We walked for an hour in silence, dipping in and out of the swaying trees with their dancing shadows. We crossed an abandoned field of long-dead wheat before we darted across a cracked parking lot, only to meet another field. I hadn't even known the fields existed. They were tucked away between neighborhoods, once used for farming but now used for undocumented backyards. As much as I hated to admit it, Noah knew what he was doing, and he knew Topeka better than I did. By the way he paused at intersections, I had to bet that he even knew other ways to walk around the city undetected. Tonight, he picked the best one for his uniform's green color. If it weren't for the fact that he was wearing a uniform, we wouldn't have had to hide the entire time, but I was trying not to think about it. If I did, I would be too tempted to ask questions, and questions would only lead me to frustrated half-truths, so I bit my tongue and followed.
When we reached the edge of the tree line, he stuck his head out, exposing himself. He could've been caught, but he didn't ask for my help. In fact, he ignored it, and I ignored him. Noah was someone I wanted to hate but someone I had yet to gain the ability to hate. One second, he was an outlaw, and the next he morphed into the boy next door—quite literally. We didn't just have the same friends; he lived on the same street as them at some point.
The sudden sound gained my attention. The slight rumble of the road, the electric whir of a government car, the consistent squeak of a barely warped axle. I grabbed Noah's shoulder before he accidentally jumped out in front of it. "Wait," I hissed. Seconds later, the pearl-white sedan drove by in a slow crawl. How he hadn't heard it or seen the headlights was beyond me. When it passed, I let him go with a slight shove. "Be more careful." My reputation was on the line too.
He tipped his chin at me, as if me saving us both from handcuffs could be thanked with a simple gesture. "Who trained you?"
"Don't," I said, sharp.
Now was not the time to talk, if there ever was one. Especially when it came to my past.
Noah wasn't the only one with secrets.
On the outside, I may have looked like an average sixteen-year-old girl from a single-parent household—not unusual after the massacre—but my dad had taught me lessons the State never would've approved. How to use knives as a weapon, for one.
"I've seen you steal a car," Noah pointed out.
"So?" I wasn't about to talk about illegal activities with him, even though he had clearly seen how I had borrowed a government Jeep. If we had been caught, it was a felony. It was a one-way ticket to the lumberyards, but only because I was a minor. If I were a legal adult, it would've been straight to Phoenix, where the jails were kept.
"My mom trained me." He stuttered over the word "mom" as if he hadn't said it in a long time. I understood the feeling.
I wanted to say "Why're you telling me this?"but instead I marched out of the tree line to cross the street. Screw hiding. I could get home faster if I went alone. Only, Noah had other plans. He followed me.
"Why don't you leave me alone?" I asked, aggravated.
He sighed, dragging a hand through his not-blond-now-brown hair. "Because I know how painful it can be to know enough to askwhatbut not enough to ask why."
"Really?" Sarcasm laced my tone. "Because it seems you know everything."
"Except that you were going to attack me," he pointed out. "I didn't even see that coming with tomo." He chuckled like the entire incident was part of a comedy routine.
It made me reach toward my backpack strap, hard enough to swing it back around and grab my knife all over again. When Broden handed it to me, I took it as a sign. He still didn't want me to trust Noah, and I was mad at myself for even attempting to reason with the boy.
"Don't think I won't do it again," I threatened.
"I hope you do."
I glared at him through the darkness, but I felt like I was glaring at someone else entirely—Nate Harper, an innocent military student. "What's with your attitude?" I bit back.
His smile only grew. "Coming from you, that's an ironic question."
"Can you stop deflecting everything I ask you? Please?"
He stopped in his tracks, and I had to mirror him to look him in the eye. His brow creased, and for the first time, I noticed the slight sweat on his hairline. He was worn out. "I can do my best," he said after a moment, "but I honestly can't tell you everything. Not yet."
Yet. The word stuck out.
"I'll answer what I can." He kicked the ground, then strode forward, slowly this time. "So, ask what you want," he dared.
I knew I had to start small. That's how successful interrogations began. You had to build a bond first. Make them think you would only touch important topics, and then get them to invite you into their disaster.
"How did you get out anyway?" I asked, reaching out to pinch his sage coat. Only then did I realize I'd touched him. He didn't react. I slowly let go, but kept my eyes on where my hand had landed. The fabric was wrinkled, somehow the only disheveled inch. But it fit him. An ounce of imperfection on his practiced stance was the reason the coat suited him at all. Most people looked sickly in the greenish hue. In fact, if it weren't for the forest, I would've hated the color green. It represented everything in the State that I hated. The monopolization of lumber. Consolidated wealth. The fortress of funds. But it was also the trees in my backyard, my fortitude, my sanctuary.
"Starting small, aren't you?" he asked. "Getting out is easy. It's allowed. Getting back in after curfew—and before they notice your absence—is the hard part."
"So, how do you plan on getting back in?"
"I know someone."
"Who?"
He hesitated. "Tasia," he admitted a name. "She's one of the night watchers."
The information wasn't something I could take lightly. He had revealed a comrade, someone I could expose with a simple call to the police. He had told me something that could get another person killed, but the fear came from something else entirely. Tasia, whoever she was, had to be a government worker. It seemed like everyone was in on it somewhere.
"Does she know who you are?" I asked as my property appeared on the shadowy horizon. I'd recognize those crooked trees anywhere.
"Not exactly." Noah surveyed the same land where we met. "To some people, it doesn't matter who I am. It just matters what I'm doing."
"And what, exactly, are you doing?"
"I can't tell you that."
Somehow I wasn't surprised. Still, I couldn't help but cross my arms.
"But I will," he added.
My hope leapt. "When?"
"Once I get permission."
"From?"
"From someone I deeply respect." Annoyance danced across his features. "It wouldn't be my business to tell you without asking him first."
"Him?" I repeated, thinking of our mutual friends. "Broden doesn't care."
Noah tilted his head back and laughed toward the stars as they began to appear. "I respect Broden, but he isn't about to tell me what to do."
Whoever Noah needed permission from was not someone I knew.
"Who, then?" I pressed.
"We're going to have to end this lovely interrogation here," he said, stopping in his tracks. He pointed through the trees to the flickering lights my house gave off. Through an open window, I could see Lyn in the living room. "We're home."
My face heated. "This is my home."
His hand dropped to his side. "Has it always been?"
When I looked at him, his studious gaze sliced through me. A clue. He was laying out the answers for me, but he might as well have put a blanket over them. I glanced at the house I had spent half my life in, but didn't see anything but my present. Living in the Albany Region was too distant of a past to recall. I barely remembered my mother, but I found my hand on the necklace she had given me through Lyn.
"I've lived here for a long time," I said.
His gaze landed on my exposed neck. "How long?"
"Why's that your business?" I dropped my jewelry into my shirt. I didn't want him to see the only part of me I couldn't see for myself.
"I shared information that could get me arrested, " he pointed out. "What's wrong with you sharing information with me?"
Suspicion clutched my soul. Had he tricked me into an interrogation with the same method I was taught?I refused to cooperate.
My hip cocked to the side. "This isn't an exchange, Noah." If anything, it was a trap, and he had expected me to fall into it like last time. I wouldn't, nor would I wait for him to come up with a one-liner to stump me.
"Why did you have my address anyway?" The words slipped out, but it looked like I had slapped him as I said it.
His bottom lip hung open. "You read the paper."
The paper he had dropped was now safely tucked away in my desk, saved under two notebooks and a stack of notecards for history class. "Why wouldn't I?"
He glanced at my house. I fought the urge to grab his face and force him to look at me instead. "So, this is that address," he said it more as a statement than a question.
"I am standing right here," I said.
He turned back as if I had to remind him. "Listen, Sophie—"
"I hate that name." There was only one person on this planet that used it, and he wasn't allowed to be the second.
He flinched. "Just," he sighed. "Just listen to Broden for now, and everything will be okay in the future, and you'll know everything, and—"
"Stop talking to me like I'm a child," I snapped.
"I'm not," he defended quietly. "I talk to you like a comrade, someone who I trust to trust me."
I ignored his words. "Put it however you like, but I'm not falling for it."
Noah ignored my tone. "You can believe whatever you like, but you're already a part of this."
"I helped you once. That does not mean I'm a part of your mystery team," I argued. "You heard Broden. Keep me out of it." I spun on my heel to storm away, but he reached out and grabbed my arm. When I whipped around, he had his forearm up like he had expected me to hit him and was ready to block it. But I wasn't going to. Instead, his automatic expectation for violence made me freeze. What had he been through?
As if he realized what I was thinking, his expression dropped. He let me go. He rubbed his face before he spoke. "You really believe that you've only recently fallen into this?"
"What does that mean?"
"It means it doesn't matter what Broden or I or you think." His rushed voice teetered on the edge of desperation. "You're involved, and you have been since way before I came back into town. How can you not see that?"
"I don't take drugs." Too many people had died over tomo, and now I was seeing my friends fall into it. "That's you."
Noah's mouth hung open like he was preparing to yell at me, like he was going to expose everything, but his jaw snapped closed. Instead of responding, he resorted to his favorite gesture—he turned his back to me.
"I have my orders," he said as he dipped into a collection of trees. "You'll get yours soon."