Page 62 of Uncontrolled

For a long moment, I’m sure she’ll refuse to go. Even when we hug goodbye and she retreats down the stairs, I’m half convinced I should send him a text to warn him she’s probably hiding in some dusky corner to slug a blade between his ribs. As I stand in the center of the living room, waiting for Ploy to come back, I can’t decide if it would be a kindness. Like me, Talia knows where to aim to make a kill quick.

And she, like me, will know where to aim to make Ploy hurt.

Ploy

It’s been twenty minutes since I bolted from the others. I threaded through the crowded streets until my legs burned. The rabid thump of my pumping blood only added to the anxiety flooding my system until I finally broke and started toward Allie’s place, and the only thing I know will calm me. Now, making my way down the hallway to her door, my brain keeps oozing random memories of me and Jamison, me and Allie, that goddamned cellar.

I juggle the flowers I’m holding and slip the plain silver key Allie gave me a week and a half ago out of my pocket. Wet stems brush my arm. Allie’s going to be furious with me. I’ll grovel. Beg for her forgiveness. All of that can happen later. One of her resurrectionists will be a target, soon. They’re already watching him.

My throat bobs. The key is in the lock. I clutch the knob.

She’ll forgive me, I promise myself. I’ll tell Allie I did this for her and she’ll finally realize I won’t keel over or get myself killed or screw up again.

In the quiet of the hall, I swear I can hear Jamison’s lungs struggling as the poison takes hold, his breaths more and more uneven.

Open the door, I tell myself.

I do. There’s a click and a creak, and the mess inside me settles as I spot Allie on the couch. Her arm is cocked to hold her chin, her elbow on the armrest.

“Hey,” I say, unable to hide the relief in my voice.

I cross the room and sit beside her on the couch, nuzzling into the space between her neck and shoulder.

Instead of kissing her there, I run the tip of my nose across her skin until our mouths are close. She tilts away. Not much, not enough that I would have even noticed if I wasn’t paying attention.

Weird, I think.

Whipping the flowers from behind my back, I present them to her. The cellophane surrounding them crinkles in the silence. She stares at them as if I’ve pulled some sort of magic trick.

“For you,” I say, and then feel sort of ridiculous.

Allie’s gaze is empty, focused not on the flowers but far beyond them. The television is off. Only now am I noticing the red rim at her lashes, the shine to her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, baffled. Slowly, I lower the bouquet. What if they already got the kid? What if they moved without me after I took off?

I watch her retreat into herself, arms crossed over her chest. Then I realize that’s not it at all. She’s reaching for the knives at her waist.

“Allie?” The slightest bit of concern has found its way into my voice. “Are you okay?”

She stands. I mimic the motion, following her as she moves away from the couch.

The flowers are between us when she whirls toward me. At least her hands are still empty. “I… These are for you,” I repeat.

There’s a twitch in her jaw. Other than that, she doesn’t react.

I pause, not sure where I should start my story. With the kid the hunters are after? Should I give her a chance to warn him first? Her eyes move to the flowers and then rise to mine. They’re an entirely unnatural blue because the whites are so bloodshot. She watches me and then she draws her knives from their sheathes.

“Allie, what’s—”

“Who were you with downtown?” Her voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.

“Wait,” I start and now my fear is real, a living thing because this isn’t how she was supposed to find out, whatever she knows. The flowers fall from my hand. I move toward her, but Allie retreats.

“You were with the hunters, yes or no?” This time it’s a question and some part of me is grateful because if she’s asking questions it must mean she wants answers, and if she’s still in this enough to give me a chance to explain, I can fix it.

“Listen to me, okay? Just listen,” I blurt.

“Don’t you dare lie to me. Talia saw you!”

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