Limitless

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Chapter 19 - Harmony

The boy must've thought I'd fallen asleep. But I see him get up and leave in the middle of the night, so I follow him. He goes to some kind of abandoned place and comes out as a totally different person. He's dressed up as a pizza delivery boy and I barely recognize him. He goes to Timothy Rich's house. He is one of the Elector's closest friends and is an extremely rich man, but he likes to live outside the Limit.

The boy reaches the house as and goes inside. The boy is a criminal? I can't believe it. I wait outside the house and the guard spots me and won't let me go, so I have to call Alec ad ask him to inform the soldiers who I am. But I don't want them to catch the boy. I want to know where he is going to go next.

After 15 minutes the boy comes back, the soldiers let him go through but I notice that he has changed. The latex covering on his face is now gone and his long hair is tucked under his shirt. I climb up to the rooftops and follow him from there.

He walks for a few minutes and reaches a narrow alley. I sit on top and look down at him. In a few seconds, a man appears with two more men behind him. The boy hands him the pizza bag and the man gives some kind of vial to the boy. And then I realize what it is. He is getting plague cures.

He heads off again and stops at the corner of Jackson and Allen. He enters a house with a plague level of 10 and reappears a few minutes later without the medicines. It's all I need to know.

I hide behind the chimney of the house I'm on top of now and turn my mike on. I'm so angry with myself that I can't stop my voice from shaking. I had let myself get carried away by the last person I ever wanted to like. That I ever wanted to ache for.

Maybe Hope didn't kill Raiden, I tell myself. Maybe it was someone else. God - am I making excuses to protect the boy now?

I've acted like an idiot in front of my brother's murderer. Have the streets outside the Limit turned me into a simpleminded girl?

'Alec,' I whisper. 'I found him.'

A full minute passes before I hear Alec answer me. When he does, his voice sounds kind of detached. 'Can you repeat that, Miss Hunt?'

My temper rises. 'I said I found him. Hope. He visited a house at the corner of Allen and Jackson.'

'Are you sure?'' He sounds more alert now. 'Are you absolutely sure?'

'Yes. No doubt about it.'

Some commotion on the other sides. His voice grows excited. 'Corner of Allen and Jackson. That's the level ten plague case. You sure its Hope?' He asks again.

'Yes.'

'We'll send the medic truck over tomorrow. We're sending the habitats to the Central Hospital.'

'Then send extra reinforcements. I want backup when Hope tries to save his family. He won't have time to get out so he'll probably hide them inside. We'll take them to Bataille Hall Hospital Wing for questioning. No one is to be harmed.'

Alec seems taken aback by my tone. 'Your troops will be there.' He manages to say. 'I just hope that it is Hope.'

The feel of Hope's lips against mine, the heated kiss, his hands running across my skin - it should all mean nothing to me now. Worse that nothing. 'It is Hope.'

I return to the alley before Hope finds out I'm missing.