Possession (22 page)

My legs felt waterlogged as I shuffled along the narrow path, and when I reached the other side, I hurried behind an outcropping of rock.
Let’s see how Jag likes it when he’s left behind.

Rage simmered in my veins as I chose random paths that seemed like they’d take me farther west. I couldn’t trust anything that came out of his mouth. He’d said he’d help me, but
he hadn’t. He blamed me for the sticker and the tag and who knows what else. When he told me he loved me, he’d probably been lying about that too.

That hurt. A lot. Because, yeah, I’m a liar too, but about that, I hadn’t. I really loved that stupid Jag Barque.

But what about my dad, with all his aliases—did I still love him? I didn’t know. Blood was thicker than water, right? But was blood thicker than love? Than choice? Than freedom?

I reran my dad’s speech at the facility through my head. Maybe he was right. Maybe people do need someone to keep them in line.

The images from primary school repeated in my head. Elderly people living in the streets.

The bones of children practically popping through their skin because they didn’t have enough to eat.

The hollow, worn-out faces of those who had no one to take care of them.

The Association of Directors had fixed all that. Would it be so horrible to use my control to make sure our society didn’t lapse back into poverty, ruin, and starvation?

It seemed like an easy choice. It wasn’t.

Just as I forced one foot in front of the other, I forced the disturbing thoughts out of my head, fumbling for one good memory.

I remembered my tenth birthday, when Ty made me a pink birthday cake with purple frosting. My mother was angry because Ty used her last ration of cherries to tint the cake batter.

But Ty didn’t get punished. My mother adored her, and Ty showed her how the cake had risen perfectly. My mother smiled and got out the replicator to take the only picture I had of any of my birthdays. And I wasn’t even in it.

When the sun started to rise, I looked behind me for Jag. Most of me wanted to see him, following me to make sure I was okay—or at least headed in the right direction. But a tiny part didn’t want to find him. That part needed more than a night to reason through the confusing mess of good and bad and free and safe and betrayal and love.

He emerged like a dark shadow from the awakening sky. “You hungry?” he asked, spitting out the words like it was my fault hunger existed.

My stomach roared. “No,” I lied, barely forming the word in my dry throat.

“Come on, Vi—”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I have protein packets.”

Ignoring him—and the protests of my belly—I found a cave amidst the rocky landscape big enough to lie down in.

I did not need Jag Barque to survive.

I couldn’t sleep with all the growling in my gut. Just when I’d drift off, my insides ached as if they were about to collapse.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I sat up, feeling weak. I had to eat. Across from me, Jag slept. I slipped over the rocky surface, cringing when the grating sounds of my movement echoed off the cave walls.

Jag’s backpack unzipped easily, quietly. The silver protein packets glinted underneath the orange rope. I reached for them, cursing silently when they slid further into the pack.

I had just managed to trap a packet between my fingers when Jag muttered in his sleep. I jumped and backpedaled away. The lines on his face smoothed as he settled back into
his dream. I wondered which one it was this time. Part of me longed to be asleep so I could experience his memories with him. Another part hated that I could enter his mind at all. And still another part wanted nothing more than to eat. Now.

Tucking the lone protein packet in my back pocket, I pulled on my backpack and stumbled in the direction of the river. I twisted through the canyon down to the water’s edge. My head felt detached and everything was turning white.

I drank greedily, not caring that the water needed to be purified. A few brush trees and scraggly bushes grew nearby, but nothing like the bulbs I’d eaten in the Badlands. I dumped out the contents of my first aid kit so I could mix the protein packet. Nothing had ever tasted so good as that putrid drink.

But I was still starving. One packet wasn’t going to sustain me for very long.

I dug through the clothes and tech supplies, laying them on the ground to see them better. The three tech-phones were incapable of making food. That seemed like a good feature to have. The stupid phone could do everything else.

I had a dozen bio-cylinders. Two round platters lay next to them. After picking one up, I felt the tech twitch inside the sliver of metal. My fingers shook at the same time.

The now-familiar insignia of the two square knots snaking around each other adorned the back. Maybe this was another
weapon. Maybe you could throw it and it would grow nasty edges and cut enemies down. Who knew?

Jag, probably.

I pushed the plates away along with the annoying thought of Jag. I turned my attention to the two cubes of pure silver. They didn’t bear the double square knot. I picked one up and the techtricity infiltrated my mind, almost whispering instructions. I pressed with my thumb on one side and my forefinger on the other.

The cube shook and started to unfold. I dropped it and watched as it flopped into a square big enough to stand on. I didn’t think it was a teleporter pad, though it looked like one.

The tray looked familiar . . . like the one my hot chocolate had arrived on at the tech facility.

“Pink birthday cake with purple frosting,” I said. It appeared on the square. I smiled, picked it up, and stuffed it in my mouth.

“Happy Birthday to me,” I sang softly to myself. “Scalloped potatoes.” A large plate of potatoes and onions with cheese sauce appeared. I ate it in about two minutes even though it burned my mouth.

“Milk,” I said next, but the square remained empty. “Fine. Whole milk.” With the clarification, a large glass of creamy white milk appeared. Nothing had ever tasted so good as that milk.

I sighed happily and wiped my mouth. A flicker of light beamed in my mind, a signal that someone with power was drawing near. I started stuffing everything back into the pack.

I glanced behind me to the path through the canyon—the only way out. Pulling on my pack, I ran parallel to the river, toward the safety of a small cluster of rocks. Just as I crouched behind them, Jag emerged from the canyon and crossed to the water. He bent down and drank from the stream.

Then he moved toward me slowly, his eyes trained on the ground. He stopped in the exact spot I’d been eating my solitary birthday meal. Today was his birthday too. I wondered if he felt as alone as I did, if he also longed to have a party with his sister—the way it should have been.

“I don’t have a sister,” he whispered. I hadn’t seen him approach. Hadn’t heard him, he was just suddenly there. “I only want you.”

The stupid tears pricked the back of my throat. When had I become such a baby? Anyway, now I knew why I hadn’t seen him: everything swam in my vision, including his perfect smile and caring eyes. But he wouldn’t trick me again.

“Liar.” I pushed past him and retraced my steps to the cave. Jag followed me, and I knew him, felt him, almost became one with him. Not in a physical way, but emotional.

Our connection.
This was what he thought I should have sensed last night before tasing him.

“Vi, wait,” he called.

I paused just outside the cave, the swirl of emotions threatening to engulf me.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Whatever.”

“Why are you so mad?”

“Why am I so mad?
Why am I—?
Look, if you don’t know, I’m not going to fill you in.”

“Because I said we couldn’t sleep?”

“Because of everything! You act like it’s no big deal to raid my thoughts. You think I’m something special, but you don’t tell me anything. You say you love me, but you don’t trust me.” I paused, not wanting to get too carried away and spill everything I’d been hiding from him.

His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. There’s so much I want to tell you, but I need you to make your own decisions.”

I put one hand on my hip. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, Barque.” I turned toward the cave.

He touched my shoulder. “I don’t want to influence you with my voice.”

Damn him. He always
always
knew the perfect thing to say. I adjusted my backpack and lay down. He climbed into
the cavity with me, and I was crying (yeah, again) before his strong arms encircled me and his velvety voice whispered in my ear.

“Shh, I love you. Happy birthday, babe.” He could influence me with that voice any day. “And I can’t hear your thoughts. Just what you feel. I didn’t know what your plan was, just that it felt good, it felt like it—whatever it was—would work.”

“What plan?”

Jag chuckled, and the tension between us disappeared. I lay in his arms, finally feeling safe. I shivered and he pulled me closer, only for me to push him away a few minutes later when I got too hot.

Finally, when I’d kept us both awake for an hour, he got up and retrieved the ointment from his first aid kit.

“Take off that shirt,” he said. “I mean, if you want my help.”

“Shut up. I won’t die from a sunburn.” At least I thought I wouldn’t. I’d always been told there was nothing worse than a sunburn, but now that I’d seen so many Baddies, I wasn’t so sure.

“Okay, then.” He lay back down, stretching his hands behind his head and studying the ceiling of the cave like it held the secret to living an uncontrolled life.

“But I—want your help.”

He grinned as he sat up. “Take off your shirt.”

I peeled off the prison shirt. Because of the tee I still wore, only my arms glowed pink. But, damn, they hurt.

“No wonder you can’t sleep.” He gently rubbed the cream into my arms, neck, and face.

I flinched. “Cold,” I murmured.

When he finished, he helped me put the long-sleeved shirt back on. “You’ll have to get it wet to take it off, okay? Don’t rip it. It’ll hurt.”

I nodded, so tired I couldn’t speak. I simply curled into his embrace again, wishing sleep would take me so I wouldn’t have to think anymore.

“Vi?”

“Hmm?”

“Will your dad give up?”

I didn’t answer right away, even though I knew. Surely Jag knew too. He’d obviously had more experience with my dad—with Thane—than I had. Just as I was about to answer, Jag said, “I’ll protect you. I promise.”

Yeah, he knew. And I did too.

My dad was not the giving-up type.

I settle into my desk chair and cross my legs. I can’t decide if I want to hear what he has to say. I sigh. “Bring him in.”

Zenn comes through the door, shrugging off the hands of his escorts. “Get off me.” He strides forward, his eyes locked on mine. “Jag, man, come on. What’s with the royal treatment?”

I regard him for a moment before waving away the others.

Zenn still has the softness to his face, though exhaustion has already carved lines around his eyes.

“Lay it out for me, Zenn,” I say, steepling my fingers under my chin.

Zenn stands straight and glares at me from across my desk. I’ll say one thing about him: he’s got guts. “There are more important things in my life right now.”

“That’s it? That’s your answer?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re telling me there’re more important things in
your
life. More important than the work
we’re
doing. More important than being
controlled
.” I don’t try to keep the malice out of my voice.

Zenn looks down. “Yes.”

My jaw tightens. Inside, fury mixes with unrest. Okay, and a little fear. “Look, Zenn, you’re the only Goodie I’ve got on the inside. You’ve done more for the Resistance in two years than anyone. I need to know you’re with me. One hundred percent. All the way.”

Zenn looks up, a fire burning in his eyes. I’ve seen it before. His mind is made up. “For now,” he says.

I tilt my head, trying to hear the true meaning behind the words. Long after he’s ushered out, I’m still thinking about it.

I have this sinking feeling Zenn’s not with me anymore. He’s gone Informant.

I can’t trust him.

Problem: He already knows too much.

*   *   *

I sat up, my mind swirling with what Zenn knew about me. He knew pretty much everything. The dank air in the cave felt too thick to breathe. My chest constricted with the effort it took to inhale.

Next to me, Jag bolted upright. His eyes widened, staring right into mine. “What’s wrong?”

I forced myself to exhale. “Nothing.”

He studied me, much the same way I imagined he eyed Zenn. “Your emotions are all over the place. They woke me up.”

“Bad dreams,” I said. Hey, it wasn’t entirely a lie. I let him take me in his arms. Let him stroke my hair. Let him whisper comforting words.

I closed my eyes and waited until he fell back to sleep. Then I got up and sat against the wall, the rocky ground grinding into my tailbone.

If I didn’t fall asleep, I couldn’t enter his mind again.

*   *   *

“You should take that shirt off,” Jag said. “Let your arms get some air.”

I knelt next to the river where he had finished filling our water bottles. The water looked like liquid ice, but I stuck my arms in all the way to the shoulder. The shirt billowed off
the sticky ointment. Every time I removed my arms from the water, the fabric clung again.

“Can you help me?” I called over my shoulder.

Jag took the hem of the shirt and lifted, pulling it over my head before trying to peel it off my arms. The cold water and slight breeze soothed my burned flesh. I adjusted my T-shirt so it covered my stomach.

“Nice,” he said, his eyes locked on my body. He tossed the wet shirt to the side and kissed me with a passion I now recognized as the hormonal-Jag style of kissing.

“Stop it. You’re bad.”

“For the love of all that’s bad, you’re beautiful.” He planted a kiss just under my jaw. Then a little farther down on my neck. Good alarms sounded in my head. The rush from Jag’s lips almost drowned them out.