“That’s great,” I said. “What did you do in Rise One?”
“Drains,” she said, her joy over her recovered memories fading into seriousness. Gunner shot me a look filled with caution.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes every day.”
“One or two or three a day?”
“I couldn’t handle more than one. If I had to drain someone, I got the rest of the day off. I almost—” She swallowed hard. “I almost liked doing them.” Her voice ghosted into silence.
“It’s okay, Raine,” Gunn murmured.
“I wasn’t tied down,” she said. Suddenly her eyes grew wide. She moaned like a frightened animal. “I used to be strapped down during the drains.” Her eyes rapidly shifted between me and Gunner. “Didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said. Gunn nodded, and a single tear trickled down Raine’s cheek. She swiped at it and took a deep breath.
“I wasn’t tethered during the drains as Arena. They didn’t hurt as much. I—I liked doing them because then I could go home, get away from everyone watching me.” Raine shivered. “Their eyes felt like razors.”
“I love you,” Gunner said, and he pressed his lips to her temple.
She leaned into him, gratitude in her eyes.
“Anything else you might want on the report?” I asked, a surge of loneliness and jealousy roaring through me. Gunner watched me with sympathetic eyes, but that only made me feel irritated on top of isolated.
She shook her head. “Gunner is going to tell me about the flight trials,” she said. “He says I’m a good flier.”
“You are,” I assured her. Gunn’s fingers moved up her arm, and I took that as my cue to leave. I’d have to corner Gunn later for what he knew about the Evolutionary Rise.
I’d never ventured into Saffediene’s room before, but my feet took me there now. She had a curtain hanging on the wall. I stared at it, marveling at its normalcy, wondering if a window really lurked behind it.
“It’s just for decoration,” she said through the darkness. She pressed a button and a dim lamp flared to life. Shadows chased each other across her bed and concealed half her face.
“Hey,” I said. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
She shifted on her cot and gestured to the small space at the end.
I sat, suddenly nervous to be there. I didn’t know why, but I thought the way Saffediene and I had been holding hands and lying in each other’s arms may have had something to do with it.
“About what we saw in Harvest . . .”
“That riot,” she said. Saffediene didn’t like to sugarcoat things. She called it how she saw it. I remembered when she did that during engineering class. I’d taken it as another sign that she was thinking for herself.
“Yeah, the riot,” I said. “I don’t think we should detail that in our report.”
Silence stretched so long that I squinted at her to determine what she was thinking. She twirled the ties on her quilt, her eyebrows furrowed.
“What’s the purpose of keeping it a secret?” she asked.
“Maybe it’s an isolated incident,” I said. “Also, it has nothing to do with our mission. Director Benes is still solidly on board. I don’t think Jag needs the complication of some stupid transportation dispute in a city hundreds of miles away.” I shrugged in an attempt to look nonchalant. “I just don’t think it’s necessary. What do you think?”
She kept her eyes on the blanket for another few moments, then raised her gaze to mine. Her fingers went still. “I think Jag needs to know everything.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought that statement held a double meaning. “Yes, eventually,” I said. “But right now?”
“If Benes can’t even solve his labor disputes, how is he going to send people when we need them?” she asked.
“Who directs the transportation department is a far cry from sending Insiders to help take down Freedom,” I said.
She nodded, her attention back on the blanket. She seemed so forlorn.
“What else is bothering you?” Saffediene had been so in tune with my troubles with Vi, but I was surprised that I’d noticed she wasn’t her normal self.
She exhaled, and seemed to further deflate. “You’re going to Lakehead,” she said, her voice hesitant.
“Yeah, so?” I asked. “It’s a day trip. Though I’m sure I’ll have some crazy-late watch assignment after that.”
She smiled, but it came and went before it could truly settle on her mouth. I caught myself staring and glanced away.
“Yeah, so, I’ll miss you.” She met my gaze with a challenge. For the first time since I recruited her, I did a little bit of investigating inside her mind.
And oh, man. She—
“I like you, Zenn,” she said. She shifted on the bed, and I shot to my feet.
“I should go.”
Saffediene’s eyes pinched as hurt crossed her face.
“Maybe when I get back we can . . . talk some more.”
“Yeah, talk,” she said, dipping her chin so I couldn’t see her eyes.
“Uh, what about Harvest?” I asked.
“I won’t say anything in the report,” she said. “I’ll file it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said, releasing a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
I stood in the doorway, wanting to make this right before I flew away. No matter who stood in front of me, I’d always spoken the right words and known just the right thing to do to maintain their trust.
But this was outside my scope of Insider training. They didn’t offer a course on how to deal with free- thinking girls who liked you.
Finally I said, “Saffediene?”
She looked up.
“I’ll miss you too.”
And that was the truth.
Jag
17.
