“Owwww,” I whimper. “It hurts, Logan. It hurts so much.”
“Hold on. I’m rowing as fast as I can. I’ll get you back to the compound. I’ll get help.”
I keep squeezing my head as the boat speeds over the water, keep applying pressure as Logan lifts me in his arms and runs back to the compound. My teeth chatter against one another as first my mom’s and then Ryder’s and then Mikey’s faces pass in front of my vision. Fine tremors erupt along my skin as Mikey lifts my hand and squints at the bite marks.
“Yep, she’s been infected,” he says.
And then I pass out.
3
I am running, running down a corridor. The tiles are pale green, and a darker green stripe bisects the wall. The wait lounges flash by, at regular intervals along the hallway, with their emerald carpets and purple amethyst couches.
Green and purple. Purple and green.
These colors mean something to me. Something important. Something I need to remember.
I just can’t figure out what.
Sweat drenches my back, making my shirt cling to my skin. I pump my legs, as steady as a piston, and gasp at the air, not as steady, not as sure. No one is chasing me, and yet I have to run as quickly as possible. Along the corridor, make a left, through the double swinging doors, bypass the elevators, open the emergency exit, down, down, down an endless set of stairs, until I dead-end in front of a door.
A metal door, locked up tighter than a tomb with its blinking-purple-light security system, its pale-green box of personal identity scans.
Green and purple.
I’m here, exactly where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know where “here” is. I don’t know how I knew to follow this particular path. I don’t know why this door is so significant.
All I know is this is where I’m meant to be. I was born to fulfill this destiny.
When I wake, my mother is running a cool washcloth along my heated skin. It takes me a moment to figure out where I am—in my bed in the little cottage behind the Russells’ home, in the Harmony compound. Not running in a purple and green hallway I’ve never seen.
I shiver, and immediately my mom brings her hand to my forehead. “Your fever finally broke after forty-eight hours. Are you cold?”
I shake my head and rise onto my elbows. “What happened to me?” I croak.
“A mouse infected you.” She glides the cloth down my arms.
I sink back onto the pillows. My bones slosh around my limbs like water, and my head pulses with lights. Still, I could sit up if I really wanted to. But I’d rather have my mom keep taking care of me a little longer.
Ever since I came back from the wilderness, our relationship has been…strained. We were both to blame. She didn’t want to leave her home and move into the Harmony compound. She said it was too dangerous for us to be affiliated with the Underground, but I don’t buy that excuse for a second. I was already on the run with them. I’d say I was already associated. So I went on a hunger strike until she let me live at the compound with Mikey and Angela. I’m not proud of it, but what did she expect? I hadn’t seen her for six years, and it was hard enough for me to move back to civilization. I didn’t want to be ripped away from my community, too.
Our relationship never recovered, even though she comes by the cottage to see me every day. It’s like she can’t forgive me for choosing another family, and I can’t forgive her for letting me go into the wilderness by myself.
Except when I’m sick. For some reason, my mom drops her guard then. She even lets herself be affectionate, and I can fool myself into believing that she loves me. The way Ryder’s adopted mother, Angela, loves him.
“Mikey says you should go back to normal once the poison passes through your system.” She smooths my hair and tucks it behind my ear. I keep my eyes closed. Pretend I’m drifting to sleep so she won’t withdraw her soft hands. “Except, that is, for the enhanced powers.”
My eyes fly open. “Powers? What powers?” And do they have anything to do with a green and purple hallway?
Aw, fike. I spoke too strongly, sounded too healthy. In front of my very eyes, she retreats into herself. Her spine gets straighter; her chin lifts higher. She drops the washcloth like it cooked too long in the Meal Assembler.
“Don’t know.” Even her voice is cooler. “Whatever powers the mouse had. We won’t know until we speak to the administering scientist.”
“Mikey’s going to talk to Tanner?” I ask hopefully. It’s not out of the question. When we came back to civilization, Mikey returned to his first love—science—and took up a post at TechRA. A scientist in name, but definitely not one of them.
“No, you’re going to talk to Tanner.” She crosses her arms across her chest. “You’re the one who got yourself into this mess. You clean it up.”
“But then he’ll know I let his mice loose!”
“Should’ve thought of that before you broke into his lab.” She tosses back her shoulder-length hair, ready for battle. “Besides, isn’t Tanner your classmate? Strike up a conversation with him. Maybe he’ll spill about the mice without you having to confess anything.”
I make a face. Yeah, right. I’m as excited to seek out Tanner Callahan’s company as I am to take her advice. At least that’s what I’ve always thought. Unbidden, an image of his gentle hands wiggling loose the mouse’s leg floats across my mind. Is it possible Tanner isn’t the self-absorbed jerk I always assumed?
Before I can decide, the floors vibrate, and an image of my front stoop appears on the wall screens. My mom puts her hands on her hips, and my heart rate triples. We have a guest.
I can’t see the caller’s face. Her silver hair, a shade brighter than my mom’s, is pulled back in a sleek chignon. She wears a navy uniform, its lines so sharp it looks like it came straight out of the air press, and a pair of transparent shoes, whose heels might double as icicle daggers.
Chairwoman Dresden. This isn’t her first visit, and it won’t be her last.
“Does she know about my infection? Did she find out…” I force the words out of my throat. “I broke into the TechRA labs?”
“I don’t think so. She’s probably just here to make you another proposition.” Mom moves to the wardrobe and tosses me a jacket, the kind that will mold itself to my body upon wearing. “Here, put this on.”
“I’m not changing for her.”
“You can’t wear your pajamas to receive the head of FuMA, Jessa.”
“She’s the head of a now-defunct agency,” I correct her. “The chairwoman title is merely honorary. What’s more, she’s a future dictator responsible for genocide, our very own post-Boom Hitler. I’ll wear whatever I want.”
“Just do it.” My mother clicks her tongue. Maybe she’s as sick as I am of our constant arguing. Maybe she, too, wishes we could go back in time and fix yesterday’s mistakes. But too many years have passed. Too many resentments have piled on too many hurts. Even if I wanted to start over with my mom, I wouldn’t know how.
The floors vibrate again. My mom shoves my safety pads and hoverboard gear into the closet and then looks right into my eyes. “Just remember, Jessa. I don’t need the stars and moon. The only thing I need is you.”
Right. I don’t even dignify her lies with a response. My family situation is pathetic, no question. I never knew my father, and my sister killed herself in front of my very eyes. My mother chose to stay in her home, wrapped in the comfort of Eden City, rather than venture into the woods and risk hardship to be with her daughter.