While I’d love to spend all day poring over my mother’s file, I sense my welcome is wearing thin. I’ve already spent an hour in Kallister’s office, and he clearly doesn’t want to leave me alone in his quarters but is too polite to kick me out. By the third time he very obviously walks past the doorway, I force myself to close the file. I barely made a dent in it, but hopefully there’ll be time to read more of it later. Truthfully, maybe some time to absorb what I did read wouldn’t hurt.
It’s not every day you find your own death certificate.
“Why don’t we arrange a standing engagement?” he suggests. “Perhaps dinner here in my quarters once a week? That’ll give you time with the file, and I won’t have to rush you out.”
“That sounds great. Thank you.” I pause in the doorway, then awkwardly reach for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “I really appreciate this, Kallister. You don’t know how much it means to me.”
“I think I have an idea.”
I’m supposed to take Xavier to the shooting range, but I’m too distracted to handle firearms right now, so I go to the mess hall instead. I grab a cup of coffee and sit alone in the corner, absently tracing the rim of the cup with my index finger. I had no idea the lengthsto which Jim and my mother went to smuggle me out of the city. A fake death certificate?
And the body at the fire scene? Was that also fake?
Troubled, I reach out to Cross. My real superpower, in my opinion, is the ability to use my powers without detection. My veins never betray me.
“You’re not back in a cell, are you?”I ask him, surprised he’s actually linking with me. He’s been hard to pin down lately.
He sounds weary when he responds.“No. Just finished an Intelligence briefing.”
“I thought Travis was shutting you out.”
“He was. This was my first briefing in weeks. He keeps sending me out on bullshit assignments in the wards to prove my loyalty. Security detail, for fuck’s sake. Had me shadowing one of his capitalist cronies last night in the Point.”
“What was the briefing about?”
“How to root out the rest of the loyalist Mods that went into hiding after the Jubilee. There are still hundreds unaccounted for.”Cross pauses.“Lyddie was at the briefing.”
The thought of Lyddie sets my teeth on edge. I don’t want that traitorous quat on the sameplanetas Cross, let alone in the same room.
“And what did my old friend have to say?”I ask tightly.
“Not a thing. She was too busy hanging on my brother’s every word. I think someone’s on for Travis.”
I grind my teeth harder. I remember all the times Lyddie commented on how attractive Cross is, how she blushed when I teased her about liking him.
Well, too bad, Lydia. You’re not his type and he’s fucking taken.
Ugh. Fine. That was petty. I own it.
Although Cross can’t see me, he senses the change in my mood.“You’re angry.”
“Oh, you mean because you were sitting in the same room as the people who want to kill our kind and the girl who’s responsible for getting me sentenced to death and you were perfectly content to not do a thing about it? Why would that make me angry?”Sarcasm drips from my every word.
“What would you have me do instead?”he asks quietly.“Kill them all and shoot my way off the base? Hike through the Blacklands totheirbase and be greeted with a bullet to the skull?”
“How about not spending time with Lyddie? That would be a fucking start.”
Silence fills my mind, but I know he’s still there. Waiting for me to calm down. To take a breath. I do, allowing the anger to flow through me and dissipate. Yet the unhappiness remains. I understand that he’s in an impossible situation, but…Lyddie? He’s playing nice withLyddie?
“Daisy?”he says roughly.“Are we good?”
I slowly release the breath.“We’re good.”I hesitate for a beat.“Kallister gave me access to my mother’s file this morning. I found my own death certificate.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Turns out my mother and Jim faked my death in a fire. But there were actual remains discovered at the scene. Do you think they killed a kid?”
“Doubt it. All children are logged into the system. If one had gone missing, it would’ve eventually been flagged.”
