Robin Wasserman - Torn

“But you’re so sure you’re right now?”

“Are you defending them?”

“I just think you should slow down,” he said. “Think.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re going to tell me that I’m being reckless, given what you’ve got sleeping on your floor right now?”

“That’s different.”

“Right. Because it’s you,” I said. “Because I’m supposed to trust your judgment, but you can’t trust mine.”

“Lia, come on.”

“No! I won’t ‘come on’!”

“Stop shouting.”

“I’m not shouting!”

I was shouting.

“Fine,” I said. “So I’m mad. Congratulations, you figured me out.”

“You’re not mad at me.”

“No kidding.”

He took my hand and pressed my palm between his. “I love you,” he said.

It was the first time.

That wasn’t how I wanted it, like blackmail. Words to shut me up.

But I wanted it.

“You believe me?” he added.

I nodded.

I love you, too. I hadn’t said it either. And I didn’t want to say it now. Not so close to the lie he was about to make me tell.

“I’m worried,” he said. “You get that?”

I nodded again, then raised my head and met his gaze. That was how you lied, if you wanted it to work. Head on. Fearless. I knew what was coming.

“Promise me you’ll wait,” he said. “Think about what you’re doing. When you’re ready, I’ll be there. I’m with you. You believe me?” he asked again. I nodded. “So promise me?”

I didn’t cross my fingers. I didn’t try to avoid the question or offer a nonanswer that, in retrospect, could technically be considered some flavor of true. No excuses, no escape. I lied.

“I promise.” And then, because I hadn’t said it and the silence was hanging there, growing between us, because I needed a truth to cancel out the lie, because it was true: “I love you, too.”

He kissed my forehead, and then I tipped my face up and he kissed me for real, his eyes tightly shut.

He loved me, and I loved him, but he left when I told him I needed to be alone, and as soon as he was out of sight, I linked into the network.

And then I voiced Jude.

The coordinates Jude sent took me deeper into Anarchy than I’d ever been before. I texted Zo that I’d meet her back at Riley’s, then wove my way through the manicured gardens into a deserted area of densely overgrown brush. Cloudy water from a sewage pipe trickled into a runoff creek, and after staring blankly at it for a moment, I realized it was probably the closest thing the park had to a waterfall. Coincidence, or Jude’s twisted sense of humor?

It took him two hours to arrive, which gave me plenty of time to do all that thinking Riley had urged me to do. I finished even more certain than when I’d started. This was the right thing to do. For me, and for all the mechs. Not to mention for my father.

I couldn’t go to the authorities, not with what I had. There were no authorities anymore, not objective ones, at least. The secops were all owned by one corp or another—and my father was on half of their boards. The rest of the BioMax execs probably had the other half covered. I needed something splashier than what I had, something that could tear the whole corp apart and take my father down with it. I needed to dredge up the corp’s deepest, darkest secrets—and then sell them to the highest bidder. No “authorities” were going to give me justice. That was something I’d get for myself.

“I’m in,” I said, as soon as Jude appeared from behind the trees. “But I have some conditions.”

Jude laced his hands together behind his head and leaned against a tree. “Let me guess—you’ll help me find the download specs if I help you find the dirt on dear old Dad.”

“Where did you get the flash drive?”

“Aikida,” Jude said. It was rare for him to give up information so lightly, without demanding something—even if it was just abject supplication—in return. “They’ve been keeping tabs on the BioMax crew for quite a while.”

“Is there more?”

He shook his head. “You’ve got everything I’ve got.”

“Then how did you know about my father?”

“I’m a good guesser. I take it I was right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Sure you don’t want to take some time and think about it?” he asked. “Wait until you calm down ?”

His emphasis tipped me off. “You talked to Riley.”

“He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t drag you into my—how did he phrase it?—‘insane delusions.’ Which is a little redundant, if you ask me, but I assume you’ll agree that language has never really been his strong suit.”

He’s only trying to help, I told myself. He loves me. But this wasn’t the way to do it.

“What did you tell him?”

Jude shrugged. “What he wanted to hear. That I understood. That I would never pressure you into anything. That I’ll stay away until you’re feeling more like yourself—and if you come to me, I’ll walk away.”

“You lied?”

“I lied.”

My surprise must have shown on my face. Jude had always made one thing clear: His bond with Riley was inviolate.

“I don’t see why he should get to make decisions for you when he’s doing such a crap job of running his own life,” he added.

“He is not.”

“Oh, so you approve of his sweet little houseguest?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Right, because you’re not brain-dead.”

It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one who saw Sari as a threat, but I wasn’t about to let him think this meant we’d forged some kind of alliance, the two of us against Riley. There was no line between us; there was no triangle. There was me-and-Riley, and then, outside of that, irrelevant to that, there was Jude. “Riley trusts her.”

“Riley has a blind spot when it comes to pretty girls,” Jude said. “Maybe you’ve noticed.”

That fell under the category of Not Going to Dignify with a Response.

“What?” he said.

I smiled sweetly. “Trying to remember how I ever found you tolerable.”

He shrugged. “Crisis makes for strange bedfellows.”

“Never. In a million years—”

“It’s an expression!” He held up his arms in surrender. “So much for the education of society’s future elite.”

“I know it’s an expression,” I snapped. “I’m just beginning to reevaluate whether I even want to be your metaphorical bedfellow.”

“Your choice,” Jude said. “Unlike some people, I get that.”

“So do I.” Zo’s voice floated from beyond the bushes. She stepped into the clearing. “Or don’t I get a vote?”

“What are you doing here?” As if I even had to ask. It was a shame that all spying these days was done by machines, because back in the dark old days of international intelligence agencies and invisible agents slipping through the shadows, Zo would have been a world champion.

“I heard you talking to Riley,” Zo admitted.

“That tends to happen when you’re hiding under a bench.”

“Behind a tree,” she corrected me. “The point is, I heard you.”

“And then you followed me.”

“It’s a good plan,” she said. “I knew you were lying about not going through with it.”

“I guess little sister knows you better than Prince Charming,” Jude said. He held out a hand to Zo, then raised hers to his lips with elaborate chivalry. “So this is the famous Kahn Junior. Enchanté. ”

“And this is the famous Jude. Huh. I thought you’d be taller.” She extricated her hand, which flew immediately to her tangle of hair and tucked the unruly strands behind her left ear. I groaned. This was Zo’s version of blushing. She probably didn’t even notice she was doing it. But—I could see it in his eyes—Jude did.