13

I wake folded in a pool of warm sunlight. The sun sputters under a wisp of cloud but reappears to bathe my bare arms in the first sunlight I’ve seen in what seems like years.

Jared nuzzles the back of my neck, his arms tight bands around my body. I can feel him breathing me in. His lips trace a path across my neck to my ear until he pulls back, remembering.

I’m surprised to see him at all.

I’d stayed in the bathroom for a long time after our fight, as long as it took to steel myself for round two. But by the time I was ready to face him, Jared had gone. So I’d lain down and cried myself to sleep.

This morning my throat feels raw, my eyes puffy and swollen. And Jared is beside me. Pulling back. It causes me indescribable pain. Under the sunlight, his hair glows a brilliant orange and white, his skin turning to marble.

“You all right?” He’s so beautiful it hurts my throat. I nod. I’m not, of course. Not all right. Not by a long mile. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I hold out my hand. Sunshine pools in my palm, instantly warming my skin. Regardless of what is happening with Jared, this presence of blue sky and sun is the kind of miracle I can’t ignore.

I clear my throat. “When’s the last time you saw sun like this?”

When Jared doesn’t answer, I drag my eyes away from the warm blue sky to him. There’s a stillness to him, a quiet I’ve never seen before. For a moment the sun falls on my face, bleaching my eyesight.

“Just now,” he replies, so quiet I almost don’t hear him. He’s not looking at the sky. He’s looking at me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, not letting the tears come again. When I open them the sun has slipped back under the endless gauze of cloud. I heave a sigh and try to ignore the overwhelming sense of betrayal I feel.

It doesn’t work.

“What are you going to tell Storm, then?” I say, wrecking the beauty of the day as sure as a Flux storm.

Jared stares at me like he doesn’t hear me before rolling over with a sigh. “I suppose I should have expected that.”

“What are you going to tell him?” I repeat.

“Don’t know yet.”

“Are you going to let me keep going?”

“Stop it, Lucy.”

“Are you? I can’t let you stop me, Jared. Margot is out there somewhere. She needs me.”

My bodyguard brushes a curl from his face. “Stop picking fights with me, Lu. Cut it out,” he growls.

His reply—because he’s right, that little voice tells me, I am picking fights—only causes my own frustration to grow. “I reckon you have a choice to make, Jared. Are you going to make me your prisoner?”

“Storm would never ask that of me.”

“Are you sure? Because Storm lies, Jared. He lied to me. He said he’d help me but he didn’t. He used me.”

“You know there’s more to it than that. Why do you have to go and twist it up like that?”

I take Jared’s palm and press it to my heart. “It never lies, Jared. Our connection—when I feel Margot? It never lies. Not like people. Never like people.”

All his annoyance leaks away as he stares at me. “I’ve never lied to you, Lu.”

“Maybe so,” I rasp, fighting tears. “But when you let Storm lie? When you let him use me, when you aid him in it? That’s as good as, if not worse.”

Jared stares at me, slack-faced. “I don’t know how you can say that.”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“No,” he says gently, brushing a strand of hair from my eyes. “The truth is, you’re hurt and scared witless, so you’re pushing me away. I don’t blame you.” Jared lets out a huff of a laugh, but there’s little humor in it. “I haven’t exactly been handling this very well myself.”

I’m about to roll away, unsure I want to hear any more. But Jared closes his fingers around my hand, stilling me. Those indigo eyes shutter and close as I watch his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow. And then he’s right there, watching me with inhuman intensity. I could drown in his eyes.

“Lu, I’m scared, too.”

This shocks me to my core. “What are you scared of?”

A crooked, terrible grin takes over his face. “Of holding your lifeless body. Of—of never seeing you again. Worst is the thought that you’ll wake up one day and look at me and realize I’m nothing.”

I gasp. “How can you say that?”

“I’m a merc, Lucinda Fox. And a True Born.”

I think I see where this is going. I take a deep breath and steel myself against the wave of disappointment. “And you have a job to do.”

Jared nods, very slowly. “And I have a job to do.”

And you always will, I think to myself.

Turner’s Splice won’t do him for long. They say some just aren’t good Splicers, no matter how many times they go under. This is not something we talk about as I sit across from him, sipping a cocktail layered with orange and yellow and red and topped with a fake cherry.

Marcus stands behind his boss, hovering. A faint crease of worry lines his light blue eyes. He’s strapped today. A shiny semiautomatic hangs from a special holster, and he stands guard from a few short paces away while the ship’s servants come and go all around our private rooftop sitting room.

“Is there something I should be worrying about?” I nod briefly Marcus’s way. For his part, Marcus turns and smiles faintly as he folds his hands together. Perfectly charming, for a killing machine. Earlier that week I’d been told that Marcus had served in Dominion’s black ops. There’s no better man you want in a war, I’d heard Shane tell our father many times, than black ops. Trained to kill doesn’t begin to cover it.

But here he is, a former black ops guarding the back of a single rich man. I’d wondered why a man of Turner’s standing didn’t have more mercs. Maybe, I speculate, that’s just a mark of how good Marcus is.

Turner slumps over crossed knees and waves a finger at the merc behind him. “Marcus here likes to be ready for the unexpected. He’s always armed. You just might not see it.”

As though hearing his name, Marcus turns and glowers at me. I sink back a little in the sofa cushion. A servant in a sailor suit pops his head in from behind a glass door and nods at Marcus. Marcus waves a hand, dismissing the man, and goes back to pretending he’s one of the exotic potted plants ringing the room. It’s glass walled on three sides, the fourth holding an oil painting of a ship tossing in a storm. Not the best of choices.

“You think there might be preachers onboard?”

“No.” Turner laughs, showing two rows of perfect white teeth. He sits up straighter on the wicker couch. “Too many rich people onboard who pay their bills and tip well. Besides.” Turner leans over conspiratorially. “Where would they go if their rabble turned against them, eh?”

It was funny to hear that word in Turner’s mouth. Rabble. How many times had our parents said it, too? How many times had it passed our lips?

I don’t say it any longer.

“Did you see what the Lasters are painting all over Dominion?”

“Evolve or die,” Turner says drolly. He leans back and sips a tiny cup of espresso. No alcohol for him, he’s told me. Doctor’s orders. The new Splices need to be clean to take.

Turner’s salt-and-pepper hair fans across the white collar of his shirt as he stares out over the endless vista of blank sky and choppy seas. “Such a funny phrase.” I wait, certain he’ll go on if I’m patient. Finally he does, taking another delicate sip of coffee.

“On the one hand, it sounds like a threat. ‘Do it or else.’ One the other hand…” Turner continues. “Did you know that only two percent of the species survived the purge that killed the dinosaurs? Just two tiny percent.”

“Maybe it’s a warning that change is always happening.” I shrug. “None can force evolution, can they?”

Christopher E.J. Turner raises an eyebrow and regards me seriously. “Can’t they?”

I swallow, uncertain where the conversation has gone. “Do you know who’s behind it?” It can’t hurt to ask. Besides, there must be a few things the Gilt knows that maybe Storm, with all his intelligence networks, won’t have gathered.

“No,” he says playfully, “do you?” I shake my head, unsure how to deal with a man twice my age flirting with me. Lightning-fast, he changes the subject. “You’re going to meet up with your family, I understand.”

“Yes,” I say, truthfully enough.

“Where are they?”

I pause, deliberating on the question. It will seem strange that I don’t know. As though sensing my unease, Turner says, “You’ve been staying with Nolan Storm.”

I set down my glass, startled. “Yes.”

“True Borns. I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“Why?” But I stop in my tracks as I realize Turner has just given me an opening. “Oh. You know my father.”

Turner nods. The wind whips up. He hands up his tiny cup, over his shoulder, where Marcus takes it and passes it off to a waiting servant. “Some interesting politics, your father’s.”

“Yes, sir.”

Turner’s eyes grow sharp and daggered. “Don’t play nice with me, Lucinda Fox.” He smiles then, showing too many teeth, in an effort to take the sting from his sharpness. It’s too late, of course. And such a reversal from the standard request to keep quiet that I don’t know what to say. “Your father also has some interesting business interests.”

But this is one area where I’m in the dark as much as anyone. Probably more so. Letting us girls in on the goings-on would create a vulnerability, according to our father. What if you were kidnapped, he’d said on more than one occasion as he made us leave the room.

Then again, Margot was kidnapped. Only it wasn’t for what our father knew, as far as I can tell. She was kidnapped for the information growing inside her. Secrets blooming upon secrets.

Blooming inside me.

I shrug again and look him squarely in the eye. “Our father didn’t trust us with his secrets.”

Draping an arm across the long black sofa, Turner leans back and laughs. “Well, this is an interesting turn of events. Tell me, Lucinda, have you ever been to Russia?” There’s that gleam in his eyes again, the one that speaks of hope sprung anew. “No.”

“There’s talk among the Gilt that a new, experimental cure is being developed in Russia.”

I try to contain my shock. Heart tripping madly, I stutter, “Th-there’s always someone yapping about a cure. Sure as not it’s more snake oil. And anyway, what does the Gilt know?”

“Maybe you’re right.” Turner cocks his head. Marcus leans over and whispers something in Turner’s ear before discreetly backing away. “But as I hear it—and I hear a lot of things, Lucinda—there’s more to this cure than snake oil. And one of the men behind it, they say, is a well-known power from Dominion.”

I start to shake. Shoving my hands under my thighs, I swallow hard before I answer. “You think this man is my father.”

“I do.” He nods solemnly.

“And that’s where you’re heading. To where you’ve heard he is.”

“That’s right. And where are you headed, Lucinda?” Turner puts his hand on my knee. Marcus comes forward, a troubled V creasing his forehead.

“Time for Miss Fox to go, sir. You’re not to overextend yourself. Doctor’s orders.”

Turner gives his Personal a foul look but pulls his hand back. Marcus stays where he is, looming over me with his wide shoulders.

I stand and smile wide. Turner blinks as though he’s been blinded. “Where am I going? Same place as you, I reckon. Thanks for the drink.”

I look my travel companion over: his mottled green trousers and dark button-up shirt. His hair flaps in the breeze like wings. I wonder if that’s what’s bothering him until he points to the sky. A line of thick green clouds settles over the horizon like a fist.

“Flux storm,” I murmur. “Is it heading our way?” I feel my stomach churn with fear. What would happen if the storm were to hit us while at sea? If a Flux storm can level half a city, what can it do to one little boat?

Alastair pulls out his little rock. Holds it tightly in his fist. “Don’t think so. It will skate by us, I bet, though the ride will get choppy.”

We’re just two days from shore, or so says the crew. Two days for me to figure out the logistics of an entire voyage. And who is coming with me, a little voice says, drilling the point home. I’m still not certain what Jared will do. And while I now have a much better idea of where to head once the ship docks, thanks to Christopher E.J. Turner and the bread crumbs of the Gilt, I still don’t know where exactly Margot is.

Will that special sense of Margot flicker on again? Will I just know—will she feel closer? Margot and I have never been so far apart before. Everything about this situation is new and strange—a living, breathing experiment.

All I do know for certain is that I’ll get much farther, faster, with help.

“Are you coming with me?” And only when I’ve said it out loud do I realize I’m frightened he’ll say no.

Alastair nods and leans on the rusted iron railing. “I’m coming. Though I’ll probably regret it.” He grins ruefully at me and glances over his shoulder as a crewman with a machine gun perched on his shoulder saunters by.

I stare after the figure, perplexed. “Are we expecting company?”

Alastair looks out over the sea at the growing mass of clouds. “Desperate times, Lucy Fox,” he says mysteriously. “And we’re nearing shore.”

“What does that mean?”

But Alastair doesn’t answer. He comes to stand in front of me. He takes my shoulders in his and squeezes slightly. Then he tips my chin up until I’m staring into his fathomless brown eyes. “It’s time you told me what’s really going on.”

I pull my chin from his fingers but stand my ground. “I told you. I’m going to meet up with my family.”

Alastair studies me with a look of profound impatience. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

But what can I tell him? That I think we’ve got to follow the Gilt to wherever they’re going, certain as I can be that they’ll lead us to Margot? “My sister and I,” I tell him, swallowing deeply, “we’re different.”

“Different how.”

“Different. We can’t seem to catch Plague,” I say. “At least, that’s the theory.”

“So you’re True Born, like Jared.” Alastair shrugs as if to say, So what?

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t think so. We don’t know for sure.”

“You don’t. Know.” Ali’s eyes practically cross with annoyance. “You’re Upper Circle. How can you not know?”

“I told you. Different,” I say, irritated. A seagull weaves overhead like a carrion bird. Close to the shore, then. Very close. Anxiety pinches at me at the thought. I need to start making plans.

“Have you seen Turner today?” I ask.

“No, he slept in, I think.”

“I need to see him.”

“Wait just a minute.” Alastair grabs my hand. “Dammit, Lucy, I’ve gone out of my way to help you and then some. Least you can do is talk to me. Tell me what we’re going to face.”

“Can’t do that,” I tell Alastair truthfully. Because I don’t have a clue.

“So what can you tell me?”

“We need to follow the miracle seekers.” I spare a glance down at the heads of the Splicers taking their constitutionals on the deck below us. “Then I think we’ll find mine.”

Alastair lifts an eyebrow. “Your sister.”

“Of course. That’s what all this is about. I’ve been telling you the truth, Ali.”

“Is she with your parents?”

“She might be,” I say carefully.

“Might she also be with someone else?”

“Might be.”

“Might this person have guns?” As my face falls, Ali barks a laugh, his dimples winking. “Oh, you’re fun. Is she anything like you?”

“She’s exactly like me,” I tell him, not bothering to explain.

Alastair chucks me under the chin with a grin. “Then she’ll be okay. And what about you and Cat Boy?” He nods in the general vicinity of below.

I shrug. “What about us?”

We’re barely speaking, Jared and me. Almost crawling out of our skins. We revolve around each other like the sun and the moon, strange and untouching objects in the same orbit. Yet he still crawls into the softly rocking bed and goes to sleep by my side every night. Sometimes, instead of getting in, he sits in the chair across from the bed for a long time before lying down beside me. I wonder what he’s thinking. I want to ask, but I can’t.

And I still want him. That gnawing, hungry need for him doesn’t seem to go away. When I wake up and his arms are curled around me, I sometimes just lean back and pretend I’m still sleeping so I don’t have to pull away. I’ve wondered more than once if he’s pretending, too.

The wind from the Flux storm picks up so I almost miss Ali’s next words. “Just waiting…pick up…pieces.” I hear him in chunks.

“What? Ali, the storm,” I say, pointing to the gigantic funnel cloud that swoops out of the sky unexpectedly.

“Do…worry!” Ali yells in my ear and drags me down the stairs.

At the bottom, we spy Jared, one ear plugged with a finger. And with the other, he talks into his mobile.

“Maybe another thirty-six hours. No. No, that’s the wrong way to play it,” we overhear.

Ali tugs on the sleeve of my sweater, trying to lead me away, but when I refuse to budge, he just sighs and lets me eavesdrop.

“Listen. You can’t ask her to turn back now. She’ll just run away again… Well, next time, I might not be able to track her.” Then, after a pause, “No, that’s not a threat. Listen.”

But the storm takes over and sets upon the world with howling claws that slash through our clothing like tiny knives. Jared turns. And freezes. His face is a granite mask, giving away nothing. And I do the only thing I can do.

I turn and flee.