Abandon (17 page)

I stood up, anger battling the fear that swelled in me. “Are you threatening me?”

She stood too, her movement fluid and graceful. I held my ground as she advanced. Adrenaline surged, making my blood race through my body. I hadn’t felt this alive in a long time.

Vi marched up to me and put her hands on my chest. I tingled at her touch. She stretched up to kiss me on the mouth. I grasped her too tightly. I returned her kiss too roughly.

She laughed as she pulled away. “There you are,” she said. The fire in her eyes had been replaced with her usual Thinker edge.

“There I am?” I asked. “What kind of freaky game was that?”

“You’ve been wallowing,” she said.

“I—wallowing? I have not.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I think I would know.”

I shouldn’t argue with that, but I said, “You don’t
have
to invade my mind.”

“Right. Like you don’t
have
to feel my emotions.”

I threw my head back and laughed, which felt foreign and freeing. “You win.”

She let me kiss her again before she set about packing up her blanket. “But I do believe the insects were all an illusion.” She said it casually, as if we were talking about the humidity.

“Why do you think that?” I kept my gaze on the horizon, noticing a blur in the blue.

“I couldn’t enter your mind,” she said. “All of the other times, I was you in the dream. I lived it through you.” She swung her backpack on and shouldered her hoverboard. “This time, I could only watch. I don’t think it was real.”

I nodded, again wondering which was worse. The mental
violation, or actually being covered in writhing snakes and hairy spiders.

“I think someone’s coming,” I said, looking into the midday sun but seeing only bright light.

“Indiarina,” Vi said, a definite bite of jealousy in all five syllables.

The shock surely showed on my face. “How do you know?”

Vi cast her eyes to the ground and then quickly back to mine. “I can sort of find people I’m connected to.”

“You’re connected to Indy?”

“No.” She practically spat the word at me. “But I am connected to Thane, and he’s with Indy. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Nice,” I said, but not thinking it was nice at all. I didn’t want to have a close encounter with her father when my emotions were still spiraling.

“They found a safe house in Grande.” She smiled, but it clashed with the true emotion riding beneath her calm exterior.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked. She opened her mouth to lie about her nerves, but I cut her off. “I can feel it, Vi. You’re anxious. Why?”

“Indy—”

“This has nothing to do with Indy.” I tipped my head to the side, trying to get a better read on her wavering emotions. She was getting better at concealing them. Still, I tasted uncertainty, some fear, but mostly anxiety. Anxiety over the unknown. Anxiety over her—

“My mother is at that safe house.”

26
.
I loitered in the Greenhouse across from Eighty, peering through the soil-stained glass at the door. It didn’t move, even when I sent a southern breeze to knock on it. The windows were black, covered by plastic on the inside.

With my limited mind capabilities, I couldn’t find anyone. Yet Greene had said Saffediene was there. I took a deep breath and moved to exit my hideout and enter Greenhouse Eighty.

I halted when two men who were just as tall as Greene, but twice as wide, advanced down the path toward me. I
melted into the shadows of a towering tree, grateful that the disorganization of the Greenhouses could conceal me.

They paused outside Eighty, casting furtive glances down the path before they each raised one fisted hand and together rapped four times on the metal door. The thuds echoed across the path, shaking my bones.

Not half a heartbeat later the door swung open, and the two men disappeared inside. I coerced the wind to jam the door, but it settled shut despite the force of the elements.

With little choice left, I squared my shoulders and marched across the path. Using both my fists, I pounded four times on the door.

It immediately opened, revealing a tangle of vines amid the darkness. I slipped in, allowing the door to latch behind me.

I hadn’t thought past getting into Greenhouse Eighty, and before I could take one step, four hands grasped me, two on each of my arms. My first reaction was fear, but anger wasn’t far behind.

A rough voice spoke in my ear. “Who are you?”

“How’d you get here, outsider?” another asked.

“He knew the knock,” someone else said.

“It wasn’t hard,” I said, trying to rip my arms away. “I just watched the door for ten seconds.”

Someone punched me in the stomach. My knees gave out. I gasped. The two men holding my arms didn’t loosen their grip. I hung there, trying to breathe, anger flowing through me like techtricity.

“Release me,” I managed, my voice weak. Still, the grip on my right arm slipped.

I regained my feet. I straightened. “Let me go.” This time my voice came out properly. They let me go.

“Where’s Saffediene?” I asked. I wished this place had some lights.

A moment of silence was punctuated only by the shuffling of feet. I blinked, and a flicker of a match brightened the room. I thought I’d imagined it, but on the next strike, the fire caught. It illuminated someone’s hand and cast orange patterns on their soil-crusted T-shirt.

They held the flame to a candle and passed it around the room until two dozen candles were lit and the space came to life. I glanced from face to face. There were twenty-four men and women in the room, all of them glaring at me. Saffediene wasn’t among them.

“Fire?” I asked. “Really?”

“Fire requires neither tech nor ability,” someone said. The words reminded me of Greene. So did the way they all stood perfectly still, not so much as a blink or twitch.

They obviously knew
Insider Tip #8: Don’t fidget. It’s a sign of nerves, which can indicate a lie.

“Where’s Saffediene?” I asked, trying a different tactic. “She and I are from Freedom, and we were told Eighty was on the inside track.”

The woman across from me blinked, which I took as a sign that something I’d said held power. “We just received a return shipment from Freedom,” she said. “Last week, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” the man next to her said. “Two trees that didn’t take to the weather.”

“We need to examine those trees,” I said. “Where are they?”

“What’s your name?” the woman asked.

“Zenn Bower. Yours?”

“Min Holyoak.” She flicked her eyes to the man next to her. “And Shade Rodriguez.” They took their candles and turned to leave.

I followed them into a long corridor that had so many potted plants and trees and shrubs that I hardly had room to walk. The candle cast flickering light onto leaves and branches, which transformed into clawing fingers and shadowy hands.

“Your friend has already examined the trees,” Shade said. “She found nothing.”

“Impossible,” I said. “The Insiders in Freedom wouldn’t have returned the trees without sending a message with
them.” I’d seen Trek at work with his gadgets. He could code a portlet to malfunction at exactly the right moment. He could falsify any type of communication. He could change what his voice sounded like, could replicate intonation and personality.

He had a piece of tech for everything, and what he didn’t have, he invented. He’d have done something with the trees. He must have.

We turned a corner, and the corridor opened up into a larger room. Long, silver counters ran in rows with spilled dirt and rusted gardening tools. The black plastic only covered the windows; natural light streamed down from skylights. But the plants here all looked to be in various stages of dying.

Saffediene sat on a counter in the middle of the room, her legs swinging, staring up through the glass ceiling.

“Saffediene.” I pushed past Min and hurried toward her. She looked at me, moving in what seemed like slow motion. Dried tears crusted her face. I gathered her into my arms, automatically stroking her unbraided hair and soothing her with my voice.

She gripped my shirt, her body tense tense tense. She didn’t cry. The embrace only lasted a few seconds before she pulled back.

“What happened?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, taking both my hands in hers. “I’m sorry I left you. I—” She stopped. “I felt something weird.”

“Felt something weird?” This statement from Saffediene didn’t fit with her
goes-for-specific
personality.

She shook her head. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I woke up to voices, and the city was glowing with light.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“The two men talking? They said your name, and I knew if they found you, it would be bad. So I let them find me instead.”

“So the e-comms,” I said. “The first was from you. The second—”

“They forced me to send it. I knew you’d figure out it was a fake. The Insiders sent Greene Leavitt to find you, and Min and Shade sent a body double to act for me at the jury.”

“She searched the trees,” Shade said. “And found nothing.”

“Show me, Saffediene,” I said, without power or control but with a gentleness that surprised me. She released my hands, hopped off the table, and lifted two potted trees onto the counter. They had very few leaves and bark the color of slate. The soil lay in uneven mounds, as if she had sifted through it meticulously. That was the Saffediene I knew.

I ran my hands from the soil up the tree trunk. It felt cool and smooth. When I met the first branch, my fingers followed it, trying to feel something invisible. A leaf snapped off with a spark.

I jerked my eyes to Saffediene’s. “Did you see that?”

Saffediene picked up the leaf. A wisp of smoke trailed out of the stem. She turned it over, examining the back of it.

“It’s nothing,” she said, handing it to me.

I ran my finger over the delicate veins, desperate to find something. Nothing, despite the spark I’d seen. It really was a leaf.

What am I missing?

What? What? What?

Only a handful of leaves remained on the tree. Impulsively I pinched them all off, sparks flying with each one.

As the last one fluttered to the countertop, a p-screen fizzled to life, the tech leaping and arcing from the detached leaves to form a viewing area the size of my palm. Trek’s face flickered on it. “Message from Freedom: All feeds are being checked and double-checked by Director Hightower himself. Please update to the following frequency. Alpha kappa one five gamma row three.”

The transmission ended; the screen dissipated.

“I don’t believe it,” Min whispered.

“When did you get this?” I asked.

“Five, maybe six days ago,” Shade said.

“Code all outgoing plants,” I told Min. “Employ all your runners and have the message out by tonight so everyone will know in the next two days.” She nodded, waving at Shade.

“Saffediene and I will leave messages in the cities from here to the Southern Region.”

“I’ll inform Greene,” Shade added, already retreating back down the corridor. Min hurried after him.

I looked at Saffediene, who was watching me with wide eyes. “What?”

“You reminded me of Jag right then. So authoritative.”

“Let’s fly,” I said, ignoring her comment. “We’ve got loads of work to do.”

*   *   *

Saffediene and I separated, and I flew east while she went west. We would cover the corridor from Cedar Hills down to the Southern Region.
Six days
, I thought. Director Hightower could’ve learned so much about the Resistance efforts in six long days.

I left a message in the correspondence tube outside Cave Pointe, and then flew south to Freedom. Just after noon I touched down on the northern border and opened my cache to Trek.
The birds fly north in winter.

I waited, hoping Trek had received the message, and that he could come right away.

Twenty minutes later Trek appeared from behind the wall. He strode toward the techtric barrier without a backward glance. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a tangled mess.

He scanned me the same way I was analyzing him. “You look awful,” he said, his voice semimuted through the barrier. “You must not sleep either.”

“Not much,” I said. “We were in Cedar Hills and just got your message.”

He cursed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I knew we should’ve sent a message to the safe house. But after you guys took Thane, we weren’t sure who’d be watched. And Starr couldn’t risk another meeting with Gunn.”

“We lost six days.”

“Yeah, and it’s six days we don’t have. The General is preparing to leave in the morning.” He smoothed a hand over his unshaved jaw. “Hightower has been checking the feeds from every city, and he found several false vids. That’s how he located your safe house. The false feeds either come from my hub or from Pace’s, and since he didn’t get the message, Hightower found his fake routing info.”

“So Director Hightower found the cavern because of the
false feeds we’ve been sending?” That settled in my stomach so much easier than a spy living in the hideout.

“Right. And the General is leaving for Castledale in the morning, as those feeds account for the majority of the false vids.”

“Pace was doctoring all those.”

“Right. And since no one received our message, we weren’t able to bury the coordinates before they were found.”

I exhaled. “Damn. Well, I’ve got the code going out through Cedar Hills’s plant network. Everyone should know by tomorrow night.”

“That won’t help Castledale.” Trek pinned me with a meaningful look.

“I’ll go. What am I telling them?”

“General Darke is leaving in the morning. Our people will make sure his board will only have enough charge to get him to Arrow Falls, where he’ll be forced to stop to recharge. That will buy you about eight hours. He’s going to Castledale for a full status report. If you leave now, and fly nonstop, you’ll have approximately eighteen hours to evacuate all Insiders, and Director Pederson will need to make his completely noncompliant city absolutely compliant. Otherwise . . .” Trek let the words hang there, and I knew what followed them.