27

BRIDGER

FEBRUARY 21, 2147

After a night of practically no sleep, I haul myself out of bed a half hour before my wake-up time and shower. That helps some. At least I’m awake, but I still feel nothing but guilt. I regret telling Alora that my dad wants us to stay apart, and I regret trying to get her to stop searching for Colonel Fairbanks. I can’t stop thinking about how pale she got when I told her—like she would pass out. I expected her to be sad, even shocked. What I didn’t expect was her anger.

Zed said I was an idiot and should have kept my big mouth shut. Elijah pretty much agreed. But at least he said that she would probably come back once she cooled off and thought things through.

But Alora didn’t come back. I just hope that she didn’t try to see Vika’s mother. Not with all the security checks going on, and no way of knowing what kind of dangers there are wherever Halla’s living.

Wrapping a towel around myself, I leave the bathroom. I’m kind of glad I got up early. Normally, Zed or Elijah are banging on the door wanting me to hurry up. Or I’m doing the same to one of them.

“Oh my God,” a voice exclaims as soon as I get to the doorway of my bedroom.

I nearly drop the towel. Alora is sitting on my bed, her face a fiery red. She quickly looks down.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you would be like … that,” she says.

I can’t help but smile. Alora had a similar reaction when I stayed at her aunt’s inn back in 2013. She peeked in my room to invite me to supper and saw me in my skivvies. She could barely look me in the face when it happened.

“I’ll go so you can get dressed,” she says.

“No, wait,” I say in a rush. I don’t want her to leave—not when she came back after being so upset with me. “Just stay here. I’ll dress out here.”

I grab a uniform and hurry to the living area. I keep looking down the short hallway leading to Zed and Elijah’s rooms. For some reason, I don’t want them to know that Alora is here. I want to talk to her in private for once.

Back in my bedroom, I sit next to her on the bed. She still doesn’t speak, just fidgets with her fingers. She looks so lost and sad. It makes me angry with myself, knowing I did that to her.

“I’m sorry about what I said last night. It was stupid of me to try to tell you what to do.”

“It’s okay,” she says in a quiet voice. But then she looks at me and flashes the biggest grin. “Besides, I have some good news. I found Colonel Fairbanks, and guess what? My father is still alive!” She’s practically bouncing as she says that.

I feel my eyes go wide. “Wait, you went to see her last night?”

“Yeah. She tried to make me believe that Dad was really dead, but I found a digigraph of him with Vika that was recent. He’s been showing up there every month to visit with her.”

Without thinking, I wrap my left arm around her and draw her close. She leans her head against my shoulder. We fit perfectly together. And yet we’re in the midst of a perfect mess. How can I stop seeing her, like Dad demanded? After she left last night, I felt as if a part of me had been ripped away.

Alora fills me in on everything Halla told her. By the time she finishes, adrenaline is racing through my body. I’m stunned that Vika is alive … but apparently a shell of the girl she used to be. I still remember how full of life she was. And she was brilliant. It’s sad thinking of her being incapacitated like that, relying on drugs to keep her from permanently wilding out.

But the information about General Anderson isn’t so shocking—it just confirms what I already knew. That he is the puppet master pulling all of our strings. It still doesn’t explain his motive, though. Why would he risk his career to clone my father? I mean, he was smart enough to get Halla to do the actual work, but still, he was behind it. And why go through so much trouble to hide the fact that Dad had illegally shifted before his death, and that I illegally went back looking for him? He claims it had to happen, but I’m not buying that.

Something isn’t adding up.

What Dad told me yesterday, about having a plan to stop the Purists, is really weighing on my mind now. Knowing that Dad is working for General Anderson alone makes me suspicious. I can’t stop wondering when the bioweapon attack will happen. How it will happen. And how will Dad be involved? Because that has to be what his plan is about: stopping the detonation. I can’t see him being an instrument of mass murder.

I want to talk more to Alora about it, but she’s too giddy. “Bridger, I need to find him. Today. I need to let him know I’m okay.” She pauses and frowns. “And I want to know why he’s been visiting Vika, but not me.” She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “No, I’m not going to think like that. He must have a good reason for not coming to see me. It’s probably because I’m in DTA territory. It would be easier for me to go to him.”

She suddenly leans over and hugs me tightly again, then pulls back. Her blue eyes meet mine. Then my gaze slips down to rest on her lips. They’re parted slightly.

I don’t know what comes over me. I lean down and brush my lips against hers. For a moment she doesn’t move, and I think I’ve made a horrible mistake. But then her lips part even more and she deepens the kiss. I reach over cupping her face with my hand. Her skin is so soft against my fingers. I never want to let go.

“Holy shit, I never thought I’d see action in here!”

My head snaps up and turns in the direction of the irritating voice. Of course, Zed has to be standing there with the biggest idiot grin on his face.

“Oh, don’t stop just because I’m here. Pretend I’m invisible.”

My entire body tenses. “Go away, Zed.”

“Fine, fine, I can see that I’m unwanted here. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone in your cozy little nest.” He flutters his fingers at us before heading back to his room. No—probably to Elijah’s room to gleefully recount what he just saw.

I storm over to shut the door, then activate the lock.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say, returning to Alora’s side. “Zed has a way of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She shrugs her shoulders, smiling. “It’s fine. Really.”

I frown. What she said before she hugged me is bothering me. “Look. I don’t have any right to tell you what to do, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to shift to wherever your father is right now. There are too many unknown variables.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s what you said when I wanted to get to Halla. But that worked out.”

“Think about what you’re saying,” I plead. “Halla Fairbanks has a child she’s protecting. She was working for Anderson, and he helped set up her new residence. On the other hand, your father somehow faked his death. Nobody knows where he’s been hiding. He could’ve been living by himself all these years, or he could’ve been with others. My point is, there isn’t any way to know for sure. It’s too big of a risk.”

She recoils. “How could you say that? You know what, Bridger? You’re a hypocrite. It was fine for you to go looking for your father when you thought he was dead. But when all I want to do is see mine, who is very much alive, you tell me no. I wish I’d never come here.”

Before I can say anything else, she closes her eyes and shifts.

I can’t move. A part of me is screaming that I’m a furing idiot. How in the hell did we go from kissing to fighting so quickly?

But then something Dad said about Dual Talents surfaces in my mind: that they’re just out for themselves. Is that true? Alora is behaving recklessly, going off on her own to talk to Halla, and now shifting to who knows where to speak to her father. Going to him could put me, and all of our friends, in danger.

Maybe Dad was right about her all along.