Abandon (8 page)

“That’s him,” Saffediene said.

The glimmer got bigger and bigger, until I could make out
a hoverboard holding a white blob, which became a board with a bleeding, unconscious Jag riding it facedown.

The blood was dry, the hoverboard stationary.

Jag looked dead, what with the whole back of his white jacket shredded and plastered with dried blood.

A hot wind blew over the ocean, unsettling me further. Wind should be cool, refreshing. This wind stank of death and the promise of horrible things to come.

“Jag,” I whispered, silently pleading for him to take a breath, wake up, anything.

Saffediene hovered next to him, her fingers pressed against his neck. Tears streamed down her face, her hands fluttered from his shoulder to his back, and she hiccupped when she turned to me. “Zenn, help him.”

I snapped to attention, tearing my eyes from Jag’s limp body. I descended next to her and slapped her frantic hands away. “Let me,” I said. “Let me.”

She sobbed, but withdrew her hands enough for me to see the gentle rise of Jag’s back. Relief flooded me. “He’s alive. But he needs help.”

I didn’t know how much charge I had left in my board, but it couldn’t be much. Jag’s board was dead in the water, literally hovering inches above the waves, and Saffediene’s board probably had less charge than mine. Even the weather
was against us, as the clouds continued to block the sunlight we needed to recharge. I cupped my hands around the charge light, and felt my stomach lurch.

The red light blinked, which meant I had less than 10 percent of reserve power.

“Let’s go,” I said, quickly pulling Jag’s board onto the front of mine. I shifted to a sitting position so I could assess his wounds while we flew.

“My board is almost dead,” Saffediene said. At least she’d composed herself. I didn’t know what to do with crying girls. Non-crying girls either, for that matter.

“Mine too.” I opened the emergency first aid kit from my board’s storage compartment and set to work cleaning the dried blood off Jag’s face. “I’m gonna use the wind. Tether your board to mine.”

She followed my directions as I found the head wound a few inches behind Jag’s hairline. It looked like a clean cut. Pace could stitch him up when we got back to the cavern. There was a flesh wound on Jag’s leg to tend to. The series of slices on his back spoke volumes about why he’d passed out.

Jag also bore burnt tracks along his arms. Black streaks spiked over the back of his hands, like claws reaching for his fingers. He’d been tech-shocked.

I twisted to look over my shoulder, whispering under
my breath for the air current to come rescue us. It happily agreed, tousling my hair before wrapping itself around me, Saffediene, and Jag.

“Land,” I whispered to the wind, meeting Saffediene’s eyes as we began to soar across the water.

“So you can control the elements, huh?” she said, not really asking and not really accusing either, which I appreciated. We stared at one another for a few long breaths. Long enough for me to notice the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Long enough for me to forget I was a twenty-minute hoverboard ride from safety. Long enough for me to wonder why I’d never seen her properly before.

Then the moment broke. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and directed the northerly to take us away from prying Freedom eyes.

*   *   *

Vi launched herself at me and cried into my neck before bustling off to sit with Jag. She and Pace disappeared into the hospital nook, leaving me and Saffediene alone in the war room.

The cavern permeated sadness. It seeped from the very rocks themselves, clogging everything and everyone with melancholy. I inhaled slowly, but the thought of staying in the confines of this sadness choked me.

I turned and strode toward the exit, desperate to escape. Escape the cavern. Escape the sadness.

Escape my life.

*   *   *

Saffediene found me a half hour later, my back against a skinny tree trunk, facing away from Freedom. She sat down without speaking. She picked at the wild grass, and strangely, I didn’t mind her presence.

“Gunner asked me to go with you to Harvest. We’re leaving at dusk,” she said.

“Yeah, sure,” I said.
Whatever
, I wanted to add. The Director of Harvest could wait. Saffediene must’ve heard the pain in my voice, because she slipped her hand into mine.

Her skin felt startlingly cold; her hand was dwarfed by mine. I loved Vi, but this was the first meaningful human contact I’d had in a long time, and I didn’t want to let go.

So I didn’t.

We sat that way under the tree, palms pressing together, until the sun started its arcing descent to the west.

11
.
Walls surround me on every side. Above, below, there is no escape. And it’s wildly hot. So hot, my fingertips feel blistered from touching the metal several hours ago. Maybe they are, I can’t exactly see.

There’s only miles and miles of darkness; endless metal, smooth in every direction, maybe without corners, maybe not.

I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know how much time has passed. I made it all the way to the vineyards in White Cliffs before the vanishing tech had worn off. With the teleporter ring, I’d escaped scrape after scrape, always landing in an unknown city.

I could figure out my new location pretty fast. I mean, I have the entire Association memorized, and whenever I used the ring
,
I always had the image of Vi in my head. I liked to think my destination had something to do with her.

The first time I teleported, back in early July, I landed on the beach. Violet loved the beach. I didn’t know if she was on a similar beach at the time, but that’s what I imagined.

That way, our separation didn’t hurt so much. That way, my heart didn’t feel like a fish out of water, flopping and useless.

The teleporter ring ran out of juice by August. Who knew that could happen? Well, me now, I guess.

I’d flung the ring at the approaching guard in Baybridge, nailing him in the left eye. That’s how I’d made it out of that alley. Seemed everyone in the whole blasted Association was looking for me.

I spent the fall on the run, moving from one Midwestern city to another. No one would hire me—my skin held too much sun, and that called everything about me into question. Then officers/guards/patrols would be summoned, and my picture would come up on every screen.

Forcing me to run again.

Sure, I relied on my network of Insiders every step of the way. I knew the hideouts. I knew most of the leaders, if only by name or picture. They certainly all knew me.

My hair went from black to blond to brown and back. An Insider in Northepointe provided me with eye enhancements
in October. I got a work permit. I shoveled snow for months.

And I hate being cold. But the bulky suits—and hats—kept me off the radar. It’s my mouth that always puts me back on it.

I choke inside the capsule. There’s not enough air. They know it; they come fill it every few hours.

How long has it been? I don’t know. I take another breath, but I can’t tell if it’s filled with oxygen or only my own exhalations.

There’s only darkness—and the memories inside my own head.

I don’t like remembering. It makes me feel weak, like I should’ve done something different—like I
could’ve
done something different, if only I had been stronger. Better.

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

I’ve been buried alive. I try not to think it, but the horror is always there.

The capsule is so permanent.

The darkness is so heavy.

It’d be so easy to die.

My eyes are already closed. My body is already in the tomb. My girl is already gone.

At the thought of Vi, I force another breath through my body. Her face, fair and fierce, floats in the recesses of my mind.

I can’t give up on her. On us. She’s sustained me through difficult situations before, maybe she will this time too.

I can’t feel my feet now. Or my fingers—even the painful, blistered ones. I slump against the metal behind me. Hot, burning threads snake down my back, but I can’t move. Don’t even have the energy to whimper.

I’m dying,
I think.
They’ve won.

Pure, unadulterated fury accompanies that thought. I thrash against the darkness, but I can’t clear it away. My eyes are open; my voice screams.

“They will not win!” I yell so loud my throat rips. “You will not win!”

Inside my metal prison, I’m met with only an echo. No one comes. No one comes. No one comes.

There is no rescue from this hell.

*   *   *

I clawed at something that had been put over my eyes. My heart pounded in my throat; I swung my free arm to feel the space around me, and I made contact with a soft body.

“Jag, it’s Indy.”

My head throbbed. I blinked, trying to see. Indistinct shapes hovered in the room; the lights were too dim to really see who was there.

The light meant I was not in the capsule. I inhaled. Oxygen existed here.

“Relax, bro,” someone said. My brother.

“Pace.” An endless depth of relief surged through me. “Help me.”

“We’re trying,” he said. “You’re beating us back.”

My leg pulsed with my heartbeat. The skin along my back pulled, as if a thousand little teeth had found a home there. “What happened? Where’s Vi?”

“She’s here,” Pace said. “She just stepped out to get a bite to eat.”

“You’re all busted up,” Indy said. “Pace has been attending to your injuries.”

Little by little, my vision cleared. I felt a bandage on top of my head; my fingers brushed another binding on my thigh. Indy and Pace knelt in front of me, worry etched into their eyes.

“My head hurts,” I complained.

Pace chuckled. “I bet it does. Just a sec. I’ll drug you up again.” He stepped out of the hospital alcove, leaving me alone with Indy.

I couldn’t catalog all the body parts that hurt. “Hey,” I said, looking at Indy and trying not to cry.

She inched closer, one hand held tentatively toward me. When I didn’t punch her in the face, she threaded her fingers through mine. Her chest rose with a deep breath. “I was so scared.”

Those four words said it all. Indy had a whole I-never-get-scared thing going on. And she usually didn’t. I choked back my own fear—my own memories—and gathered her into a hug. Fire erupted along my shoulders where she touched me. I gave a strangled moan.

“Sorry,” she murmured, removing her hands, but not moving away. “Your back is sort of shredded.”

“Explain,” I said.

“Vi’s been in here, bawling for hours.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“She shattered the glass in the lab, thinking it would debilitate the Directors, buy you guys time to get out. Zenn and Raine and everyone escaped, but
you
were also debilitated. Took a lot of glass in the back. Pace worked on you, picking out shards for hours.”

I felt shredded inside and out. I held Indy tighter, finding comfort in the way she smelled like grass and something sweet. Her touch was tender, familiar.

“I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing for everything. For not knowing where Irvine was. For leaving her behind in the Badlands with a weak promise that we’d talk when I returned. All the things I’d never said, but should’ve.

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

“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
I’m in love with Vi, and I’m not going to screw it up by kissing you.

When I said “I’m sorry,” she heard
Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I will always love you, but in a different way.

And my “I’m sorry” also meant
I will find Irv.

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,
together
,” she said.

“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.