Page 26 of The Ghost

“He explained about the tracker,” Clark said.

“I doubt you have one,” I offered.

“Just to be sure, I’m going to go to Med Lab,” she informed me.

I nodded. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

“Yeah,” she answered.

“If you do have one, what does that mean?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want to go off the rails, but it seems like they haven’t been able to track me this far. I mean, if they could, there were a whole lot of opportunities to grab me that they missed.”

“Lukas thinks he may have one as well,” I said.

“He told me that too,” she responded. “If they do exist, I think there’s more to them than a simple GPS.”

I didn’t know whether I liked the sound of that or not. I certainly didn’t want New Dawn to know where Clark was every minute of every day, but if she was right, and they weren’t designed for locating purposes, what other reason could there be for implanting a device in someone? The possibilities were endless, and none of them were appealing.

“What do you think about Ryan?” I asked suddenly. Since I was exploring all the negative aspects of our current situation, it seemed only right to bring him up. Though we’d sorted out a lot of things with our bodies just an hour ago, I wanted to have the conversation in words.

“I don’t know,” Clark responded, hugging herself. “I have to talk to him eventually.”

“Do you think it’s possible that it was all a cover?” I prodded.

“Our relationship, you mean?” she checked.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” I confirmed. I didn’t want to believe that someone so important to her could be so cold, but there was no getting around it. If he’d left her hanging for years while on official business, what other explanation could there be?

“I thought about it,” she admitted.

“And?”

“And I don’t know. It seemed pretty real while it was happening.”

I put my arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. “Then I’m sure it was real.”

She sniffed. “Thanks. But I’m not so sure.”

“Have you seen him since the cafeteria?” I wanted to know.

“No,” she said.

“Good,” I replied. “Maybe you can put off talking to him until after I’m back. Then we can do it together.”

“Maybe he’ll get killed on his mission,” she offered.

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“It was almost easier when I thought he was dead,” she answered, not quite addressing the question.

“If I could make things better for you, I would,” I offered.

“I know,” she said, leaning up on her toes to kiss me. “You’re a good man, Theo. And I love you. You have nothing to worry about in terms of my feelings for Ryan.”

“Thank you.” I kissed her back. “It means a lot to hear you say that.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?”