I turned one last time to the screen, angered at myself for becoming a loser and wished for just one more minute to tell myself to jump off a cliff, when I faintly heard a man’s voice over the speaker. “Nice work.”
A female replied, “That was close.”
CHAPTER SIX
The world of Brighton blurred by me as I rode home on the trolley. I bit my knuckle, working hard to withhold my tears. My original plan was to go home, but after this circus, I had to talk to someone who’d understand and that couldn’t be Mom.
I punched in a quick text on my watch.
Me: Going to Elle’s.
Mom: How was it?
Me: Fine. I’ll tell you more later.
Technically, I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but she’d see my disappointment the moment I saw her and the EA already knew I couldn’t keep a secret.
The fact I eventually put Brighton over love, over everything, hit hard. Did no one end up wanting me? Was I incapable of sustaining a relationship? Or worse, did I become a workaholic like Dad? What happened that could make me reach the point where I’d refer to Elle by her formal name? Nothing added up. I checked my DOD watch again: sixty some odd years displayed.
Every fiber in my being rebelled against the EA, the rules, and against the stupid watch. I wanted to chuck it from the moving trolley and be done. They couldn’t force me to leave my friendship with Elle just to make Brighton a better place. And I’d never give up on finding true love. My Complement had to have been coerced. But why? Was Blue Eyes right? Should I have stayed home? But how would he have known the outcome? My brain hurt trying to figure it out. If only I could ask him.
My only shred of hope that I could alter my future was what I’d heard that man and woman say. Something wasn’t right and I needed to get to the bottom of it.
“How’d it go?” Elle asked, eyes wary as I stood at her front door, my hands shaking.
“Fine.” Unable to hold her curious gaze for long, I looked away.
“Really?”
The tears brimmed on my lids, betraying me.
“Come on.” She ushered me inside. “Let’s go upstairs.”
I’d tried to rehearse what I’d tell her and each time I came up with an unconvincing lie. How did you tell your best friend that the EA didn’t want you spending time together? Or that I’d end up alone and single. Maybe they’d told her the same thing. All I knew was I felt sick.
I flopped into the mountain of pillows on her bed and flicked on my flat screen, hoping Blue Eyes would magically appear on the DNA mate list so I could talk to him first. All my past searches flicked onto the screen with no one new.
“So?” Elle tapped her foot impatiently. “Do I need to…?” She ticked her head toward the box.
I sighed and nodded. Privacy was a must. How could she keep her bad news inside for so long?
“I think a soak in the hot tub will make it all better. Here, take off your watch so it doesn’t get wet.” She winked.
Elle reached for my watch and set it inside the padded box next to her silver DOD. She mouthed a countdown to ten, then clicked on the audio player inside. Sounds of us talking over the bubbling jets played from the speakers before she closed the lid, encasing our watches with the clever soundtrack.
I stared into her rounded questioning eyes as dread pulsed in my veins.
“I don’t marry anyone,” I finally said, choking back my tears. “I’m supposed to abandon our friendship and take harder classes in order to make Brighton a better place.”
Elle’s lips trilled. “Bull shit.”
I laughed nervously, relieved she wasn’t mad at me. “I can’t even begin to explain who my Complement was; who I turned out to be. I suck.”
Elle pinched her eyes shut and leaned against her chair back. “You and me both.”
“What happened at your meeting? Did they tell you to stay away from me, too?”
Her eyes popped open and then she exhaled hard. For the first time, I saw her lower lip quiver. “Nope. My meeting was much more exciting.”
I blinked in astonishment, watching her eyes glisten with tears. Elle never cried, or if she did, she never did in front of me.
“Apparently I carry the blue eyed gene passed down from my great-great-grandfather Frank and my Complement decided I shouldn’t procreate.”
“Wait,” I said while sitting up. “They don’t want you to have kids?”
“Nope.” She clenched her jaw and picked at her fingernail. “And she did nothing while I begged them not to give me the shot.” She sniffled, then blew her nose. “All she said was, I was doing what was best for the greater good. To trust her. Trust me, I guess. They had to sedate me because I wouldn’t let them touch me. I should have told her to kiss my ass, the freaking coward.” She brushed off the rest of the tears that had escaped onto her cheeks. “It’s pretty pathetic when your future self can’t even stand up for you.”
“Oh, Elle. I’m so sorry.”
“So now I can slut around, I guess.”
I frowned at her sarcasm. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” she said, her voice low. “Once Jordan’s parents find out they’re not going to have any grandkids… they’ll force him to dump me.”
“You haven’t told him?”
“I can’t,” she let out a strangled laugh. “I haven’t told anybody.” Her scared eyes met mine. “Once my DNA status hits my profile, no one will want me, Abby. And the worst part is, what if I had kids already—in the future? Are they dead now? Did I murder them?”
My heart broke and I worked hard to not cry alongside her. “I don’t think the EA would do that.” I moved to hug her. She stopped me.
“You think? What if my kid was a fugitive? What better way to get rid of him than to snuff them before they can be born,” Elle said through her teeth. “They shouldn’t be able to do this to people. Not over freaking eye color.”
“I know.” I fought back my own tears. At least I had the potential to have a kid, though no one to make one with.
Elle straightened her shoulders and sobered up. “But something isn’t right. Why is the EA making such a huge deal over this? I mean, it’s eye color, not cancer or a third appendage. Landon hinted there’s something the higher ups are all freaked about. Maybe they’re looking for someone with blue eyes? Like a Glitch or a criminal, or something. Maybe my kid is a hundred times worse than me.” Her face froze, then she burst into sobs. “Or was.”
I ran to hug her. “Don’t say that, Elle.”
She let me hold her for a second, then pushed me away. She flipped her chair around and typed something into her computer, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Blue Eyes. Was he the one? The one the EA was searching for?
“Maybe it’s something stupid. The EA is notorious for being perfectionists.”
She sniffled, still typing. “Or maybe that’s the only way to find them. Murdering your enemy from existence through their parents is pretty clever.”
“And you couldn’t tell me this before I went to my meeting?”
Elle’s fingers froze on the keyboard. “I researched your family. There are no blue eyes anywhere, so… I knew you were safe.”
I flopped onto her bed and let out a gust of air, filled with guilt. Blue Eyes knew I shouldn’t go to my meeting, but what else did he know? Was his future offspring the criminal the EA sought out? Would turning him in allow Elle’s sterilization to be reversed? He didn’t look like someone who’d hurt me or anyone. My brain hurt from thinking about it too hard.
“What does this criminal do?”
“How the heck would I know?” she snapped.
I tried not to take her tone to heart and looked out the window, while the tap-tap-tap of her fingers filled the quiet space. There was definitely something weird happening at the EA. Especially with the, “That was close,” comment. It was time Elle knew everything.
“I have something to tell you.” I swallowed hard when she didn’t stop typin
g.
“What?”
“When I fell down into the creek bed, I wasn’t alone. There was a guy there. Someone I’ve never seen. He helped me up, then warned me not to go to my meeting.”
She swiveled around in her chair and blinked at me. “Wait, what?”
“I can’t find him online. I think he’s from the zombie zone.”
She squinted. “Really? What does he look like?”
I gulped again. “He has blue eyes.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Holy heck, A. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. The hidden note in my bra practically burned my skin. Did I dare show her? Illegal or not, we were already breaking rules left and right at this point.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Elle crossed her arms over her chest.
Guilt surged, and my jaw clenched. “Well, you didn’t tell me about your meeting.”
“That’s different.”
“Really?”
She looked away. “Sorry. I wanted to tell you. I just… I couldn’t. Not until after your meeting. I didn’t want the EA to be suspicious about us, which apparently they are. And I’m still dealing with it, in my own way.”
“Well… considering everything, I understand.” I reached into my bra and pulled out the note. “He gave me this. At first I thought maybe the EA was testing me.”
Elle snatched the paper and gasped. After reading his warning, she just stared at me. “Holy dead walkers. He has to be the one they’re looking for. Come on.”
She pivoted to her desk, pulled her DOD from the box, slapped it on and threw me mine. I snatched up the paper and returned it to my bra.
“That was refreshing,” she muttered, half-heartily, while she packed up her flat screen. “Feel like going to the park?”
Confused why the sudden change, I frowned.
She waved her hand to sign I needed to keep my lips shut and follow her. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”
We trudged downstairs toward the garage. Parked inside was a silver compact Refulgence. Of course, considering her dad’s job with the EA technology unit, they’d have the newest and best solar car on the market, all for testing of course. I piled into the passenger seat as she took the driver’s side. She pressed her thumb on the ignition switch.
“Where too, Eleanor?” the car asked.
“Hadden Park, and call me Elle.”
Within seconds we were driving down the road, the car making all the necessary turns and stops.
“I don’t get why you have to be eighteen before you can drive,” I said with a smirk, aiming at stupid small talk to make everything seem just fine if the EA happen to be listening. Of course, with my rapid heart rate, anyone with a brain would know I was up to no good. “It’s not like someone underage could ruin anything when this thing takes over.”
“You’d be surprised,” Elle said. “Dad tells me stories all the time of kids disabling the automatic controls and crashing into things.”
“Really?” I pursed my lips. “You’d think their DOD would tell them not to do it.”
Elle smirked. “You’d think.”
I looked out the window and kept quiet, still confused. What plans were lurking in her head?
Within a few minutes, we arrived at the park. She produced two muffs. With hand signals, she instructed me to put one over my DOD watch. I frowned, but followed her lead.
“Okay,” she whispered, “I’ve got a recording of us at the park from last week. Once we take off the muffs, you need to complain your wrist itches from the chlorine, so we have a reason to take the watches off. Okay?”
“But why?”
“We’re going to my brothers and I’m not wearing my watch there.”
I blinked at her. “What? Why?”
“Because,” she said with large brown eyes, “I’m going to break into the security system, that’s why.”
My heart leapt into a trot. The intense look in her eye told me she was dead serious.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After Elle put our watches into the box again, this time with a loop of us laughing and playing ball in the park, a dull sense of dread crept deep into my belly, pulsing a warning we were going too far.
I walked up the path to the front door, when Elle whistled and pointed to the gate.
“What?” I whispered. “Isn’t Landon home?”
“No,” she said. “He’s at work.”
As we slipped through the gate and rounded the backside of his house, I wondered how she’d get inside. My stomach sunk when she motioned to the cat door.
I shook my head. “No way am I going to fit.”
“Sure you will,” she said before getting on all fours. “I do it all the time.”
“All the time?” And before I could finish my statement, she’d disappeared inside.
I followed her lead, sucked in my gut, and shimmied in. Crossing into Landon’s domain, uninvited, sent a quiver down my thighs. This was wrong on so many levels; one, at how angry he’d be, and two, for the mere fact that he was a notorious bad boy. How he ever landed and kept his job at the EA was beyond me.
“What about cameras and bugs?” I whispered in Elle’s ear.
“He doesn’t have any,” she said softly. “Believe me. He doesn’t want the EA to know what he’s up to on a regular basis.”
Girls. Landon’s charm and smile, not to mention his position in the government, was his golden ticket to all the women he wanted.
I glanced around his flat, amazed he kept the place spotless. Bonus points, for you, Mr. Robinson. The scent of garlic lingered in the air. There was something sexy about a guy who could cook. But I refused to like him. I couldn’t like him.
Stop making me like you, Landon!
Elle motioned for me to follow her down the hall. His place was decorated in dark greens and browns, with a splash of red in various places—throw pillows and rug accents. On his wall was a black and white collage of various nature scenes—forest trees, the beach at the ocean, the desert. Pictures were technically paper, so to have them was ostentatious, to say the least.
Elle led me down the hall to a room. I tiptoed over the threshold and my eyes fell on the rumpled sheets of a king-sized bed; Landon’s bed. My mind wandered to the many women he’d most likely been with there, what he’d do to me if I let him. The thought of fooling around made my stomach flip. Did he let the EA listen in? Or did he use his muff over his watch to run a different track, like Elle and I had just done. He did seem like the guy who relished in voyeurs.
Even still, a part of me wanted to sniff his pillow. Painted on the wall opposite his bed was a woman—silhouetted against the sun, with waves crashing over her bare legs. My eyes darted away as my cheeks flushed. Seeing this felt so personal.
Elle laughed. “That’s new.”
I played with my nails, pretending I didn’t find it sexy. “I didn’t know he could paint old school.”
“Well, working for the EA, you get access to stuff normal people don’t… like this.” She lightly dragged her fingers over the shiny sleek screen sitting on his desk and slid into the chair. She pulled her flat screen from her bag and attached a cord before fastening the other end into a port on the computer.
“Password,” the computer asked.
The silver screen of her laptop flickered on and at once, her fingers brushed over the keyboard like lightning.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, reaching to cover my DOD watch that wasn’t there. Wouldn’t the EA be logging keystrokes, or monitoring bandwidth?
“I’m looking for your friend.”
Friend? I bit my lip. Friend wasn’t how I’d classify Blue Eyes, knowing he’d fit the criminal’s description. But his eyes, deep blue and tranquil, had somehow pierced me. It was more like we’d shared a secret. And by telling Elle, I felt I’d betrayed him, and now, especially using the EA top secret computer to investigate him, I’d completely disregarde
d his trust.
“Stop!” I said quickly.
“What?”
“I don’t want him to get caught. He didn’t do anything, but try to warn me.”
“Where’s your faith in me, A? Don’t you know I can get in and out without a trace?” She winked. “It’s all good.”
Good? None of this was good. First, I had no idea what she was looking for. And second, did she forget we’d be dead if Landon caught us? Maybe this was why my Complement warned me to stay away from Elle.
On her screen, four windows popped up and the movies began rolling. From the differing angles, I watched myself reach to catch the ball, then tumble like a bumbling idiot into the bushes and disappear out of sight. My cheeks burned.
“Can’t we fast forward this part?”
Elle snorted in laughter as she zoomed in on the aerial shot. For the briefest of moments, there was a shadow of something. And of course, no glowing green energy radiated from his wrist to depict he wore an EA issued watch. Only my name shone on the left corner of the screen.
Elle rewound and slowly advanced until we could see his brief appearance on the scene. “Well, he’s definitely off grid, or didn’t want to wear his watch that day.”
“Guess not.” I wanted to tell her he wore older styled clothes of the pre-zombie millennia, but I wasn’t all that confident our conversation wasn’t being recorded by bugs hiding in Landon’s house.
“Let’s see where he goes.” She hit something else and another view clicked on. It looked nothing like the creek bed I’d tumbled into. I frowned, unsure what we were looking at until I noted the camera panned down the rock wall at a dried creek bed.
“Is this inside or outside the wall?”
“Outside.” Her voice was low and dangerous.
I gripped the back of the chair with white knuckles. “Holy crap. Will we see— zombies?”
Elle laughed. “I highly doubt it. I’ve sat here for hours, going through hundreds of hours of footage without a single blip. The EA doesn’t record everything, just shots with movement. But I’ve seen enough bears and other weird creatures for a lifetime, but no walking dead, darn it.”
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