She was looking up, toward the sound. It didn’t look like she was seeing an image of me.
“Maybe you should tell Benson to spill the beans.”
“Benson,” she called, “where are you?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“I don’t even know what he’s talking about,” she said. “What secret?”
I didn’t answer—I couldn’t.
“He won’t free everyone,” I said.
She nodded.
My words hung there. She wasn’t arguing, but she didn’t have to, because I was arguing with myself now. Of course he wouldn’t free anyone. He was right—he knew the students couldn’t have left the perimeter. I didn’t have bargaining power.
“Benson,” the voice said. “You can put a stop to this.”
I was about to ask what, but another person appeared in the projection. Iceman, walking up behind her.
Becky saw him, too, and squirmed in her chair.
Iceman flipped open a knife—short and curved and vicious.
“Stop!” I yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I tried to offer you the carrot,” the voice said. “This is the stick.”
As he said the last word, Iceman jabbed the knife into her hand.
She screamed—high and terrified and desperate.
The projection disappeared and the lights came back up.
“Let her go,” I yelled, flailing in the bed. “Leave her alone.”
“You intrigue me,” he said calmly.
“What’s going on? What’s he doing to her?”
“I’m going to have to revise my assessment of you, Benson. The last time we talked, I’d guessed you cared the most about her, but now I don’t know what to think.”
“Of course I do,” I blurted, fire raging throughout my body. “I just don’t trust you.”
“You’re afraid I won’t follow through on my promise?”
“No.”
“What do you want? Shall I drive you and Becky to the little house in the forest and leave you there, and you can mail me the information I want?”
“I don’t even think that was the real Becky,” I said, gesturing to the wall with my head.
He paused. “What do you mean?”
“You’re torturing her,” I said, “but what if you’re torturing a robot? How am I supposed to know? I saw that Becky already has the implant.”
He paused again, and his voice was more thoughtful now. “If you’d like, I can fillet her arm, like all you barbarians did at the fort.”
“That can be faked,” I said. He was showing me a projection. It could all be computers. It could be a newer model of android.
“It can?”
“Go to hell.”
The lights went out.
It was happening too fast, too out of control. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. Was I protecting her more by being quiet or talking?
I shouldn’t be forced to make this decision. Why did I have to choose? What made me responsible for getting everyone in that town to safety? Because I was the only one without an implant in my head? That didn’t make me a leader—it just made me slightly luckier.
But that knife in Becky’s hand. Her scream. It pushed everything else out of my mind, and in the darkness I couldn’t see anything on that wall but her. In pain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I woke up, so I must have been asleep.
An alarm sounded, and a light somewhere behind me flashed. It lasted for minutes. Hours. I didn’t know. And then it turned off.
I’d been in that bed for days—maybe weeks. I couldn’t tell.
I listened for the voice, but heard only the whir of some distant fan.
And a scratch. Something scratched something.
I turned my head.
Was it a mouse? Was it Ms. Vaughn?
Was I going crazy?
There it was again, only it wasn’t a scratch. It was a scrape. It was something moving, sliding, brushing on the floor.
Was someone sneaking up behind me?
The bed vibrated—hardly noticeable, but I knew something had bumped it.
“Who’s there?”
“Shh.”
I turned to the noise, and saw Becky’s face at the side of the bed. She was grinning, her finger to her lips.
I felt like I was melting, like water had crashed over me and swept every other thought from my head. She was here, next to me. She was undoing the restraint on my arm.
“How did you …?”
She looked awful—hair wet and matted, and her face streaked with dried tears. I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to hug her and never let go.
“I told you,” she whispered. “I grew up on a ranch. I made a rabbit trap.”
She undid the first strap, and I pulled my hand free. Every muscle in my arm felt weak and sore. I grabbed her hand and looked at it. No scar.
“You weren’t hurt?”
Becky’s face went dark, and she kind of bobbed her head. I didn’t know what that meant, but the smooth skin on the back of her hand didn’t lie. The girl in the projection wasn’t her. I’d been right.
She moved to my foot, and I used my free hand to pry the leather off my left. It was almost impossible—it needed two hands, and my one was too cramped and aching to be much good anyway.
“What were they doing to you?” she whispered, unlatching my right foot and moving to my left. I pulled up my leg, flexing the unused muscles.
“Trying to get me to talk. Are there guards in the halls?”
She shook her head. “Talk about what?”
She unlatched the left foot.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said. As she came to my left side and bent by my arm, I touched her face. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Becky smiled, tilting her face into my hand for a moment before mouthing a quick, happy, Wait, and focusing again on the restraint.
“Were they asking about the weapons?” she whispered. “Where we got the bullets?”
“No.”
She squeezed the latch out and released the leather strap. “Then what?”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. My legs wobbled, and Becky reached to steady me.
I didn’t want to wait any longer. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close against me.
This wasn’t how I had pictured our first real kiss. But I needed to do it.
I cupped her face in my hands, our lips meeting softly, but then she pressed into me and I pulled her even closer.
I needed her to know how I felt, how I missed her. How I loved her.
Her fingers tugged at my hair as she kissed my lips, my face, my neck.
I held her, my hands running up her sides. Feeling her ribs, her armpit. The small, unnatural knot under the skin.
“Becky,” I said, grabbing her face and looking into her eyes. “I love you.”
She giggled and said something, but I didn’t care what it was. She wasn’t Becky. She was a camera.
“I love you,” I said. “You’re going to be okay. The code for the keypad is six-five-six-three-eight.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Go for the control room,” I said, staring into her eyes. “I’ll meet you there.”