Cracked Open
Page 23
“I’ll get Sammi to bootstrap some new games for you.”
“Deal,” she says quickly. Having my mom, Olivia, Juliette, Sammi, Jiaying, and myself all at Aaliyah’s Home for the last three days has mostly meant that everyone’s gone through all the games on the system Sammi hacked.
I’m distracted when someone turns up the sound on the screen up front. Simpson’s giving another speech, a warm-up of sorts to Torquin. My stomach twists up as the words spill out into the room. “…a new day for readers. The recent tragedy of our beloved president and the shameless and horrifying attack on his mind is a wake-up call for all right-thinking people. We have to stop this jacker menace! And I will do everything in my power, as your newly elected senator—”
The boos from the floor drown out the rest. Someone turns it off.
Tessa shoves up from the table she’s been sitting at and stalks over to where Kira and the others are standing. She hands Kira her small tablet, and Kira just nods. I want to go to Tessa because I’m sure she’s as upset about this as anyone in the room, but a whispered argument between Sammi and Juliette at the far side of the stage escalates… and Juliette breaks away, fists clenched, and marches toward me.
“I’m outta here,” Olivia wisely says and skitters back down the stairs toward the main floor.
I grimace but wait for Juliette to cross the floor. “You okay?”
“Nothing’s okay, Zeph.” She glowers at me.
I don’t really know what to say to that.
She pulls herself up to her full height. “I’m going home.”
That catches me by surprise, so I just give her a look like she’s gone demens. “Okay.” I seriously did not expect her to voluntarily return to her father. Get captured, maybe. Have his goons show up eventually at Aaliyah’s Home to kidnap her, probably. She disabled that tracker he had injected in her, but it’s not like he couldn’t find her if he wanted to.
“Are you coming with me?” she asks.
That I truly choke on. “What?”
There’s an ocean of pain in her eyes, but also a steely-eyed determination. “I hate my father. I loathe him with every particle of my being. But someone has to stop what he’s doing, Zeph. I’m one of the few people he would actually allow back into his life. If I beg and come crawling back and become all the things he wants me to become.”
“You would do that?” I glance over her shoulder, looking for Sammi, but she’s gone. “What about Sammi?”
“Sammi almost died because of me. Because of him.” And I can see it. This is about revenge. And protecting Sammi. And Juliette is probably pissed that Sammi won’t run away with her.
“I don’t know. This sounds like a very bad idea.” And I really don’t know what she’s thinking in asking me to go back into that mess with her.
She nods. “Probably is. It’s my family. It’s my mess. I’ll do what I have to do to clean it up.” She makes like she will brush past me and leave.
I put my arm out to block her. “Hang on.”
She stops and glares, but her eyes are filling up with tears.
“What about Sammi?” I repeat, trying to reason with her.
“I broke up with her. Don’t you see what’s happening? There’s no way jackers and readers can be together now. And me, in particular? With the father I have? I’m no good for her.” She blinks back the tears. “And besides, you’re my boyfriend. If you want the job. I could use a partner in this, Zeph. A friend. Someone I can trust.”
Crap. Everything in me says no. Everything in me says run as fast and as far away as you can from this. But running isn’t a thing I do anymore. “All right, Juliette Tiller. But let’s sleep on it, okay? I need more than a half-baked plan to storm back into Tiller’s life.”
A trembling smile takes hold of her. “Most of your plans are half-baked.”
I give her a mock look of offense. “I’m trying to get better, okay? Besides, how would that even work? You’re his daughter. He’ll take you back. I’m the very expendable boyfriend who basically ran off with you and your girlfriend. He’s got to suspect me by now.”
“We’ll lie.” Juliette says this sternly like it’s some kind of magic recipe for getting out of tight spots. “Or something. I don’t know. But I have to do something. And you’re the only one who might have a chance of helping me.”
I frown, but I’m distracted by footfalls pounding the wooden stage behind me. Kira and company, including Tessa, are heading our way. “Looks like Kira’s ready for her speech,” I say softly to Juliette. “Let’s talk more tomorrow.”
Juliette nods and steps back to let the troops pass. I follow them down the steps and catch up to Tessa on the way to the door. I tug on her elbow, and I can tell she doesn’t want to stay behind, but she does anyway.
“What?” she asks in an impatient voice.
“I’m sorry the world sucks right now.”
She nods and looks toward Kira and her escorts, which I’m just now realizing are her bodyguards. They’re heading out the door to the reporters waiting outside.
“But you should know one thing,” I say.
Tessa looks back to me, expectant. Those brown eyes of hers. The way she looks at me sometimes, even now, when she’s hurting and angry, and I’m sure she’s railing at the world inside her head, but she still has that bright expectation that the world is a good place. A decent place. Or that if it’s not, it should be.
That’s something worth fighting for.
“We’re going to fight this, Tessa. And we’re going to win.”
Her eyes glass up. “How do you know that?”
“Because we have to.” Then I pull her in for a hug, and she’s no longer looking to the door, she’s just holding onto me, and at that moment, I believe it. The good things in the world are stronger than the Tillers and Wrights and Simpsons. The people who want to disrupt and destroy for their own reasons and chew up people along the way. I believe this is a fight we can win.
Because I have to.
Zeph’s story completes in BROKEN WIDE!
Get Broken Wide!
All he wanted was peace; all he had was hope.
Zeph had spent half his life hiding what he was—keeping his mindjack powers away from dangerous men and running away from everyone he loved to keep them safe. Now that his life is finally coming together—his mom and sister are safe; the girl he loves in his arms—the world is falling apart. The mindreader backlash against jackers is growing daily. Jacker-bigot politicians are stoking fear and gaining power. And jackers on the Fronter’s Purity list are winding up dead on the streets outside Jackertown.
Even the Jacker Freedom Alliance is tearing itself apart.
All Zeph wants is a chance to build a life with Tessa—but even she is losing faith. If there’s no peace between jackers and readers, what future could they have? Then a protest goes terribly wrong, the president starts talk of a Jackertown siege, and a MINDWARE CEO races to develop a dangerous mind-blasting technology. It seems foolish to even hope for peace, but one thing becomes very clear—the only way to put the world back together is to bring down the powerful people breaking it apart.
The conclusion to the bestselling Mindjack: Zeph series, where daring to hope for peace could be the most radical—and dangerous—move of all.
If you haven't read the first Mindjack trilogy... go back and start from the beginning!
Mindjack:Kira
Mindjack:Kira
Open Minds (Book 1) FREE!
Closed Hearts (Book 2)
Free Souls (Book 3)
(Audiobooks)
When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.
Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and
an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.
ALSO: get all the Mindjack short stories FREE!
(including The Locksmith, Zeph's origin story)
MINDJACK ORIGINS SHORT STORIES - FREE!
Get the entire collection of SKQ’s Mindjack Origins short stories when you subscribe to her newsletter!
five novellas, flash fiction, missing scenes, and more
CLICK HERE
to get your free stories!
All SKQ's Stories
THE MINDJACK SERIES
young adult science fiction
When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.
Mindjack:Kira
Open Minds (Book 1)
Closed Hearts (Book 2)
Free Souls (Book 3)
(Audiobooks)
Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.
Mindjack:Zeph
Locked Tight (Book 4)
Cracked Open (Book 5)
Broken Wide (Book 6)
Mindjack Short Story Collection (Novella Box Set)
In a world filled with mindreaders, being a mindjacker is a good way to end up dead. And Zeph is no ordinary jacker. Passing for a reader is something Zeph does well, but being a powerful mindjacker just means the jacker Clans want him for a weapon. To keep his mindreading family safe, he leaves home and pretends to be a reader. But when readers start changing into jackers and his family disappears, Zeph must return to a city filled with jackers who hate him and risk everything to save them.
watch the live-action trailer
~*~
THE SINGULARITY SERIES
young adult science fiction
What would you give to live forever?
Singularity Series
Defiance (prequel novella)
The Legacy Human (Book 1)
The Duality Bridge (Book 2)
The Illusory Prophet (Book 3)
The Stories of Singularity #1-4 (Novella Box Set)
Awakening (Stories of Singularity #5)
(Audiobooks)
Seventeen-year-old Elijah Brighton wants to become an ascender—a post-Singularity human/machine hybrid—after all, they’re smarter, more enlightened, more compassionate, and above all, achingly beautiful. But Eli is a legacy human, preserved and cherished for his unaltered genetic code, just like the rainforest he paints. When a fugue state possesses him and creates great art, Eli miraculously lands a sponsor for the creative Olympics. If he could just master the fugue, he could take the gold and win the right to ascend, bringing everything he’s yearned for within reach… including his beautiful ascender patron. But once Eli arrives at the Games, he finds the ascenders are playing games of their own. Everything he knows about the ascenders and the legacies they keep starts to unravel… until he’s running for his life and wondering who he truly is.
~*~
THE ROYALS OF DHARIA
sweet royal romance
Romance, sword fights, and skyships
Royals of Dharia
Third Daughter (Book 1)
Second Daughter (Book 2)
First Daughter (Book 3)
Aniri is the Third Daughter of the Queen of Dharia—and she has zero royal duties. She’s just the backup daughter, in case her older sisters’ arranged marriages don’t quite work out. But then the impossible happens—a marriage proposal. From a barbarian prince in the north, no less. And if Aniri refuses, the threat of their new flying weapon might bring war. So she agrees, only to discover the prince has his own secrets… and that saving her country may end up breaking her heart.
This Bollywood-style royal romance takes you to an alternate East Indian world filled with skyships, saber duels, and lots of royal intrigue.
~*~
THE DEBT COLLECTOR
sexy, gritty future-noir
What's your life worth on the open market?
The Debt Collector
LIRIUM (Season One)
WRAITH (Season Two)
(Audiobook)
In this sexy, gritty future-noir, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more "worthy"... all while paying the price with black marks on their souls. Intended for ages 17+.
Watch the Debt Collector trailer on YouTube.
~*~
CHECK OUT SUE'S SHINY NEW WEBSITE
for all her books
Susan Kaye Quinn is a rocket scientist turned speculative fiction author who now uses her PhD to invent cool stuff in books. Her works range from young adult science fiction to adult future-noir, with side trips into royal fantasy romance and middle grade. Her bestselling novels and short stories have been optioned for Virtual Reality, translated into German and French, and featured in several anthologies.
She writes full-time from Chicago, inventing mind powers and dreaming of the Singularity.
Susan loves to connect with readers online! Chat with her about our coming robot overlords in her Facebook group, like her Facebook Page, or check out her website to learn about all her books.