Wired (Skinned, Book 3) (13 page)

123

have a father. And so--I felt horrible for thinking it, spoiled and ungrateful and unfair, but it was true--he didn't know how it felt to lose one.

I stood up. "Let's go to bed."

Riley shut down, and I let him think I would too. But I stayed awake. Listened to the unfamiliar hiss of breathing, in and out, in and out. Held myself still beneath the weight of Riley's arm, as his body molded itself around mine. Tree branches scraped the window, and I watched their shadows play on the wall, seeking animals--monsters--in the flickering dark. A lizard, devouring a snake. A dancing bear with bloody jaws. A ghost.

Zo's eyes fluttered beneath her lids. I hoped she wasn't dreaming about our father. I missed dreaming. But I didn't miss nightmares.

I stayed awake, and I tried to think of what I should have said to my father. The accusations I should have lodged against him, the graphic descriptions of burning and crushing and breaking, the tears of betrayal that, thanks to him, I couldn't shed. But there was nothing. No words. In my head, in the dark, I faced him again and again, and every time there was only silence. There was only me turning away, walking out the door, closing it in his face. I didn't want to yell at him, or listen to more of his explanations, let him find the elusive, magic excuse that would change everything.

I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to hurt him. And words wouldn't do it.

124

Another lesson the great M. Kahn had taught us: Words were words, they meant nothing. Facts counted. Deeds counted. Objects counted. Like metal, like concrete. The laws of physics: an object in motion stays in motion until met by an external force. Like a truck.

Laws counted.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So I lay awake in the dark, and I reacted. I planned.

And by the time the room lit with the red-orange glow of a rising sun, I knew what to do. Words wouldn't destroy him.

But I could.

The apartment got significantly more crowded when we were all awake. Zo barricaded herself in the bathroom for at least an hour, while Sari stood sentry duty outside it, her back to the living room and her glare locked on the door as if she were practicing her X-ray vision. Every few minutes she would rap loudly; the time in between was spent muttering new and innovative strings of curse words under her breath.

"Wait your turn!" Zo responded every once in a while, the
you impatient bitch
implied. I could only hope she was leaning against the door, scrolling through her zone or playing a quick round of Akira. Partly because it was Zo's style, and I liked watching Sari scowl. Mostly because I was afraid the other option was that my sister was curled up on the bathroom floor, crying.

125

And if she stayed in there much longer, I was going to have to bust open the door and find out.

But the door swung open, and Zo emerged, dry-eyed. Silent and sullen, which was par for the course. And it's not like I could do anything about it here, in an apartment so small and so crowded that every time Sari crossed the room, she found a new excuse to rest her hands on Riley's waist or his shoulder or the curve of his lower back, gently guiding him in one direction or another, slipping past, her chest brushing his arm or her hair whipping across his face. Not that I was watching.

"Zo and I are going out," I said.

"Good," Sari said, at the same moment Riley said, "Where?"

"Somewhere else."

"Anarchy," Zo suggested.

I looked at her in surprise. There was no way she could know how often Riley and I went there--except, I reminded myself, Zo had always known that kind of thing, back when she'd cared enough to pay attention, listening at walls and peering around doorways like charting every peak and valley of my romantic interludes was mandatory preparation for her own. "Anarchy," I repeated.

"I can meet you there later, if you want," Riley said.

I looked at Zo, who shrugged, beyond caring.

"Just you," I told him.

126

Sari rolled her eyes.

"Walk us out, Sari," I said. "Let's chat."

Riley looked alarmed. "Lia--"

"My pleasure," Sari said. She followed us out the door.

I stopped just on the other side of it. "I'll be watching you," I warned her, inwardly wincing at how cheesy, clichéd, and--more to the point--useless the words sounded. It was like I was still stuck in the vidlife, acting out the part of jealous girlfriend, reading from a script.

"Whatever."

"He may trust you, but I don't," I warned her.

"And I care?"

This was pointless.

"Come on, Zo," I said. "We're wasting time."

We were halfway to the car when Sari called after me. "Hey! Skinner!"

I turned back. She was playing her fingers with calculated idleness along her collarbone, the hollow of her neck, the bare skin disappearing beneath the low-cut V of her shirt. Reminding me of everything she had to offer. Warm flesh, a beating heart. "He
should
trust me," she said. "But you're right. You shouldn't."

"Huh." Zo raised her eyebrows as we got into the car. "So that's your boy-toy's ex? At least his taste is improving."

I waited for the punch line, but it never came.

* * *

127

"This place is insane," Zo said, as we settled onto the bench that Riley and I usually claimed. A few feet a way a horde of kids in buffer gear were improvising a game of human bumper cars.

"You get used to it."

"I hope not." She grinned, as three nudists rolled by on retro skates, all of them tethered together by a flowered cord woven through their hair. "I like it."

"Me too."

"Yeah, I can see why. Hard to feel like a freak when you're surrounded by total--" She stopped. Maybe because she saw the look on my face. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

"I meant--"

"I got it," I said. "I'm a freak. You've made that clear."

"I never said that."

"You might as well have."

"All I meant was that I get why you like it here," Zo said softly. "It's like you can disappear. Everyone's putting on a show ... but it feels like no one is watching."

She did get it.

"I never asked you," she went on. "What it was like."

I didn't have to ask her for an antecedent. "It" was everything. "It" was all the things that would have happened to her, if I hadn't gotten into the car.

Could have been her, could have been her, should have been her.

128

If it was playing on a nonstop loop in my head, I could probably count on it playing in hers.

"Did it hurt?" she added.

"The accident did," I said. "But I don't really remember that." I lied so easily. "Afterward, after the download? No. Not much hurts. Not physically."

"But you can still ... things
can
hurt, right?"

I nodded, hoping she wouldn't push further, that I wouldn't have to explain how feeling pain was preferable to feeling nothing.

"And it feels like ... I mean, you think you're Lia--"

"I
am
Lia." It came out louder than I'd intended.

She didn't argue. She didn't agree, either, but it was a start.

Zo sagged on the bench. "So, what, am I supposed to hate you now? Or are you supposed to hate me?"

"I think we're supposed to hate
him
," I said. It wasn't an answer, but it was easier.

She cleared her throat and looked away. "That Sari's a total bitch, huh?"

Apparently, we were done talking about our father. "Seems that way," I said.

"So ... what are we going to do?"

"About Sari?" I asked, surprised that she considered it a joint problem. "I'm not sure there's anything
to
do except--"

"No. About
him.
"

Tell her; don't tell her.

129

I looked at her, trying to gauge possible reactions to the plan I'd put together. Figure out whether she could be trusted, and whether this--action,
revenge
--was what she needed rather than something else, something harder. Maybe I should force her to talk.

Or maybe I should just feed her another chiller.

How was I supposed to know?

It had been a long time since I'd known anything about Zo, at least anything that mattered. It wasn't the download--although the whole stealing my friends and sleeping with my boyfriend thing hadn't exactly brought us together. But when was the last time we'd talked, just the two of us, not fighting, not swapping stories about the latest indignity our mother had visited on us in public or sniping about whose turn it was to deal with the dishes, but talked about something that actually mattered?

I couldn't remember.

"We'll figure it out," I told her, and put a hand on her shoulder, feeling awkward. I wondered if this was how my father felt when he tried to comfort me, with those halting, calculated gestures of fatherhood. "You're not alone in this."

She shrugged me off. "I'm always alone." Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. "Get me. Like some kind of twelve-year-old weeper sulking in her room and writing bad poetry. Forget it."

"Zo--"

130

She stood abruptly. "I'm going for a walk. Check out the freaks."

"I can--"

"No, you can't. You stay; I'll go. I know where to find you," she said.

I didn't follow her.

Zo was still gone when Riley finally showed. Which worked out nicely, because I needed an objective opinion on whether to loop Zo in on the plan.

"I want to break into BioMax's system, find out what else they're hiding, and use it to destroy them," I said.

Riley raised his eyebrows. "Simple as that?"

"I didn't say it would be easy--"

"Try impossible."

"--but we know what they did to me. We know what they did to you. Who knows what else they're hiding? And if Jude's deal with Aikida is legit, and we can get the download tech for ourselves, we won't need BioMax anymore. We won't need anyone."

"Sounds like you've got it all figured out."

I didn't like his tone. But maybe he just needed some time to adjust. Riley was cautious by nature, but he always did the right thing in the end. So I pressed on.

"What do you think--should I tell Zo, or not?"

"Don't do it," he said.

131

"Really? You don't think she deserves the chance to--"

"I mean you shouldn't
do
it," Riley said. "Forget about BioMax, forget about revenge, don't do
anything
until you've calmed down."

"What are you talking about?" I stood up. It was one thing to be cautious; it was another to suggest that I was being reckless. "I'm
calm
."

He just looked at me.

"This is a good plan," I said.

"This is
Jude's
plan," he pointed out.

"Since when is that not a selling point for you?"

"Since when is it one for you?"

"Which part of 'BioMax blackmailed my father into murdering me' did you not understand?"

Yes, Jude was the one who'd led me to the secret--and yes, I'd reacted exactly as he'd expected, and was now stepping up to do his dirty work, just as he'd planned. Did knowing I was being manipulated make me any less of a sucker? I chose to believe it did. And maybe that was only because I'd been used by one person or another for so long that I could no longer tell the difference. But it didn't matter. The enemy of my enemy was my friend, right? And, even if it was only thanks to Jude's transparent scheming, I now knew the truth. BioMax was my enemy.

"Can't you get what you need off your father's zone?" Riley asked.

132

"Not enough." Inside that corp there were names, there were dates, there were documents. Incontrovertible proof of what they'd done to me. And, while I was at it, what they'd done to Jude, to Riley, to Ani, the truth about their "volunteers" program, the useful citizens drafted into their experiments, sacrificed to their higher cause. Also: Getting to my father's zone meant going back to my father's house. I wouldn't. "After everything they've done to you? You should
want
this."

"What they did to me," he echoed. "That didn't matter so much, before."

When I was working with them, he meant. Ignoring their crimes for the greater good, because they weren't crimes against me. "I was wrong."

"But you're so sure you're right now?"

"Are you
defending
them?"

"I just think you should slow down," he said. "Think."

"I can't believe this. You're going to tell me that I'm being reckless, given what you've got sleeping on your floor right now?"

"That's different."

"Right. Because it's you," I said. "Because I'm supposed to trust your judgment, but you can't trust mine."

"Lia, come on."

"No! I won't 'come on'!"

"Stop shouting."

"I'm not shouting!"