Chapter Thirty-Six: Practice

Kissing Quin was like standing on the edge of a soaring precipice, watching pebbles roll and plummet to their death below, only blue sky between me and the ground. Falling felt inevitable, a welcome but fatal exhilaration.

I was most aware of his hands. One was tangled in my hair, holding my head tightly. The other travelled urgently around my waist and up my spine. Quin's hands seemed to have their own life, and it was one of pressing need, eliminating any separation between our bodies. For the first time in my life, I wondered if it was possible to die of bliss. I could understand why Max's mother had become addicted to Euphoractamine. If I could have bottled this, whatever this feeling was, I would have ached for it in its absence.

Quin brushed his lips against my cheek and buried his face in my hair.

"Practice," he teased.

I laughed, and I could feel his smile against my neck. Quin released me, his face suddenly shy. My body felt instantly cold in the space between us.

"So what now, Ms. Knightley?" Quin's voice was light and playful.

"Well, you're not the only one with a story to tell," I replied. "Your leaving caused quite a stir."

"I would imagine," he said, grinning.

I told Quin about everything that had happened since I had awakened to find him gone—Augustus' early morning meeting and lies to the Resistance, my encounter with the Council, and my escape. I conveniently omitted my panic attack. In part, because I knew Quin would shoulder the blame, and I didn't want him to have anything else to hold over himself. The other part was me. I didn't want to admit I had lost control, that my fear had temporarily taken my body as a helpless hostage.

"There's one more thing," I added. "Max and Elana are coming too. They're meeting us at the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise."

Quin didn't seem surprised, his thoughts focused elsewhere. "And where exactly are we going?" He looked at me, uncertainly.

"There's only one place left to go." I felt a tug of longing, before I even said it. "Home."

Quin didn't respond, but I watched his face change. He was slowly rebuilding his walls.

"My mother will know what to do," I said, lending my voice more confidence than I felt.

Quin sat down, leaning up against the wall. He patted Artos' head absentmindedly. "Okay," he said, but I knew that it wasn't.

I sat down next to him. "What's wrong?" I asked, touching his shoulder.

He shrugged off my hand and looked straight ahead, avoiding my eyes. His face was as impenetrable as steel.

"What happened to my mom was my fault." He said it evenly as if it was a fact he had learned in school—one not open for debate. "Your mom knows that. How can I even look at her?"

"Quin, your father murdered your mother. You were only six. How can that possibly be your fault?"

"I knew what my dad was like," Quin began. "I had seen him hit her before, throw her around like a rag doll. That day, she told me to watch Colton and play on the floor close to her. I didn't listen. I never listened. And now, the things I've done . . . I'm just like him." Quin's voice cracked. He lowered his head, resting it between his knees. I put my hand on his back, rubbing it gently.

"Don't try to make me feel better, Lex," his voice the pained growl of a wounded animal.

I took my hand away and said nothing for a long time. Artos settled in the space between us, laying his head on my lap. I watched Quin's shoulders move up and down. Though he made no sound and I couldn't see his face, I knew he was crying. Words from his Guardian file ran through my head: The minors were unharmed. What happened to Quin didn't leave a visible scar. It burned from the inside.

I spoke softly, fingering the locket around my neck, "Sometimes, I think it was my fault that my dad left." I had never said it aloud before, but I couldn't remember a time I hadn't thought it. "He just disappeared, like my mom and I never existed. It's hard to believe he ever really loved me."

After I finished, Quin took a breath and looked up. His face was wet, his eyes red. "How could he not?" he asked.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Test

The sun was newly born, just beginning its slow ascent over the horizon. It was a clear day, the Golden Gate's burnt-red cables cutting through the pinkish blue of morning. Gulls screamed at us from overhead, and I shivered, though the air was warm. Their cries sounded like a warning. Quin stood outside the tollbooth, out of view of a nearby camera, pacing nervously, while Artos chased mice in and out of the booths.

"Where are they?" he asked, a discernible edge in his voice. "We don't have long before there's another helicopter patrol."

As Quin spoke, I heard the rumble of an engine and saw two oversized military vehicles approaching the bridge from San Francisco. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could utter a sound, Quin pulled me inside the tollbooth and down to the ground. Artos bounded inside after us, his teeth clamped on the tail of a portly rat. Quin tapped Artos' head, and he dropped his catch. I watched as it scuttled across the floor and out of the door.

"Quiet," Quin instructed calmly. I was comforted by his arms around me. They were familiar to me now. I had spent the night like this memorizing the crook of his elbow, the three freckles on his forearm, the inked edges of his Guardian tattoo. I could feel his breathing, slow and controlled.

From the floor of the booth, we could see nothing. But after a minute or so, the engine noise roared past us and stopped abruptly. Doors slammed, and I heard the sound of boots marching. Then a shrill voice cut the air like the blade of an axe.

"Guardian Recruits, take your assigned positions."

There was more marching, followed by the click-clacking of metal against metal. Minutes passed as I watched the second hand on Quin's wristwatch make several rounds.

Quin whispered, "It's a test."

I had to look. I couldn't help it. I loosened myself from Quin's grasp and raised my head slightly. He didn't protest, but pulled me back to him when I gasped.

I had seen at least ten recruits arranged in a line atop the bridge's outer railing. They wore harnesses around their ankles attached to bungee cords. Their hands were bound with thick rope behind their backs. On the bridge, overseeing them was a small but ferocious man, balding with a thick beard.

"Guardian Recruit Legacy 152, jump!"

"Guardian Recruit Greenhorn 341, jump!"

"Guardian Recruit Greenhorn 533, jump!"

One by one, I imagined the recruits jumping without a sound from the bridge, yo-yoing above the ocean some two hundred feet below.

"Guardian Recruit, Greenhorn 558, jump!"

Ten seconds later, the voice spoke again, "Greenhorn 558, do you have a problem following instructions?"

"No, sir," a man's voice replied with a surprising, subtle crackling of fear. I had assumed the Guardian recruits were given Emovere prior to this test, which would explain their post-jump silence.

"Good. Then you have exactly five seconds to jump. Count it down for me, Greenhorn."

Quin mouthed a name against my ear. "Ryker."

"Five." The jumper's voice feigned confidence. Perhaps he was thinking he could muster the courage after all.

"Four." There was a hint of doubt. I wondered if he was looking down into the frigid water below.

"Thr-ee." His voice shook slightly, breaking in the middle of the word.

"Two." Now he was whispering. He wasn't going to make the jump, and he knew it.

"One." There was complete silence. Maybe I had been wrong.

For the next five minutes, I heard constant movement outside. There were muted, purposeful voices. Among them was neither General Ryker nor the jumper.

"What happens now?" I whispered to Quin.

"There's a boat waiting for them. Someone unties and unclips them, and a doctor takes their vital signs. It's supposed to tell them how well the Emovere is working."

Quin had obviously done this before, probably many times. I shuddered, imagining him stepping off the bridge into nothing.

After several slamming doors, the engines roared to life again, but remained idling.

"General Ryker, I'm sorry, sir. Please, sir." It was the jumper's voice, Greenhorn 558.

Once again, I lifted my head, peering out at them. General Ryker was conferencing with another man, purposefully ignoring his recruit. Though the jumper was too far away for me to see his expression, his shoulders were slumped and his head lowered. In silence, General Ryker walked over to Greenhorn 558. He calmly swung his feet over the ledge so that he was standing alongside him.

"Greenhorn 558, this is your third failure to complete the jump test. You are dismissed from the Guardian Force." There was a harsh finality in his voice.

I tapped Quin, urging him to look, but he shook his head. I knew whatever was coming was bad.

General Ryker turned away for a moment. I hoped he would unclip the jumper, untie his hands, and help him climb back over the railing. But he didn't. Instead, with all of his strength, he pushed Greenhorn 558 from the bridge. I imagined that he bounced up and down, up and down, up and down, until he was hanging like a spider from a thread.

General Ryker effortlessly scaled the railing and returned to his vehicle, moving with a quiet satisfaction. Once inside the passenger seat, he reached his arm out the window, giving the roof several deliberate taps, signaling their departure.

I sat back down in the booth, exhaling. How long had I been holding my breath? Quin didn't speak. He didn't have to. I knew that, like me, he was imagining Greenhorn 558, swinging below us, his hands useless, his eyes likely fixed on the water in a state of despair, knowing better than to hope for a rescue that would never come.

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