by Eliza Tilton
I swing her around and lay her back down on the bed, grasping her arms above her head. She closes her eyes as I slide my other hand up her stomach. There’s nothing underneath her shirt but skin, and when I contact that soft spot of a woman, she arches her back.
I stop.
Even though she wants me, and even though she said she wants this, I can’t go any further. One more touch and I won’t be able to stop. She deserves her first everything to be perfect. Not in a safe house, hours before we’re about to risk our lives. Ivy and I will have all the time we need, once BORAS is finished.
Breaking away, I lightly kiss her cheek and slide beside her. “For someone who’s never kissed before, you’re amazing,” I tease.
She laughs. “You’re just being nice.”
I nuzzle my face into her hair. “I’m really not a nice person.”
I hold her a little longer, thinking of all the possibilities of our mission. I’m terrified of failure, but being afraid will only slow me down. I can’t be afraid.
I have to be strong. For her and for everyone else who’s suffered at the hands of BORAS.
I take her hand and stand, bringing her up with me. “Let’s end this.”
She nods and grips my hand tighter, fierce determination blazing in her eyes.
We walk back to Ivy’s room where she puts on her black shirt, then splash a bit of water on our tired faces before meeting Jims downstairs where he’s talking to a hologram of Buzz.
“Oh, here they are,” Jims announces.
“Good. Let’s go over the plan.” Buzz’s faces blinks in and out of a ray of sunshine coming in through the window, making the tiny pixels flicker iridescent. “The directions to BORAS have already been uploaded to your car. You’ll head to a location I’ve set and pick up a decoy vehicle, which will get you through the main gates. Once you arrive, Eric will unlock the maintenance entrance. You’ll need to find your way to the director’s office and upload the dynamic script I wrote onto the director’s computer.” He smirks then, adding, “The script will crawl the network, grab all the data, and blast it to dummy media sites where BORAS’ top intel will be on full display.”
“There’s no way we’ll make it to the director’s office without being seen,” Ivy argues. “His office is on the seventh floor, and only his security guard and top aide can get in. Plus, all the key codes require a fingerprint and matching digital code.”
Buzz nods. “That’s why my brother gave us his access information.”
A collective gasp goes through the assembled group. Buzz smiles. “Turns out, that little chip you were carrying contained a digital blueprint of his fingerprint. From that, I created a silicone one you can use. Jims has it, and we have the code.”
“What about security?” I ask.
“You’ll need a distraction, something big enough to draw Dr. Hecks and his team away from his office for a while,” Buzz says.
“Me.”
My stomach drops as Ivy volunteers herself as bait. “No,” I refute, turning to face her fully. “Way too dangerous. You’re the one he wants.”
Her gaze hardens. “Exactly.”
Jims grabs the duffel bag from the counter, sifting through the contents while Ivy and I have a standoff around the center island.
“Then I’m coming with you,” I add stubbornly.
“You guys need to figure it out. Someone needs to make sure Jims is safe,” Buzz insists. “It’ll take a few minutes for the script to do its thing.”
“So, you agree that we use Ivy as bait?” I toss my hands in the air. “Does anyone but me think this is a terrible idea? Once we’re done, how do we get her out?”
Buzz exhales and the hologram of him flickers. “Look–Eric will be there. He’ll get you guys back through the maintenance entrance, and then you jump in the car and leave. If she’s not going to stay at the safe house, we might as well use her.”
“Like it’s really going to be that simple,” I mock, pushing off against the island counter and glaring at the imaginary image of Buzz.
“Eric will protect us,” Ivy says confidently.
Jims steps through the hologram and Buzz tilts his head in an angry glare. “If you two are going to spend all afternoon arguing, we might as well just not go.”
Ivy may be sure, but I’m certainly not. Instead of voicing any further concerns, I ask, “Fine. When do we leave?”
“Now,” Buzz says. “You guys be safe. Jims will have me on com if you guys get stuck. I’ll do whatever I can from here.”
With that, the hologram disappears. I’m left with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“We can do this,” Jims declares. “If Eric is anything like his brother, he’ll get us in and out like he promised.” He throws the black duffle bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go. It’ll take two hours to get back to the city limits.”
Two hours left with Ivy.
Two hours possibly left for all of us.
TWENTY-SIX
~Ivy~
Damion sits in the front seat, silently staring out the window. My heart races with a mixture of fear and excitement. I graze my bottom lip with my fingers, re-living the kisses he gave me. I know he’s afraid I’ll get hurt, but Dr. Hecks would never kill me. No matter what his plans are, I know he needs me. I don’t know why, but I’m positive he would prefer to lock me up rather than kill me.
Eric and I spent a lot of time talking about the finer points of our plan. While the beginning starts out bumpy, we both know the end would bring me back here to BORAS.
The world knows BORAS only as a wonderful, charitable biotech corporation that creates cutting edge technology to revolutionize the entertainment and medical fields.
No one knows the untold children who are the cause of their success.
Damion asked me if my tumor is real, and part of me wonders if it is. All these years, I thought Dr. Hecks was only interested in helping to alleviate our afflictions, saving us, even. I was foolish. We all were.
There’s so much I want to say to Damion, and soon it will be too late. Jims and Damion are discussing the script Buzz created. My stomach clenches with anxiety. I wish we could’ve stayed at the safe house longer than two days. Damion and I didn’t have a chance to talk about anything. Not what happened in the bedroom, or what we plan to do after. All I know is he cares for me and will be with me through the end of this. I want to thank him for his kindness, for his protective nature, for how alive I feel when he holds me. Whatever happens at BORAS, I know my life will never be the same, good or bad.
We pull off the highway and turn onto a dirt road. The road continues for longer than I can count, and I nod off. I blink my eyes awake just as we pull behind a silver van.
“Is this us?” Damion straightens in his seat.
Jims smiles and points at the van. “The GPS says so.”
Damion opens his car door, shaking his head. “I don’t like this.”
I open my door and step out, the dying rays of sunlight blinking off the metal blinding me, and hold a hand to shield my eyes. Jims squats by the back of the van and starts feeling around underneath the carriage.
“Found it!” he says triumphantly, holding a key in his hand. Throwing a smirk over his shoulder at Damion, he unlocks the back doors. Swinging the doors wide, I see several large droid vacuums and maintenance suits in the back. Jims climbs in, pushing items away. “Here we go. Ivy can hide in here until we pass through the gates,” he suggests while pointing to a storage unit.
I take a step toward the van, but Damion pokes his head in first and looks at my proposed hiding space. “Are you serious?”
Jims shrugs, and they both look at me.
“Let’s just go.” I grab Damion’s outstretched hand and climb in behind him, pretending the idea of curling into that confined space isn’t terrifying.
Damion places his arm around my waist. With Jims crammed in here with us amidst all the cleaning tools, it forces Damion and me to squeeze together.
Jims goes to put the cylinder he’s always sucking on in his mouth, but his hand stops short. “I know this is crazy, and honestly, I’m freaked out, but I trust Buzz, more than anyone. He wouldn’t put himself out there and try to help if he didn’t think we could survive this.”
Damion clenches my hip with his fingers. “I know you don’t have to help us, but I appreciate it, more than you know.”
Jims puts the device in his mouth and the top lights blue. “Well, you know how I am with pretty girls, always ready to serve.”
I smile and Jims winks at me as he unlatches the large storage container. “Don’t worry, there’s holes on the sides. You won’t suffocate.”
Damion punches Jims’ arm and he stumbles back into a stack of buckets.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“Don’t say things like that. Just go up front,” Damion grunts and pulls on Jims’ shirt, helping him up.
“Wait!” Jims turns to the other side, groping through the hanging suits. “We need to put these on.”
He hands a light blue, one-piece uniform to Damion, and a matching one to me. Damion glares a bit more before Jims reluctantly turns and makes his way to the front of the van.
Seemingly appeased, Damion mumbles about our “grand plan” and unzips his suit.
I mimic his actions and start putting the suit on over my clothes. It’s ridiculously big, the sleeves reaching past my hands.
After Damion is dressed, he grabs one of my arms and starts to roll up the sleeve. “Are you okay?” he finally asks, his first words to me in hours.
“No,” I answer honestly, “but I have to finish this.”
Satisfied with the length of the sleeve, he takes the other sleeve and rolls it up to a matching length. As his fingers brush the inside of my wrist, tingles race through me. Finished, he tugs both of my arms and pulls me to him. I wonder if he’s about to impart any last words of wisdom or caution, but instead he leans down, moving to my lips.
I embrace the kiss, letting him tug me closer. I don’t want to go inside that storage box. I want to stay here, in this moment, my body zinging from the contact, as long as I can.
Too soon, he pulls away and my heart sinks.
Be strong.
Gathering courage, I push the fear aside. “We better get going,” I announce with more bravado than I feel.
He pauses a moment, bumps my head to his, and offers his hand to help me get in the storage container. “Stay quiet, and I’ll get you out as soon as the coast is clear,” he warns. “We should be close.”
I nod, and when he closes the lid, my world drowns in darkness.
TWENTY-SEVEN
~Damion~
Everything about this plan makes me sick. All we have are a bunch of stun weapons and a thumb drive designed to exploit the biggest tech company in the world. I’ve never even been in a real fight. The only reason I know how to defend myself is because my father made me take judo. You’d never know by the tight suits he wears, but the man can make you submit in less than two minutes.
I rub my clammy hands against my pants. Jims puffs a vape next to me, wearing the same blue uniform. “How can you be so calm?” I charge, frustration leaking from me in waves.
He pulls out an orange bottle and shakes it.
“You’re high? Now?”
“No,” he answers, tossing me the bottle. “This may be the first time I’m not high.”
I read the label out loud. “Vitamin B complex.”
“Mega vitamin B,” he corrects.
“Vitamins. You’re saying the reason you’re so calm is because of vitamins? I don’t get it.” I hand over the bottle, wondering what this kid is thinking.
I tap the dashboard and turn the AC higher to make sure Ivy is cool enough in the back. There’s no way for me to speak to her unless I leave the cab, walk around to the back, and open the back doors. There’s no backseat in this van, and the wall separating me from her is making this whole plan more insane.
“A high concentration of Vitamin B complex keeps you alert,” Jims says, interrupting my thoughts. “I smoked this morning, but I need my wits. I don’t want to be the reason we get killed,” he answers.
“I don’t want her in there.” I tap my hand on the center console, looking for a menu that may move the wall. It’s a ridiculous hope, but my nerves are making everything in me shake with fear.
Jims counters, “She’s not Gia, and Gia wasn’t your fault.”
A memory of Gia’s smiling face flashes before my eyes, moments before she never smiled again. “It was,” I refuted stubbornly. “I didn’t protect her.”
“There’s no way you could’ve known that crazy girl would push her in the street at the same time a bus was passing by.”
I run my hands roughly through my hair, leaving it sticking up in whorls and spikes. “I should’ve stopped the argument! At the very least, I should have told Astrid to leave, but I was more concerned about what my friends thought instead of how Gia felt. They treated her like being poor was a plague they’d catch if they got too close.”
“Look, that’s just how the city is. You’re either from the Court or you’re not.”
Court, non-Court. Not for the first time, I wish another storm surge would come and destroy it all. It shouldn’t matter where you live. “Don’t you get it, Jims? She trusted me, and I let her down.”
Jims sighs. “I know. I know.”
We end the conversation abruptly, too amped up to continue.
Jims and I met right after the incident. That was the point when I started meshing hard and needed more than BORAS’s streamlined vids. I didn’t care what part of town he came from, and neither did he. He started off selling me the vids, but then we started hanging out. He didn’t care about my past or where I came from. He saw everyone the same. He thought we were all damned, and we might as well party our way to damnation together.
Attempting to clear my head, I look out the side window and watch the highway speeding past. We left the dirt road and are back on the highway heading toward the city. In my head, I imagine each possible outcome: What happens if Dr. Hecks doesn’t leave his office? What if we’re caught inside? What if we can’t get in? What if they find out and take Ivy? What if they kill us?
My fingers shake, and I clench and unclench my fist.
We’re using Ivy as bait.
The idea of using her to draw the guards to us makes me want to puke. There has to be another way.
“Can you contact Buzz?” I demand suddenly, whipping my head around.
Startled, Jims asks, “Why?”
“I need to talk to him.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Jims hits the call button on his watch and says Buzz’s name. It rings once, and a hologram of Buzz appears near the center console.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to BORAS?” the hologram chastises immediately.
“Damion wants to talk,” Jims answers flatly and nods in my direction.
Buzz furrows his brow.
I charge in, “We need to think of another distraction. I can’t use Ivy as bait. It’s too dangerous.”
He frowns. “What’s your solution, then?”
“I don’t know have one. Can’t you create a distraction somewhere else, maybe through their security feeds? Hack in to their cameras and make it look like she’s in the building?”
“I can’t hack into their systems remotely,” Buzz refutes blandly, “and we’re already on a time table.” Buzz folds his arms and narrows his gaze. “Look, Damion. This is the best solution. My brother is inside. He’ll be watching out for her.”
Unmoved, I plunge ahead. “How long before you get here? We can wait.”
> “The service van is scheduled to arrive for its cleaning appointment at one P.M. If we show up any later, the real company will show up, and there goes your way in. Are you willing to take that risk?”
Without a second thought, I confidently reply, “Yes.”
“She’s not,” Jims adds.
I glare at him. “I’m making the call.”
“Well, it’s her choice,” Jims retorts, showing more backbone than I’ve seen before. “BORAS is after her. You saw the tech in her brain. If we don’t stop them, she'll be on the run from them forever.”
“I’ll keep her safe,” I offer weakly, though I don’t have any inclination how I would do so.
The frustrated hologram wavers. “You two need to make a decision now. Every minute counts.”
Jims tries again. “Damion, I know you’ve got it bad for that girl, but if you do this, and we fail, she’ll never forgive you. This is her fight.”
I lean forward, raking my hands through my hair. My head spins and I don’t know what to do, but I know Jims is right. “I don’t want to lose her.”
“If you change our plan without talking to her, you will.”
Jims may be right, but my choices suck. Either she’ll be mad at me, or she’ll be captured or dead. What kind of choice is that?
“Tick tock,” Buzz interrupts.
“Are you sure your brother will protect her?”
Buzz’s ginger brows narrow. “My brother loves that girl even more than you, Damion,” Buzz answers knowingly. “He’ll die protecting her.”
The realization pisses me off, but I nod, knowing I’m not the only one worried about her. From how she talks about Eric, I know they’re close. I also know Jims doesn’t normally put himself in danger, which means he trusts Buzz. I wish I had that same confidence, but when I picture Ivy shoved in that box, waiting to go back to the place that nearly killed her, I want to puke.
