Hunter steps into my vision. “Look, I get this is a lot to process for you. But she put her life and everything she’s ever held dear in jeopardy because she loves you.”
“She didn’t say love.”
“Don’t be a dumbass, it was implied.” I cannot meet her relentless stare, so I look away. Hunter points down the road toward Taylor. “She knows, and you must know, that if Theia so much as gets a whiff of this…she’ll kill Taylor.”
My eyes snap to hers. “She wouldn’t kill Taylor. She’s the face of this rebellion. Every soldier from border to border knows her. She’s… indispensable.”
Hunter takes another step closer to me. “You know why the Order is finally successful after all these years? Not because Theia is a tactical mastermind, but because she has a zero-tolerance policy for traitors. Anyone caught betraying the Order is executed immediately. No tribunal, no clemency. We’ve operated in total secrecy for twenty years because Theia plugs leaks.”
Everything she’s saying makes my head spin. It’s too much to handle, and the stupid part is the only person I want to talk about it with is Taylor. “I don’t deserve it, though. I don’t deserve mercy, not any more than McGovern’s kids, or Reed’s, or Faith.”
Hunter sighs. “This ain’t a fairy tale, Piccolo. Life is not about what anyone deserves. You either get what you’re given or you take what you want, but what matters most is what you do with it.That’syour choice.”
Satisfied, she walks off toward where Taylor is stood stone-still against the car. Hunter puts her hand between Taylor’s shoulder blades in a comforting manner, and Taylor shakes her off. The animosity between them is apparent, even yards away. Not enough time exists for me to properly process this, so I slowly walk toward them and pick up the tail end of an anxious conversation.
Hunter prevents Taylor from getting into the driver’s seat with a soft shove. “Wait, why are you mad at me? Are you pissed about Ahote?”
“I am not angry about you having sex with some guy.” Taylor’s scathing tone convinces no one. “I understood that the moment we stepped into the office. And it is not like it isn’t like you.”
Hunter emits a harsh chuckle. “Wow, okay.”
“What you do with your body is your business. That does not concern me.”
“Then what is your concern, darling sister?” Hunter asks sweetly.
Taylor bypasses Hunter’s sarcasm as easily as she bypasses mine. I guess this is where she got practice doing that. “They held you in this glorified campsite, practically unguarded. Did you ever try to escape?”
Hunter’s jaw drops. “Escape? You think they’d let their only prisoner walk out the door?”
“Who said let?”
“Right, I was supposed to somehow escape Wolfshield’s compound and do what? Ask a nearby gas station if I couldborrow a phone and call a nonexistent number to see if my mom could pick me up?”
“You know as well as I do there is an Order hideout fifteen miles west of here,” Taylor replies.
“Oh, yeah, my memory of that night is great, considering I was half dead.”
That piques my curiosity. “What?”
“Taylor and I got caught doing recon out in the desert some years back. Two of Wolfshield’s soldiers snuck up on us. Tied us up and beat us pretty bad,” Hunter says. “Well, beat me up pretty bad. I have a smart mouth.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, well, fortunately Taylor isactuallysmart and escaped her restraints. Once she’d taken care of the soldiers, she got me help.” It’s this, this memory long buried, which softens Taylor’s hard expression. Hunter sighs. “Listen, kid, I didn’t stay here for the kicks. I did it because I didn’t want my friends and my family to die trying to take what they could have if I was patient.”
Taylor huffs, but the rigidity in her posture melts away. “Are they as prepared for war as we thought?”
“It’s more than we thought. Wolfshield has sites all over brimming with regularly tested military tech. I guess sometime during or after the Rift, the old American government stashed away its high-tech stuff somewhere in New Mexico. Some leader found it decades ago and kept everything running. Running, but hidden.”
“Then why negotiate with the Order? Why not turn the tech on the rebellion and take over the country for themselves?” I have to ask. I have to understand how someone could possibly sit on all that power.
“I think Wolfshield genuinely wants peace, but she isn’t naïve. She’ll protect what’s hers if she has to. Can’t say I blameher, but that whole situation is a problem for another day.” Hunter turns to Taylor. “Does that satisfy you?”
The angry crease in Taylor’s forehead flattens out. “Yes. I apologize.
It looked…well, you know how it looked.”
“Like I was so busy banging the boss’s son that I didn’t want to go home?” Hunter draws the blush she wanted from Taylor’s cheeks. “Nothing, especially not some guy, could turn me from my family.” She picks up her bag and spares one final glance behind her before reaching out to ruffle Taylor’s hair. “All right, kid. Let’s go home.”
