chucking a navy blue coat out the door and onto the damp walkway. As usual, his gaze completely avoided me. He rarely spoke to me in more than monosyllables or grunts, making it clear that helping Lucas give me asylum didn’t exactly thrill him. But I was fine with him keeping his distance. With his bloodshot eyes, unwashed body, and constant reek of alcohol, Tim was one person I wasn’t too eager to get to know.
After a particularly loud grunt, Tim slammed the door behind him. The glass in the windows rattled. Lucas stared at the discarded jacket but didn’t move.
“Is there ever a day when he wakes up on the right side of the bed? Just wondering,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
Lucas’s attempt at a smile failed, strained creases settling around his eyes. “No. At least, not in all the years I remember living with him in the same house. Not a morning person.”
We walked toward the jacket. Tim might be grumpy in the mornings and drink from a flask with disturbing regularity, but he was the reason we had a roof over our heads right now. Except for Lucas, supposedly no one else knew about his retreat up here, deep in the thick of unspoiled Bitterroot land. He’d stepped up to the plate when his brother asked for a big favor, and he didn’t even know me. For now, I’d gladly deal with Tim’s foul humor if it meant distracting myself from the uneasiness that something—or someone—lurked over my shoulder.
Because that feeling never really went away, not for good. It lingered, haunting me like one of Sarah’s memories, like the sound of my name on my mother’s lips. Like the vision of Hunter’s eyes, staring back at me with hope.
Hope could probably survive on this mountain forever, and maybe I could too. But this bomb inside me, it changed everything. No matter where I went, there was really no such thing as a “safe” place. Safety was just an illusion. Because no matter how well I hid or how fast I ran, I couldn’t outrun myself.
Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should just slip away quietly into the night. Then the only casualty would be me, right? Not a perfect ending, but better than leaving a path of destruction in my wake.
A jolt of determination pushed back against those thoughts, urging me to fight. Reminding me that I still had so many questions. I knew Holland had already created multiple Milas. Both of my “sisters” had been destroyed, but what if there were more androids, and Holland had subjected them to exactly the same horrors as me? When I boiled everything down to the simplest form, not knowing Holland’s master plan was even more terrifying than the bomb inside my gut. What exactly was he after?
Was it possible that Tim knew? I’d caught a flash of anger between him and Lucas when they were together, but I didn’t know why. Things had been so overwhelming and chaotic when Lucas and I had first arrived that I hadn’t wanted to pump him for information. But I knew that the longer it took to get my memory back and figure out the inner workings of the bomb, the more time our enemy had to regroup.
I needed more information. The sooner, the better.
“You’re wondering how Holland knew my brother, aren’t you?” Lucas said matter-of-factly as he picked up the jacket without bothering to put it on. I trailed him over to a woodpile. A hatchet leaned against the logs.
Specifically, I was wondering why Holland had called Tim a chickenshit back in DC, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. “Oh. My. God. While we were out in the desert, did you plant a thought-reading chip in my head?”
Lucas responded with a half smile and a quick shrug. He picked up the hatchet, widened his stance, and took a swing. A log cracked, but didn’t split completely. He grunted and repeated the motion until the wood separated into two halves.
“Don’t need one. Sometimes, you’re an open book. Maybe it’s a glitch in your subterfuge software.”
I snorted. “Or maybe you’re a glitch.”
His eyes widened, and then he laughed. “But I see that teen-girl programming remains intact.”
I stopped short of an eye roll, because, really, no sense in proving him right. “Tim?” I prodded.
“Tim. Right.” The smile faded, and his grip tightened on the handle. He hoisted the hatchet over his shoulder, inhaled, and then let it