The Farm (28 page)

“If you really felt that way, why didn’t you just ask me out?”

“Because I was a fifteen-year-old punk of a kid who never let anyone close. Everyone I’d ever cared about had let me down and I was too damn scared of how you made me feel. If my parents hadn’t shipped me off to military school, I would have caved.”

“But you did get shipped off,” I said numbly. It made me sad in some weird way. Yeah, thinking about the past always did. That life, that innocence, was gone forever. And some childish part of me always yearned for those things I’d missed out on. I’d never had a boyfriend. Never gone to prom. Never had one of those amazing, sweep-you-off-your-feet first kisses in high school.

Back in the Before, I’d thought I was above getting caught up in all that. I was the product of divorce. Too cynical to buy into those Disneyfied fairy tales. Now those romantic dreams seemed as gossamery as spiderwebs. Delicate and ephemeral, but no less beautiful for it. Why hadn’t I enjoyed them when I could?

“Yeah. I got shipped off,” Carter said. “Even after I left, I thought about you. And when I had the chance, I came for you. Not just because I knew you were an
abductura
, but because I wasn’t about to leave you in a Farm. All those other Farms we went into and broke out of, I was looking for you. I couldn’t leave you there.”

I twisted my face away and stepped back from him as anguish and revulsion mixed together in my belly to form a nauseating cocktail of self-doubt.

What was I supposed to do with this knowledge? All those years ago, Carter had a thing for me. The way he made it sound, he’d practically been obsessed with me. But he hadn’t wanted it. I’d forced it on him. The thought filled me with self-disgust.

“All I know is this. As soon as I walked into that classroom, I saw the way you looked at me. I knew you were going to crush on me. And I knew I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I wasn’t interested. I’d been in and out of enough schools to know a guy like me could have any girl I wanted. And I also knew that a smart girl like you—no matter how pretty—was more work than I was willing to do. I had no interest in you at all. In fact, I was determined to stay as far away as possible. I was drawn to you despite that. I fell for you anyway.”

My unease made me snappish. “What do you want me to do? Apologize?”

“No. You wanted to know why I was so sure you were an
abductura
. This is why. I stayed at Richardson High School longer than any school I’d been in since the third grade. Because you were there. Even though I never hooked up with you, I just wanted to be near you. And you were the reason I left. The way I felt about you scared the crap out of me. So I messed up on purpose. I stole my dad’s Lamborghini because I knew it was the one thing he couldn’t ignore. I knew he’d send me away and I thought I’d forget about you. But I didn’t.

“There I was, stuck at that godforsaken school in the middle of nowhere, and you were the only thing I could think about. I friggin’ pined for you like I was an eight-year-old with my first crush. Even after the Ticks took over, you were the one thing I cared about. When Sebastian told us about
abducturae
, I knew you were one of them. It was the only thing that explained how I felt. And I didn’t even care. You may not believe that this is what you are. But I know it. And it doesn’t even matter to me anymore. Even if you weren’t the only one who could help us defeat the Ticks, I’d still have come for you. I still would have searched every damn Farm in Texas until I found you and got you out.”

He paused then and looked into my eyes and then at my lips. “I’m tired of fighting this. I want to be with you and it doesn’t matter to me why I feel that way.”

With that, he cupped my face gently in his hands and started to lower his mouth to mine. He was going to kiss me.

I swatted him away because I couldn’t bear to have his lips on me again. Not after the sweet, beautiful kiss we’d shared just a few moments before. Not now that I knew the truth. I had wanted Carter for years, but I never wanted him like this.

He reeled back a step. “What was that for?”

For an instant, my emotions fluctuated wildly. My anguish and self-disgust. My fear. My grief. It all flooded through me, threatening to pull me into the undertow. I fought back by calling on the one emotion I knew I could master: cold, exquisite anger.

“That’s because you’re an idiot.”

“What is wrong with you, Lily? I just told you I loved you and—”

“No, you didn’t. You just told me you didn’t intend to love me. You didn’t want to love me. You got yourself arrested to keep yourself away from me. That’s not love. That’s a compulsion. And, by the way, kudos on coming up with
the worst
pickup line of all time.” I spun back and glared at him. “Did you honestly think I’d want to be with you after that? Even if there were no Ticks, even if Mel was safe in the next room watching reruns of
Star Trek
, even if unicorns and butterflies were frolicking—”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “I get it. You’re not interested.”

“No, apparently you
don’t
get it. I could never be with someone who doesn’t want to care about me but does because I’ve
made
him feel it. I don’t want that. No one would want that.”

He reached for me again, his expression anguished. “Lily, I—”

“Stop.” I shook my head and stepped out of his reach. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“But, Lily—”

“I believe you now. About being an
abductura
. At least you convinced me of that.”

Ignoring him, I grabbed the backpacks and retreated into the sanctuary, where Joe and McKenna had set up an ad hoc camp.

When I walked into the sanctuary and saw the two of them together, I froze. They had made a pallet of the bench cushions. Joe was sitting with his back against the pulpit. McKenna sat in front of him, between his outstretched legs, resting her back against his stomach. His arms were wrapped around her, his hands resting on the top of her distended belly. His head was bent close to hers as he whispered something in her ear.

Suddenly they made sense to me, as a couple. When he’d first told me her baby might be his, they’d seemed so mismatched. Like Britney Spears and John Mayer. Just wrong. But now, instantly, I knew that together they were right. As mismatched as they might be, the baby connected them. The baby made them right.

I knew children didn’t always do that. My parents had been right before us, but Mel and I had made them not work anymore. But in this case the baby did make them work together. And I could see so clearly that Joe loved both McKenna and his unborn child.

Watching them together, I felt sick to my stomach. And for the first time since the Farm, it wasn’t because he’d sold us out to buy McKenna’s escape.

This time it was jealousy that made me sick.

I didn’t want to be an
abductura
. I didn’t want this stupid power. I wanted that.

In the Before, McKenna had been high school royalty. She could have had any guy she wanted, but she chose him. At the Farm, Joe had been incredibly powerful. More powerful than any of the Collabs. He could have picked any girl, but he’d picked her.

Was it really so selfish of me to want the same thing? Just someone to choose me. All on his own.

I wanted someone who just loved me. Someone who would do anything for me. Not because he had to. Not because I’d made him feel it.

But I didn’t have that. Instead I had a stupid power I didn’t even know how to use.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Carter

Lily was unnaturally quiet as they carried the supplies into the sanctuary.

He’d screwed up. Badly.

But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t lie to her. Clearly he shouldn’t have told her how he felt. But what other explanation could he have given for how he knew she was an
abductura
?

He’d messed up beyond reason. The best he could hope for now was that a good night’s sleep would improve her mood.

The problem was, before anyone got a good night’s sleep, he’d have to slice them all open.

He carried the last of the supplies he’d gathered into the sanctuary, setting down the cardboard box on the bench closest to the pulpit. Joe had lit a few of the candles, casting the room in warm, flickering light. They’d lucked out and found some food. Mostly stale cookies and old Ritz crackers, but they’d hit the jackpot with five cans of tuna, and three of beans and wieners. Certainly nobody’s favorite, but a good source of protein. He ate his quickly, licking the can clean.

Lily was still picking at hers, her expression grim.

He rifled through the med kit and gathered a collection of bandages and gauze pads, lining them up on the pulpit along with four individually wrapped alcohol pads. No one else noticed what he was doing until he pulled out his own supply kit and got out the tweezers and razor blade.

He ripped opened one of the sterile gauze pads and unfolded it. When he started heating the tweezers in the flame of one of the candles, Joe finally asked, “What’s up, man?”

“The Dean found us. That means our chips are still transmitting.” He held the end of the tweezers in a pair of needle-nose pliers, twisting them in the flame. “We’re going to have to take them out.”

Lily set her can of beans aside and stood. “If the Dean never ran the program deleting our chips, does that mean all our information is still in his computer?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“In the long term, it’s hard to say.”

If Roberto discovered Sebastian had been to the Farm and taken kids out, he’d know something was up. Until now, everything the rebellion had done had slipped under Roberto’s radar. As far as they knew, Roberto had no idea that Sebastian was working against him and looking for an
abductura
. The Farms were set up to keep meticulous records of every person who came in or out. If the Dean hadn’t erased those records, then Roberto might figure out not only that there was a rebellion, but also about Lily and Mel. Of course, none of that would matter if they all got eaten by Ticks the second they walked out of the church.

He’d deal with one crisis at a time.

“But there will be problems long term?” she asked.

“There might be. For now, we just have to get the chips out. Let’s focus on that.”

Lily nodded. “Okay, what do we do?”

“I’ll cut out McKenna’s first,” he said, carefully lowering the tweezers onto the open gauze pad. Then he pulled the razor blade from its cardboard wrapper and heated it in the flame, too. “Joe and Lily, watch carefully. Whoever doesn’t puke or pass out can do mine next.”

Joe looked a little green, but Lily just nodded, watching his every move.

“We’ll need to wash and sterilize the tweezers and the blade between people. How strong is your stomach, Lily? You think you can handle that?”

She swallowed hard, then said, “I’m good.”

Once he’d had the razor blade in the flame long enough, he wiped it and the tweezers off with the alcohol pads. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. He hoped.

“Okay, McKenna, where’s your chip?”

She walked over to him in mincing, hesitant steps. “Is it going to hurt?”

He looked at her pale, nervous face and thought about lying, but she had to be tougher than she looked. No one who’d survived for six months on a Farm was weak. Instead of offering her empty reassurances, he said, “The blade is sharp. The cut itself won’t hurt much. If they put your chip in right, it’s right below the surface. I’ll work fast.”

McKenna stepped closer, but clutched edged of her sweater together like she was warding off an attack. “If this is so important, then why didn’t we do it earlier?”

“It’s because of Sebastian,” Lily explained. “The blood.”

McKenna nodded, then turned around and loosened the neck of her sweater. “It’s here.” She pointed to a tiny raised bump where her neck met her shoulder.

He’d taken out enough chips in the past six months that he had the routine down pat. He worked quickly, blocking out everything except the task immediately in front of him. He didn’t think of the person he was cutting open or the muscle he was digging through. He ignored the sounds of pain. The cries and tears from some. The rapid inhalation of others. He did it automatically now.

Swipe with the alcohol pad. A quick slice. Find the chip. Wriggle it out. Gauze to stop the bleeding. A butterfly closure. Two layers of gauze on top of that. Tape. And he was done.

Lily was silent and efficient by his side. Washing things and sterilizing them again so that he moved from McKenna straight to Joe and then on to her. After having her own chip cut out, she looked pale, but determined.

McKenna was still crying, silently. Joe was by her side on the floor, wrapped around her, trying to provide the warmth that her sweater couldn’t.

Carter swallowed and glanced at Lily. “Guess it’s you.” He looked her over. She had a slight tremor in her hands as she held the razor blade in the fire. “You able to handle it?”

“I watched everything you did,” she said. “I should be good.”

He nodded, then pulled his sweatshirt up over his head, leaving it around his arms, and turned his back to her.

His heart pounded as he sat there. Not because he feared the pain—he’d had this done enough that he barely even thought about that—but because it was Lily doing it. Then he felt her hand on his back, her palm pressed against his left shoulder blade. This time, his chip was farther down his back. About two inches left of his spine. Her fingers moved slowly over his skin, seeking the raised spot where his chip was.

“Who did this the other times?” she asked as her fingers found the chip under his skin.

“One of the guys.”

She stood there for a moment, her left hand framing the skin around his chip, the index finger of her hand lightly resting on top of the chip. He was painfully aware of the heat of her finger. Of how close she was standing and of the tension in her muscles. He could practically feel her gearing up to make the slice.

But instead she said, “If this thing Sebastian does with the computer deactivates the chips, why do you get a new chip each time? Why not just have one chip that gets turned on and off?”

“The first couple of times I didn’t get a chip at all, but it turned out it’s easier to blend in with the Greens if you’ve been processed as one.” He blew out a breath, painfully aware of her hands moving with the shifting of his back. She didn’t interrupt him, so he kept talking. “Whenever Sebastian comes onto a Farm, people notice. If I show up with him, like his assistant or something, everyone treats me like a Collab no matter how I’m dressed. But if he comes in, dragging some kids he just collected on the outside, and tosses us to the Collabs to be processed, then the Collabs treat me like crap. There are fewer questions. I blend better.”

“But on our Farm, you dressed as a Collab.”

“I never would have done that if you and Mel hadn’t tried to escape. Sebastian had to send me out after curfew to find you and I couldn’t wander around dressed as a Green, so I stole a Collab uniform from the admin building.”

“So it’s not just me you lie to,” she said quietly.

“I’ve never lied about the important stuff.” He hadn’t lied about how he felt about her. Not that she’d been super happy with the truth, either.

“Don’t the Collabs who put in your chips notice all the scars? You’d think that’s a dead giveaway.”

“At each new school, Sebastian insists on putting in the new chip. He does it when other people see it, but he does it himself. His eccentricities only seem to add to how much the Deans fear him.”

Carter felt her hair brush against the bare skin of his shoulder and closed his eyes against the sensation. It was torture, feeling her hands on his back, her breath against his neck.

Lily gave a little huffing noise. “Right. They fear him because he’s eccentric. Not because he eats people.”

He swallowed, trying to concentrate on the conversation, then said, “I’m not stupid enough to think Sebastian is my friend. I told you that. Yes, he’s a monster. Yes, he feeds off humans. But he’s also our best shot at survival. And if that means playing nice with him until we get to safety, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Right. Because you’re all about accomplishing your goals. No matter what you have to say to do it.”

He turned and looked at her this time. Right in the eyes, so maybe she’d believe him. And he spoke slowly, repeating his earlier words. “I have not lied to you about anything important.”

She looked right back at him, a glint of defiance in her eyes. And maybe something else, too. Maybe sorrow. “You’ve lied to me since the moment you walked back into my life.”

“And how would you have taken the truth?” he demanded, suddenly tired of defending himself. “If I’d walked up to you that first day and said, ‘Hey, Lily, remember me? I’m Carter. We used to flirt in biology. I snuck onto the Farm to rescue you because I think you have the power to incite a rebellion against the Ticks. By the way, I’m working with a bloodsucking monster that I’m pretty sure won’t kill anyone.’ Would that have worked for you?”

“I—”

“Yeah. I didn’t think so. I said what I had to say to get you to trust me. I did it to protect you. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to lie to you to do that.”

“Yeah. Well, in a perfect world, I’d be at home on my couch right now watching
Jersey Shore
.”

“Instead, this is what we’re stuck with.”

“Right.” She didn’t quite meet his eyes as she nodded. “Turn back around.”

He turned back, dropping his elbows onto his knees to give her better access to his back. “Would you just cut the damn thing out and put me out of my misery?”

Sometimes she was so damn hard to read, it about killed him. She was tough and smart and single-minded and unlike any other girl he knew. He admired all of those things about her. But they were also all the things that were going to make it difficult for her to trust him again. And maybe impossible for her to forgive him.

He hadn’t rescued her from the Farm just so he could hook up with her. He’d done it because the world needed her. And because he couldn’t bear the thought of her in danger. Still, there was no denying he didn’t just want her to be safe. He wanted her to be his. But saving her life had probably driven her away forever.

That was the moment she swiped the alcohol pad over his skin and then brought the razor blade down and made the cut. Her touch was slow but steady. She did what he’d told her to do, but he was still miserable.

He clenched his teeth against the pain as she dug under his skin for the chip and exhaled slowly when he felt her pull it out.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. Her hands were at his back again blotting with the gauze pad. “I’m sure one of the other guys would have done a better job.”

“You did fine.”

She pinched his skin together to apply the butterfly closure. “Where are the other guys now?”

“There were three guys with us at the last Farm, in Abilene. Carlos, Dwayne, and Joey. We got nine people. One of the girls was from Richardson High. She’d heard rumors, in the Before, that some of the kids from school had been brought to this Farm. So the twelve of them set off for camp and Sebastian and I went straight to your Farm.”

By the time he was done talking, she’d finished patching him up. As she patted down the last of the tape, she asked, “Will this hold?”

“Huh?”

“Is this bandage strong enough that Sebastian won’t”—the words caught in her mouth—“eat me the next time he sees me?”

“Yes. It’ll hold. The cut should stop bleeding soon.” He hesitated, before giving more details, but she was still looking at him with doubt, so he added, “It’s the scent of fresh, flowing blood that—”

“I get it.”

“You don’t have to worry about him.” He pulled his sweatshirt back down over his head. “He’s been around for a long time. He has tremendous control.”

“Yeah. I noticed that when he was devouring that Collab.”

Even though his own stomach churned a bit at the memory, he had to defend Sebastian. “The Collab tried to ram him with a car. He killed the Collab to protect all of us. I’m not saying it was right that he fed off the guy afterwards. But it was a clean kill and I would have done the same to protect the group. Besides, I guarantee it was better than being eaten by a Tick.”

Lily turned her back to him, making it impossible to read anything of her mood other than her tension.

“Look,” he began, “I understand you’re freaked out about all of this. I agree, the thing with Sebastian . . . it’s messed up. He is on our side. And I’d rather be working with him than not. We don’t have a lot of advantages when it comes to the Ticks. The fact that he can tell when they’re near—we need that. And he’s—”

“It’s not him I’m worried about.” She turned to face him, her expression resolute. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m freaked out about that. Seriously. Freaked out. But for now, all I care about is getting Mel back. The way I see it, if this bandage”—she tapped a finger against the patch on her neck—“is enough to keep Sebastian from smelling my blood, then it should hold out against the Ticks, too. That’s what I’m hoping, at least.”

“By morning—”

“No. Not by morning. Now. If I go out there now, is the scent of blood going to attract them?”

Every muscle in his body tensed at her words. “We can’t go back out there now.”

“I’m not asking you to go with me.” She turned away from him, busying herself with cleaning up the bloody gauze pads and other trash. “But I can’t stay here overnight. It’s already been too long. More than two hours since the Dean nabbed Mel.”