Blaine yanks the stranger in front of him as a shield. “What are you doing?”
“What any captain would do when two men walk into his camp without explanation: I’m protecting my team. You have to understand that this looks very odd, Blaine.”
My brother stays sheltered behind his hostage’s shoulder. “I left headquarters just three days after you did,” he explains, “right around when one of our own got taken into Order custody. Ryder wanted to put Elijah on your tail, just in case the Order extracted mission details from our man and decided to send one of their own after you. Basically, Ryder wanted to send a Rebel shadow for the possible Order shadow.
“I kept telling Ryder it wasn’t right, that I was healthy enough and I should be with the team, with you and Gray. Family. Ryder ran me through a final endurance test—which I passed—and agreed to let me go in Elijah’s place. I’ve been putting in twenty-five-plus miles a day just to catch up with you guys.”
“Which means . . .” Owen’s eyes go wide as he looks at the stranger before Blaine.
“Ryder was right. Frank got some mission details out of our man, because this guy”—Blaine shakes the hostage—“is with the Order. I’ve been hiking for about an hour already today, and I caught him just outside Stonewall, loading his handgun.” Blaine tosses the extra weapon to Xavier.
“Is he the only spy?” my father asks.
“I think so. At least, he’s the only person I’ve seen between headquarters and here.”
“Your name?” my father asks the prisoner, whose skin is pale in the first light of dawn. He looks about my age and is perhaps just as reckless, because rather than answer my father’s question, he spits on his boots.
Blaine shakes him forcefully.
“Jackson,” the Order spy grunts. “My name is Jackson.”
My father raises his weapon. “Well, Jackson. Any last words?”
“You can’t kill me.”
“That’s an interesting theory. Perhaps we should test it.”
“Oh, I’ll die,” he says, smiling slyly, “but Frank will know. As soon as he loses my reading, he’ll send someone to replace me. You’re better off keeping me with you so that he thinks I’m still tailing your team.”
I frown because he’s right. Frank puts tracking technologies in all his soldiers, Order members and Heisted boys alike. One was unknowingly injected beneath my own skin last summer. Clipper removed it, living up to his nickname just moments after I met him. Once free of the device, Frank believed me dead. At least until I marched back to Taem with Harvey and Bree for the vaccine.
“I think we’ll take our chances. You dead gives us a head start. A big one.” Owen’s finger reaches for the trigger and Jackson’s face washes over with panic.
“Okay, wait-wait-wait,” he sputters. “Let’s talk this through for a minute. I don’t know what your mission is; the Order couldn’t get it out of the guy we captured. All we know is you’re heading west, so I was sent to intercept you, learn the details of your mission, and try to uncover the location of your headquarters in the process. But let’s just forget all that for a second and instead think about how useful it could be to have an Order member with you on this trek. Right? Eh?” He glances around for takers. “I can speak up for you in any Order-patrolled towns, help you avoid Frank’s eye. You can even take out my tracker if you’re willing to chance someone else being sent after the team, but don’t kill me. Okay? Please don’t kill me.”
The team looks around at one another, startled by Jackson’s willingness to fold.
“It’s a sign of weakness,” Owen says, weapon still poised, “betraying your kind so quickly.”
“Only if you believe your life is worth less than the success of your mission,” the spy says. “And I don’t. I put my own life above Frank knowing why a handful of Rebels are on a hiking trip. Some would say self-preservation is the very opposite of weakness.” He smiles. Wide.
“Knock him out,” Owen says to Blaine.
Blaine strikes Jackson with his gun harder this time, sending the prisoner crumpling to the ground. Xavier rushes to bind his hands and feet, but my father keeps his weapon aimed at Blaine, his finger dangerously close to the trigger.
“Now holster that gun,” he says.
Blaine does, but even still, Owen won’t lower his. “I need proof,” he says, jabbing the barrel in Blaine’s direction. “I need it or I have to pull this trigger.”
My brother looks stunned. “What more can I give you? He admitted he’s with the Order!”
“Yes, and now I need proof that you aren’t with them, too.”
I know where this is headed, but it can’t be true. I’d be able to tell. This is Blaine—scared, anxious, furious at a spy who was about to attack us—but it’s him.
“Pa,” I say, taking a step toward him. “It’s Blaine. It has to be. He mentioned the conditioning test, and Ryder, and—”
“The Rebels have been deceived by Forgeries before. These are dangerous times and we can’t be too careful.” He glances back at Blaine, eyes narrowed. “Your brother has a few scars. Name them.”
Blaine stifles a small laugh. “A few? He has more than a few.”
“And if you are truly my son, you know Gray better than anyone in the world and this question will not be a problem.”
Blaine looks at me. His blue eyes, the only feature that differentiates us, seem so colorless in the poor lighting that he could be my reflection. I give him an encouraging nod, and he starts listing off scars. A nick on my upper arm from a misfired arrow—his fault—when we were kids. The line on my palm from a poorly wielded knife—my fault—when whittling. A mark on my chest from falling on a jagged branch, stitches that scarred my chin after a fight with Chalice, the line along my neck from when Clipper removed my tracking device.
“And on his forearm,” Blaine says. “Burns from the public square in Taem that scarred real bad.”
I touch my arm, remembering my trip to Taem in the fall. Bree shot me with a rubber bullet so that I didn’t have to execute Harvey on Frank’s orders, and I ended up immobilized on a burning platform until Bo dragged me to safety. My father must have been waiting for Blaine to speak of this scar—a detailed account of an injury that healed within the safety of Crevice Valley, away from Order eyes—because he finally lowers his rifle.
Owen yanks the collar of Blaine’s jacket back to reveal a small, thin scar. Clipper’s work, done the same day he tended to my tracking device. Then Owen clasps a hand on either side of Blaine’s face. “I’m sorry I had to interrogate you like that.”
Blaine winks. “Like what?”
Owen pulls him into a quick hug and then turns to address the rest of us. “The spy makes a good point. Having someone to cover for us if we stumble across the Order gives us an advantage we can’t pass up. And so long as we have his life as a bargaining chip, he should remain loyal. Soon as we clip him, Frank’s bound to send another in his place though, so let’s eat quickly and get back on the move.”
The group disbands for breakfast, and I’m left alone with Blaine, still staring in disbelief.
“You’re really here,” I say.
He flashes me a smile. “I have to look after you, don’t I? You wouldn’t last long without me.”
Almost the same words he said when he woke from his coma. The joke he makes over and over because while the two of us are perfectly self-sufficient, we both know we’re better together.
“You’re full of it,” I say, but I pull him into a hug anyway. His arms are stiff, his clasp weak. When I step back he looks exhausted. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired. And sore. And my chest’s been burning the last few days. Maybe Ryder was right all along. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this.”