“Ghosted? You’ve been hanging around Logan too much.”
“I’d rather be…exploring with you.” He ran his hands down my sides and rested them on my hips. “There may be other surprises under your jumpsuit just waiting to be discovered.”
I slipped from his grasp and stood. “Key word, waiting.”
He groaned. “If Logan’s exaggerating, I’ll pound him.”
Picking up my tool belt, I clipped it into place. “Can you leave here without being seen?”
“Yep.”
“Great. I’ll meet you in the control room.” The ladder I had used before leaned against the far wall. I set it up under the air vent and climbed. Before I entered the duct, I caught Riley staring at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wondering.”
“About what?”
“If you’ll keep your promise.”
“When have Ieverbroken a promise?”
“What about leaving the Committee?” he asked.
“I didn’t promise them anything, just offered to help.”
“I didn’t mean the Committee members, but the people of Inside. By freeing them from the Travas’s control, you promised them a better life.”
“First off, the Force of Sheep freed them, not me. And second they have a better life. No Pop Cops, grueling work schedules and we’ll soon have plenty of room. How could you possibility see that as breaking a promise?”
“There wouldn’t have been a rebellion or the Force of Sheep without you. You started everything and you need to finish it.”
Words jammed in my throat. How could he think I didn’t finish it? I shook my head. “We can argue about this later. Logan’s waiting for us.” Before he could reply, I slid into the air duct, heading toward the control room.
Riley’s voice followed me, echoing through the metal shaft. “Logan called you, Trell, not me about the sabotage. Think about that.”
As I traveled in the duct, I dismissed his comment. It was a matter of semantics, nothing more.
I arrived at the control room and took a few seconds to see who worked below. Logan sat in front of a computer, frowning at the monitor. Riley hadn’t arrived. No one else was in sight.
The noise from opening the air vent should have alerted Logan to my presence, but the poor guy jumped a meter when I landed behind him.
“Would you stop doing that?” he asked. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“You knew I was coming.” I studied him. He still had dark circles under his eyes, but he no longer looked as if a hundred-week-old could knock him over.
Logan flinched when the door opened, but relaxed when he spotted Riley. Something had him rattled.
“Time to explain,” I said.
He typed on the keyboard for a minute. The screen changed to tables and charts that meant nothing to me.
“The explosion in the power plant was caused by sabotage,” Logan said.
“That’s—”
He cut me off. “It’s the only explanation. My first clue was the location of the blast. Damage to the plant itself was minimal, but it hit the Transmission in the perfect spot.”
“The Transmission?” Riley asked.
