“All right, Trella. We’ll do this the hard way. You’re usually pretty smart so I’m going to give you time alone to think about everything that has happened.” Jacy conferred with his goons before leaving.
Right Goon crouched in front of me and rested his hands on my legs as if to keep his balance. A sudden surge of fear flooded my body as I met his gaze. A hideous thought surfaced. Would Jacy’s people resort to… Unable to even consider it, I shied away from that terrible scenario.
“I suggest you tell him what he wants to know,” he said.
“Why?” I was proud my voice didn’t shake.
“Because he’s going to get our world back.” He stood and left with the other man.
I remembered to breathe when they didn’t immediately return. But the muscles in my legs still trembled from the goon’s touch.
In order to pass the time and not think about my dry throat and empty stomach, I considered Jacy’s argument. The meeting with the captain and with the bomber had been pretty damning. What other evidence did I have?
Sloan. He pulled me from the duct, and we started the riot. Why? To empty the waste handling plant of workers so one of his buddies could plant that bomb.
But Bubba Boom disarmed the bomb…well…sort of. It didn’t matter how it had been stopped, just that it did stop. And Sloan knew right where to find me in the air shaft. Or did he? My tool belt had clanged.
Jacy wanted to plant those mics above the control room and Anne-Jade’s office. Which made sense if he worried about what the Committee was up to. Except he was on the Committee so why would he need to bug those areas unless he was more concerned about the Controllers?
And the whole situation with the Transmission hadn’t added up either. Everything I learned about Jacy had come from Bubba Boom. Then again Jacy had cuffed me to a chair in a locked room. And time remained critical. What if the Outsiders came in?
Logic remained on Jacy’s side if he told the truth, but I just couldn’t trust him. As the time passed and I grew hungrier, thirstier, and stiffer, my inclination to believe Jacy diminished with each minute.
When the door finally opened, I wished I could strangle him. He slipped in with Sloan and another goon. A visit with Sloan—now my week was complete.
He approached me warily, which, considering the circumstances would have made me laugh, but I glared at him.
“Did you think it through?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“I decided I’ll wrap my hands around your neck and crush your windpipe first.”
“Not helping, Trella.”
“That’s the point.”
He sighed. “I’d hoped my involvement with the Force of Sheep rebellion would have earned me some of your trust.”
My gaze flicked to Sloan. “Why did he pull me from the shaft?”
“At first, I was just playing around,” Sloan said. “I heard you up in the duct. I planned to let you go, but when I found out about those mics…I lost it. It was like the Pop Cops all over again.”
“Captain Trava?” I asked Jacy.
“We need to get the Transmission fixed. He knew the right people, and he knows the Controllers are not… They’re…”
“Outsiders,” I said.
“I should have known you’d already have that figured out. Who told you—Bubba Boom?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“James Trava is helping us. He knows what Inside can do. How fast we can travel, how to maneuver our world. It’s probably too late, but something had to be done!” He pulled in a few breaths as if to calm down. “That’s why I need to know what you’ve been up to. You could be compromising our efforts.”
He had explained the two inconsistencies, but still. “I’m not.”
