Rebel Heart

She wanted to show her Guardian what he'd come to mean to her, before she thought him dead. Because he meant a lot more than she thought he should. Her skin burned from where he'd touched her, and her lips were plumped by his kisses.

Pacing, she tried to reclaim her composure. There were many things about him she couldn't reconcile. The Guardian had some code of honor that seemed at odds with Brady's quick trigger finger. If he wanted to kill her, to rape her, he could have done it with impunity many times over. But the same man who killed in cold blood had reassured her every day for over two weeks that he'd protect her. The man was more complicated than she liked.

And he'd walked away from her, even though she was serious about sleeping with him. Lana paused in her pacing, wondering if she'd done something wrong. Maybe he was only pretending to be interested in her. She'd thought him beyond the duplicity that made up the actions of the elite class. Maybe he feared his punishment would be worse when she told Mr. Tim what he did, for Mr. Tim would surely crush Brady's PMF militia once he found out his friend was a traitor.

"Think of something else, Lana," she ordered herself.

Elise would be horrified. Again. The look on Elise's face when she realized that Lana had known something was wrong at the Peak. She didn't expect it to happen as it did, and the accusation of slaughtering a thousand lives made her feel ill. There was been nothing she could have done, even if she knew when it would happen, even if she trusted her instincts enough to warn people without any proof to back her words!

Her gaze went to the safe where her vault was locked. Brady read her like a satellite image of his house. She'd never learned to lie; in fact, she would never dare lie to Mr. Tim, not with his rigid sense of integrity. She'd never purposely disappoint him. Yet, for the first time in her life, she wished she knew how.

She needed her micro and the vault. If someone was able to track her, she needed to flee, fast. The keypads had to be delivered somewhere safe, though she began to wonder if anyplace really was safe. Greenie had destroyed the Peak from the inside out. Was the Peace Command Center also at risk?

Restless, she rose and paced in front of the safe. She'd already tested the lock and found it to be beyond tampering. He'd all but rejected her deal to sleep with him and wasn't about to hand her equipment over to her. She needed another plan.