Resistance (Replica) (6 page)

Eventually, she came to the wall of trees that hid the interior of the retreat from view. It also hid the fence from the view of the guests, but for Nadia out of sight had never been out of mind.

The rendezvous point Dante had marked on his makeshift map was, naturally, a long way from the lighted, guarded front entrance. The wall of trees Nadia had to fight her way through was not as carefully pruned and weeded here as it was at the entrance, and she wished she had a machete-wielding guide to help her through. But the weeds and underbrush provided extra assurance that no one from the retreat would witness her clandestine meeting.

Nadia moved slowly through the trees, trying not to betray her location. There was no reason to suspect there was some kind of trap waiting for her, but after all that had happened to her in the past weeks, she didn’t think paranoia was at all unreasonable. She came to a dead stop as soon as she could see the fence through the trees, and she crouched down to examine her surroundings more closely while keeping under cover.

The line of trees ended about ten yards short of the fence, giving way to a strip of neatly mowed grass. Nadia feared she would be terribly exposed out there, but exposed to
whom
she didn’t know. There were no guard posts, and no one patrolled the perimeter of the retreat. The place might feel like a prison to her, but it
wasn’t
a prison. And there was nothing but woods on the other side of the fence, so there shouldn’t be anyone on that side who could see her. She stared into those woods until her eyes hurt, trying to find Dante in the darkness, but he either wasn’t there yet or was well hidden.

Taking a deep breath for courage, Nadia rose from her crouch and stepped cautiously onto the grass, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

No sirens blared, no angry voices shouted at her to halt, and Nadia told herself there was such a thing as too much caution. She was going to give herself a heart attack if she didn’t stop jumping at shadows.

“Dante?” she called out, not daring to do so very loudly.

“Here,” Dante’s voice answered from the shadowed trees on the other side of the fence. She moved toward the voice as a weedy bush rustled and Dante emerged from it.

Her desire to rush forward and throw her arms around Dante was almost embarrassing in its intensity, the sight of a familiar face bringing tears to her eyes. Of course, there was a seven-foot-tall iron fence between them, so throwing her arms around him might have been awkward.

Nadia hurried to the edge of the fence, grabbing the bars that separated her from him to keep from doing something inappropriate with her hands. She barely knew Dante, and she wasn’t sure how much she trusted him, but she was ever so glad to see him, even if she worried that he came with bad news.

“Has something bad happened?” she asked without preamble, her voice coming out breathless as if she’d just run from the main building rather than walked.

Dante blinked in surprise. “Hello to you too. And no, nothing bad has happened.”

Nadia let out a shaky sigh of relief, her knees suddenly feeling wobbly. “Then what are you doing here?” she asked. Too late, she realized how rude her question sounded, and she mentally snarled at herself to calm down and think before she spoke. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that how it came out. I’m glad you’re here. I’m just … surprised to see you.” One thing she was sure of: he wasn’t here for a social call. He’d gone to too much trouble to arrange this meeting for there not to be weighty reasons behind it.

“No worries,” Dante said with a wry grin. “I don’t take offense that easily.”

Nadia raised an eyebrow at him and couldn’t suppress a hint of a smile. “That so?” She’d managed to offend him pretty badly on more than one occasion. Of course, she’d been trying to browbeat him into revealing his true identity at the time, so one could argue she’d been working pretty hard at it.

Dante chose to ignore her teasing, looking her over from head to toe. “You look … different.”

“You mean because I’m wearing a uniform and they won’t even let me put on my own makeup here?” You could schedule a makeup application session at the spa, and many of the women did so every day, but the idea brought the stubborn out of her, and she decided to do without.

“I suppose,” he said, frowning.

Nadia wondered if what he was really reacting to was the stress and frustration that were eating away at her insides. She felt like someone had blindfolded her, shoved her into a minefield, and ordered her to walk. Every step could be her last, and she’d never see the danger coming. She shivered, hugging herself in a futile attempt to stay warm in the nippy air.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she said. “If nothing bad has happened, then why are you here?”

Dante reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a phone small enough that he could hide it in the palm of his hand if he wanted to. “Nate … Nathaniel … wanted you to have this.” He passed the phone through the bars, and Nadia grabbed it as if it were a life preserver and she was drowning.

“OhmyGod!” she cried. “Thank you!”

The sense of relief that surged through her was out of proportion. Thanks to Nate’s thoughtful gift, she was no longer wearing the blindfold, but the mines remained.

“What is going on with you two?” Dante asked, and he sounded exasperated. “I expected you to be back to your old selves now that Mosely’s gone, but you and Nathaniel both are acting like the world could end any moment.”

Nadia wished she could have heard the conversation between Dante and Nate. She suspected it had been colorful, and she was pleasantly surprised they were able to get along well enough to work together and smuggle her the phone. She was also pleasantly surprised that Dante didn’t seem to know the details of the trouble she was in. She hadn’t been sure Nate would be able to resist telling Bishop everything, and Bishop would have shared the information with the resistance, including Dante. Maybe Nate was finally learning discretion.

“I can’t tell you,” Nadia said regretfully.

“Because I’m a member of the resistance?” There was a spark of challenge in his eyes, and he lifted his chin ever so slightly.

That was certainly part of it, but she saw no reason to say so. “I can’t tell
anyone.
Not even my parents. Believe me, it’s better that way.” Maybe Dante would even agree, if he knew what she was hiding. He wanted to see Chairman Hayes out of power, and he was obviously willing to go to great lengths to help bring that to pass, but would he think it worth a potential civil war? Nadia didn’t know him well enough to answer that one way or the other.

“Better for who?” Dante asked sharply, still challenging her with his eyes. “Your people, or mine?”

He was deliberately goading her, she decided. Hoping she’d trip up and give him information in an effort to defend herself. “Better for everyone. And may I remind you that I stuck my neck out for Bishop more than once.
I’m
not the one who has trouble respecting people of different classes.” She shivered again, wishing she’d had the guts to go back to her room and grab a sweater.

To her surprise, Dante looked sheepish and backed down. “Sorry,” he mumbled, taking a moment to look down at his feet. “I didn’t mean to pick a fight.”

Yes, he had. But Nadia wasn’t going to call him on it.

“You look like you’re freezing,” he continued, looking up once more. “Here.” He slipped off the faux-leather jacket he was wearing and tried to hand it to her through the bars.

Nadia raised her hands in refusal. “You don’t have to do that,” she said, despite the serious appeal the idea held. “If one of us has to be cold, it should be the idiot who left her room without a sweater.”

“I’m not trying to make a class statement or anything,” Dante said, completely misinterpreting her refusal. “You’re shivering, and your lips are turning blue. Take the jacket.”

Now that he’d made it into a class issue by saying it
wasn’t
a class issue, there was no way Nadia could accept his jacket. She was
not
the pampered Executive who always looked out for her own comfort at the expense of others’. She never had been, no matter what Dante thought.

“I’m fine,” she said as she tried not to stare longingly at the jacket.

With a grunt of annoyance, Dante folded his jacket into as small a bundle as he could and hurled it over the top of the fence. It landed on the grass about five feet behind her.

“Just stop being difficult and put on the jacket already.”

Nadia thought of herself as having a pretty strong will, but it was hard to exercise that strong will when she wanted what he was offering so badly. She bit her lip in indecision. Dante crossed his arms and fixed her with a commanding stare. She didn’t like giving in to his high-handed tactics. However, there was no reason for
both
of them to be cold.

She picked up the jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Thanks to her playing hard-to-get, most of his body heat had dissipated from the inside, but it still felt deliciously warm. Best of all, it wasn’t spa-issued.

“Thank you,” she said, drinking in the warmth—and taking a moment to admire how Dante looked without the bulky jacket hiding his form. Even when she’d thought him an enemy spying on her for Dirk Mosely, she’d always been reluctantly aware of how nice he was to look at. He was unlike anyone Nadia knew, the complete opposite of the polished Executive teenager. His good looks had not sprung from a pampered life, an expert tailor, or a professional stylist. His skin was tanned, his nose freckled, his upper body solidly muscled, but with muscles that had been earned by hard work, not carved and cultivated in a gym. And yet the coarse appearance looked right on him, and Nadia suspected he’d lose a lot of his appeal if an Executive stylist tried to polish him.

Nadia realized she was staring and quickly looked away. She hoped Dante hadn’t noticed, but he
was
a spy. He didn’t miss much. Luckily, he didn’t have Nate’s ego, so he didn’t start preening—or tease her.

“They won’t let you wear your own clothes here?” Dante asked.

Nadia clutched his jacket more tightly over her shoulders. “No. The place is a living hell, where everyone smiles and tells you to relax and have fun.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “If I don’t get out of here soon, they’re going to have to lock me in the mental ward.”

Nadia had meant her words to be flippant, but the terror she was expressing was very real and must have shown in her voice. Dante reached through the bars and took one of her hands, giving it a warm squeeze.

A proper Executive would have jerked her hand away and reminded him of his place. Even here, in the middle of the night, with no one to see, she should have demanded he respect her status and not do something so familiar as holding her hand. But instead of doing what she should, she curled her fingers around his and hung on.

“I’m scared, Dante,” she admitted. “I’ve been here less than a week, and I’m miserable already, and I know they might never let me out.”

Dante squeezed her hand again. “They won’t keep you here forever,” he assured her, though he had no way of knowing that. “The media storm is already beginning to die down. They’re starting to sniff around someone else’s skirts, and you know how much they love to jump on whatever’s newest.”

Nadia felt sorry for whomever the press had descended upon now, but she was grateful nonetheless. If someone else would make a big enough splash, the press would forget about Nadia altogether and she’d be able to get out of this godforsaken place.

“Who are they picking on now?” she asked. She wasn’t as fond of gossip as other Executive girls her age, but she had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity, especially when she was so cut off from the news. And she couldn’t help hoping the media’s victim would be someone she despised, like the Terrible Trio of Jewel, Cherry, and Blair.

Dante grinned at her, his eyes glinting with mischief, and she figured he knew exactly what she was thinking. To her knowledge, he’d never met Cherry, but he’d had to wait on Jewel and Blair before, so he knew exactly how much they deserved to be knocked down a peg.

“No one you know, I’m afraid. There’s a delegation from Synchrony making a state visit this week. Chairman Belinski brought the whole family, including his daughter, Agnes. Either the press in Synchrony isn’t as aggressive as ours, or poor Agnes doesn’t get out much. Let’s just say her answers to some reporters’ questions haven’t been terribly articulate.”

Nadia cocked her head. It sounded to her like Dante felt genuine sympathy for Agnes Belinski. “Let me get this straight: you’re cutting an Executive girl some slack instead of chortling about her misfortunes?”

“I do not
chortle,
” he replied in tones of offended dignity, but he quickly lost any sign of humor. “Yes, I feel sorry for her, even though she’s an Executive. She doesn’t seem to have the … advantages the rest of you have.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s not as polished, or as self-assured.” He met her eyes, and his voice dropped lower. “And she’s not beautiful, either.”

The words traveled through her like an electric shock, raising goose bumps on her skin. For the first time, she realized that she was still holding Dante’s hand, and that his thumb was rubbing back and forth over her knuckles. Her breath froze in her lungs as she met his gaze. For a fraction of a second, she thought perhaps she was reading things into his words, misinterpreting the cues. But no. The look in his eyes told her quite plainly what he meant.

“You think I’m beautiful?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

One corner of his mouth tugged up in a small smile. “You know you are.”

Nadia shook her head. She couldn’t count how many times she’d been told she was beautiful or read a rhapsodic description of herself in the society columns, but those were just empty words, meant to flatter the daughter of a powerful Executive family. Nate had called her beautiful more than once, but it didn’t mean much coming from him, either, since he wasn’t that interested in female beauty. Hearing the words from Dante was something altogether different, and she didn’t know what to say. She
did
know she should let go of his hand and put a little distance between them, but she couldn’t seem to make herself do it.