Don't Let Go (7 page)

Her thoughts and memories still felt jumbled. She could recall voices: her parents, Mrs. Latimar, Peter. All of them sounding concerned yet soothing, speaking like she was a child on the verge of a tantrum. An undercurrent of fear beneath their words. But what had they said?

She shook her head. It was all too vague. Her clearest memories were of the days leading up to the seizure. The confrontation with Mrs. Latimar about the medical files. Their mutual decision to feed Mason older files, of teens who’d already aged out of the test groups.

So what happened with all that?
Amanda chewed her lip. She’d promised to help Mrs. Latimar come up with a way out, but then she’d ended up here. Was it too late?

Footsteps behind her. She turned to find a familiar-looking nurse standing with her hands clasped in front of her. “So happy you’re feeling better, Miss Amanda,” she said brightly.

“I am.” Her voice sounded strange, froggy. Amanda cleared her throat and tried again. “How long have I been here?”

“A while,” the nurse said vaguely, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Like, a month?” Amanda pressed.

The nurse bent to straighten the blanket covering Amanda’s legs. “It’s really best not to worry about that sort of thing.”

“But I want to know.”

The nurse’s lips pursed. “It’s been a few months,” she finally acknowledged.

“Months?” Amanda’s voice rose at the end. “I’ve been here for months?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s May seventeenth, dear.” The nurse straightened and looked at her. “Your parents are down the hall, we called them as soon as your condition improved. Would you like me to bring them in?”

“Wait, my condition has improved?” she said hopefully.

“Well . . .” The nurse looked evasive again. “It has, today. But I’m afraid that can happen as PEMA progresses. There are good days and bad days, just like with any other disease.”

“So I’m not cured,” Amanda said bluntly.

“I’m so sorry, dear. They haven’t found a cure. Yet,” the nurse added hurriedly. “But some of the best scientists and doctors are working on it. I’m sure that soon—”

“What stage am I in?” Amanda demanded. “When you brought me in, you said it was Stage Two. Is it still?”

“The doctor should really be the one to discuss it with you.” The nurse was wringing her hands; the motion inspired a wave of déjà vu. Amanda dimly recalled a hallway, and this same nurse consoling her. . . .

“Please,” Amanda said, suddenly exhausted. “Just tell me.”

“Stage Three,” the nurse said quietly. “But there’s still time for you, Amanda.”

Amanda squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a rising swell of panic. There were only four stages in PEMA. And once you hit Stage Three, best-case scenario, you had months left to live. “Send in my parents.”

“You’re sure you’re up for it?” The nurse reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “If you’re too tired, I can tell them to come back later.”

“No, I’ll see them,” Amanda said grimly. “After all, this might be my last chance.”

CHAPTER FOUR

N
oa frowned up at the metal gate blocking the fire road. “So are you going to explain what we’re doing here?”

“Hang on, I just want to make sure this is the right place.” Peter shifted his backpack as he walked the length of the gate, examining it. His expression was equal parts excitement and nerves; Noa hadn’t seen him this keyed up since they’d infiltrated the secret lab in Rhode Island.

Based on how that had turned out, there was a good chance she wasn’t going to like whatever happened next.

Daisy and Teo stood silently beside the car. Noa sensed that something in the group had shifted in the past twenty-four hours, but she had no idea what, and no one seemed inclined to share. Last night, she’d crashed hard. The others had let her sleep through the night and a good chunk of the morning. She awoke feeling refreshed for a change, almost normal.

But she couldn’t repress the sense that while she’d been asleep, they’d all decided something. There were a lot of covert glances being exchanged when they thought she wasn’t looking. Growing up in foster homes and on the streets, Noa had come by her intuition the hard way. And their behavior was setting off all sorts of alarm bells in her head.

Peter had insisted on driving. As they headed northwest for more than an hour, he refused to discuss their destination, or why they were going there.

City limits vanished quickly in Colorado; all the cheery red brick buildings were abruptly replaced by a relentless march of evergreen trees. They’d ascended the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, climbing high enough for the altitude to make her light-headed. It was a glorious day outside, sunny and warm. Behind the metal gate, a large field of golden grass waved back and forth like shifting sand dunes, bookended by lumpy-looking green hills.

It looked eerily like the landscape in the dream she’d been having right before they fled Arkansas. Despite the peaceful surroundings, Noa felt a sense of foreboding.

“Okay, we’re close!” Peter called out exuberantly.

“Close to what?” Noa demanded.

He squinted at a small GPS device and muttered, “Well, within a mile or so. Probably.”

“A mile from what?” Noa’s eyes narrowed; she was officially done with all this secrecy. “What exactly are we looking for, Peter?”

His grin faltered. Avoiding her eyes, he said, “Do you remember Loki?”

“Loki?” The name was so unexpected, it took her a second to process it. “The hacker from /ALLIANCE/?”

“Yeah.” Peter looked even more discomfited as he continued, “I think he’s somewhere close by.”

“So?” Noa asked, stupefied.

“So I bet he can help us find the decryption key for the drives.”

Noa groaned. “God, Peter. You dragged us out here because some hacker offered to help?”

“Well . . .” Peter’s voice dropped as he continued, “He didn’t exactly offer.”

“Why do we need a GPS to find him?” Teo asked doubtfully. “Did he give you coordinates or something?”

Noa stared at the device in his hand. Slowly, she said, “You told me that Loki wouldn’t have anything to do with us after bricking the server.”

“That’s true,” Peter said, the telltale flush spreading up his neck again. “But I figure that maybe, once we explain everything—”

“Does he even know we’re coming?”

A long pause, then Peter said, “No.”

“So how did you find him?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did he get in touch on The Quad?”

“Not exactly,” Peter hedged. “I, um . . . I built a back door into /ALLIANCE/.”

“You
what
?”

“What’s a back door?” Teo asked.

“Just what it sounds like,” Noa said as she stared down Peter, who looked like he was hoping a hole in the ground would suddenly appear. “It’s a way for a site administrator to keep tabs on who’s visiting the website.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Teo shrugged.

Noa turned on him. “It is when the website administrator has promised
total
anonymity. That was the whole point of /ALLIANCE/; we couldn’t be traced. Or so we thought.” Anger was uncoiling inside her like a snake, and she let it; hackers viewed what Peter had done as the ultimate betrayal. “But Peter was keeping tabs on us.”

“Hey, it wasn’t like that,” Peter said defensively. “I had everyone’s emails anyway—that’s how I got in touch with you, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Noa snarled. “But that’s different from knowing my location. What did you do? Log IP addresses?”

Peter hesitated, then said, “Yeah, basically.”

“I can’t believe you.” Noa turned on her heel and stormed off. When she’d first stumbled across the hacktivist group, she’d joined up because she believed in what they were doing: punishing child and animal abusers, and going after bullies that the legal system was unable or unwilling to punish.

But if /ALLIANCE/ hadn’t guaranteed anonymity, she never would have enlisted.

“Noa,” Peter said gently, following her.

She refused to turn and face him. The sun was piercing through her tinted sunglasses, making her eyes water against the glare.

“Listen,” he said. “Some of the stuff that people were doing, if it got out of hand . . . I needed a way to protect all of us.”

“You mean to protect yourself,” Noa said disdainfully.

“Okay, fine,” Peter said more forcefully. “And I’m not sorry. What if someone got really hurt, because of a mission I didn’t even sanction? A lot of people did their own thing, then claimed to be members.”

“So if the cops had showed up, you would’ve ratted us out?” Noa asked.

Peter hesitated, then said, “Yeah, maybe. If it was for something I didn’t condone.”

Noa wanted to keep arguing, but the truth was, she’d experienced the same sort of thing firsthand. When she’d formed Persefone’s Army, lots of kids had committed heinous acts, then claimed they were doing it on her behalf. She understood why Peter had built in the back door. But she still felt betrayed.

“Well,” she said. “If I’m not happy about it, just imagine how Loki is going to feel.”

“I know,” Peter said gravely. “Especially since his IP was cloaked. It wasn’t easy to track it.”

Noa flashed back on all the hours they’d spent at public computer terminals over the past few weeks, when it seemed to be taking Peter way too long to find another safe house. “So
that’s
the personal thing you were doing.”

Peter impatiently brushed a lock of brown hair out of his eyes. “Loki has to have some sort of killer setup, right? Better than you and me working on crap computers, twenty minutes at a time.”

Noa ran her eyes over the rugged landscape. “There’s not even a house here. Are you sure you found the right IP address?”

“Not one hundred percent,” Peter admitted. Off her look, he added, “But close. Ninety-seven percent, at least.”

Noa considered. Teo and Daisy were still standing uncertainly beside the car. It couldn’t hurt to at least take a look around, right? This road had to lead somewhere. The alternative was to stay hunkered down in that nasty safe house.

“All right,” she sighed. “We’ll check it out. But if we don’t find anything—”

“Then we’ll come up with another plan,” Peter interjected, sounding relieved. “But don’t worry. Loki’s here somewhere, I can feel it.”

The lower legs of Teo’s jeans were completely soaked through, but he didn’t care. It was amazing out here. He and Daisy were wading through grass that reached above his knees in places, the base of it still damp with dew. The sky was like an upended giant blue bowl; the sun warmed his bare arms. They walked in silence, holding hands.

“You okay?” he asked.

Daisy smiled up at him. “Yeah, I’m good. Really good. Better than I’ve felt in a while.”

“Me too.” There was something special about this place. In a way, it reminded him of the Forsythes’ spread in Santa Cruz. He winced, remembering gunfire and waves of smoke. . . .

“Hey,” Daisy said softly, pulling him back to the present. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Sorry.” Teo focused on the ground. They were cresting a small hill. The plan was for them to walk a grid. He and Daisy were supposed to head a mile or so west, then turn north for another mile. Peter had pointed out the general direction, then told them to take a right after twenty minutes. He and Noa had gone off in the opposite direction to do the same thing. They’d meet back in the middle, unless one of the groups found something.

Teo patted the radio hooked to his jeans pocket. Part of him was hoping they wouldn’t find anything, and Peter would be forced to admit that Loki was nowhere nearby. Then he’d have fulfilled his part of the bargain. He and Daisy could head back to Denver and catch a bus west. Los Angeles, maybe Venice Beach. Over the past few months, while keeping watch through the long, dark nights, he’d mapped out the life they’d have when this was all over. They could get jobs in a restaurant on the water. Daisy would wait tables, and he’d bus them; lots of places would probably be willing to pay under the table. Given time, they could save enough cash for false documents, then rent a place of their own. Maybe he’d even get his GED. And now, it might happen sooner than he’d hoped.

Another flash, of Janiqua being loaded kicking and screaming into a van. The memory made him squirm. After the raid, he’d been determined to do whatever he could to rescue the rest of the unit. But months had passed, and they’d never gotten any indication that those kids were still alive. Now, his only mission was to protect Daisy.

Teo stopped and turned to face her. Daisy tilted her chin up—he was a big fan of her chin, it was pert and a little knobby, in a good way—and he cupped it in one hand. Looking into her enormous blue eyes, ringed with matching eyeliner (he could never figure out how she found the time or energy for makeup with everything else going on), he felt a pressure against his ribs that had nothing to do with the altitude. Every time he looked at her, it felt like his heart was on the verge of exploding.

“I love you,” he said softly.

Daisy blinked, and her mouth opened in a small surprised
O
. Then she smiled and swatted his arm. “Teddy, you dork. I’ve been waiting
months
for you to say that!”

She went up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. He kissed her back, carefully wrapping his arms around her, overly aware of the delicate bones of her rib cage through her thin cotton shirt.

“How sweet,” a male voice said from behind them. “Now who the hell are you?”

Noa hadn’t said a word as they trudged across the hillsides. By silent accord, she and Peter were staying twenty paces away from each other, scanning the surroundings. They’d already walked at least a mile, and hadn’t encountered anything except a tiny brown rabbit that startled from a bush. They both watched as it bounded away.

“I don’t suppose that’s Loki,” Noa said wryly.

“Not unless he’s a lot smaller than I imagined,” Peter said, keeping his tone light. “But maybe. We don’t really know who anyone is online.”

“That’s what I liked about it,” Noa mumbled as she kept walking.

Peter opted not to reply; clearly she was still angry about the IP address tracking. And he couldn’t really blame her. But his mom was a lawyer, and if she’d imparted anything to him, it was the necessity of watching your back when dealing with strangers.