The autocab ride back to Aaliyah’s Home is quiet.

Juliette and Sammi have called a cease-fire in the dating wars, or maybe they kissed and made up while I was off with Kira and Tessa. I’m just glad they’re not fighting or kissing right now because I’m in no state to deal with either. My nerves are scraped raw from Tessa’s words.

You ran away. Tessa is among the few who know anything about my past. We had classes together in that before time when we were just kids—me, a jacker in hiding, and her, a wide-open-minded dreamer. And she’s right. When things got rough, I ran away from home… and that’s how my sister and my parents ended up in Wright’s clutches.

Because I wasn’t there to stop it.

Once I get my parents free, we should leave Chicago New Metro. There’s no question about that. We’ll go to ground someplace where Wright can’t find us and start over. The whole family would be in hiding, but at least we’d be together. It makes complete, logical sense. But the idea of running away again itches at me like a something crawling under my skin. I’m just figuring out what I can do. Kira’s going to help me with that. I have a few friends—real friends, people who know I’m a jacker and don’t fear me for it. And then there’s Tessa… if I stayed, could there be something between us? Is it crazy to even consider that?

I’m so lost in my thoughts, I barely notice we’ve arrived.

It’s only when Olivia stomps up to the autocab that I jolt to full awareness. She’s not supposed to leave the house—someone might see her. As I scramble to open the door, she peers inside, sees me, scowls with the righteous fury only a fourteen-year-old girl can muster, then throws up her small hands and stalks off. Away from Aaliyah’s four-story brick-and-mortar Home for the Temporarily Dizzy.

Olivia’s clothes are loose—Aaliyah had little in her size—as she rapid-walks down the sidewalk, her long braid of brown hair flopping behind her. Jiaying, the girl I rescued from Rutkowski’s mind-assaulting sons, trails after my sister, begging her to return. Olivia is a world-class-mutant jacker—her sizzling power-overload ability wiped out the minds of a dozen people in Jackertown. Jiaying is a reader whose assault is still so raw in her mind she hasn’t been able to go home.

This is a disaster waiting to happen.

I climb over Juliette and Sammi, who are just watching all this unfold from inside the autocab, in my haste to get out.

“Olivia!” I call out. “What are you doing?”

“You’re not the boss of me!” she calls back, hardly even looking, just marching ahead. She’s got a phone in her hand, so heaven only knows what she’s got planned. Maybe hailing an autocab. Not that she has any unos to pay for it. Or a phone. Did she steal Aaliyah’s?

Jiaying is saying something to her, but I can’t hear it over the pounding of my shoes on the pavement to catch up. I can hear Olivia’s voice just fine. “You’re just a babysitter! Stay out of my way.”

Oh, crap. “Olivia!” I’m close enough now that she has to look back at me. When she does, there’s a mental surge that blasts against my impenetrable mindbarrier. It knocks me back—mentally and physically—stopping me in my tracks but not hurting me. Except for the crackling electrical discharge that feels like it’s skittering along my scalp.

My sister keeps walking.

“He’s just trying to help,” Jiaying pleads with her thin-fingered hands out. “Just come back to the house—”

“No!” But Olivia stops and turns back to face me. We’re about a dozen feet apart on the sidewalk, which is broken and raised up in spots. “I’m not going to stay locked up like a prisoner!” She’s shouting at me now. “You keep saying Bee is the bad guy, but she never locked me up. She never told me I had to hide from the world like I was dead!”

Bee. My sister’s pet name for Beatrix Wright, the woman who turned her into a killing machine.

“Your friend Bee was using me today to torture more jackers!” I throw back. It’s a stretch—Renell was there somewhat voluntarily—but still. The idea holds. And we’ve had this argument a dozen times.

“So you say.” Her pale face is splotched red with anger. “But where are Mom and Dad, huh? You said you would find them, but you haven’t. Bee knew the jackers were holding them—that’s why she sent me to Jackertown. To get them. But the tru-casts twisted it all around! I’m not the bad guy!”

Crap. She’s been watching tru-casts, probably on that phone she lifted from Aaliyah. I have my hands out, trying to keep her calm. “No one ever said you were the bad guy.” But my kid sister is way too smart to be fooled by that.

She glares at me. “Everyone is saying it.” She swipes at one eye with the back of her hand, and I see it come away wet. “But I don’t care. I’m going back to Bee, and you can’t stop me.” She focuses on the phone in her hand. I reach out mentally to push away whatever jack she’s doing to the mindware, but she knocks me back hard. It’s just a fraction of the electrical surge overload she’s capable of. I’m playing with fire here—the kind of fire that could burn out my brain.

“Livvy, don’t,” I beg. “Just listen to me—”

“I’m done listening to you.” She looks up from the phone to give me a stony look. “You’re just bossing me around because you think being my big brother means you can. Well, you’re not Dad. And you’re not Mom.” Then she sends a withering look over my shoulder. “And your jacker friends can’t stop me, either, so don’t even try.”

I glance back. Sammi and Juliette have crept up behind me. Sammi’s ability is also an electrical surge type, the kind that can be used as a club to overload minds or used with the finesse of a surgeon to interface with mindware and alter the AI inside. I don’t know if she can do the same with human minds, but I don’t want her experimenting on my sister. She’s giving me a guarded but alert look like she’s waiting for a signal from me.

I shake my head no.

“Olivia, just come inside and talk—” It’s Jiaying, edging closer to my sister, who’s hunched over the phone again.

“I’m hailing an autocab,” my sister grumbles. Then she looks up from the phone. “You can come, too. You don’t have to let these guys hold you prisoner anymore.”

“No one’s holding me prisoner.” Jiaying’s expression is pained. “Just give me the phone, and we’ll talk this out.” She grabs for it.

My heart seizes. I surge my mindfield out to protect Jiaying, but I’m too late. She jerks her hand back and lurches away from Olivia, moving stiffly, mechanically, with a slack face and glazed eyes, the way someone does when they’re under the control of a jacker who has no idea what they’re doing. Jiaying’s natural cheerleader grace is completely wiped out—she trips off the curb and falls hard into the street.

Olivia’s eyes go wide.

I scramble to dive into Jiaying’s mind and try to shove out the hard marble presence that is Olivia controlling her. “Livvy!” I shout as I stumble forward physically toward Jiaying. “Let her go!” Jiaying makes more flailing motions like she’s trying to get up but can’t find the coordination to do so. I shove harder against the marble presence in her head, and Olivia finally pulls back. The autocab she called comes sailing around the corner. Jiaying is splayed out halfway in the street, but now that she’s not being jacked, she’s completely freaked. She sees me coming and scrambles away across the broken pavement… and directly into the path of the autocab.

“Jiaying!” I yell.

She sees the vehicle and screams but freezes up right in its path.

The tires screech and grind the gritty pavement, sliding to a stop just a foot away.

For the love of… I lunge across the last few feet until I’m by her side. She’s standing frozen, looking at the autocab in horror.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay now.” I’m rambling and half-incoherent myself. I want to put my arm around her and shepherd her out of the street, but touching her isn’t a good idea. Readers don’t touch, but more importantly, the last time I put a hand on her arm, she spiraled down into major freak out mode. Mental abuse trauma is awful that way. To make everything worse, I just revealed to her that I’m a jacker, just like the boys who assaulted her. Until now, I was keeping up the ruse, just so she wouldn’t be traumatized more, and then this…

I grimace but finally take her gently by the elbow and tug her away from the autocab. She stumbles, but she’s under her own power again, so she’s got that grace back. The bruise on her face from the original assault has mostly faded, and she’s getting better at controlling the flashbacks, but the last thing she needed in this world was to be jacked.

I’m linked in, so I see the memories ricocheting around in her mind. I keep close until she’s back on the sidewalk, then I scowl at my sister, but she’s looking suitably horrified.

“But I didn’t… I didn’t do anything,” Olivia protests, but not too strongly.

“You jacked her.” I just leave it at that. I’m worried about Jiaying, but I’m also worried my sister will take this harder than necessary. She didn’t know. And thinking she’s the “bad guy” is already driving her away.

Jiaying is shaking. “It’s okay,” she says to Olivia. I want Jiaying to sit down or something, but she waves me off once she’s back on the safety of the sidewalk. She closes her eyes for a moment, and because I’m still linked inside her head, monitoring her thoughts, I see her gather them up as if they’re arrows shooting at her. Like she’s a superhero, snatching them out of the air, breaking them in two, and tossing them away. I’m impressed with her mental control, so I just let her be.

Sammi and Juliette are still hovering nearby, watching but holding back.

The autocab, now that it’s not blocked by humans in the street, slowly eases up to the curb. Olivia looks at it, long and hard, her ill-gotten phone still clutched in her hand. To my surprise, it’s Jiaying who speaks first.

“You shouldn’t go,” she says, her voice amazingly calm for the internal fight I know she’s still waging. Only I feel like a voyeur now—she can clearly handle this on her own. I pull back out of her mind. “You have people who care for you here. Your brother gave up his job and risked his life to save me. And he’s done that for others, too. How much more would he do for you, his only family now?”

I’m left speechless.

Olivia’s blinking, but she turns away from the autocab. “I’m sorry I jacked you,” she whispers to Jiaying, head bowed.

“It’s okay.” Jiaying steps closer to my sister and opens her arms like she’s inviting Olivia in for a hug. “Come on. I’ll make us some of my grandma’s tea.”

Olivia gives one last look at the autocab then shuffles forward. Jiaying loops one arm around my kid sister’s skinny shoulders. Jiaying is slender and short, just like Olivia, and the two together—touching, which is huge for Jiaying—blow my mind as they amble toward the front door of Aaliyah’s Home. Jiaying gives me a nod as they pass, and I’m choked up. She knows I’m a jacker now, and Olivia just jacked her ten seconds ago. Yet, she’s shepherding my sister back to the relative safety of the Home.

Some people are simply better than others in this world.

I wait until they’re up on the steps, opening the creaking front door before I say anything.

Then I turn to Sammi. “Can I ask you a huge favor?”

“Whatever you need.” She says it without hesitation, and I feel it like a dull ache in my chest. Like, this is what having friends feels like, and I haven’t ever had it before. Didn’t really know what I was missing.

“I need someone to watch over Livvy when I’m not around,” I say. “You’re still on suspension, right?” When Juliette and Sammi got caught planting a Free Thinker vid in their school’s morning announcements, both were suspended for two weeks, most of which has passed. Tiller moved his daughter to a new school, and they get out in a few days, but Sammi hasn’t been back, as far as I know.

“School’s out for the summer.” She smirks. “I’m freelancing these days.”

I don’t even want to know what hacking she means by that. “Great. Olivia really needs someone around right now. She’s freaky strong, but she’s really like a changeling. I don’t think she ever learned anything but how to, you know, hurt people. She needs someone who can teach her how to jack safely. And keep her occupied. Someone who’s definitely not me.” Or Jiaying, although she handled this way better than I did. Still, there’s no way Olivia can learn to control her skills with a reader.

Sammi slips a glance at Juliette but tries to cover it by quickly saying, “You got it.”

Juliette frowns. “Are you sure it’s safe?” She’s asking me, but the question floats in the air like it’s for both Sammi and me.

“You’ll be safe back at Daddy’s estate,” Sammi says with a grimace.

Juliette gives her an incredulous look. “I’m not worried about me.”

“Well, I am,” Sammi throws back. To me, she says, “It’s fine.”

I grimace. “Olivia’s a good kid. She won’t hurt you intentionally.” I realize how bad that sounds.

“When do you need me?” Sammi asks.

“Whenever I can’t be here. Mostly during the day. I just need a little time to track down my parents. A few days at most.” Wright promised tomorrow, but I’m not saying anything to anyone until after. “But if you could hang out now, that would be great.” I hook a thumb in Juliette’s direction. “Your girlfriend has something I need to check out back at her lab at the estate.”

“The new tech?” Sammi asks, lifting an eyebrow to Juliette.

Good. They’ve talked about it. “Yeah,” I say. “I want to bring it to Kira tomorrow.”

“I want a peek at it, too,” Sammi says. “And it’s not a problem to watch your sister.” 

Juliette’s scowling at me, unconvinced.

“Hey,” Sammi says to her, but her voice is soft. “You don’t need to worry about me, okay? And you should come visit after school to keep me entertained.”

Juliette brightens at that, gives a half smile, and an even shakier nod.

Sammi just smiles her goodbye and heads toward the entrance to Aaliyah’s Home. I get that dull-ache feeling again. I don’t even know Sammi that well—half the time I’ve seen her, she’s been making out with Juliette—but she’s taking this risk to help me out, just because I asked. It’s the kind of thing I’ll be walking away from as soon as my parents are free.

“Come on,” I say to Juliette, urging her toward the autolimo. “You can see her tomorrow.”

She’s looking after Sammi with a longing I recognize all too well. Then she grudgingly follows me inside the autolimo and sets an autopath for her father’s estate.