“Huh?” He cocked his head to the right, his eyes a muddled mix of long-past memories and current events.
“The Bureau of Safety and Security agents, Pops. What else did they say?” I held his gaze. His vision cleared, and he sat upright.
“Oh, yeah, those S.O.B.’s. You ever notice that, Little Bit? B.O.S.S., kind of like S.O.B. backward.” He patted my leg, chuckling.
“Yes, Pops.” I hid the impatience from my voice as best I could.
“Well, the city demolished Robin’s Roost on your birthday. Fine old building once upon a time. Flat as one of Edith’s flapjacks now.” He shook his head. “Tell me, Nina, if Ed were in the city to see Dee, what would he have been doing in an abandoned hotel? Doesn’t make any sense, does it?” He didn’t wait for a response from me. “I told ’em they were crazy.” He waved like he was pushing the whole lot of them out of our lives. “They won’t be back.”
“I hope you’re right, Pops.” I threw my arms around him, squeezing hard, but not hard enough to dispel my fears. “I’d better go do my homework, too.”
As soon as I got to my room, I messaged Wei on my PAV. I couldn’t risk a conversation being overheard by the audio surveillance I was sure was trained on our apartment. Especially with B.O.S.S. looking for Ed, and with the entire world thinking Dee was his daughter, we had to be somehow suspect. The fact that I had actually killed him, and Dee wasn’t Ed’s daughter, and Alan Oberon was alive—skivs! It was a good thing they didn’t have thought surveillance yet, or I’d be dead already.
“Meet you in Lincoln Park. You know the place,” Wei messaged back.
There was a tech tower in the park that caused a lot of satellite and radio frequency interference. It wasn’t as good as a full-on dead zone, but almost.
“Twenty minutes,” I replied.
Bundling back into my coat, I stopped by the kitchen and told Gran I’d be late for dinner.
“Wei, what am I going to do? B.O.S.S. was at our apartment today.” I paced back and forth. “They’re going to find out, aren’t they? And when they do, I’ll be reassimilated. Or they’ll send me to Mars.”
“Stop. You’re making me dizzy.” Wei held up her hand. “They aren’t going to find out anything. And they only send guys to the prison on Mars.”
I came to a halt. “What am I going to do?”
“Seriously, Nina. They are not going to arrest you, because there is no evidence of anything. Trust me. I know what happened afterward, the cleanup. You have nothing to worry about. Nothing. Besides, I’ve got some friends. I’ll ask them to check and see if anything about you is making the rounds.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Wei pointed to the thistle tattoo on the back of her hand. “There are a few of us…”
“Creatives? What can they do?”
“Not just Creatives.” Wei pulled me close. “We’re the Sisterhood. Kind of like…” She glanced around. “Like NonCons, but girls,” she whispered.
My eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Uh-huh.” She kept scanning the area around us as she softly said, “The NonCons, well, you know the guys won’t let us do much. But we do Rogue Radio and the tech for vert and vid interruptions. We see things, hear things, and then supply the NonCons with intelligence that they pass along to the Resistance. The only problem is, we don’t get to do any of the more dangerous things they do. Like guarding high-level Resistance members when they come through town, saving FeLS girls—even before your mother found out the whole truth about FeLS—or stopping a convoy of political prisoners heading to Mars.”
“Really?” My heart quickened, and I latched onto her arm. “I want to join. How? I’ll do anything.”
“Whoa. Slow down. I need to talk to the others before I say anything else. Although, you saved my life and you’re Alan Oberon’s daughter… How could they not—”
“You can’t tell them that. At least not what I did—no one can know what happened with Ed. No one except you, Sal, Derek, and Mike—and whoever did the cleanup—can ever know. Promise!”
“I won’t say a word. But, Nina, you can’t tell Sal anything about the Sisterhood. I know he doesn’t want you doing anything that might put you in danger again. When Ed was… well, I shouldn’t—” She shook her head.
“Shouldn’t what? Spill.”
“It’s not a huge thing. But when Ed was harassing you and Dee, Sal would borrow John’s trannie and go sit outside your apartment building, watching for Ed. Keeping an eye on you and Dee. He loves you so much, Nina. He’d do anything to protect you.”
“He did what?” I barely heard anything past “keeping an eye on you.” Sal had been guarding me without telling me? Part of me was touched, and part of me was mad. While I appreciated his concern, so far, I’d been able to take care of myself—and Dee.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Wei bit her lip. “Don’t tell him. Okay?”
I tamped down my rising anger. It was already done. No sense fighting after the fact. I sighed. “I love him, too, but… this issue of what girls can and can’t do is something we completely disagree on.”
“Oh, yeah, I argue about it with Sal and with my dad. They think we have enough to deal with, just running the gauntlet of being sixteen every day. They don’t get that we need to be able to do things that prove to us how powerful we really are.”
“What about your brother, Chris? Does he give you a hard time, too?”
“Not really. We haven’t talked about it much. He’s always been my sparring partner in Cliste Galad, and he knows what I’m capable of. I don’t think he has the same hangups my dad has.”
“I bet Derek doesn’t worry about you either.” I knew all about Derek’s admiration for strong girls.
Wei actually blushed. “He doesn’t.” She looked up at me from under her lashes. “Actually… I decked him one night.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. We were goofing around. He grabbed me, I reacted without thinking. Bam! Flat on his back.”
“Derek? Really?” I unsuccessfully tried to stifle a laugh. Wei was tiny, and Derek was, well, he wasn’t huge, but he was definitely bigger than Wei.
“At least some guys have a little faith in girls. Even if they have to find out the hard way. So to speak.” She chuckled. “Of course, we did kiss and make up.”
“So do the other girls in the Sisterhood want to do more, too?”
“Uh-huh. We’re waiting for the right time to do something, or to help someone, outside of our regular activities. Something that will prove our capabilities.”
My mind flashed on Joan, Mike’s sister, who was an escapee from the FeLS program. She’d been rescued and brought back to Earth from the training station. Based on what Wei’d just said, it must’ve been NonCons who’d saved her. She was living with a group of homeless women. I wondered… would the Sisterhood… No. I didn’t know enough about it. And I wasn’t even a part of the Sisterhood yet. I’d talk to Wei some other time about Joan.
“Has your dad said anything about what’s taking so long to expose FeLS?”
“Nuh-uh,” Wei said. “I know he gave that information to your father weeks ago. I’m sure they are waiting for just the right moment.”
“They need to get it out there, and the sooner the better.” When FeLS was exposed, people like Joan would be helped. Even though I couldn’t do anything for her right then, maybe joining Wei’s group would give me some ideas. “Listen, is there some sort of initiation for the Sisterhood? I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You are the last person in the universe who needs to prove anything,” Wei said. “I’ll talk to them tonight and let you know the outcome tomorrow.” She smiled at me. “They’re going to want you. I know it.”