Jag
39.
No one stood guard outside the Security Department, but that didn’t make me feel any less nervous. My reports said General Darke had a dozen bodyguards, and who knew what equipment or which talents.
We met no resistance. Vi’s tension infiltrated my senses. I turned toward her, only to find determination etched on her face.
“We’re here,” Vi said, and it sounded so loud in the sleeping city. We touched down in the street and entered the Security Department through a glass door.
I wondered if the monitoring systems in Castledale were still functioning, and if my picture had just been taken, or if our entrance had been logged.
It didn’t matter. Darke was in this building, and I didn’t wait to see who followed me or where they went afterward. I strode forward, my boots making heavy thuds against the metal floor.
I ascended to the top floor with Vi, and we placed our charges down the hall and around the only door. After descending to the lobby, I pressed the button on my belt and my world exploded.
When I woke up, I smelled wet cement and smoke. I wasn’t in the building anymore, and someone crouched nearby, backlit by a flickering orange glow.
I moaned, and the figure turned, scrambling back to me. “Stay down, Jag,” he said. “You took a piece of metal right to the head.”
The man turned, looking back down the alley. “Vi! He’s awake.”
I didn’t know who Vi was, so I asked, “Who are you?”
Zenn
40.
When General Darke and I left the tunnel, the Security Department still burned brightly against the midnight sky. He didn’t spare it a glance, but I flew backward and watched until I couldn’t see it anymore.
I never saw anyone else flying nearby. I never heard anyone call my name. I’d never felt so alone, not even when I’d left Vi to begin training with the Special Forces or when my father stopped responding to my messages.
We flew all night, using two spare packs to keep the boards going. We arrived in Freedom just as the sun crested the ocean waves.
The city lay in silence, broken and smoldering, the techtric barrier ruined.
Jag
41.
The girl kneeling in front of me stared, her eyes flashing with blue and turquoise and purple. The color purple really freaked me out for some reason, like I’d seen it recently and it meant something bad was about to happen.
She’d come running when the man had called her name. When she spoke, her mouth didn’t move, but her voice echoed in my head.
Easy enough for her to say. Before I could respond,
“No,” she said, dashing to the corner of the building again. The still-nameless man joined her. “No, no, no.” She watched the sky. Somewhere around that corner, a fire burned. The flames reflected off the tears flowing down Violet Schoenfeld’s face.
When she turned, the look in her eye scared me, scared me, scared me. I flinched away and bumped into a soft body lying next to me.
The girl slept peacefully. Her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, and her bright yellow hair fell in jagged lines to the dark ground. I felt something for her. Friendship?
I recognized this girl. I’d seen her sleep before. I’d seen another guy keep his hand possessively on her back, showing everyone that they were together.
I took a deep breath, trying to reason through these weird feelings, and trying to place this beautiful Violet girl who seemed to want to punch me and kiss me at the same time.
“Vi?” I said, testing the name the man had called her just after I’d woken up.
She left the corner and strode toward me. “Don’t ‘Vi’ me.” With her words, another vision barged into my mind. One in which this girl shoved me backward. Told me I shouldn’t have left her to cross the border alone. After she forgave me for leaving her in the Goodgrounds, we watched the sunset together, content in the silence that followed.
I loved this girl. “I think I love you,” I said out loud, trying those words in my mouth. They seemed to fit.
Vi sighed, awakening more memories within me. She reached out and pulled me to a standing position. “Come look at this.”
She led me to the corner. I hobbled from the shooting pain in my ankle and the dull pain in my head. Sure enough, a building burned beyond the alley. “The Security Department,” I said, more and more pieces of my life coming to my remembrance. I looked at Vi. My Vi. “We did it.”
“Zenn left with Darke,” Vi said. “I saw them.”
Something inside me roared, blocking out the worried look on Vi’s face, the choking smell of singed metal and melting plastic, and the memory of her father—who was watching me.
A flood of memories crashed down upon me. I remembered everything, especially how Zenn had betrayed me once before.
“We’re depleted,” Thane said back in the war room. He handed me a hemal-recycler, and I held it to my head wound to absorb the blood. Meds flowed into my bloodstream, and I felt the pain recede instantly. “We lost half our members. We need time to regroup.” He lifted his mug of steaming coffee and drank.
We had to evacuate this city—fast. Who knew how long it would be before Darke sent a cleanup crew? I’d tasked the surviving Resistance members to pack up our remaining tech and food. Vi sat next to me, holding my hand, while Thane mused through possible locations for our retreat.
I pushed away from the table. I limped away from Vi, away from Thane, away from their questions and feelings. I didn’t really want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with them either.
I left the building and stood in the shadows of a doorway across the street to wait for the impending sunrise. I’d first kissed Vi in a doorway almost exactly like this. I’d never felt anything so magical as her lips against mine.
Tears burned behind my eyes, and I let them fall. I was glad I could remember kissing Vi. For a few minutes after I’d woken up, I couldn’t even recall my own name. Then everything had come back, and I’d been told a few things I wished I didn’t know.
Namely that Thane had saved me. We hadn’t heard from Laurel or anyone on her team since before the
