I’ve been living with Dex for weeks and it only now hits me that she reminds me of Talan. A mouth that just won’t quit. “Where’s Rhone?” I ask. My head feels heavy. “I need to talk to him.”
I can see now that I’m back in what we call the Shack. Rounded tunnel walls, water dripping down the sides. The awful smell of sewage. And in the distance, the sounds of the Graveyard. Seagulls cawing, the hisses and clicks of cockroaches, and sometimes, faraway screams.
I relax. At least I’m safe. For now.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
Dex smiles. “I’m always watching you, Zephyr.”
I laugh. If anyone else said something so creepy, I’d be freaked out of my mind. But Dex is just . . . Dex. There’s something sort of comforting, something Talan-like, about the crazy side of this little girl. It shows up at random and usually inappropriate times. She’s the comic relief in the middle of such a dark, screwed-up world.
Dex points beside me, on the concrete floor, where there’s a half-eaten chunk of bread. I scoop it up and devour the thing. It’s dry and it tastes terrible, but as soon as it’s gone I want more.
“Anyways . . .” Dex says, giggling at me, “I’ll get Rhone.”
“I’m already here,” a guy says from the shadows. He comes closer to the light. Black hair. Piercing blue eyes. Solid Leech-like shoulders.
“Rhone,” I say, and I try to stand but my legs buckle. Dex helps me back down, pats my head like I’m her pet dog. “I controlled it. I finally got to choose my victim, like we’ve been practicing.”
Rhone chuckles under his breath, runs a hand through his dark hair. “Yeah, that’s great and all, Zero, but you chose the entire Leech Compound as your victim.”
“I . . . what?”
I try to piece together what happened last night, but it’s all fragments. That’s something that will probably never change. I think I remember. . . .
“Lark,” I whisper. “She triggered it a second time on me. It was like she used some sort of remote trigger on me. Some sort of phrase or something.”
Rhone nods, scratches his chin, and in reality that means he’s thinking, Yeah, okay, Zero. Suuuure.
Dex giggles again. “It’s lucky we found you before the Leeches did. I wasted my last ounce of chloroform on your sorry self, you know.”
“How did you even get that?” I ask. Then I remember Lark again, our encounter on the beach. “Did you find Lark?”
Rhone shakes his head. “I would have. But your little episode sort of took the lead on the mission, Zero.” He shrugs. “You should rest. We’ll regroup later today.”
He’s wrong.
I don’t need to rest at all. I have a rescue mission to plan. I have Leeches to kill, and Lark, the creator of the system, to find.
“We have one week left,” I whisper, as Rhone turns to leave.
“Actually, we have six days,” Dex corrects me.
Rhone throws her a look that could kill.
I think back to weeks ago, when Meadow was first lost to me. I barely made it back to the Resistance, to their Headquarters underground, with a gaping hole in my head. Dex, and the nanites in my system, nursed me back to health, and when I was ready, I recounted everything that happened inside of the Leech building.
How our partner, Sketch, was left behind, bleeding out. How Lark escaped, and is nowhere to be found. How Talan died. The way the light in her eyes went out, the way she shouted her daughter’s name with her very last breath.
But I held one detail back.
I didn’t tell them what I still hold close to me now, the one thing I swore to myself I’d never tell.
Meadow is the Protector of the Motherboard. If she dies, the Murder Complex dies, too. That’s the only way.
“We’re running out of time,” I say.
“I know, Zero.” Rhone sighs.
I asked for an army, for a chance to attack the Leeches and get Meadow back.
I remember Orion’s words. One month, she said.
One month for what? I asked.
She looked at me like I was an idiot. You can take some of my people. A small group, and go to the surface. Search for Lark . . . Find her and bring her to me. If you do that, I’ll have the entire Resistance help you.”
It is her final words that still stick with me now, because I’m afraid she is right. Do me a favor, would you, Zero? Don’t screw this up.
Now I try to stand and fall back down.
“Rest,” Dex says. She puts her hands on my shoulders and forces me to lie down.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll rest. But once I wake up, we’re going hunting again.”
Rhone nods. There’s that look in his eyes, the one that says he doesn’t believe it will really happen.
And I’m starting to think he’s right.
I fall asleep thinking of Meadow, a girl with moonlight in her eyes.
But in my dreams, they turn a deep, bloody red.
CHAPTER 8
MEADOW
The Initiative is going to torture Sketch in front of me.
I am surprised she’s still breathing. The last time I saw her, she was unconscious on the floor of the Motherboard room, wounded from some perverse red knife my mother invented. It was supposed to make her bleed out.
But Sketch is strong, and there is fresh skin on her arms and legs, almost as if the Initiative patched her up on purpose. To keep her alive.
“Sketch,” I say. I am not alone after all, and seeing her is such a relief that I almost break down. I want to reach through the bars, grab her hand, feel the warmth of another person who is on my side. But I can’t. I must stay steady, and still, and pretend like this girl does not matter to me.