Parched (42 page)

“Can I be honest, Tess?” he whispers.

“Have you not been so far?”

“I really want to kiss you.”

I can't concentrate on anything except him: in my arms, me in his, his face so close to mine. My answer is barely a whisper. “I think I want to kiss you too.”

“No, I really,
really
want to kiss you,” Hunter replies, eyes on my
mouth. “That desire is overtaking every other function I have, except for standard programming and security, but they never shut off.”

“Robot.” My lips are just half an inch from his, so I speak the words directly into his mouth. “That's my new nickname for you. Do you like it?”

I feel him smile, our lips a millimeter apart. “I love it.”

“Guys!” Ling's voice cracks through the clearing. Hunter and I jolt away from each other, just as she appears. “Naz couldn't—oh.” She stops abruptly, eyes bugging at the sight of our entanglement. Naz and Achilles are right behind her.

My entire face feels blood red. I bumble my way off the tree stump. “We were just—” My command of the English language deserts me completely.

“I bet you were,” Ling says, then holds her wrists up. “We couldn't break them. Let's just go.”

“Yes.” I cough. “Go. We should. Now.”

Hunter follows me toward the others. He takes both of Ling's wrists and jerks them apart in one fluid motion. Ling gasps as the metal hand-locks snap easily. Then he does the same to Achilles.

“Could you do that the whole time?” Naz asks, dropping the rock she'd been using in irritation.

Hunter glances at me, somewhere between guilt and elation. “You needed to rest before the trek,” he says unconvincingly, moving into the scrub. I'm rewarded with a scowl from Naz, raised eyebrows from Ling, and a high five from Achilles.

We
start moving north. Ling and Naz lead the way. Hunter follows, shifting heavy stones and holding aside thick branches. I carry the mirror matter, obsessed with trying to keep the silver liquid in the sun as much as I can. It feels warm and safe in my hand; but then, I'm just feeling warm and safe, period. The memory of my almost-kiss with Hunter replays in my head constantly.

The hike feels easy, even enjoyable. The air smells fresh. The dappled afternoon light is alive with insects and birds. I notice things about the foliage that I never have before: the way twisting silver snail tracks look like a child's drawing or how moss feels like damp carpet and is the same color as Hunter's eyes.

After a while Ling falls in step beside me at the back of the group. “So all's good with you and—” She nods at Hunter, who's lifting a delighted Achilles up a steep incline ahead of us.

I shrug and make a noncommittal noise, but I can't keep a silly grin off my face.

“He seems nice,” Ling says, stumbling just slightly over the pronoun.

“He is,” I agree. “And if nothing else, he's going to make this whole dam thing happen. If . . . everything else falls into place.” Both of us know that what we find at Milkwood will decide for us what the plan actually is.

Ling nods and wipes a smudge of dirt from her arm.

I pause, one hand tight around a low-hanging vine. “I am really sorry, Ling.” I find myself saying. “I'm sorry I lied about Hunter. I'm sorry I betrayed Kudzu. I should have told you about him as soon as—”

“I get why you didn't.” Ling stops me with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It was a tight spot to be in. Plus, you remember my stance on grudges.”

“They're for whiny bitches,” I remember.

“Yup.” She sighs, stretching her neck left and right before fixing her gaze back on me. “We do crazy things for love. That's just what happens.”

“We're not in love,” I correct her quickly. “We're just . . . friends.”

Ling dips her eyebrows in disbelief. “Friends who make out?”

“We didn't,” I say awkwardly. “I mean, I don't know if I should. He's . . . and I'm . . .”

Ling's eyes are sharp. “Do you trust him?”

“Yes,” I say immediately. “I do.”

“Do you want to jump his bones?”

“Ling!”

“Do you?”

I fight a blush, eyes on the ground. “Maybe,” I admit.

“Then be open to it. Good guys are few and far between.”

“You've certainly changed your tune.”

“I'm not an idiot,” she says matter-of-factly. “He saved our lives. And I see the way he looks at you.” She hooks up an eyebrow and leans toward me, voice deep and breathy. “
I want to protect you
.”

“Shut up.” I whack her arm, but we're both giggling.

Ling shoots me a smile. “I'm just really glad you're okay, Tess.”

Out of nowhere, pain billows into my head. The chip. I suck in a gasp.

“Are you okay?” Ling grabs me, helping me stay upright.

“Tess!” Hunter calls. He must still be jamming it because it's nowhere near as painful as before. It feels more like what happened on the flight deck—painful, but not completely traumatic.

I pull myself upright, breathing as deep as I can. “I'm fine,” I call back. The pain ebbs. “I'm okay,” I tell Ling. “Let's keep moving.”

You'll need more than that to stop me now, Gyan
.

It's late afternoon by the time we reach the outskirts of Milkwood. The sky is a dramatic palette of pink and purple, rose and gold. Naz waves at us to stay back as she scopes out the front of the coffee-colored building. It's quiet except for the calls of unseen birds. She jerks her head at us to follow her around back.

From the edge of the scrub, we see the backyard is empty too. No folding chairs, no stray musical instruments.

“Is anyone even here?” I whisper.

Hunter's darting eyes take everything in. “I'm not picking up anything on-cycle.”

“We're not on-cycle,” Achilles says. “What about comms or off-cycle scratch?”

Hunter shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Weird,” Naz mutters, crouching in the dirt.

“Where is everyone?” Ling sounds worried. “You don't think . . .”

We're too late. The Trust has already found them.
The Trust is here
.

“Let's get out of here,” Naz says suddenly. But just as she does, a girl's voice calls out—thin and trembling.

“Naz?”

Our heads twitch in the direction of the voice. It came from the house.

“Gem?” Ling says hoarsely. She bolts upright, even as Naz pulls her to get back down. “Gem!” she screams.

“It's Ling!” someone yells deliriously. The back door is thrown open and members of Kudzu push their way out. Bo, Tomm, Henny, Gem, Kissy, even Carlos, who bounds across the yard, barking joyfully.

“Bo!” Ling screams, sprinting toward him. She falls into his arms and begins sobbing uncontrollably. He holds her tight, and he's crying too, kissing her wet cheeks over and over again.

“Achilles! Naz!” Everyone is shouting at once, crying, screaming, hugging. Even Naz is shaking as Gem and Kissy throw themselves on her. They kiss her cheeks and cradle the nub of her arm. “Your arm. They took your arm,” Gem is gasping, “but they didn't take
you
.”

I lock eyes with Henny. Wordlessly, she opens her arms, eyes shining with tears. I fall into them, and she wraps me up in a huge hug. I'm crying too, out of exhaustion and relief, and also from sadness. There are two people missing from this reunion: Lana and—

“Benji?” Tomm asks, looking around wildly. “Where's Benji?”

Ling shakes her head slowly, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “He didn't make it. He just . . . He didn't make it.”

With this, the questions start. Where have we been? What happened to us? Did we get the mirror matter? Did we destroy Aevum? And, of course: “Who are you?” Gem calls to Hunter, who has been standing off to the side a little awkwardly.

I gesture for Hunter to come closer to me. He stays where he is, uncertainty written all over his face.

“It's okay,” I tell him. “They won't bite.” I reach out my hand. He comes forward to take it, slowly. As soon as our fingertips touch, a flurry of electric shocks scoot up my arm and I have to stop myself from drawing in a breath. I give his hand a reassuring squeeze. He squeezes back. Then I turn to face Kudzu. My words are slow and measured. “This is Hunter. He is Aevum.”

There's a long pause as everyone stares silently at us both. Kissy points at our fingers. “Are you guys . . . together?”

Hunter replies without pause, “Yes.”

Which is at the exact same time I exclaim, “No!” I drop his hand immediately. It hadn't properly registered we were holding hands the way couples do.

“No,” Hunter corrects himself, taking in my expression. “No. We don't even like each other.”

Longing for the day when his ability to read social cues becomes a little more sophisticated, I shoot Ling a confused look. As Bo pecks soft kisses on her cheeks, she frowns at me as if to say, “Be open to it.”

“We . . . like each other,” I tell everyone. I instinctively want to add “but we're just friends,” but I stop myself. I glance at Hunter, who's looking at me with equal parts expectation and confusion. I grab his hand and pull us out of the weight of Kudzu's collective stare, my cheeks burning red.

Leaving Naz, Ling, and Achilles to explain our entire unwieldy adventure, I drag Hunter behind Naz's weapons shed, mirror matter in hand. After keeping it in the sun all afternoon, I'm disappointed to see the tube is still only three-quarters full. “Here,” I say, handing it to him. “The sun's down. You may as well keep this.”

He takes it from me, looking a little apprehensive.

“What?” I ask nervously. “Are you worried there's not enough?”

“No,” he says softly. “I just—” He breaks off, unable to meet my eyes.

“What?” I repeat insistently. “Hunter, there's a lot of really crazy stuff going down right now, and worried looks aren't helping me stay calm.”

He raises his eyes to mine, thick eyebrows drawn together in consternation. “Are you sure you really want to see?” he asks. “How it . . . goes in?”

“Of course I do,” I say eagerly. “How does it work?”

Relief and pleasure chase each other across his face before he
swivels away from me. His fingers find a small mole, a few inches below the bottom of his hairline. “Here,” he says. “Can you feel that?”

My fingers replace his, and I'm surprised to feel the mole is hard, like a bead. “I can feel it,” I say.

“Press it. Hard.”

I do. A circle of skin a little bigger than the size of the mirror matter tube flips down neatly. I squeak in surprise, than lean forward to get a better look. There's a hole in Hunter's head, a slanting space for the tube of mirror matter. Through the opening, I glimpse silver machinery, sleek and gleaming, and little lights blinking. Blue blood bubbles in clear tubes. It's everything I saw in Abel's basement lab come to life. I never got to see inside Magnus's head like this. “That is so cool,” I say, giddy with excitement. “That's a singularix! That's your singularix!”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Hunter muses as I continue to stare openmouthed in fascination, “that you're not like other girls?”

“Yeah, you, all the time,” I reply, my skin tickling with delight as I see another slosh of blue blood race up a tube. “I'm an algorithm, apparently. Want me to put this in?”

“Are you sure you want to?”

In reply, I raise the tube of mirror matter to the opening and begin inserting it as gently as I can. It's no more than an inch in when I feel a slight pressure. The tube is sucked from my fingers, disappearing inside. The flap of skin rotates back in place, and suddenly the hole is gone. I can just make out the thin circle of its edge, but it's no thicker than a piece of hair, and you'd have to really be looking for it to see.

Hunter turns back around to see me grinning like an idiot. “You liked that,” he observes, eyes shining.

I nod enthusiastically. “I did.”

The air around us is warm with the memory of sun. Hunter stares down at me, a funny little half-smile on his mouth, and cocks his head to one side. The sight of it makes my heart leap like a gazelle and a little noise escapes my throat; I am thoroughly and completely
undone
by the gesture. It's all I can do to resist throwing myself at him, hungry to feel those soft, dark pink lips press against mine. But instead I make myself say, “We need to get back to the others.”

He nods, looking disappointed. “Lead the way.”

“I always do.” I smirk at him, which becomes a laugh as he rolls his eyes at me.
I taught him how to do that
, I think proudly.

Ling has called an immediate meeting, so we all jostle into the front
room. Hunter and I take the last two seats, which I realize with a sharp pang are Benji and Lana's. Ling runs over the plan we'd invented in the buzzcar, and announces the first point of order is procuring the blue scratch. We decide that Hunter will fly me to Izzy's in the buzzcar we stole from the Three Towers. A floater would take too long and I can't fly—I'd left for the Badlands before I was old enough to learn.

“Be as quick as you can,” Ling emphasizes. “We're running out of time.”

Ling turns to address Gem and Kissy brusquely. “You guys will need to make some modifications to the Kudzu stream. Explain what Project Aevum was, and change the stuff about artilects being so dangerous. Work with Hunter.” The sisters nod, glancing at Hunter a little nervously. “Right,” Ling continues. “Explosives. I need Bo, Achilles, and Naz. And I'll need maps!” As I appear to be dismissed, I leave the others and steal five minutes to bathe in Moon Lake.