Remember Yesterday

24

Too bad Mikey has other ideas.

I lock myself in the first empty bedroom and connect with him through a secure interface. His holographic image appears in the room, and if I don’t pass my fingers through his transparent body, I can almost believe he’s here, sitting right next to me, his face lined with fatigue and his skin abnormally pale.

“Any more rocks?” I ask.

“Two.” He shoves his hands through his hair, dislodging the piece of rawhide. “Both with dead rats. Each with messages worse than the last. It’s been hours now, and the crowd’s only growing. I have no idea where all these people are coming from.”

So I was right. People from outside the compound are joining the riot. Thank the Fates they haven’t migrated to the south woods, where we are.

Preambles over, I tell him how we stumbled upon Olivia and demand an explanation. He admits that he authorized the kidnapping—but reassures me that Olivia is not a prisoner.

“If she doesn’t have the vision, she doesn’t have it,” he says tiredly. “The stealth copter needs to recharge, and then we’ll return her to the secret location. No harm done.”

“Oh, really?” I say, pacing the room. “You kidnapped a girl, Mikey. She has bruises all over her arms, dried blood under her nails. You don’t think she’s going to tell her mother?”

“No, actually, I don’t,” he says quietly. “We’ve been in contact with Olivia for a long time. And while she’s not exactly with us, she’s not fully with Dresden, either. Her role, as she sees it, is to see the future—not determine it. So she’s avoided taking sides.”

“Until you kidnapped her! Pretty sure that’s going to jeopardize your already tenuous relationship.”

His jaw firms. “Maybe. But she knew we were coming. She was waiting by the door when Zed and Brayden broke in.”

I stop. Olivia said the same thing, more or less. She said she saw me in her future this morning. That means she knew the kidnapping was going to happen. The rough handling, the bruises. She saw it all. And yet, she came anyway. Why?

“It was a long shot, but one I had to take,” Mikey continues. “Don’t you see that? We need ammunition against the chairwoman, Jessa. The insurgents are demanding a war, and we need that vision of genocide to show the people. Without it, we’ll never be able to win. I’d hoped we could get it from Olivia’s mind. But if not…we’ll just have to find some other way to access it. Perhaps this black chip she mentioned.”

“But you’ll let Olivia go home, unharmed?”

“You have my word.”

My arms droop. He hasn’t answered all my questions, but he’s told me all I really need to know. Olivia will be safe. “What about Tanner and me? What do we do?”

“You might as well stay at the cabin for the night. The spiders will keep it hidden from the mob. You’ll be safe there.”

Olivia safe. Us safe. Ensconced in a secret cabin of the Underground. My stomach should be unfurling. I should feel relieved.

I don’t.

The worst part is, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.

I hover at the edge of the living area, my hair still wet from my shower. Hot water, scented soap. Being clean has never felt so good. But now that I’ve scoured off the mud, I have to deal with the sleeping situation.

Zed, Brayden, and Olivia are spread out across the three rooms off the hallway. Which leaves Tanner and me crashing on the living area floor. The entire room’s been outfitted with computer terminals and long tables. There’s not even a couch. Ordinarily, roughing it wouldn’t be a problem. I slept in the wilderness for six years; I can sleep anywhere. But there’re two of us. And only one thin mattress.

“Come in,” Tanner says, turning his deep, glinting eyes to me. “I’m not contagious. And even if I were, you’ve already been infected by my mice.”

Blushing, I walk into the room. I could be stiff and angry. The last time we talked, on a personal level, I’d stalked away from him. But so much has happened, with Zed, with Olivia. It seems silly to put up a wall between us, when all my other allies are far away.

He’s sitting on the edge of the mattress. His skin is flushed red, as though he scrubbed extra hard. He smells like…honeysuckle and lime. I smell like that, too. There was only one soap in the shower.

“Did you talk to Mikey?” he asks.

Good. Business. I can handle business. “Yeah. He said we should stay here tonight, and tomorrow, when the copter’s recharged, they’ll take Olivia back.”

“You trust him? After all this?”

I chew my lip. The knowledge of the kidnapping sits like a heavy stone in my heart. I’m not sure I know Mikey anymore—if I ever knew him. And yet, he’s not the enemy here—Dresden is. I may not approve of his methods, but Mikey is on my side. He’s looked after me all my life. I have to believe he has my best interests at heart.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I think I do trust him.”

Tanner opens his mouth, as though to argue, and closes it again. “Good enough for me,” he says, and I know that it costs him to relinquish control. Looks like we’re both doing our best to get along.

I lie down at one end of the mattress. If I were any closer to the edge, I’d fall off. Tanner takes the mirror-image position on the other side, so that we’re facing each other. There’s at least three feet of space between us, but it’s not enough. I’m too aware of him. Of the water droplet rolling down his temple. Of the way his cheek presses down into the pillow. If there were an entire room between us, he’d still be too close.

“How’s Olivia?” he asks awkwardly.

“Asleep, last time I checked on her. But her rest isn’t peaceful. She moves around like she’s lying on concrete and can’t find a comfortable position.”

I ease onto my back. This brings me a foot closer to him, but at least I don’t have to look at those soft lips anymore. “I can’t believe she’s actually here. I’ve imagined her so many times. Wondered how she’s grown up and what she’s thinking. I never dreamed I would finally meet her here, like this. Under these circumstances.”

“She thought of you, too.” He props himself on his elbow, and I realize he must’ve known her, since they both grew up in the TechRA building. “She liked to pretend I didn’t exist, but I was the only other kid around TechRA, so she’d be forced to talk to me sometimes. She was always bragging about her friend Jessa. How pretty you were, how talented. How you had powers just like hers, and how the two of you would grow up to rule the world.”

He laughs, and it’s as superior as always. But now, for some reason, instead of the arrogance, I hear the warmth behind it. “Of course, I was being fed my own visions of the future,” he says, “so I didn’t believe a word of Olivia’s bragging. Except for how pretty you were. That I could see for myself.”

I sigh. It’s like he can’t help himself. “You’re flirting again.”

“No, I’m not,” he says seriously. “I was always a genius, you know. Even at six, I knew which girls to pay attention to.”

I peek at him. The line of his lips is as straight as his brows, and the air feels heavy, stuffed with something I can’t identify. Our eyes catch—and stay locked together. We’re still more than two feet apart, but somehow, this encounter feels as intimate as the times when he held me, pressed against his chest.

Dragging my gaze away, I roll over, showing him my back. And yet, as I drift to sleep, the corners of my mouth tilt up. Just the slightest bit.