Taylor leans toward me. “I know you’re hesitant,” she says gently. “I can see it on your face, your distrust of everything I’m telling you, and I understand why. We didn’t get off on the best foot.” She glances at Zero with a lifted eyebrow. “But you’re now aware of what Hideo’s true plans are. And no matter how little you know about us or we know about you, we’re both on the same side. We have no intention of harming an ally. No one’s going to force your hand.” Her voice hardens now, a tone that doesn’t seem to match her face. “Nothing I’ve ever seen has frightened me quite as much as what Hideo Tanaka is doing with the NeuroLink’salgorithm. Isn’t that why you cut ties with him, in spite of everything he could give you?”
She says this in a way that hints at my brief relationship with Hideo, and to my annoyance, my cheeks warm. I wonder exactly how much she knows about me. My eyes flicker again to Zero.
A sudden surge of rage grips me. All I can remember in this moment is the way Zero had stood there in the dark hall, hidden behind his virtual armor, mocking me as I discovered all my files had been emptied. All I can feel is the same skin-crawling sensation of Zero being inside my mind, his theft of my most precious Memories.
This is someone who has betrayed me before. And now here he is, asking me to help him.
“Why should I trust you?” I ask. “After everything you’ve done?”
Zero regards me with a penetrating look. “It doesn’t matter if you trust me or not. Hideo’s moving forward, regardless, and we’re running out of time. We’re going to stop him from abusing his NeuroLink, and we can do it faster with your help. That’s all I can tell you.”
I think of the colorful maps of minds that Hideo had shown me, then the ability he had to stop someone dead in his tracks by doing nothing more than shifting that map. I think of the eerie blankness on people’s faces.
“So.” Zero laces his fingers together. “Are you in?”
I’m ready to refuse him. He had taken my soul out of my chest and done something obscene with it; even now, he is messing with my emotions. I want to turn my back on Zero and step out of this room, do what Roshan said and return to New York and never think about any of this again.
Instead, I scowl at Zero. “What do you have in mind?”
6
Zero smiles. Heexchanges a stare with Taylor, then with Jax, and as he does, Taylor rises from her seat. She gives me an encouraging nod before she turns away.
“Glad to have you on board,” she says over her shoulder, and then heads out of the room.
Jax lingers a second longer, locked in a silent exchange with Zero that feels like something shared between familiar partners. She doesn’t bother looking my way before she leaves, too. “I’ll be next door,” she calls out as she goes. I can’t tell if it’s meant to reassure or threaten me that she’ll be on guard so close by.
The door closes behind her without a sound, leaving me completely alone with Zero.
He moves closer to me, looking amused at my fascination and unease. “You’ve always worked on your own, haven’t you?” he says. “It’s uncomfortable for you, being marked with a group.”
Somehow, his physical appearance seems even moreintimidating than his virtual one. I realize I’m clenching my fists and force myself to relax my hands. “I was doing fine with the Phoenix Riders,” I reply.
He nods. “And that’s why you’ve already told them everything you’re doing, right? That you’re here now?”
I narrow my eyes at his mocking tone. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“How long have you been with the Blackcoats? Were you the one who formed them? Or have you never been a loner?”
He puts his hands in his pockets in a gesture so reminiscent of Hideo that, for an instant, I feel like he’s the one here instead. “As long as I can remember,” he answers.
Now’s my chance. All the questions swirling in my mind sit on the edge of my tongue. My breath is suddenly short as the words pour out. “You’re Sasuke Tanaka. Aren’t you?”
My statement is greeted only by silence.
“You’re Hideo’s younger brother,” I urge him, as if he didn’t hear me the first time.
His eyes are absolutely devoid of any emotion. “I know,” he says.
I blink, thinking I’d misheard him. “Youknow?”
There’s something unusual about his eyes again, that empty stare. It’s as if what I’ve said meansnothing. It seems irrelevant to him, like I’d revealed he was related to some faraway stranger he knows absolutely nothing about... and not the brother he’d grown up with, the brother who had destroyed his own life and mind out of grief for him. The brother he is now trying to stop.
“You—” My words falter, my voice turning incredulous as I look at him. “You’re Hideo’s brother. How can you know that and still talk like this?”
Again, no response. He looks completely unaffected by mywords. Instead, he steps closer to me until we’re separated by a mere foot. “A blood relation is meaningless,” he finally replies. “Hideo’s my brother, but more importantly, he’s my mark.”
