“I told him you deceived me and seduced Xavier into helping you, but I don’t know if he believes that. Either way, he’s not happy that I let you into Silver Elite. He thinks I compromised Company intelligence.”
I tip my face toward the shower spray so I can pretend it’s soaked with water and not tears. I hate the thought of Cross all alone in the city without any backup.
I hesitate, not sure how much more I should tell him, but it feels wrong keeping secrets from him, so I blurt out the confession.
“Kaine is alive.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope. He was working for the Uprising the entire time he was in Silver Block. He helped them the night the B-8 was stolen.”
I leave it at that, because while I trust Cross, I also feel oddly loyal to Grayson. Gray. Whatever the hell his name is.
Unless Cross fully comes aboard and works with the network, he doesn’t need to know that Kaine is Grayson Blake, the pilot who Silver Elite has been trying to compile intelligence on.
“That prick was playing us the entire time?”
“Hey, I was undercover, too,”I point out.“If you’re not mad at me, you can’t be mad at him.”
“I sure as fuck can.”
His indignant growl makes me smile. It’s crazy how much I already miss him, and we’ve only been apart a few days. My lips crave his, my hands tingling with the urge to run over his sculpted muscles, his tattoos, the strong line of his jaw.
“So Kaine is Modified?”Cross says, and I can practically see his shrewd military brain working over the implications.
“Yes, but I don’t know what abilities he has.”
My skin is turning beet red from the heat, so I twist off the faucet and open the glass door, stepping onto a black rubber mat. I find a fresh towel next to the sink and wrap myself in it before wiping the steam off the mirror. Gray also left out a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and a few other toiletries. My dead friend is a gentleman.
Silence stretches between us. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and find a pair of weary honey-brown eyes peering back at me.
“Why didn’t you come with me?”I can’t stop myself from saying.
“You know why. I have to protect my mother. And someone needs to keep my brothers in check. Travis just declared war.”
“Yes, and we’re on opposite sides of it when we should be on the same side,”I say in frustration.
“I couldn’t have gone with you even if I wanted to,”he replies, equally frustrated.“The Uprising would’ve killed me on sight. I’m General Redden’s son. They’re never going to trust me.”
“What if you offered them intel in exchange for asylum? You said Travis is rounding up all the known Mods in the wards. Is he killing them?”
“I think most of them are being sent to labor camps for now. And there’s no intel I can provide that will ever earn me their trust.”
“But what if they knew you were Modified?”
“Have you told them about me?”
His question triggers a jolt of shock.“Of course not. I would never do that. But I think if they knew—”
“It would only piss them off more,”he finishes.“I wouldn’t just be the enemy. They’ll call me a traitor to my people. No better than Jayde Valence or any of the other loyalist Mods.”
“But you’re not a loyalist,”I object.“What, you’re supposed to single-handedly topple a regime that pervades every aspect of society? Just you? You’re doing what you can to change the system from within. To save the lives you can.”
“Wren,”he says, his voice gruff,“do you honestly believe your Uprising will view it that way? Because we both know they’ll just declare I’m not doing enough. And then…they’ll kill me,”he reiterates.
I don’t want him to be right, but I fear he is.
“There’s one more thing…”I trail off, trying to unravel the inexplicable knot of shame I suddenly feel.“When Xavier and I were in the Blacklands, I found a letter from my uncle in our old hut. He said my parents were traitors to the Uprising. They got hundreds of Mods killed.”
