I’m lying on a bunk, and Hunter is prowling around like some huge caged animal.
Whatever we do, I have to keep him close. I’ll have a better chance of coming through this with a partner – even one who’s had little to no contact with the real world. And one way oranother, he’ll be useful at the end of this, either as my ticket to the GravesUP compound or as an incredibly valuable asset to trade for my own freedom.
And if that sounds harsh, remember that he’s got a family who’ll pay any amount of money to get him back. He’d never be a hostage for long.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far in life, it’s this: nobody’s coming to get me, so I have to save myself.
And in the meantime, he’s not hard to look at.
‘So,’ says Hunter, swinging around to face me. ‘Let’s work the problem. We’ve established we can’t hide, because even if that works, all we’ll do is buy ourselves just under six and a half hours. Then they’ll light a spark, and we’ll go up with this place.’
‘Right,’ I agree. ‘And we can’t run. We can’t steal a ride out of here, unless we can find a way to get one of them to cooperate long enough to start a rover for us. Tricky, when they’re the ones with the guns.’
Sabrina.Her name flashes into my mind as I think back to the maintenance bay. I wonder if she’d believe me if I told her who Hunter was.
‘Cleo?’ Hunter’s looking at me, and I realize I’ve missed something he said.
‘Sorry, thought I had an idea, but it’s nothing. What were you saying?’
‘I asked if you see any other options, besides trying to … whatever we want to call it. Stop them.’
I let out a slow breath. ‘Not right now, but you’ll be the first to know if inspiration hits. What does “stop them” mean?’
He bites the inside of his cheek, his gaze flickering over the domesticity of the living quarters, as though he might find something to help him answer the question. ‘It means kill them, I guess. It’s what they’ll do to us if they can.’
‘How would we even begin to kill seven people?’ I ask, lifting my hands to scrub at my face.
‘How would we killone?’ he whispers. ‘I don’t know if I can. I’ve never even hurt anyone. I mean, I do self-defense classes, but …’
You might not have hurt people, I want to say,but your family has killed people, even if it wasn’t with their bare hands. Every cent you’ll inherit is built on killing people. And you don’t even know it.
My father’s face flashes before my eyes for a moment, tight with pain. I see his hands – always callused, usually smudged with grease and oil – shaking, when once they were so steady. He was a mechanic, and fascinated by every kind of machine. He’s the reason I can hot-wire a workstation in under ten seconds. And GravesUP is the reason he’s gone.
‘Cleo?’ Hunter says again. And then, so kindly you’d never know he was the son of a monster: ‘You don’t look great, all of a sudden. Are you feeling okay? It’s been one terrifying shock after another, right? How’s your blood sugar? We’ve got the cookies, or there are some instant noodles over here, and a pressure kettle. I think we can risk a tiny power draw to make some up.’
‘I’ve never killed anyone either,’ I say, instead ofI’ve never hurt anyone. ‘I’ll take a cookie.’
And please don’t be kind. Bargaining chips aren’t kind.
He crosses over to where I lie on the bunk, and I shift my legs so he can sink down slowly to sit beside me. He digs through his bag for the cookies.
I study him while he’s distracted, and something softens in me as I do. He has broad shoulders, the T-shirt’s fabric stretched across them. There’s a curl at the nape of his neck that I want to tuck back into place amid the rest of his tousled hair.What?A girl can look.
‘So we’re not killers,’ he says. ‘Maybe we try for something else, first. We look for a way to put them at some kind of disadvantage that means they’re willing to bargain with us. Or just means they can’t do whatever they came here to do. Have you readThe Art of War?’
‘Let’s assume I haven’t,’ I reply, heroically resisting a roll of my eyes.
‘It’s an ancient book about strategy. It says that when you’re badly outnumbered, you should avoid direct confrontation. Force the enemy into engagements where they can only take you on a few at a time. Confuse them. Separate them from each other.’
‘If we can do that, maybe we actually can force a rover out of one of them,’ I murmur. ‘If they don’t know what’s going on, or where the danger’s coming from.’
‘Exactly. They don’t know this place,’ he points out. ‘You’ve been here awhile, and youdoknow your way around, which isan advantage. Plus, you’re great with hardware. You can wire up power sources as we need them, get machinery started. I don’t know this place any better than they do, but Idoknow the software. I know how it runs. I’m better with the systems than anyone on their team, no question.’
‘Okay, that’s not nothing to work with,’ I admit.
‘They don’t know we’re here, that’s another advantage. They’re not expecting resistance. I think we make it look like accidents, for as long as we can,’ he says slowly. ‘So they take a little longer to be on their guard.’
Huh. Hunter Graves is a lot of things, but I’m coming to the realization that he’s not stupid. He’s thinking tactically. Maybe all those hostile takeovers were good practice.
