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“If you can, you’re not a freak. You’re a badass.”
“You need to sedate me and push me the rest of the way in a wheelbarrow or something.”
I scoff. “Yeah, great plan. I’ll just dump you out in Carson City and then what?”
She gets out one note of laughter before wincing. “I don’t know. I’m winging it here.”
Tears streak down her cheeks. I break into a run, seeing her like this hurting me a lot more than the discomfort I’m picking up through our connection.
“Almost there,” I tell her.
“How do you know?”
“Caves are made of rock. I can feel it.”
“I wonder if you can still make earthquakes,” she mumbles.
I run into a line of trees, my aromium guiding me straight to a massive rock formation. As soon as we make it inside the rocks, Briar’s body goes slack.
“Better,” she says softly.
There’s a small cave entrance, and I duck into it, my enhanced vision allowing me to see the path descending deeper into the cave. The air is cool and moist, which is a nice break from what we’ve been breathing.
“So much better,” she says. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got an idea.” I gently set her down on a dry section of the cave’s floor. “I think I can make you a dampener.”
“Really?”
“McClain and I talked about this. There’s something called a Faraday cage and I think the concept will work on the implant. I have copper flashing in my pack to make it.”
“A cage?”
I set my pack on the ground and dig into it, pulling out the copper flashing. I brought it because copper kills bacteria in water, and I thought it might be helpful if we couldn’t find clean drinking water. This is more important, though.
“It’s gonna be like a patch that sits on your hip where the implant is. I just have to come up with a way to keep it in place.”
I already have a plan. I’m using twine as a makeshift belt. I’ll lash the piece of flashing around her waist and several inches below it. Aromium implants always go in the same place, so I know where hers is.
“I love your brain,” she murmurs.
“And I love yours. But I can’t take credit for this. Like I said, McClain told me about it.”
“Do you miss him?”
That’s a hard question to answer. “Sometimes. Yeah. I wish he had lived to help us stop what he started. But it would’ve horrified him to know aromium is widespread here.”
“That’s what he gets for playing God.”
Randall McClain died a tortured man. The only thing that keeps me going is helping Briar look for her sister and knowing we’ll help the ILF fight back against New America. I’ll never be able to live a quiet, peaceful life if New America still exists in any way.
“I’m sorry,” Briar says. “I shouldn’t have said that about playing God.”
“You don’t need to apologize. We all should’ve known better.”
“I miss Ellison. And Nova. And Vadim.”
I nod, trimming a section of twine with my knife. “So do I.”
