“No, probably not.”
We fall into silence. I wish I could tell what Kyle is thinking or experience what he’s feeling. I’ve been taught how to read people, been trained in social graces and given years of acting lessons. I know the effect the smallest gestures or change in inflection can have when it comes to directing an interaction. “Social engineering” is what Fitzpatrick called it. “Manipulation” is what it truly is.
Apparently, I’m terrible at it when the exercise is so personal. I can’t read Kyle, and if I could, I suspect I wouldn’t be able to pick the right words from my brain to ease his confusion. It would be nice if I could pretend my inability is because I don’t want to manipulate him, but it would be another lie. Manipulation isn’t always bad. I like to think it would be for a good purpose now.
Except I’m hopelessly inept around him so it doesn’t matter. My mind churns with inane questions. Do I inch closer to him? If I do, do I pretend it’s just for warmth?
“Hold still,” Kyle says suddenly.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice as he leans toward my face. I hold my breath, my cheeks tingling with his nearness. With his lips so close, my mouth waters with the urge to kiss him.
Then he swats me in the head. “You had a spider crawling in your hair.”
“Ew. Thanks.” I reach out and pat that area of my head, which smarts from his gentle thwack.
Kyle slumps in his seat, and my heart lets out a bitter whine. It was foolish of me to think, even for a second, that anything more might have happened.
A new sense of weirdness settles in the gap between us, as though Kyle too senses what might have occurred when he was so close. In the flashlight’s glow, little white clouds of breath gather around his face. With longing, I watch him wet his lips.
I’m searching for something not stupid to say when my phone vibrates. Glad for the distraction, I retrieve it from my pocket, and Kyle shifts closer to read the screen with me.
Safe, reads the message. Summer with me.
Recognizing the number, I exhale some of my tension. It’s from Gabe. He’s the last of our unit to report in.
“Is that everyone then?” Kyle asks.
“Yes.” My freezing fingers make it difficult to type a reply.
“Now what?”
I hit send on my text and consider. “We need to regroup and clear out without being seen.”
“That’s not going to be easy with your goons canvassing the town.”
I wave my finger in his face. “Hey, they’re not my goons. But we have a window we can use. RedZone is going to want to keep a low profile, and that means they have a mess to clean up. If we’re sneaky, we can get out of town before the reinforcements arrive.”
Kyle groans. “My luck’s been left back at the motel. No, actually, my luck’s back in Boston. I must have left it on my bed that day we stopped in South Station.”
I poke him in the arm. “Dork.”
“Robot.”
“Mutant.”
“Freak.” Kyle hesitates for a half second before choosing an insult, and I wonder what he almost said.
Another text arrives, this one from Cole. Truck stop. North. One hour.
I type my acknowledgment and bring up a map in order to decipher the vague details. There’s only one highway out of town that runs north, and we’re about two miles east of it. I point out our path to Kyle. “Walking will keep you warm.”
Kyle snorts. “Don’t worry about me. Feel bad for the poor guy whose jackets I’m stealing. Although…” He brings the fleece to his nose. “They don’t smell like they’ve been used in a while. Maybe he won’t miss them.”
“They’re going to a good cause.” The first thing we did once we discovered we’d hit the jackpot of storage units was rummage through boxes until we found hats and gloves as well. The gloves were too large for me, but Kyle absconded with a pair. It’s just as well. He probably needs them more.
With the flashlight as our guide, Kyle layers on an extra fleece, and I stuff my head into a knit hat of dubious cleanliness. It has a penguin on it, some kind of hockey logo. Though I don’t care about the team, I adjust the hat until the logo is centered on my forehead. I’d feel off balance otherwise, and Kyle chuckles when he notices what I’m doing. I like hearing him laugh. It almost makes everything feel normal.
“Soph, can I ask a question?”
There goes normal. The Kyle I remember from a mere four days ago would never have sounded so tentative around me. “Anything.”
I’ll even answer honestly. I kill the joke on my tongue because it’s hardly funny under the circumstances.
Kyle picks up the flashlight and shines it on the floor. “What’s with you and Cole?”
“What’s with…?” Oh. My insides constrict, as if my emotions have tangled up my organs. The harder I try to unknot them, the worse it becomes. “Nothing. I mean, Cole’s like a brother. So are Gabe and Lev. We’re the only family we have.”
Liar, my conscience whispers. You told Kyle you were done with the lies.
I swallow, glad Kyle’s directed the flashlight at our feet and not my face. My conscience deserves a good punch. It’s not a lie, not anymore. Once there might have been something more between me and Cole, but that ended when I met Kyle.
Cole’s clearly not so certain of that. There goes my conscience again, annoying me. After all, I can’t help whatever Cole’s feeling. We’ve been on the run. This isn’t the time or place for those sorts of discussions.
Kyle stares at me like he’s hearing my inner monologue. “Really? It doesn’t always seem that way.”
“It is that way. I promise.”
“Good.”
I bite my lip, waiting to see what happens next, but the answer is nothing. I can’t be too upset about it. He cared enough to ask. To sound concerned. Just knowing that is enough to warm me down to my toes the entire way to the truck stop.
Chapter Nine
Sunday Morning: Present
Malone is pleased I shot Kyle. I wish I could say the same. Malone’s approval, however, does forward my goal. Whether Kyle would believe it was worth it is anyone’s guess.
Instead of being sent back to my cell, I’m permitted to go to the music labs and practice piano. Cole is even allowed to escort me, rather than the armed guards, since he’s also scheduled for practice time. Piano practice is not going to help me find the answers I need, but Malone is showing trust in me, so I must be patient. Frustrating as it is, ninety percent of gathering intel has always been about biding your time, waiting for the right opportunity to be revealed.
“You okay?” Cole asks as we step off the elevator.
“Fine.” I clench my teeth together. Gunshots still ring in my ears, and Kyle’s pained face hovers in front of my eyes. My fingers continue to tremble.
I’m fine. He’ll be fine. Everything is fine. The lies are getting laughable.
“Can we walk outside? I want some fresh air.” I don’t wait for Cole to respond, just take off, confident he won’t object.
The icy wind slaps my cheeks and tweaks my nose when I open the door. It’s bracing, and bracing is what I need. I can fixate on the cold. It’s only too bad that I have to go to the music labs rather than, say, the gym.
Some people—like Cole—can lose themselves in music, but I’m not one of them. I’d much rather have been sent to the gym where strenuous exercise could help me sweat off my tension and ignore my memories of Kyle’s pained expression and bloody torso.
Cole kicks a chunk of slush out of our path, and it leaves a watery trail in its wake. Though the temperature is below freezing, the sun is strong in the clear sky, heating the asphalt. Piles of melting snow shine in the bright light, as blinding as the walls belowground.
“So how much do you remember?” he asks.
I stuff my hands in my p
ockets while I debate what to share. Malone knows my memories are faulty—or not faulty, as it may be—but the question remains: how well will Cole keep my confidence? True, he didn’t tell Malone about my screwup on the stairwell, but this is different. The stairwell incident could have been caused by anything. Cole doesn’t know it was my memory that distracted me. Remembering Kyle, on the other hand, that’s directly related to my insubordination. Anything I say could screw me over.
And after all, Cole escaped with me. Why isn’t he in trouble for it? Were his memories wiped too? I can’t tell how much he knows.
I pause, tracing a line of snowmelt with my boot, following the trickle of water along with my thoughts. The melt runs into the dirty snow on the other side of the path and disappears, but my questions crystallize into serious thoughts. These are issues I should ponder.
“Sev?”
“A few things.” I choose my confession carefully as I start walking again. “I remember more about Kyle than I let on. I remember that I thought I had to protect him, but I don’t remember how I ended up back here.” I raise my gaze to meet his, and I study Cole’s reaction.
My heart thuds with hope that Cole will explain everything. That any other ideas I’ve had are the result of my well-honed paranoia. Surely, if Cole knows information about what happened to me, he’d share it. I wouldn’t expect him to do so about just anything, but this is my life we’re discussing and he’s like a brother. He claims he loves me.
An SUV flies by, heedless of the slush or the moment it’s ruining. Somewhere overhead, a crow yells at it.
I’ll fly you away with me. The strange words conjure up a longing so strong they make my chest hurt.
Cole searches the bare tree branches for the bird, his mouth grim. “Kyle didn’t want to be here, so you helped him escape.”
“I figured. But why?”
Slowly, Cole turns his attention from the trees to me. “You don’t remember that?”
Yes, I do. Mostly. Maybe.
Yet the way Cole asked the question was interesting. Doubt. Curiosity. Surprise. They all ran nearly imperceptibly under his words like a taste of moisture on the wind. But why would Cole be surprised that I don’t remember when he knows Malone erased my memories? Or is it not surprise at all, and I’m reading more into his tone than he intended?
“You were misguided,” Cole says finally. “Kyle must have told you things, convinced you that it was the right thing to do.”
I’m fairly sure Kyle didn’t tell me anything. From what I’ve gleaned from my memories, Kyle was hiding stuff too. “What things?”
“I’m not sure.” Cole sounds annoyed. “And it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to tell you if I was. It’s for your own protection, Sev.”
“Oh, so you have to save me from myself?”
Cole refuses to be goaded. “We all have to be saved from ourselves sometimes. It’s no surprise Kyle was able to get into your head. He’s one of the first outsiders you got to spend significant time with. Any of us would be interested in what he had to say, or inclined to think he had secrets that had been kept from us.”
“Any of us?” It’s dangerous, but I push harder on Cole. “I think I was close to him.”
That Cole feels the push is evident. The muscles in his jaw tighten, but he recovers quickly. “You were. You made a rookie mistake. It happens. But I’m sure, deep down inside, you were aware there couldn’t ever be anything serious between you and Kyle. You just got caught up living your cover.”
He makes it sound so unbelievably simple that I’m tempted to accept it, regardless of what my illicit memories tell me. In fact, I’m willing to doubt my memories, a little anyway. They’re only partial. What if I’m blowing what I felt—what I feel—out of proportion? What if I’m misinterpreting the past? If Cole’s telling the truth, it’s possible.
But what if Cole’s not telling the truth? I remember, too, being pressed up against him last night. The sweetness in his touch and the possessiveness in his kiss. Something isn’t making sense.
“Can nothing really ever be serious for us?” I’m poking again, but it feels safer to generalize the question. To make it not about me or Kyle. “Are we all doomed to be alone and loveless for our whole lives because we’re such freaks that no one else can relate to us?”
Cole wraps an arm around one of mine, pulling me close. “Of course not. It’s true no one else will ever be able to relate to us because no one else is like us. But that’s okay. We have each other.”
Each other—it ought to be enough, but it’s not. If it were, I wouldn’t have tried to fly away.
I smile at Cole in lieu of words and enter the building. He’s holding out on me, I’m sure of it. The why buzzes about my brain, joining my other unanswered questions.
Inside, we go down a couple floors to reach the music rooms. The practice labs are nothing fancy, just a series of soundproof rooms in the same building as most of the classrooms. Like much of the camp, little attention has been spared for aesthetics. Life around here is entirely utilitarian.
Until it’s not. Then it’s terminated.
I’m hoping to see the rest of my unit, but the area is empty when we enter. They must already be in the rooms. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but since Malone has refused to let me return to them, I have no idea who else is here. Is it only me and Cole, or did the others who fled with us return too?
I haven’t figured out how to ask without raising suspicions, but while I’m pondering, Cole talks about our practice sessions. He tells me about a new concerto he’s learning, and he suggests pieces he thinks will help me recover, whatever that means. I listen with only half an ear.
When it comes to the piano, I’m competent at best, which is all the camp has required of me. That is to say, my whole unit has had to learn at least one instrument and receive some vocal training. Like our lessons in art history and cooking and table manners and automotive repair, the point of learning how to play an instrument is that you never know when the skill will suit for a mission. We’re jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none except infiltration, espionage and killing.
I can’t fault the camp’s logic, and where our interests and talents have overlapped with one of our many subjects, we’ve been allowed to pursue in-depth study or training as time permits. It’s one of the few luxuries we have here. For me, that’s primarily meant extra studying of languages and math. For Cole, it’s been music.
His excitement and gifts are evident in the way he talks about it, as though he’s no longer stuck at the camp, playing only to fulfill a potential ruse. But after a moment, he seems to realize that my thoughts remain elsewhere, and he makes a sympathetic face.
I force a less dour expression to surface. “What was the name of that concerto?”
“Do you care?”
I shrug. The line of practice rooms are as sterile as everything else. Gray walls, closed doors, harsh lighting. How anyone can get inspired here is beyond me. At least when I’m pounding on something in the gym, the blahness of the space fuels my annoyance, which fuels my strikes.
“I don’t not care,” I reply. “I’m just not as talented as you are, fearless leader.”
“You are plenty talented, but your talents lie in other areas.”
“Yeah, like getting myself in trouble, apparently.”
Cole grins. “See, exactly. No one else in our unit has come close to causing the kind of trouble you have. You’re a prodigy.”
“You must be so proud.”
“I am.” He tugs me closer suddenly, and I stiffen. What is he doing? Cameras line this hallway. Nothing around the camp is private. If we’re seen… Cole isn’t entirely right about saying trouble is my talent. At this moment, he’s courting as much trouble as I ever have.
I pull away, but he doesn’t release me. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“It’s oka
y, Sev.” His warm breath brushes my forehead, followed a second later by his lips.
My heart pounds with anxiety, and I can’t speak. He knows the rules as well as I do. The rules are my crutch, but only as long as Cole obeys them.
“You can relax.” Cole lets go of me at last. Although there’s no one in the corridor, I imagine the guards have seen everything. They’re reporting us to Malone as I stare dumbly into Cole’s hazel eyes. “I meant what I said outside—we have each other. We were meant to be together.”
Maybe yes, but probably not, and whatever Cole thinks is irrelevant. “I’m already in trouble. I don’t need more.”
“You’re not going to get in trouble for this.”
I blink at him. “I’m not? Since when? Have I lost more memories that I wasn’t aware of?”
He laughs. “Not quite. You won’t get in trouble for this either.”
“For—?”
He kisses me. The air sticks to my lungs, and once the shock wears off, I try to tear myself away. I tell myself it doesn’t matter whether my reaction is due more to guilt or fear, but I suspect it’s the former. First, I shoot Kyle. Next, I kiss Cole. I don’t know if I should care about either action, but I do care. Something in me that can’t be erased cares very much.
And it’s not the only thing.
“Break it up.” That deep, throaty voice is one out of my nightmares. Fitzpatrick’s here.
I jerk away from Cole so fast the air might actually vibrate with a sonic boom. My blood circulates with a familiar dread as I turn to face her.
And I gape. I haven’t seen Fitzpatrick since I returned to the camp—well, I don’t think I have anyway—and so I can only compare her to the woman in my older memories. That woman, who I think of as my unit’s evil overlord, is no longer looking so overlordy. Her face seems to have aged far more than it should have in the time that’s elapsed, and she leans heavily on a cane, giving her a stooped appearance that contributes to the aura of aging.
Resist (RedZone) Page 8
