Tether (11 page)

“How did you do that?”

“There’s an emergency latch release on the inside of the band,” he explained, shoving the anchor into his pocket. “You just need something thin and strong enough to trip it. It deactivates when you remove it.”

I rubbed my wrist, happy to be rid of that thing. “Now you tell me.”

He gave a low chuckle, sliding his hands up my arms. I shivered in spite of the heat that hung in the air between us. “Now when you run, they won’t be able to track you.”

“I’m afraid to go,” I confessed. All the time I’d spent in Aurora, I’d been in the care of someone else. Even when I’d escaped from the Castle, I’d been with Callum. “I don’t know this world. I don’t even know where Juliana is.”

“Juliana?”

“I need to find her. I have to break the tether before it breaks me.” I told him about the visions, how they were becoming more and more frequent, blurring the edges of my reality. The fact that Selene could read my mind and push her own thoughts and memories into my head was further proof that the tether was dangerous. But for the first time since Dr. March planted the idea in my head, I felt that breaking the bond connecting me to my analogs was possible. I only wished that I knew how to actually do it.

Thomas cupped my face in his hands. “You’re brave, Sasha Lawson. And you’re smart as hell. If you want some advice, here it is: trust your gut, and don’t let fear get the best of you.”

“Is that in the KES training manual?” I joked.

“You bet it is.” He smiled. “Lesson one.”

“And Selene? You said yourself you don’t trust her. I’m not sure I do, either.” Reason told me I shouldn’t, but everything I felt through the tether insisted I could. It was difficult to decide which part of myself to listen to.

“She clearly has powers neither of us understands. And she’s the only person I’ve ever seen who’s capable of unnerving the General. That makes her an ally worth having, at least for now.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll find you. I promise. I’ll always find you if you want to be found. But first we have to make sure you get as big of a head start on the KES as possible.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t know how Selene plans to break you out of the Labyrinth, but when you’ve gotten past the fence, you need to head to the river.”

“The river. Got it.”

“Keep off the roads as much as possible and out of sight of the Hudson. It’s a heavily wooded area, so stay under cover of the trees, but make sure you can always hear the water on your left-hand side. About ten miles downriver there’s a town called Almond,” Thomas said. “It has a train station, but there’s only one train a day, so you have to make sure to get there by ten-fifty-one a.m. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll figure out how we’re going to track Juliana down. Together.”

I smiled. “Feels kind of like old times, us doing things together.”

“We make a pretty good team, you and I.” He bent to kiss me. I felt like a house with all its lights on, bright and safe in the warm glow of home.

Staying awake that night wasn’t a problem—I was so wired from being with Thomas and so nervous about what would happen when Selene came for me, I couldn’t have slept if I’d wanted to. Every time I heard the slightest noise, I thought it was Selene, and my heart leapt into my throat. But when minutes had become hours and it seemed impossible that it was still night, all the lights in my room suddenly turned off, and I knew that it was time.

I waited in darkness, and the faint sound of people shouting from far away was the only thing I could hear. I thought of what Selene had said about listening, how it was a form of meditation. I sat down on the bed, closed my eyes, and attempted to do something I hadn’t done since the last time I was in Aurora: tune in to one of my analogs and see through her eyes.

Where are you?
I asked. I wasn’t even sure she would be able to hear me.

I’m on my way.
Selene’s presence burned bright green along the tether, and I slipped into her mind. Her pulse raced as she ran along the empty pitch-black corridors, navigating as if she had a map of the entire compound in her brain. But she wasn’t
solving the Labyrinth; she was following the string, the path along the tether that would lead her to me. Voices echoed off the metal walls, but she never hesitated, never looked back, and then she was at my door. She pressed her hand against the LCD panel, and it exploded with light like a Fourth of July sparkler. The door slid open, and she saw me on the bed, my face illuminated by the glow of my hands.

My eyes flew open.

“What the—” I cried as Selene hauled me to my feet.

“It’s the power, Sasha,” Selene said. “Look!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your hands,” she said. The light was fading, but I could
feel
it surging through me, crackling in my fingertips like electricity. “I can do it, too. That’s how I took down all the lights in this part of the Labyrinth, but it won’t last forever. Their backup generator will kick in any moment. We have to go
now
.”

She dragged me into the hallway, pausing to get her bearings before choosing the hallway to our left. As we hurried down the curving corridor, Selene trailed her fingers along the wall, running them over the rivets as if she were reading Braille.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

This place really is a labyrinth,
Selene explained.
The rivets guide you to the center. They get closer to each other the farther inward you go.
She stopped in front of a blank wall.

“There’s nothing here,” I said.

“Yes, there is.” She stepped forward, and the wall slid open to reveal a staircase. “There are doors everywhere. You just have to know how to find them.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked as we ran down four flights of stairs.

“My people have been coming to this world for years, doing reconnaissance. Several of them managed to infiltrate this compound and report back on its secrets.”

So that was the source of the undocumented disruptions on the Angel Eyes map. Maybe the General was right: maybe the people from Selene’s world
were
trying to invade. I paused on the landing.

“You lied to me,” I said. She froze and looked up at me from the landing below. “You said you meant Aurora no harm, but if that’s true, why have your people been coming here for
years
and bringing back information?”

Selene hesitated. “I don’t know. They found the doors between Taiga and Aurora decades ago by accident. I can only assume they were curious. Wouldn’t you be?”

“You’re hiding something.” But how could she be, when we could see into each other’s minds? I searched the tether for a sign she was being untruthful, but I couldn’t find one.

“Whether or not that’s true, which it isn’t, you can’t stay here,” Selene insisted. “This is your chance to escape. You won’t get another, I promise you. I’ll explain when there’s more time. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but if you don’t come with me now, you’ll be trapped here, and you’ll have no answers. All you’ll be left with is regrets.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s an absolute certainty. Now, are you coming or not?”

I heard the sound of doors slamming and heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Please, Sasha,” Selene begged. “Just trust me.”

The part of my brain that was too rational for things like destiny or gut feelings screamed at me to run away, that Selene was suspect and dangerous. But something about the way the tether trembled told me she was being sincere. Finally, my self-preservation instincts kicked in, and I followed Selene down the last dark flight of stairs.

“It’s this way.” Selene pointed down a narrow hallway. We were on the basement level of the Labyrinth; the floors and
walls were concrete, and the ceilings were low. Pipes hung above our head, so close I could touch them. We made our way through a series of twists and turns, guided only by Selene’s intuition. I could still feel the power—whatever the hell it was—crashing through me in waves.

“Where are we going?” It seemed like the last thing we’d want to do was journey deeper into the Labyrinth.

“There’s an access to a secret tunnel down here somewhere.” Selene peered around an enormous cage. “It leads to a guardhouse on the opposite side of the fence that surrounds this place.”

“A guardhouse? I thought we were trying not to get caught.”

“It was decommissioned a long time ago, when they moved the front entrance to the opposite side of the building,” Selene said. I stared at her. “Our scouts were very thorough.”

“And here I thought I couldn’t trust you less.”

“You trust me more than you’ve ever trusted anybody,” Selene said. “Except maybe that boy you came here to find. Thomas. That’s his name, right?”

“Stay out of my head!”

“Don’t you understand?” Selene asked. “The bond that connects us is what’s going to keep us alive. We can see into each other’s minds for a reason. We can read each other’s thoughts, communicate with each other across infinite space, and unleash a kind of power that has never been seen before, all because we have a
destiny,
Sasha. You might not like it, but today, and for many days to come, we’re going to need it.”

“What destiny?” Was she saying that because she knew it was what I wanted to hear or because she believed it?

“I said I would explain everything when we had more time, and I will. But right now we have to keep going.” Selene’s
head snapped up. “They’re coming. They’re very, very close. Quick, over here.”

Selene pulled me into a niche on the other side of the wire cage. We crammed together in the narrow space, clutching each other. A group of KES agents thundered by, toting flashlights and assault rifles. The group’s leader, a petite Asian girl about Thomas’s age, swung her flashlight in a circle. I held my breath as the beam of light swept my face. The girl stared at us, eyes wide, frozen in her tracks.

“You find something?” a voice called from down the passageway.

“Nothing,” she said, after a long pause. I thought I was going to pass out. The girl lifted a finger to her lips and looked me straight in the eye before turning and heading in the opposite direction. “This way.” The group moved on, and I sighed in relief.

Who was that?
But Selene shook her head.

I have no idea,
she said.
There’s still someone here. Don’t make a sound.

A second later, the beam of a second flashlight blinded me. I covered my face, and a hand closed around my wrist, yanking me out into the open. Thomas let out a long, deep breath. “That was really close. Adele almost saw you.”

“She did see us,” I told him. “But she didn’t say anything. Who is she, Thomas?”

“A friend of mine,” he said, but he couldn’t explain why this friend of his let us go any more than we could. An ill-timed, ridiculous lightning bolt of jealousy shot through me. What kind of friend? “What are you two still doing here?”

“We’re looking for the tunnel to the empty guardhouse,” Selene told him. “Do you know where it is?”

“Just around that corner,” Thomas said, pointing left at the
intersection of two perpendicular hallways. She started off in that direction, but he grabbed her. “Not so fast. That’s the way the rest of the agents went. You need a distraction.” He surveyed Selene. “And a change of clothes.”

“Why?” she asked, genuinely befuddled. It was stupid—crazy—but I wondered if Thomas felt anything when he looked at her.
Of course not,
I scolded myself. Thomas knew better than anyone else how different two analogs could be. After all, he hadn’t fallen for Juliana. He’d fallen for me.

“You’re going to stick out in that dress,” I explained. “But where are we going to get her something different to wear?”

“I have an idea. Stay here. Don’t move.” He disappeared into the darkness. Selene and I huddled together in the shadows as best we could, trying to stay out of sight. Just when I feared that Thomas wasn’t coming back, he reappeared with a stack of black fabric in his arms.

“I took these from the laundry. We all wear the same thing here—black on black on black.” His gaze slid over to me. “I got some for you, too. If you look like KES recruits, people might not notice you.” He didn’t seem convinced, but it was worth a shot.

“Good call,” I said, reaching for the clothes. He turned around to give us some privacy. This wasn’t the moment to get all shy about stripping three feet away from him, but I felt a blush rise up in my cheeks anyway.

“Now? We don’t have time for this!” Selene protested as I shucked off my jeans and T-shirt and pulled on a pair of tight black pants and a long-sleeved shirt from the pile.

“You’ll thank me when you don’t get caught off an anonymous tip from someone who saw the princess of the UCC on a train platform wearing a dress that belongs in a museum,” Thomas pointed out. I put a hand on his arm and felt his muscles
relax. He gave me a weak smile, and I returned it, but I was worried: reconnaissance or not, Selene couldn’t know anywhere near as much as she needed to about Aurora, and I was starting to wonder just how different her world was, from Aurora and from my own.