Blindsided (5 page)

“We’ll talk later.” He walks toward the Army truck. The soldier talks frantically into his comm unit about the intruder. “Unfortunately, I have other things to deal with right now.”

“Guess I’ll see you later, then.” I get in Seth’s car, glad I can act strong even when I’m sure I don’t look it. Seth revs the engine and peels out of the parking lot. He doesn’t say anything, but by the way his breaths heave I know he’s pissed. “Go ahead and yell,” I say.

“Are you crazy?” His voice explodes out of him. “You didn’t have to talk to him! What the hell were you thinking?”

I sigh, my mind racing over the giant amount of information I’ve gained today. It’s funny how a few clues can open up so many horrible possibilities. “You can’t cower to people like that—it only makes them feel more powerful. I don’t want him thinking he has me running already.”

He shakes his head. “You should run. We should all get out of here.”

I glare at him. “Seth, stop.”

He parks in front of my house and leans back in the seat. “This isn’t supposed to be happening. We already did this shit.”

“I know.” Since we started dating, I’ve always worried what might happen if syndicate life caught up to me again, what it might do to the people I care more about now than ever, what I might have to sacrifice to keep them safe. “But I also think you know we can’t run.”

His look is desperate. “Why not?”

“Because life on the run is a life of crime anyway,” I say. “What did they ask you about that took so long to answer?”

He goes still, and the fear drains from his perfect eyes. He turns off the car, opens his door, and I follow him up my path without another word. Out here it’s not safe. Inside is barely better. We climb the stairs to my room, and I turn on music while he shuts the door. We sit on the floor in front of my bed.

“It was close, Fi. Way too close,” he whispers.

“How so?”

“It says in my school files that I’m a math savant, so the Major asked me if it was true and I had to say no.” He lets out a long sigh. “Then he asked what my real ability was and I said my vision was really sharp.”

My eyes go wide. “Did he call you on it?”

He shakes his head. “But he seemed to think it was pretty suspicious that I hid my real ability, asked me a lot of questions about why. All my reasons kept flagging as lies.”

“What’d he do?”

“He got pissed.” Seth squeezes his eyes shut and lies on the floor. I’ve come to recognize this as the I-used-my-ability-too-much-and-now-have-a-splitting-headache pose. “I finally passed by saying I wanted to major in mathematics in college, and they look down on you if you aren’t a savant, which is true.”

I lie down on my stomach, put my fingers to his temples, and rub in little circles. “Did they ask you about Radiasure?”

“Ugh, yeah. That’s where it got even worse.” His voice is grouchy, but there’s a smile on his lips so the head massage must be helping. “He’d made notes of Brady going running in the desert, and then you, so he asked me about our relationship and if we went any specific places.”

I stop. “Seriously? He asked me about places, too.”

“Yeah?” He grabs my hands and makes them do the circles again. “Mmm, better. But anyway, I felt like I shouldn’t tell him about going to the factory, you know? So that flagged as a lie, and he got worked up about what I was hiding in the desert. I finally said I take you to that little waterfall in the valley and was embarrassed to talk about my personal life. He bought that one, and that’s when he let me go.”

“Funny, I also used the waterfall. At least our stories matched.” Hearing Seth’s account confirms too many of my suspicions. “This is about that ‘real’ Radiasure formula rumor floating around the syndicate channels, the one not disclosed to the public.”

“I hate to admit you’re right, but there’s no other reason for all these people to show up here. Which means if they find what they’re looking for…” Seth pinches the bridge of his nose, the pain clear on his face.

“Rest.” I kiss his forehead. “You shouldn’t have spied on my interview.”

“I was—”

“Worried, I know. You need to stop. It’s annoying.” I rub his head until he dozes off. He’ll feel better after a break from seeing. Then I pull out my phone and call Miles.

He picks up immediately this time. “Fiona! What’s up?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid.” I sneak out of my room so I don’t wake Seth, and tiptoe down to the kitchen to grab some Pop Tarts. “Juan’s right-hand man is in town, plus the Army just set up camp at my school and interrogated every student.”

There’s a pause. “I’m waiting for the punch line.”

“There isn’t one. Didn’t Graham tell you I called the other day?”

“Yeah, but I thought you were just being paranoid. Did you actually see The Phantom this time?”

I roll my eyes. “I saw a bullet pass right through him, and then he walked through a fence and threatened me. Oh, and the Army Major asked me about the factory and Radiasure, which I’m pretty sure means they’re all here in the quest to make it again.”

“Well crap,” he says too matter-of-factly.

“It can’t happen, Miles. You know that as well as I do.” This world is bad enough with a limited supply of Radiasure—people overdose, they die from their mutations, they kill to get more. The idea of unlimited access to the drug is more terrifying than anything I can think of.

“What are you saying? You’re gonna stop them from finding it?”

“I don’t know…” Part of me wants to say I’ll stop them no matter what. But it’s a huge risk, and I’m not sure I have to jump in that far. I’m finally
out
of that crime mess—do I really want to risk going back? “Right now I’m more concerned about how much they suspect us of knowing things. They grilled the whole Pack today, which puts all my friends at risk. I want to cover my tracks so they’ll leave us alone.”

“Fair enough. What do you need me to do?” Miles says.

My smile is so big my cheeks hurt. I can always count on him. “I need you to get in contact with Spud. She can tell us for sure how much the Army or Juan suspect us.”

He’s so quiet I wonder if the line went dead, but then he says, “Yeah, uh, that might be hard to do.”

Chapter 7

There’s no way I could have heard him right. Spud is the best hacker in the world—she even hacked into my dad’s iron-clad network to find the real Radiasure formula rumors in the first place. Plus, Miles has made it pretty clear he’s dating her. It’s not like it’d be difficult to ask her. “What’s so hard about it? I bet she could find out in less than a day.”

Miles clears his throat. “It’s not that she couldn’t do it. She just happens to be busy with a really important job right now is all. I don’t think she has time.”

“What kind of job?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

I frown. It was worth a shot. “Couldn’t you just ask?”

There’s a long pause, and I get the sense he doesn’t want to. “Look, I’ll ask, okay? But don’t get your hopes up too high. She’s under a ton of stress as it is, and I hate burdening her more than necessary. She’s already in so much danger.”

It’s hard to believe what I’m hearing, and yet I know the kind of pain in Miles’ voice. You only sound like that when you’re worried about someone you care about. I thought his relationship with Spud was like all his others: casual, physical, for fun. Now I’m pretty sure I was wrong. “You’re in love with her.”

“Fi…”

He doesn’t need to say more. I sit on a kitchen stool, an unexpected flood of emotions hitting me. My brother is in a real relationship. With the most infamous hacker alive. He knows enough about her to be in love. Miles has always been mine—in a big brother way, but still. Now he has someone else to think about, to worry over, to care for. Tears prick at my eyes. “So she’s more important than me now?”

“Hey, you know that’s not true,” Miles says softly. “She just…yeah, you’re right, she means the world to me. I stress about her safety all the time, especially because I have no way to protect her.”

I’m not stupid—Spud is on everyone’s list. If she ever got caught, she’d be locked up or tortured or dead, probably all three. “This is weird.”

Miles laughs. “It is, isn’t it? Never saw it coming, and yet here I am in a long-term, long-distance relationship. And I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”

“Oh, gag me,” I say, though I think I can accept this once I get used to it. “Well, I guess all I can do is be glad you can put in a good word for me. Tell me if you hear anything from her?”

“Sure. And, Fiona?”

“What?”

“Please don’t do anything impulsive until I
do
hear back from her. I can tell you’re freaking out—you don’t think things through when you panic.”

I let out an indignant squeak. “That’s not true!”

“Do I need to remind you of how you just
had
to go to the factory to see if Graham was telling the truth despite Spud saying he was?”

I pout, the guilt over that still strong. “Shut up.”

“Whatever. Just promise me.”

“Sure. I won’t do anything stupid. Bye.” I hang up before I can hear his answer, because I have a feeling he can pick up on my plans even over the phone. If I have to wait forever to hear from Spud, I have to do
something
in the meantime. It’s not like the Army or Juan’s men will pause their plans while Spud is busy.

“What’s with the nasty glare?” Seth stands in the doorway, looking groggy and therefore adorable. “And what are you doing that’s not stupid?”

Crap, how much did he hear? “Nothing.”

His eyes narrow as he comes closer. “You’d be horrible at lying if people could see you.”

“Whatever.” Someday I’ll learn to trick him, but today is not that day. So I smile as I walk over to him, and then I kiss him in a way I hope will make him drop it. He pulls me closer, and before I know it we’re fooling around on the couch. We haven’t gone all the way yet, though it’s times like this I think it would be easy.

Then I open my eyes.

Minus the places my dress still covers, Seth appears to be floating a few inches off the couch. He kisses me just above my bra. It feels amazing, but to my eyes it looks like he’s making out with air. And there’s something extremely odd about watching him enjoy skin I can’t see.

“We better stop.” I push him back and do my best to hide my discomfort.

He still seems to pick up on it, though we’ve never talked about why I always stop him right before things get too intense. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Seth sits next to me, but there’s a distance I can’t explain. It makes me wonder if I’ve hurt his feelings, or if he thinks he hurt mine. I turn on the TV to drown out the silence.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about what you said on the phone,” he says after we’ve both cooled off.

I cringe. “You’ll just get mad at me.”

“Psh.” He puts his arm around me, and all seems well again. “Of course I’ll get mad at you—that’s what we
do
, Fi.”

I try not to smile, but it’s true. We still argue about plenty of things. It doesn’t seem to stop us from being crazy about each other. “How about we make a deal? If I’m going to get yelled at, I want something in return.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, what do you want?”

Since I’d rather not tell him, I pick the one thing he hates more than anything. “You have to draw me.”

“Fionaaaa,” he whines.

“Deal or not?” I’m pretty sure he won’t take it. Every time I convince him to draw it ends up with me complaining about how bad he is at it. Why couldn’t the one person who can see me be an artist instead of a math freak?

“Why do you make me do this all the time?”

“Because…” My body wilts, and I lean into him for support. I always thought being seen would be enough, but now I want more.
I
want to see.
I
want to know. I feel so close to having details about myself I never dreamed of having—and yet so far away because I will
never
see myself. “I need to see what you see, so I can imagine what we look like together.”

The bump in Seth’s throat bobs, and he squeezes my shoulder. “Fine, it’s a deal.”

“I’ll get paper!” Jumping up, I grab a notebook and pencils from my backpack and am back in seconds. I shove them into Seth’s lap and sit facing him. “I was talking with Miles about all the people showing up here to make Radiasure and then suspecting us of knowing too much. I think we should cover our tracks.”

Seth makes a big scratch across the paper, and then he looks me right in the eye. Angry, of course. “You can’t avoid trouble for more than a few months, can you?”

I frown. “C’mon, look how close it was for you today. What if they find our trails out there in places they don’t think we should be? What if they find our prints at the factory or something we left by accident? They’ll keep coming at us until they get what they think we have.”