay? Just tell me if you still . . .” She let her words trail off, the pain evident on her face.
How could I make her understand? “Vi, anyone and anything that happened before I met you feels like it happened in a different lifetime, to another guy.” I longed to draw her close, wrap my arms around her, and feel her cheek pressed against my chest. She stood so stiff, so unyielding. Typical Vi.
I stood, closed the distance between us, and reached for her anyway. She resisted for a second before allowing me to gather her into an embrace. She clung to me, and I held her, and we breathed together, as if neither of us had the strength to stand alone.
I know I didn’t.
She lifted her face toward me, three words lingering on her lips. I memorized the way she looked at me with love.
I spoke first. “I love you.”
“I hate it when you say exactly the right thing.” Her mouth lifted in that whimsical way that said,
So I did. It felt exciting, like kissing her for the first time. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. I wanted her to know she was the reason I’d survived the past eight months, the endless hours/days/months in the burial capsule.
She broke the kiss, gasping. Her eyes widened with terror. “That was real? That—you being buried alive— that was real?”
I simply stared at her, confused that she knew about the capsule. I hadn’t told her. I hadn’t told anyone.
So how did Vi know?
Zenn
12.
I stood at the end of the hall, watching Vi kiss Jag.
Of course I knew she loved him. I knew they must’ve been kissing all that time they were together in the Badlands, in the desert, while I was out on watch.
I’d just never had a visual of it until now. Fine, I’d seen them kiss in the transport the night Vi and I had escaped from Freedom, but that was a reunion kiss. An I’m-so-glad-you’re-still-alive kiss.
This was so much more.
I turned away, half expecting to throw up and half expecting to throw a punch. I stormed past Saffediene with a clipped, “Meet you outside,” and practically flew toward the exit.
She joined me a few minutes later, stuffing a sheaf of papers into her knapsack. “You ready?”
As ready as I was going to be without saying good-bye to Vi. “Ready,” I said.
We’d never gone on a mission of this magnitude before. I’d recruited Saffediene after spending just one class period with her. Her quiet strength had been a dead tip-off. She’d stopped clipping in of her own volition about four months before I found her.
She reminded me of Vi in a lot of ways. Except she was nicer. And she didn’t kiss other guys.
I swallowed the bitterness in my throat. Why would I care who Saffediene kissed? I didn’t.
“Let’s go,” I said. We kicked off together, climbing through the darkening sky until we achieved the optimum hoverboard cruising altitude.
“Fully charged, with a spare pack,” Saffediene said. “We should be there by dawn if we fly all night.”
I grunted in response. One great thing about these missions was that we couldn’t talk out loud because of the stealth required. Of course, the cache could always be used for mental conversation. But Saffediene somehow sensed that I wasn’t in a talking mood, and she stayed silent.
After ten minutes, the silence was almost as damning as the darkness.
“Tell me something,” I blurted.
“What?” she asked.
“Anything,” I said, desperation clawing at each syllable.
“Okay, um,” she said. “My mother begged me not to join the Insiders.” Her voice drowned out the one in my head that could only moan
“She said there was only heartache here. No matter what argument I made, she insisted we’d never win.”
“Is that why you joined? To go against her?”
Saffediene paused. The rush of the wind filled my ears.
“No,” she said. “I have a good relationship with my mother. I just didn’t believe her. I think we can win.”
A scoff rose in my throat, but I muffled it before it could escape. Her words didn’t carry any trace of doubt. I settled onto my board, my mind churning with crazy-scattered thoughts.
In the end, I had to ask myself some questions: Did I believe we could win? Was I fighting on the right side? Was a free government better than a functioning one?
I honestly didn’t know.
And that unsettled me more than the hot wind. More than seeing Vi needfully kiss Jag, tangling her hands in his hair.
I used to know. I’d joined this Resistance four years ago to make a difference. Fight the Thinkers. Make my own decisions.
Part of me believed that could still happen. Another part felt so pessimistic, I wanted to turn around, then turn myself in. And a third part simply didn’t even know which way was up anymore.
“What do you think is better?” I asked. “Free or functioning?”
Saffediene cut me a quick look out of the corner of her eye. This was dangerous territory, but I honestly
