Page 57 of Uncontrolled

“He’s not a scientist,” Zen says. “He’s a doctor.”

East cuts in with a snort. “Actually, he calls himself the Doctor when he signs his private messages to me in the group. He’s a pretentious douche.”

“A rich douche,” Quinn says under his breath.

“The best kind,” I say and Nico nods as if she’s answering a question I didn’t ask. Talia had printed stuff out from a message board when she’d been doing her research. I wonder if I’m taking for granted that they’re talking about the same site.

“Allie saw the kid again the day before yesterday,” Nico says. “There’s a business not too far from here in a little shopping area. You need a key or a pass to access it. But Allie went in with a gym bag and came out sweaty after two hours. Talia was in there, too. The boy showed later and left after both of them.”

“Yeah,” I say, plotting all the directions this conversation could go, stalling for time. The day before yesterday was when I last met with these five. When I got home, Allie’s phone was ringing and I took the call and landed us on that job. Her hair was wet, because she’d just gotten out of the shower, her lip bruised. She must have taken a hit at the gym. “Wait,” I ask. “Who was watching her while I was with you?”

No one answers.

“Back to the boy,” Keeley prompts. “His name’s CJ. He’s my age. Tall, kinda scrawny. You remember him now?”

She’s leading me to the right answers, at least trying, but it’s glaringly obvious. East snarls Keeley’s name and my stomach drops. What would have happened if I answered wrong?

“Oh, that kid?” I give her a tight nod. “He’s new.”

East cracks a knuckle. “Bullshit. He grew up here in Fissure’s Whipp. Keeley has school with him.”

“Well, he’s a year above me,” she says.

“Right, but he’s new to resurrecting,” I say, careful not to backtrack. They have to believe I’m telling the truth. Allie never mentioned the kid. Does it mean anything? Is she keeping her own secrets?

I glance between Keeley and Nico, who seem to be having a private conversation mostly through gestures. “What’s going on?” I ask, but they ignore me. Zen’s hyper focused on the leather cuff at her wrist. “Quinn?”

He, too, stays silent for a long beat before he sighs. “Not my call, but if it’s a vote, I say we bring Ploy in on this.”

“He’s trash, Nico!” East’s growl of a sentence snaps my attention to him.

I don’t know what they’re talking about yet, but if I keep letting East pull this alpha bullshit, he might convince them I’m not worth being included in whatever they’re stealthily discussing. I can’t take that chance.

“What the hell is your problem?” I ask.

Keeley tugs at my shirt in an attempt to get me to stand down, but I jerk from her grip, hear her whisper the name I’ve come to hate so much. I want to be done with this. I want to go home to Allie. I want to feel myself slip into the skin that is Christopher as easily as the key Allie made me slips into her locked door and opens it.

Except, these people want Ploy.

A switch flips inside me and I’m all unstable ground, clawing for purchase to keep my head above water. It’s the side of me that hung tight to Jamison long after I knew what he was about, the part of me that takes the punches thrown around bonfires in the Boxcar Camp, the part that splits lips with fists and drags dead men wrapped in tarps down stairs. The part of me that clings, digs roots into the cracks I can find. Survives.

I charge. The single step East stumbles in retreat is all the ground I need to gain to reassert myself. I want more. I slug him once, aiming for his throat and at the last second shifting to his cheek. This is posturing, not an actual fight, proven in the way East immediately clutches his face instead of beating me bloody.

A palm slams against my rib cage as Zen throws herself between me and East. “Back off, Ploy!”

I hesitate, not only because it’s Nico I expected, but because there’s a flash of caution in Zen’s eyes. She knows something I don’t. Is this a setup? Is East trying to draw me into a fight?

The fingers on my chest spread a star of pressure. It’s enough to ground me in the reality that if I blow this, I’m putting Allie in danger.

“If you ever,” I start before I force myself to take a shaky inhale and tamp down the rage sparking inside me. “You don’t get to call me trash.”

East makes a noise of disgust, but I ignore it.

I scan the rest of them gathered around East and I, Zen sandwiched between us. Nico at a distance. Keeley uncertain, watching it all play out.

“East,” Nico says. The wording is careful, strategic. “He can get us what we need to know about CJ.”

I level my glare on Nico. “Who the hell cares about that?”

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