I pull in the screen so I can see better by its dim glow, and reach out without thinking, gently brushing at the smudge with my thumb. A prickling up and down the back of my neck tells me I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t resist the chance to find out something about this girl who’s taken over my life. The chance, perhaps, to know who she is—to know why someone might be running her down, using my name. The digital world is mine, not hers.
If I understand who I’m defending her from, I know it’s a fight I can win.
I repeat it to myself, as if that’ll help me believe it’s the only reason I’m doing this.
The tattoo’s in a spiral design, the concealer blocking out the twist of the black lines. The number running along their curve slowly becomes visible as I drag the pad of my thumb along it. My breath stops, chest squeezed tight as the numbers register.
I’ve seen these numbers before.
Oh, no.
I roll onto my front to prop up on my elbows, bringing my lapscreen properly to life. I pull up my Towers subprogram, and there it is. My mystery ID. The war orphan who left Avon—the person whose ID Commander Towers used to make her escape. The one who can’t possibly exist, who was too unlikely. The one I…
Sofia’s voice comes back to me. He’s hunting me. For almost a year now he’s been following me.…Every time I think I’m safe, every time I think I’ve lost him this time, there he is.
There I am.
My hands are shaking. A few keystrokes bring her story to life, files and pictures filling my screen. I could have seen this all along. I could have looked and found her there, a real girl. But I was so damn arrogant, so sure Towers deserved to suffer, so sure that I was smart enough to track down LaRoux’s dirty secrets—so determined to do it at any price.
At any price. As though no price could be too high.
Every time I imagined Towers running, scrambling for safety, every time I smirked in the dark at tipping her out of another hiding place, sending her heart racing…it was this girl sleeping beside me with her lips still curved to a faint smile. It was this girl I’m crazy about. Running scared, her life destroyed by the shadow of the Knave coming after her, for reasons she couldn’t understand. Towers was probably on her quiet farm all this time, never the LaRoux conspirator I imagined, and Sofia was sacrificed in her place. I was her monster all along, and she’s run straight into my arms.
I can’t pinpoint the moment when I became this thing, and I don’t know how I managed to blind myself so completely. LaRoux killed my brother, and he set me on a path I told myself was noble. That it was all right to hurt the ones that deserved it, as long as I was a good guy the rest of the time. That it was okay to be the hound, as long as I only chased deserving quarry.
How can I convince Sofia I was never hunting her, never meant to hurt her? Will she believe me, when I say all her fear was for nothing?
Will she forgive me?
How can I even tell her?
I push the screen away, easing down beside her once more as a sliver of fear shoots up my spine. I can’t wake her up yet. Not until I know what to say. Not until I know how to say it. I’ll find the words to make her understand I never meant to hurt her, never meant to scare her. I’ll show her I only ever chased her because I was looking for something that might hurt LaRoux Industries, not her. I was chasing down a woman I believed did deserve it, who held secrets—except if Antje Towers never used Sofia’s ID to run, then she did what she promised all along. She waited for her discharge and went to live out her life in quiet, in peace, away from technology. Away from the kind of world that holds LaRoux…and people like me.
I lie there beside Sofia in the dark, turning over explanations in my head, planning speeches, honing my words so the first few will stop her long enough to hear me out. She has to hear me—even if she never forgives me, she has to believe that the Knave isn’t coming for her anymore. She has to know that she’s safe from me, if nothing else. My thoughts run in tighter and tighter circles, until I fall into a restless sleep.
When I wake, the blankets beside me are cold, and Sofia’s gone. I scramble upright, my heart rate accelerating as I swing around to look for her, clambering to my knees.
She stands nearby, and she’s dressed, and she’s holding my lapscreen.
I forgot to close it down before I fell asleep.
Lit ghostly pale by its light, she’s letting it dangle from one hand, so I can see the dossier I pulled up using her genetag number. I see her ID picture, her real ID picture. I see the folder of files on her father; criminal records, medical reports, employment records. Autopsy.
My heart clenches, mind shutting down. I have to find an excuse, tell her the truth, say something. But I just freeze.
Then her gaze drops, and I see what lies at her feet. My book. My ancient, priceless copy of Alice in Wonderland. My lucky charm, my token from the life I used to live. It lies open, and there, sitting on top of it, is the final nail in my coffin. A single playing card, from the old-fashioned deck my brother and I used to use.
My heart’s hammering. My mouth is dry.
It’s the jack of hearts.
The knave.
“Was all this just a game?” I expected coldness, emptiness—instead Sofia’s voice is bright and hot with fear, with betrayal. In this moment she can’t put up a front. “Was any of it real?”
My thoughts are still stuck, the torrent of everything I should say building up like water behind a dam. “Sofia—” I stammer.
With that, she’s moving, dropping the lapscreen, backing away from me toward the door.
I want to reach out and grab her, make her stay, make her listen. If I could just make her listen. But I can’t force her to stay. I can’t chase her, after all of this. Not anymore. “Please wait,” I manage instead. “Please—let me—”
She pauses in the doorway just long enough to glance back at me. “You come looking for me again,” she says tightly, “and I’ll kill you. Understand?”
I stare at her from where I kneel, my words lost.
And then she’s gone.
Their words fly through our world like waves, and we learn to catch hold of them and ride the messages they send to one another. The casualty letters from their wars are easiest to follow, leading us to grief and anger, emotions so strong we can cling to them and experience their world just a breath longer, the strength of their feelings tangible through the invisible walls between our universe and theirs.
There is nothing remarkable about the one that leads us to a little cottage surrounded by flowers. There is no reason to linger, nothing that should make us pause. These humans’ grief is no different from that of any other we have tasted.
And yet we find we can stay, drawn inward, pulled through the fields and up the hilltops and to a tree in whose branches huddles a little boy, clutching a notebook to his chest. He keeps his words on paper, so we cannot read them through their hypernet, but for just an instant we can feel them in his soul.
Then the poetry fades away, and we’re left waiting for the next wave of words to carry us closer to understanding.
JUST KEEP MOVING.
The words echo over and over in my mind, drowning out my other thoughts, keeping time with my footsteps. The background patchwork of noise from street vendors and traffic fades into a dull, throbbing hum beneath the roaring in my ears. I want to run, to put as much distance between me and the Knave of Hearts as I can—but running draws too much attention. I can’t look over my shoulder, I can’t duck low. I have to walk like I belong here. Pilfer a hat from this newsstand, a pair of smog glasses from that one, hide my face from any cameras LRI might be monitoring with facial recognition. I have to look like I haven’t a care in the world. If it weren’t for the steady staccato of words marching through my head like a drumbeat, I’m not sure I could.