in Buffalo Ridge, South Gulf, Lobster Bay, and Highland Ranch are relocating to the nearby cities of Lava Springs, Rockwelle, New Boston, and Tri-Rivers.”
“Fantastic,” I murmured, still studying the report Saffediene had submitted from Harvest. “Pace, tech update, please.”
“Our rings are holding their power pretty well. The evacuations should continue without a problem. The falsified feeds have been rerouted through Trek’s hub inside Freedom.”
I half listened as I flipped the page in Saffediene’s report. She’d scrubbed something out several times and written over it.
I glanced up at Zenn, who was watching Pace. My brother smiled when I looked at him. “Everything is set. We can completely wipe our caches, make them untraceable by the Association. I’ll set a new frequency, one only we can use to communicate with each other.”
Gunn frowned. “What does that do to my ability to chat with Starr?”
“It makes it impossible. If she has intel, we’ll need to get it before we reset your cache,” Pace said.
Gunn looked at me. “Go,” I said. “Find out all you can. Tell her we’ll be invading on March twenty- eighth.”
“I’ll go with him,” Raine said quickly. I understood, really. He was the only one she knew. Gunn had been working with her to get her memories back. My reports said she’d made great progress.
“No, you won’t,” I said. “No way you’re getting anywhere close to Freedom.”
She stiffened. “I’ve been checked for trackers. I’m not carrying anything.”
“I realize that,” I said. “You’re simply too valuable to the Association. Which means we can’t lose you. Gunn can go with Thane or Indy.” I could tell Gunn wasn’t happy about that—and I didn’t blame him.
Indy glared. “I’d love to get out of this hellhole,” she said. “Count me in.”
“Super,” Gunn said. “We’ll leave after the meeting.”
“Find out everything you can about where Hightower is, what his schedule is like, what’s going on in the major Rises,” I said. “We probably won’t talk with Starr again before we launch.”
I flipped another page in Saffediene’s report before setting it down and starting Zenn’s. I skimmed the details on Cedar Hills and found his Harvest notes.
I glanced up, knowing we needed to begin planning the invasion of Freedom. “Thane, Raine, do we have a detailed map of Freedom?”
“Let me bring it up,” Thane said. The tabletop shimmered and turned into a p-screen. Snaking lines cut across the surface, drawing green areas and streets and buildings.
I kept reading Zenn’s report. My breath came quicker as I realized his report didn’t match Saffediene’s. She’d said Director Benes met them in the air, overlooking the city; Zenn said he met them on the roof of a building.
I stole a glance at Saffediene. She had her finger pinned to a building on the map, and she was talking with Vi. Raine traced a path where the tech barrier lay, and Gunner put
Zenn circled the Confinement Rise, the Evolutionary Rise, the Medical Rise, and Rise One, and then they glowed red. He turned Rises Twelve, Nine, and Six blue, claiming these were safe spots where Insiders had coded flats and scrambling devices.
Neither Zenn nor Saffediene seemed the least bit worried that I was reading their reports. I shuffled them to the bottom of the pile. The next several sheets of paper held information I already knew. Lists of talents from the incoming Insiders, Hightower’s plans to shut down school, a compilation of Darke’s hideouts across the Association.
I slid that one to Zenn. “Let’s try to ruin as many of these as we can during the attack.”
He studied the list. “Our people have been pulled from these cities already.”
“Friendly Directors?”
“Mostly. But Jag, if we start blowing up General Darke’s refuges, he’ll know we’re coming after him.”
“He’s going to know anyway,” I said.
Zenn folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Consider it done.”
I almost allowed myself to smile. I imagined Ian Darke, traveling from one of his precious cities to the next, only to find that those cities didn’t belong to him anymore. That the people who lived in them had taken control of their own lives. And when he just wanted to go home and have a drink, he’d find his flat a smoldering heap of cement. Just like so many Citizens in his Union had.
Was I evil for thinking that way? Probably. But Vi didn’t chastise me, or even look my way.
I listened while the group discussed Freedom and the best way to get as many people as possible into the city and positioned in key areas. While I hated Freedom, I knew every intricacy of it. I’d been there a few times, and I didn’t always stay in the Confinement Rise.
“Let’s lay low,” I said, tapping the map to erase it. “Laurel, have we got enough food for those coming in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” I said. “I’m sixteen years old.”
“Yes, sir,” she said again, and Vi actually started laughing.
“Nice,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Meeting’s over.” As everyone stood to leave, I called, “Zenn, Saffediene. I’d like a word.”
“A riot?” I asked for the third time.
Zenn rubbed his face and winced when he touched his nose. There was another story there, another secret he was keeping from me. “A labor dispute. Something with the Transportation Director. We didn’t think it mattered, and it doesn’t. Benes—”
“Sent his Insiders,” Saffediene finished for him. “And the report they brought with them says that the riot was worked out. The elected official is Director of Transportation. The people chose—”
“And their decision was upheld,” Zenn finished.
I would’ve thought their little finish-each-other’s-sentences thing was cute, if they hadn’t lied to me. If Zenn wasn’t tenderly touching his nose. If Saffediene didn’t keep stealing glances at him. If they didn’t have caches they could use to make their story line up.
“What else do I need to know?” I asked them.
“Nothing,” Saffediene said. Zenn remained silent—the first indication of a lie.
“You’re my prime traveling team. I trust you to tell me everything,” I said, infusing a heavy dose of guilt into my voice.
Saffediene cast her eyes down. She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Do not call me sir.”
Zenn held my gaze, his jaw clenched. His nose was a little off-center, and definitely swollen. “You can start by telling me what happened to your face.”
“Nothing happened to my face.”
He was brilliant at playing both sides. At acting cool and collected. Had he fooled me in the past? Undoubtedly. But he wasn’t tricking me now.
“Who hit you?”
Saffediene swallowed as she scooted away from Zenn. “I think I’ll try to catch Gunner,” she said, standing up. I waved her away without comment. She was innocent, a new recruit. Anything she’d done was because of the guy sitting next to me.
“She follows your lead,” I said. “And you’re teaching her to lie to me.”
“I am not.”
“Then what do you talk about when she’s lying in your arms at night?”
Defiance and fury emanated from him. I’d struck something sensitive. “You think I don’t know?” I asked.
“What do you know, Jag?” His question sounded like a threat.
“She’s in love with you. If you asked her right now to leave here and fly north across that dead border and start a new life with you, she would.”
