SAGE
Still on the parked bike, Jack ran his hand over his face, exhaling. He looked tired, and yet, picture perfect—if both were somehow possible at once.
I pulled my wet leather jacket tighter around me and removed my helmet, setting it on top of the seat. A crisp wind had picked up, and my wet hair blew in all directions, swirling in my face. I wondered if this was an unusually cool night for early summer in New York, or if I felt chilled simply because my body was soaking wet.
Jack slid his phone in his pocket and climbed off his bike. His face showed relief as he brushed rainwater from his jacket.
I rubbed at my right calf. It still bothered me. Maybe my position on the bike had caused some sort of nerve to pinch or something? Or maybe my leg had touched the motorcycle engine and burned?
Jack motioned me toward the front door of the diner.
He paused on the curb, staring at a sleeping homeless man who leaned against the brick wall of the diner, his body covered only in a few ragged blankets. Jack pulled a giant wad of bills out of his leather jacket, squatted down next to the man, and slipped the bills into the man’s hand.
The man stirred, noticed the money, and sat upright.
His eyes widened—either at Jack’s dazzling face or at his good fortune of being in the right place at the right time.
“God bless you,” he said.
“And you,” Jack replied, still kneeling in front of the man. His look was as genuine as I’d ever seen it. It was one of the most real and vulnerable moments I’d ever encountered Jack engaging in.
Jack rested his hand on the man’s glove, squeezed it, and then stood up, making his way to the door of the diner. Without a word about it, he held open the door for me, and we stepped into a mostly deserted restaurant.
“Pick anywhere!” A middle-aged lady called out from behind the counter.
We took a seat at the corner booth, and Jack actually smiled at me.
“You’re in a good mood for it being so late at night,” I said, rubbing my calf.
Jack leaned his head against the wall. “Beck finally texted. He’ll meet us at the hotel at 4:30.”
I nodded. “That’s good.”
The quiet of the diner washed over me, and with the silence and the warmth, I finally had a moment to think on the events of the night.
Everything had happened so fast, and yet, in a way, it all felt like slow motion replaying in my mind. Had I been in a bathroom stall in a golden satin dress with a steak knife at my thigh only hours ago? I didn’t want to think about it, so I needed to focus on what came next.
“So. Now we go to my dad? And Finn?”
Jack nodded, something reserved in his expression. “Your father, he wanted me to tell you that he’s excited to see you again, and he has all the money necessary to make sure you’re well taken care of.”
Something in Jack’s voice sounded off.
“Is he a horrible person? Please just tell me now if he’s a horrible person, so I can prepare myself for it. I’d rather know now.”
“Your father?” Jack said. “He’s just different than I remember, that’s all. You’ll get to meet him for yourself soon enough.”
“But what? You think I’ll be disappointed?”
I picked at the wet strip of towel wrapped around my cut palm, afraid to make eye contact for fear of what Jack’s eyes might tell me.
He didn’t respond.
I struggled to keep my composure.
My dad. The one thread I’d been holding onto, hoping it might end in some sort of happy resolution now that the boys showed up and I was actually going to meet him. The one person who might offer me unconditional love. If he was the same man from my dreams, I believed it possible.
I didn’t want to think about the other extreme. What if I was disappointed in the father I met? What if he was abhorrent?
But wait. There was more.
The blood drained from my face.
I realized the giant mistake I’d been making. A much, much larger mistake. The reality hit me like a school bus traveling fifty on a country road.
Ever since Beckett showed up in the bathroom at the mansion, I clung to a false reality of my father. And beneath my anticipation of meeting him, I also placed on him far greater expectations. Subconsciously, I believed that maybe my father could save me, wipe away the code inside me. Make it like it never existed.
That wasn’t possible. I was sure of it. But say, even if he could. Even if he were able to delete the code somehow, Vasterias would still look for me. They would still test, and test, and test me. They’d still take my eggs to try to make something of them. And if Vasterias did finally figure out the code was gone from inside my body, they’d just kill me anyway.
There was no end.
I gazed at Jack across the table. We would still have to die.
This weight sat heavy in the pit of my stomach.
I would never escape. I would never ride in that red boat with the old man in the navy shirt, fishing for the day. I would never just disappear, free from all of this.
Did Jack know this all along?
Of course he did.
This is the feeling he’d lived with his entire life. This was the weight of the code.
It was only so obvious when I was sitting here, across the table from him.
Me and Jack. The two people Vasterias wanted most in the world.
The revelation of my own denial stirred up so many emotions I couldn’t even process. So I pushed it away. I shoved it deep inside. I couldn’t even deal with it right now. I wouldn’t address it again until after I saw Finn. Until after I confirmed whether or not he would live. Until after I talked to my father. Until more was revealed. Because that reality—the reality of my ultimate fate—could not be processed right now. It was too much for my human brain. If I went there right now, the overwhelming truth would take me under.
So.
One step at a time. That’s all I’d allow myself to think about.
If Jack noticed this giant, cosmic shift inside of me, he didn’t acknowledge it.
The waitress approached our table and smiled big at Jack.
Did all women smile big at Jack?
“Good evening to ya,” she said.
“Hello, Cathy,” Jack said, reading her name tag.
“What can I get for you?”
“Burger for me,” Jack said.
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Just a water, please,” I said.
Cathy gave me an appraising look and then glanced at Jack. He just shrugged in acquiescence, so she pulled two straws from her apron and set them on the table.
“Be right back.” She smiled at Jack again.
We sat in silence for a bit, observing the diner. Every once in a while, I stole a look at Jack, distracting myself from my previous thoughts with the way that Jack’s muscular form reclined in the booth, the way his abdominal muscles somehow remained defined, even while he slouched. His chiseled forearms rested casually on the tabletop, and he twiddled with our straw wrappers, rolling tiny pieces of the paper into balls and tossing them so that they landed directly on top of the salt shaker.
It reminded me of a day on the island. Jack had a broken leg—the leg that Finn had broken—and he tossed tape balls across the room, over and over into a small cup without ever missing. Only once did he miss. On purpose.
After Cathy brought our waters and Jack’s burger, I took a long sip and faced Jack squarely across the table. I needed a new center. A new goal to focus on.
“Okay. So what about Finn. What did my dad say about Finn?”
“That he’d do the best he could.”
Jack took a giant bite of his hamburger.
“Do you believe Finn is dead?” Dread washed over my limbs at the question, the feeling palpable down to my fingertips and toes.
Jack wiped his mouth with a napkin and swallowed. He didn’t try to protect my emotions with his answer. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Yesterday, at the mansion, Sven said it was likely.”
“I’m not sure I like Sven.”
I pondered this because Beckett said pretty much the same thing about Sven earlier.
It was still hard for me to picture Finn alive—at least in the last way I saw him on the island, transformed from the brother I knew, hair falling out, greenish skin, expanded bones. I grimaced at the memory of him in such pain, so far from who he really was. I couldn’t imagine how trapped he felt, or if Finn even still knew who he was at all.
“Before this is all over,” I said, “if things ever go bad, and they get me again, and I go mod, you have to kill me.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Promise me,” I said.
“I won’t.” Jack took another bite of his hamburger. Two bites, burger half-gone.
“But I watched Finn. Even though he recognized me for like one second, that didn’t take away his pain. It’s like … it’s like … the two worst case hospital scenarios combined: consciously suffering in continual pain, while brain dead, with a ventilator keeping you alive. Those types of situations can end soon, or they can end after a long, painful process. If that ever happened to me, you have to end it early. Promise me, Jack.”
“No.” Jack squirted out some ketchup onto his plate, dipped some french fries in the red puddle, and shoved the fries in his mouth.
“Besides,” he said. “Like you’d do the same for me? Kill me if I were mod? You know you wouldn’t.” Jack chomped down on his burger again, eradicating the third quarter of it in another bite.
“But I didn’t think you could turn mod,” I said. “Your dad injected you with the serum, and you didn’t turn, so it’s a moot point.”
“If I didn’t turn, then why would you turn? You’ve got the code in you. And anyway, why are we having this conversation? We’re not even on the island anymore. We just got away from Vasterias, and my dad’s the only one who’d ever do that to you. And he’s gone, Sage. You don’t have to worry about stuff like this anymore.”
“Just promise me.”
“You promise me, first.”
“Fine. I promise you.” My voice didn’t waver. “Now you.”
“Fine!” Jack pushed his plate away and lifted his hands. “Whatever! I promise. I don’t know why we’re talking about this.”
Jack took a giant gulp of his water and stood abruptly. “Let’s go.” He tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and pulled another bill from his pocket. A hundred-dollar bill. He threw that on the table with the twenty.
That was the fastest I’d ever seen someone finish a meal, save for possibly Beckett at the end of a long day with no lunch break.
Okay, fine. So Jack didn’t do well with conversations where he felt pressured. Or maybe conversations where he couldn’t be right? I wasn’t sure yet. Too many things about Jack remained forever ambiguous to me.
I followed Jack toward the door. He pushed it open, and the bell on the door jingled.
“Thanks, Cathy!” Jack called to her, his voice a complete flip from the angry tone he’d just used with me seconds before.
We stepped out into the night. The glass closed behind us before I could even hear Cathy’s reply.