image

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Lissa Price

Copyright

Also by Lissa Price

STARTERS

Digital Short Stories

PORTRAIT OF A STARTER

PORTRAIT OF A MARSHAL

PORTRAIT OF A DONOR

image

To Gene, my favorite Ender
images

About the Book

The body bank has gone.

The danger hasn’t.

Nowhere is safe for Callie.

Now she must fight for the truth . . . even if it kills her.

THE ACTION-PACKED SEQUEL TO STARTERS

About the Author

LISSA PRICE is an award-winning, internationally bestselling author whose debut, Starters, has been published in over thirty countries. She lives with her husband in Southern California. Follow @Lissa_Price on Twitter or visit her online at LissaPrice.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to all the Starters, Middles, and Enders who helped me with Enders.

To Dean Koontz, the master of suspense: it meant the world to a debut author to receive your generous quote in praise of Starters. I will be forever grateful to you.

My wonderful agents, Barbara Poelle and Heather Baror, and my thoughtful editor, Wendy Loggia, thank you all so much for your help and support.

My talented writing group buddies, Derek Rogers and Liam Brian Perry, you guys will be next. My friend Dawn, writers S. L. Card, Suzanne Gates, Lorin Oberweger, and Gina Rosati, thank you all for your brilliant insights.

Kami Garcia, my sincere gratitude for generously giving us your great quote, and for your support.

Michael Messian, you have been a constant champion of this series. My husband, Dennis, thank you for always understanding how important the book was to me and for never once complaining about the missed concerts, films, and dinners.

To everyone else who helped me, from my wonderful publishers around the world to the reviewers, bloggers, booksellers, librarians and schoolteachers, thank you for believing in the series from the start.

And finally, to all the amazing readers across the globe: I’m deeply grateful for your patience and loyalty. You can always reach me at LissaPrice.com.

image

CHAPTER ONE

My hand went to the back of my head and I swore I could feel the chip underneath my skin. But I couldn’t, of course; it was buried deeply under the metal blocking plate. It was just the surrounding scar tissue I felt, hard and unforgiving.

I tried not to touch it. But it had become an obsession to finger it like a splinter in a palm, or a hangnail on a thumb. It haunted me all the time, even here, making sandwiches in the kitchen. Helena’s kitchen.

Even though she was dead and had left the mansion to me, I couldn’t help but be reminded daily that it had been hers. Every choice, from the sea-green tiles to the elaborate island in the center of this gourmet kitchen, was hers. Even her housekeeper, Eugenia, remained.

Yes, it had been Helena’s crazy plan to stop the Old Man by using my body to assassinate Senator Harrison. But it was my fault that I had volunteered to be a body donor in the first place. I had been desperate to save my little brother, Tyler, then. Now I couldn’t take it back, any more than I could get rid of this horrible chip stuck in my head. I hated the thing. It was like a phone the Old Man could call anytime, a phone I had to answer and could never disconnect. It was the Old Man’s direct line to me, Callie Woodland.

The last time I had heard from him was two days ago, while I was watching his precious Prime Destinations being demolished. He had sounded like my dead father, even used his code words: When hawks cry, time to fly. I’d been thinking about that ever since. But as I stood at the kitchen counter spreading the last of the peanut butter on whole wheat, I decided that it had been the Old Man playing tricks on me. Cruel, but no surprise coming from that monster.

“Finished?” Eugenia asked.

Her crackly Ender voice cut through me. I hadn’t heard her come in. How long had she been watching? I turned to meet the scowl on her wrinkled face. If this was my fairy-tale life, living in this castle, she would be the ugly stepmother.

“That’s enough. You’re emptying my entire pantry,” she said.

That wasn’t true. I’d made several dozen sandwiches, but our pantry could feed us for a month. I placed the last one in the insta-wrap machine, and the thin veg-wrap encased the bread instantly with a high-pitched zip.

“Done.” I tossed the sandwiches into a duffel bag.

Eugenia didn’t even wait for me to leave before she began wiping the counter. I’d obviously ruined her day.

“We can’t feed the whole world,” she said, scrubbing invisible stains.

“Course not.” I closed the duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Just a few hungry Starters.”

images

As I put the bag in the trunk of the blue sports car, I couldn’t get Eugenia’s disapproving glare out of my mind. You’d think maybe she’d be nicer, knowing my mother and father were dead. But somehow she resented me for Helena’s death. It wasn’t my fault. In fact, Helena had almost gotten me killed. I slammed the trunk. Eugenia only stayed because she adored Tyler. That was okay; I didn’t have to answer to her. She wasn’t my guardian.

My hand went to the back of my head, and I absentmindedly scratched at my chip wound before I caught myself and stopped. When I looked at my fingers, my nails were dirty with blood. I winced.

I pulled a tissue out of my purse and wiped them as best I could. Then I walked out the door of the garage that led to the garden. Mossy stones, wet from the morning dew, led to the rose-covered cottage guesthouse. The place was quiet, no movement behind the windows. I knocked on the rough-hewn door, to see if he was back, but no answer.

The handle turned with a squeak. I poked my head inside.

“Michael?”

I hadn’t been inside his cottage since we’d all moved into the mansion. The place had taken on Michael’s scent, a mix of artist’s paints and freshly cut wood. Even when we had been squatters, he had always managed to smell good.

But what really marked the place as his was his amazing drawings, which covered the walls. The first one showed thin Starters with hungry, haunted eyes. They wore ragged layers of clothing, water bottles draped across their bodies, hand-lites banded around their wrists.

In the next image, three Starters fought over an apple. One lay on the ground, hurt. My life just a few months ago. But the next drawing was even tougher to look at.

My friend Sara. A Starter I had hoped to rescue. I’d told Michael about her and our time together at Institution 37, the nightmarish place where marshals had locked me up with other unclaimed Starters. The sketch showed Sara after she had diverted the guards’ attention away from me and ended up ZipTasered, clinging to barbed wire as she was dying. Michael had never met her, but like most street Starters, he was familiar with desperation and bravery. He portrayed the willing sacrifice in her eyes.

The drawing blurred in my vision. I’d never find a friend that loyal if I lived a million years. She’d given me everything and I’d let her down.

That was my fault.

Someone entered the cottage. I turned to see Tyler coming in.

“Monkey-Face!” he shouted.

I quickly wiped my eyes. He ran up and wrapped his arms around my legs. Michael was behind him, standing in the doorway, smiling. Then he closed the door and put down his travel bag.

“You’re back.” I looked at Michael.

He shook his shaggy blond hair out of his face and looked surprised at the concern in my voice.

Tyler pulled away. “Michael brought me this.”

He waved a small toy truck and ran it over the top of the couch.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked. Michael had been out of my sight since Prime was demolished.

He shrugged. “Just needed some space.”

I knew that he wouldn’t say anything with Tyler there. I knew he had seen me holding hands with Blake, Senator Harrison’s grandson. Two puppets of the Old Man.

“Look, what you saw, that didn’t mean anything,” I said in a lowered voice. “And you, you and Florina—”

“That’s over.”

We stared at each other. Tyler was still playing, making car sounds, but of course he could hear us. I tried to think of what to say to explain my feelings, but I honestly didn’t know what my feelings were. The Old Man, Blake, Michael—it was all so jumbled.

My phone beeped a reminder: three unread Zings.

“Someone dying to reach you?” Michael asked.

The Zings were all from Blake. He’d been trying to contact me since the day I saw him at Prime’s destruction.

“It’s him, right?” Michael said.

I shoved the phone into my pocket, cocked my head, and gave him a look that said “don’t push me.”

Tyler glanced anxiously from Michael to me.

“We’re going to the mall,” Tyler said. “To get me shoes.”

“Without asking me first?” I clung to my shoulder bag and stared at Michael.

“He begged me,” Michael said. “And his favorites are too small now.”

“He’s growing so fast, better buy two sizes.”

We were all glad to see Tyler healthy after a year squatting in cold buildings. “Come with us,” Tyler said.

“I’d love to, but I’m off.”

“Where to?” Michael asked.

“Our old neighborhood. To feed the Starters.”

“Want help?” Michael asked.

“Why? You think I can’t do this alone?” I said.

As soon as I snapped, I wished I could suck the words back in. Michael looked so hurt. Tyler’s mouth fell open in an “uh-oh” moment.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Michael. “Thanks for offering. Really. But I think I can handle it. You guys should go to the mall.”

“You could meet us for lunch,” Tyler said. “After we get my shoes.”

He took Michael’s hand and gave me his best “please please” face. We were the closest thing he had to parents, and he was doing everything he could to pull us together. What I really wanted was to make our parents magically reappear; to have our family back again. But I would have to settle for just fulfilling my brother’s small request.

images

I balanced the duffel bag on my shoulder as I pushed open the side door of the abandoned office building that had been home for Michael and Tyler—and Florina—when I was being rented out. I stepped into the lobby and saw the reception desk, vacant as usual. I would never have admitted it to Michael, but my heart was beating harder. Faster. I held my breath to listen for any signs of danger. I was familiar with the place, but things change. Who knew which Starters lived here now?

I walked over to the reception desk to make sure no one was hiding, ready to attack. It was clear. I set my duffel bag on the counter, unzipped it, and pulled out a towel. As I was wiping the counter, I heard footsteps behind me. Before I realized what was happening, someone darted by and grabbed the whole bag.

“Hey!” I shouted.

A chubby little Starter ran to the exit, clutching my bag. Several sandwiches spilled out and dropped to the floor.

“That’s supposed to be for everyone, you little jerk!” I yelled.

He burst through the door. I’d never catch up.

I ran around from behind the desk and bent down to pick up the food that had fallen. I had my hand on a wrapped sandwich when someone stepped on me.

“Back off.” It was a Starter girl, maybe a year older than I was.

She held a plank of wood like a bat, ready to strike. The rusty nails at the end of the plank convinced me not to fight. I nodded. She eased her foot off my hand and I pulled it away.

“Take it,” I said, nodding to the smashed sandwich.

She grabbed it and the other two on the floor. She bit right through the wrapper and started eating, making feral sounds. Thin, with short, dirty hair, she had probably once been just a middle-class girl. Like me.

I’d been that hungry before, but no one had ever come to my building to feed me. And now I knew why.

She swallowed. “You.” She stepped closer and touched my hair. “So clean.” Then she examined my face. “Perfect. You’re a Metal, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“You know, Metal. One of those body bank people. You’ve got that chip in your head.” She took another bite of the sandwich, peeling back the wrapper this time. “How does it feel?” She circled me to stare at the back of my head.

I wore the plainest clothes I had been able to find in Helena’s granddaughter’s closet. But I couldn’t disguise my now-flawless skin, shiny hair, and perfect features. It was too obvious to the world that I had become a kind of chip slave.

“Like someone owns me.”

images

The glittery mall was completely different from the harsh, lawless squatter life. Ender guards stood watch outside the shops, examining each passing Starter with steely stares. One guard spied some scruffy boys advertising their unclaimed status with dirty faces and stained jeans. He signaled mall security, and they roughly escorted the boys to the exit.

This had been a high-end mall even before the Spore Wars widened the gap between the rich and poor. Though not all Enders were rich and not all Starters were poor, it often seemed that way. But here, I passed plenty of hot Starters, shimmering in their illusion tops and jeans, which changed color and texture as they moved. They were like exotic birds, even the guys, wearing airscreen glasses, layers of scarves, hats with slim solar panels to charge batteries. Those who had temperature-control chips in their glistening metallic jackets kept them on. Others used insta-fold to compress their outerwear so it could be tucked into a wallet. People said they dressed this way to distinguish themselves from the street Starters. I had a closetful of clothes just like theirs, inherited from Helena’s granddaughter. But that wasn’t my style.

These were the claimed Starters living in mansions like mine. I couldn’t always tell them apart from people like me who had received makeovers from the body bank. “Metals,” that girl had said. These mall Starters were beautiful because they could afford to be. They had the best Ender dermatologists, dentists, and hairstylists and all the creams and beauty supplies their grandparents could buy. The Spore Wars had barely put a dent in their spending habits.

I stopped myself. There I was, judging them, but they’d lost their parents too. Maybe their grandparents weren’t nice to them, but cold and resentful, having to see faces every day that reminded them of their lost sons and daughters.

The Spore Wars had changed us all.

I scratched the back of my head and looked around, hoping to see a shoe store. I was supposed to meet Michael and Tyler at the food court, but since my mission to feed the homeless had been a failure, I was early. I swallowed hard, thinking about it. Michael was right—I shouldn’t have gone alone. I should have remembered my street smarts: Never take your hand off your bag. Never stand with your back to an entrance. Always be ready to fight. All that work and I’d only fed two Starters, who had run off without even thanking me.

I directed my attention to the airscreen display directory in the middle of the mall.

“Shoes,” I said to the invisible microphone.

The display pulled the shoe store out of the map and projected a holo into the air. It was the only athletic shoe store in the mall. Knowing Tyler, he was trying on every pair there. I needed to go rescue Michael.

I headed toward the store, passing an Ender grandmother leaning on the arm of a pretty Starter, probably her granddaughter.

She’s easy on the eyes.

I stopped.

It was that artificial, electronic voice in my head, and it set my teeth on edge.

The Old Man.

Hello, Callie. Did you miss me?

“No. Not a bit.” I struggled to make my voice sound even. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Clever.

I then remembered he could see through my eyes. I put my hands behind my back so he couldn’t see that they were shaking.

I don’t buy that at all. I’m sure you thought about me every day. Every hour. Every minute.

“It’s all about you, is it?” I really wanted to scream at him, but the guards would think I was crazy.

I eyed the guards. Were they staring at me because I was talking to myself? No, I could be talking into an earpiece. Maybe they had picked up on my nervousness. Not that they could do anything to help me.

“What do you want?”

I want your full attention. And you will want to give it to me.

A chill ran through my body.

Look to your left and tell me what you see.

“Shops.”

Keep looking.

I turned to my left. “Just . . . a chocolate shop, a jeweler, a shop that’s closed.”

You’re not looking hard enough. What else?

I took a few steps. “Shoppers. Enders, some with grandchildren, some Starters . . .”

Yes. Starters. Keep looking.

My eyes scanned the area. He wants me to find some Starter?

“Is this a game of hot and cold?”

More like hot and hot. Only you’ll soon see it is no game.

I stood in the middle of the mall as Starters and Enders had to move around me. He wanted me to see a Starter. There were plenty of them . . . but which one? Then I saw a girl with long red hair. I knew her.

Reece.

She was the donor my guardian, Lauren, had rented to search for her grandson. I remembered Reece as a friend, but of course that was actually Lauren. The real Reece wouldn’t know me. But there was so much I could tell her.

“Reece,” I called out.

She looked as pretty as ever, in a short print dress and silver pumps with little heels. I dodged the shoppers to get closer to her. She was about ten feet ahead of me when she stopped and turned.

“I’m Callie,” I said as shoppers weaved between us. “You don’t know me. But I know you.”

She gave me the strangest look, an expression I’d never seen on her. The corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile, but it wasn’t a fluid move. It was more—mechanical.

Something was wrong.

She quickly turned and walked off.

“Wait,” I called out.

But she kept going. An Ender walked behind her. I wouldn’t have noticed him, but he had a large silvery tattoo on the side of his neck. The head of some animal. I could barely make it out. A leopard, maybe.

“It was Reece, wasn’t it? You wanted me to see her?”

I can always count on you, Callie.

Did Reece know the leopard-tattooed Ender was following her? I wasn’t sure. She darted into a shop. He moved to the next one and pretended to be interested in the pearl chokers in the window.

I took a step toward the shop.

No. Leave her alone.

She came out moments later and the leopard-tattooed man resumed following her. I kept walking, staying behind, watching them both.

“She’s in danger,” I said to the Old Man.

You’ll see.

A horrible sense of dread washed over me. “Is somebody inside her?”

The body bank had been destroyed. But the Old Man was accessing me. He could have someone inside Reece’s body as well. The idea was putting my stomach in knots. His electronic voice. The leopard tattoo. Reece’s body being used.

I saw the shoe store ahead, past Reece. Tyler and Michael were just entering it.

“Michael!” I shouted across the mall, hoping he could hear me over the shoppers and the music. He was maybe six or seven shops away. He stopped and looked around but didn’t see me. He went inside.

Reece must have heard, though, because she turned and stared at me. I didn’t mean for that to happen. That gave the tattooed man a chance to catch up to her. He said something in her ear, and she shook her head with an unnatural movement. He touched her arm and she—or whoever was inside her—pulled it away.

“What’s going on?” I was frozen there, struggling to solve this dark puzzle. “Tell me.”

Just because you destroyed Prime doesn’t mean you destroyed me. It wasn’t my only facility. I can still access any chip.

Reece backed away from the man and ran toward the shoe store.

And I can turn it into a weapon.

“No,” I said to him, to myself, to anyone around.

Time stopped as I held my breath. It all happened so fast. The crowd around me became a frozen blur as I started to run toward the shop. It felt like running through water—I couldn’t move fast enough.

I was two doors away when, like a bullet, a dark-haired Starter wearing a puffy metallic airjacket came at me. I just got a flash of his face—strong jaw, piercing eyes. He threw himself against me, wrapped his arms around my body, and dragged me backward as fast as he could.

Before I could react, there was a horrible, heart-splitting explosion. It came from where Reece had been standing. As we went sailing through the air, I could only see a blinding white flash.

image

CHAPTER TWO

Pieces of glass and metal rained down from above, bounced up from below. I was on my back with the Starter squatting over me, acting as a shield, protecting me. I closed my eyes and crossed my arms to cover my face. Some Ender cried out that she’d been hit.

Screams of pain and fear came from all directions, and I couldn’t say for sure that one didn’t come from me. It felt like it lasted forever, but it was probably only seconds.

Finally, the horrible crashing and clanging from the explosion ended. The mall went silent for a moment, as if everyone was still holding their breath. Then, in a group exhale, the noise began again, somewhat muffled. It came to me in ghostly echoes. Enders moaned from their injuries; Starters sobbed. Some called out hopelessly for their mothers and fathers, who, of course, were long gone, from the spores.

I opened my eyes. The Starter who’d been protecting me leaned in, examining my face.

“You’re all right,” he said. He turned his head to look at something else. “The marshals are coming.” He was on his feet.

“Wait.” I started to sit up.

“You’ll see me again.”

By the time I got to my feet, he was already gone. I shook pieces of glass from my clothes.

Blood marked the backs of my hands. How could this happen? How did the Old Man turn the chip into a bomb?

Tyler. Michael.

No! Please.

I oriented myself and spotted the shoe store right by the worst of the wreckage. I began to run but stumbled on the debris. I worked my way to the front of the store, where a guard had just finished covering what was left of Reece’s body with his coat. One of her shoes—those heels I had just admired—lay on the floor, bits of glass littered across it, as if Cinderella’s slipper had shattered.

My own shoes crunched as I made my way inside the store. People sat on the benches meant for trying on shoes. The injured held handkerchiefs, paper towels, and even store socks—tags still on—pressed to their heads, faces, and arms.

Then I spotted Michael behind a display counter in the rear of the store, looking down, his head hanging low. I ran through the store to get to him.

“Michael!”

He looked up at me with an expression of relief. “Callie.”

“Where’s Tyler?” I screamed.

Tyler stood, revealing himself from behind the counter. A few scratches, but fine. I came around and hugged him to me.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It was an explosion,” I said quietly.

“But why?” Tyler asked.

I could see the confusion in his eyes. He might be all right physically, but this would leave another scar inside.

“I wish I knew,” I said.

images

Hours later, marshals had blocked off the shoe store and turned the space outside it into an interrogation area. Marshal detectives, wearing suits instead of uniforms, borrowed tables and chairs from the fancy shops and created stations set far enough apart that witnesses couldn’t hear each other. Tyler and I stood in line waiting our turn. I had my hands on his shoulders, keeping him close to me. We were up next. Should I reveal what I knew? What would they do with me if I told them I could hear voices in my head? Would they believe me? Or think I was crazy?

A Starter finished her interrogation and left one of the tables. A marshal nodded to us and motioned for Tyler to take her place. He walked to that table while I went to the next empty station and sat in the chair, facing a detective. Even sitting, he towered over me. He was a muscled Ender maybe a hundred years old, with a tan and a full head of white hair. I noticed his gun, but it was the sight of his ZipTaser that made me tense.

“Name?” he asked.

“Callie Woodland.”

His palm-sized airscreen recorded my voice as I spoke. I could see the words in reverse, spelled out in the display.

“Age?”

“Sixteen.”

“Grandparents?”

I shook my head. I explained that Lauren had recently become my legal guardian so I wouldn’t be considered an unclaimed, and gave him my address and phone number.

“What were you doing in the mall?” he asked.

“Going to meet my brother, Tyler, to get shoes.”

“Is he here?”

I nodded. He pointed at the airscreen display.

“Please state it verbally,” he said.

“Yes, he’s being questioned at that other table.”

I scratched the back of my head and then realized what I was doing. I stopped. The detective looked at me—had he noticed? I tucked my hand under my leg.

“Tell me what you saw,” he asked.

I inhaled. I had practiced this while in line. But would I get it straight?

“I saw a girl walking in the mall.”

“Can you describe her?”

“She had long red hair, was about five four, beautiful. . . .”

My eyes filled with tears. I tried to fight them. I didn’t want him to guess I’d known her.

He squinted at me. “It’s all right. Tell me when you’re ready to go on.”

I nodded. “I’m okay.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Um, a green print dress. And silver shoes.” My voice cracked.

Our eyes met. I hesitated.

“And . . .?”

“She was acting strange.”

“How?”

Don’t say anything.

I became alert. The detective looked up from the airscreen.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

You know what I can do now, Callie. Understand?

I nodded.

“Can you continue?” the detective asked.

“The girl seemed nervous. She was looking around.”

His eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“She stood in front of the shoe store. All of a sudden, there was an explosion. I closed my eyes. And—and then I saw she was dead. She must have had the bomb on her.” My voice broke as the pain of the awful memory returned.

He looked at me. His expression softened and he seemed sympathetic. I almost wanted to tell him the truth. But I didn’t dare.

“That’s all I know,” I said.

He detained me a while longer. I saw Tyler stand. Michael escorted him in the direction of the long walk to the mall exit.

images

By the time I left the interrogation, the Old Man had left me. I knew because I heard the vacuum, the total silence whenever he disconnected. I guessed he had to talk to his minions, maybe whoever had controlled poor Reece. I was thankful he had any reason at all not to be with me.

I walked like a ghost through the empty mall. I remembered what my Ender friend Redmond, Helena’s tech guy, had told me. He’d predicted that the chips in our heads might act like bombs and explode.

Poor Reece. How had the Old Man done it? Why? To prove that we could demolish Prime but not him? Or just to terrorize me?

My stomach tightened. I really hated this chip—this thing—in my head. I was not going to let one creepy Ender control me for the rest of my life.

Big words, trembling hands.

I felt unsteady. I stepped into an alcove near a service door and took a few deep breaths. I couldn’t get the image of Reece and her shoe out of my mind. Was there anything I could have done to save her? I wrapped my arms around my belly to calm myself down, hold it in, pull myself together.

I looked back. I was far enough from the disaster site that no one would notice me. I pulled out my phone and called Senator Bohn. I made an effort to sound calm and rational. I was pretty sure I succeeded at rational.

The senator had helped me take down Prime Destinations. He was one of the few people who knew the whole story and had the connections to do something about it. I explained what had happened. He had been trying to locate the Old Man, without any success. I explained that the bombing was his doing.

“I have an idea how we might track him down,” I said, describing my plan.

Senator Bohn listened. After a moment he said, “Callie, let me see what I can do. We’re going to need a special search warrant. If I pull favors, I might have it in a couple of hours.”

After we hung up, I called my guardian, Lauren, and filled her in. And then there was something else I had to do. I was going to have to break a promise.

Michael and Tyler were waiting for me at the mall exit. I saw through the glass doors that marshals were stationed outside to bar anyone from entering. We paused there, still inside, all of us looking a mess.

“How did it go?” I asked them.

Michael threw his hands up in the air. “We told them what little we knew.”

“A big explosion.” Tyler followed by putting his arms up too, and spreading them to shape a huge ball.

I couldn’t help but hug him. “You’re squishing my nose,” he said with a muffled voice.

He was handling it much better than I’d expected. Maybe living on the streets had actually toughened him. I let go and turned to Michael.

“Can you take Tyler home and help him clean up?” I asked.

Michael cocked his head. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to wash up in the restroom. Then I have something to do.”

Michael didn’t look happy. “Come on, Tyler, let’s go. She’ll catch up to us later.”

I took both of them into my arms in a group hug. Michael felt warm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” he said close to my ear.

I turned to look at him. “Thank you.” I rubbed his back, gave Tyler a kiss on the cheek, and then let them go.

As they left, I sighed, grateful to have Michael to watch over my brother. Then I took out my phone and stared at the Zings from Blake.

images

As I drove over to meet Blake, my vision started to get hazy. I knew what was next because this had happened before, recently. I pulled over to the curb.

I was reliving a memory of Helena’s, as if it were my own. This was some aftereffect of the transposition—the mind-body transfer process.

It played in my mind the way one of my own memories would. I could see it happening, and I could feel Helena’s feelings. She walks into Prime for the first time. Everyone smiles at her: the receptionists, Mr. Tinnenbaum, and then the Old Man. Her thoughts become mine, but it is not like I hear her voice; no, I actually feel her desperation. How these people stole Emma from me, ripped her away and lasered her and cut into her flesh and changed her. How, because of them, she’s lost. Gone. Disappeared. And probably dead.

I felt Helena’s emptiness. How deeply lonely she was. Like most memories, it was short and then it was gone. But it passed through me like an emotional wave, and the sadness lasted for most of the drive. Why was this happening? And was I the only donor experiencing these strange souvenirs of our mind-body transfers?

I’d picked Beverly Glen Park to meet Blake. When I saw him waiting for me, sitting on top of a picnic table, my heart skipped a beat.

Seeing him with the setting sun backlighting his hair, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the time we had met there before. Only then, it was really the Old Man inside Blake’s body. I’d picked this place because it was close by and there was a private guard to protect us. But maybe there was another, subconscious reason I’d picked the same park.

I continued walking, watching him all the way. He leaned his elbows on his thighs, his hands clasped, just like I remembered. But I had to remind myself this wasn’t the person I’d been with then. This was the real Blake, Senator Harrison’s grandson, who thought he had been sick, who knew nothing of the body bank, whose only clue that we once had a relationship was a photo on his phone of us together.

He held out his hand to help me onto the tabletop.

“Glad you came,” he said.

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t have long.”

“Why not?”

“I’m waiting for an important Zing.” I knew that sounded lame. “But I came because there’s something I have to tell you.”

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. You know everything about us. I know zip.”

“That’s not important now.”

“It’s important to me.” He pulled out his phone. “So what about this picture of us?”

He showed me the happy image of the two of us, arms around each other. But it was a lie. It was really the Old Man.

It hurt to look at it.

“What were we doing?” he asked. “I mean, that day?”

“Riding horses.”

“At my grandfather’s ranch?”

“Yes.” I hated thinking back on that day. At the time, I’d thought it was one of the best days of my life.

“Looks like we had a pretty good time.”

I sighed. “We did.”

His eyes met mine. “What else did we do?”

“We went to the music center and to a drive-in restaurant. We watched the sunset.”

I didn’t fill in the details that I saw in my mind’s eye: How we’d watched the sun set over the mountains, our horses side by side, shuffling their hooves. How he’d handed me that spotted orchid, the first flower any boy had ever given me. Reliving those memories hurt. Not because they were gone, but because they never really existed. Not with him, anyway.

“No, I mean, did we do anything else?” He stretched his neck as if his collar was too tight. “Anything . . . more?”

“No. We just kissed.”

At the time, it wasn’t “just” a kiss to me. But he didn’t need to know that.

“I wish I could remember that,” he said.

“I wish you could too.”

He hesitated for a moment, as if he was trying to see if I meant what I’d said. Then he leaned forward, tentatively, his eyes searching for clues every step of the way.

I leaned closer until our faces were almost touching. He smelled wonderfully woodsy and grassy, same as before.

We kissed. It was . . . not like before.

It started out the same, the smoothness of his lips, the smell of his skin. But the spark I had once felt, that sweet electricity, was gone. It was only in my memory. I tried again. Maybe it was there, and I just wasn’t being sensitive enough. Maybe it was me. Maybe I was nervous.

Relax. Find it.

But I stopped. Pulled back.

No.

It wasn’t.

He pulled away too and looked off in the distance. We sat back, side by side, not touching each other. He ran his hand through his hair. I looked at my phone. No Zing yet.

“You seem eager to go,” he said, looking resigned.

“No, sorry, it’s really important.” I put the phone down.

“So what did you want to tell me?” he asked.

I turned to him. Finally, I could do what I came to do. “You’re in danger. We both are.”

“What?” He looked at me as if I’d said the world was flat.

I needed to start with something he already knew. “You’ve heard the news about the bombing at the mall?”

He frowned. “Bombing? They just said it was an explosion on the news. A gas leak.”

“It was a bombing. And it could have been you or me who got killed.”

He leaned away from me. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince him.