daughter died. The daughter I’d thought I was, for a very brief time; the daughter in whose likeness I’d been crafted. Like some kind of living-yet-not-quite-alive monument.
All that packed into the tiny, lightweight rectangle nestled in my palm.
“It will hurt,” I whispered, almost to myself. “It always does.”
“Emotional pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Lucas said. “It says that you care, and that you’re alive. In my book, those are both big pluses.”
“Psych class again, huh?”
“Hey, don’t make fun,” he chided. “Besides, we both know I’m stubborn and nerdy enough to debate your flawed definition of ‘alive’ for days.”
At that, I smiled. “Now there’s an uncontestable fact.”
“I’m not going to ask which statement you’re talking about. Nerdy or stubborn.”
“Wise choice.”
He crossed his arms and frowned in mock disapproval. “You know, you really should be nicer to me. I could always sneak up while you’re in resting mode and reprogram your wise-ass responses to ‘Lucas knows all.’”
A strange, bittersweet pang filled my heart. Not very long ago, I’d had silly exchanges like this with Hunter. For a moment, an echo of his laugh rang in my ears and I imagined his smile, but something forced my mind to stay in the here and now, to focus on Lucas.
Perhaps that was the human side of my brain, trying to protect me.
“No. No, you’d never do anything like that,” I finally replied. “It’s not in your makeup.”
His grin faded, and his expression turned serious. “No. It’s not.”
As his words dissolved between us, a tiny weight released from my chest. Nudged free by trust.
My expression must have been all sappy and intense, because Lucas cleared his throat and stepped back.
“So, want to check out those files?”
Right. The emails.
Like a pro, I folded back my ear again.
“Lucas! You in there?”
Tim’s voice outside the door startled me. Inexcusable. Our time out here in the mountains was apparently dulling my sense of danger. My sensors had picked up Tim’s approach, but I hadn’t bothered to process the information.
Complacency was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Not if I wanted to stay out of Holland’s clutches.
Lucas jerked his head toward the memory stick. “Hide it,” he mouthed. There couldn’t be any trace of what we were really doing here.
I snatched the metal piece away from my neck and concealed it within my fist just as Tim pushed the door open.
His gaze flickered from me, to Lucas, and back again. My android heart reacted to the heightened stress by upping its staccato beat, but he just stood there, frowning. Pink streaks marred the whites of his eyes, and his hair looked matted, as if by sweat. His jaw hadn’t seen a razor in several days, and he reeked of wood smoke.
Finally, he grunted. “If you two want to get it on, let me know. I’ll vacate the premises for a few minutes. That’s all you’ll need, right, Luke?”
Then he turned and stomped back toward the living area of the cabin. Lucas’s face went fire-engine red and I forced an embarrassed laugh.
“Looks like he’s got the wrong idea about us,” I said.
“He has the wrong idea about everything.” Lucas blew out a long, exasperated breath.
Suddenly, Lucas’s room felt a little too intimate.
“Let’s go for a walk, okay?” he said.
I practically leapt for the door. As usual, he and I were on the same page. Even though we weren’t up to what Tim had so crudely implied, we couldn’t risk him figuring out the truth. Tim thought he’d put Holland behind him, but nothing could be further from the truth.
In the main room, we passed Tim slumped in a chair, one arm covering his eyes and the other hand gripping an old bottle of whiskey.
“We’re going out to check the snares,” Lucas said.
Tim made an inarticulate noise, so we grabbed our jackets off the hooks and headed for the door.
“Got the gun?” Tim called out. Lucas sighed.
“It’s daylight, and no one is around for miles. We’ll only be gone an hour or so.”
“Always plan like you’ll be out after nightfall. Truth is, you never know when you’ll be back. Or if.”
“Cheerful. Thanks for that.” But I noticed that Lucas grabbed a gun from the rack and stuck it inside the red backpack that took up permanent residence by the front door. He rummaged around inside. “All right, I see trail mix, jerky, water, matches, thermal blanket . . . We okay to go now, Survivor Man?”
“Funny thing, survival. Even when you think you’re prepared, it only takes one mistake for everything to