Dangerous (23 page)

tend that you’re far away and alone and—

“Yeah?” I breathed back.

Traitor, I called myself.

“Maisie . . .” He turned onto his side so he was looking at

me. I didn’t look back. For a long, long time . . . like, several

minutes. Or one. Because when his voice got soft like that, his

eyes would be brighter, his just-plain-touchable face would be so

close and his attention locked onto me, and I would feel swoony

and vulnerable and completely giddy-brained. So I didn’t look.

For several seconds.

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Shannon Hale

Then I looked.

“I’m not supposed to feel like this about you.” His right

hand was still tangled with mine, his left rose to my face, his

thumb barely touching the corner of my mouth. His blue eyes

were hot like a hydrogen flame.

“I shouldn’t,” he whispered, leaning closer, glancing at

my lips.

“Okay,” was all I said. Words were smooth as glass and slick

in my hands. The only thing I could seem to hold was the rough

ache of longing.

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C h a p t e r 2 9

Wilder was as close as an exhale. It wasn’t far to lean, but

it felt like a journey. I hesitated till resisting made my skin ache.

Then I moved, he moved, and we met in the middle. Our

mouths touched, a soft greeting. Relief poured through me,

cold followed by hot. He pulled me closer. And we kissed.

We kissed, and I was back in space, my arms around

Wilder, our bodies spinning. But there was no hurry here, no

Ruth about to turn around, no Mi-sun or Jacques or Howell.

Nowhere to be but here.

There was time between the kisses to trace the line on his

jaw, discover that slight roughness. I wanted him to understand,

as I kissed his cheekbone, that I’d missed him. So many places

to kiss. And be kissed. And I wanted to know them all, like I

wanted to breathe.

And his hands explored my back, my neck, my hair. He held

me closer, and his kisses sped up. I wanted them to. I wanted

the rough skin of his jaw against my chin, his mouth against the

hollow of my throat. I wanted everything. My body rang with an

exquisite kind of joy. This, this, is what it was made to do.

His hands went up my back beneath my shirt, soothing

fingertips against my bare skin. He kissed the pulse under

my jaw. His hands found my waist, circled front, and pressed

against my belly. How simple that was, and yet what an

astonishing sensation.

Then his thumb popped the button of my jeans. My eyes

flicked open. Thoughts thudded back into my head.

Shannon Hale

“Uh-uh,” I said.

He stopped, but his eyes pleaded with me. His hands

caressed my face.

“Maisie . . . you’re so beautiful . . . I can’t help myself . . .”

His fingers traced my chin and then found my lips.

He started to kiss me again, and I relented, kissing back.

But his words haunted me—
I can’t help myself
, as if he were

constrained to want me. I wanted him to
choose
me, not kiss me

mindlessly. Even so, a part of me would give up any choice to

just let things happen. And that shocked me. I’d decided long

ago what I would do and would not do, and here at the first

opportunity, I was tossing out reason for instinct. If I couldn’t

make a decision using my brain, then was I even Maisie any-

more? Better to ache with want than to became an illogical girl

I didn’t know, I thought.

So I whispered, “Stop.”

He leaned his forehead against my neck, frustration in the

grip of his hands.

“Please,” he said.

But my brain wasn’t going to let my body win. I felt like I’d

been dropped in a vat of icy water.

“When you kiss me, my brain stops working. I don’t want

to make a choice without my brain. And if I cease to be rational,

then I’ve lost myself.”

He leaned over me slightly, his finger tracing my bottom

lip. “If you’re worried about being safe, I’m prepared.”

That set me sitting straight up. “You—what?”

“You know, I have—”

“I know what you meant. You carry one with you at all times?”

He blinked, as if trying to catch my train of thought.

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Dangerous

“So this is a regular occurrence for you,” I said. “Alone with

a girl—doesn’t matter who, really—and you get to kissing, and

she’s willing to go further but wary of the risk, and thank good-

ness! You save the day by being prepared!” I suspected that I

was being a little bit ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I was remem-

bering him with his arm around that blonde at boot camp, whis-

pering against her ear.

His smile was incredulous. “It’s a good thing, right? I’m

being respectful. I was thinking about you.”

This did not appease. “So you planned this. You thought,

‘I’ll bet I can get Maisie to succumb to my practiced seductions

against her better judgment, so I’d better be prepared.’”

I could see that rapid-fire thinking going on behind his

eyes. “There’s no way to get out of this gracefully, is there?”

“We should get back to work,” I said, starting to get up.

“Wait…” He put a hand on my arm, then removed it. “Can

we just lie here for a minute?”

I hesitated.

“Please. I haven’t . . .
felt
much of anything for a while. It’s

such a relief just to be near you.”

I lay back down, relieved too. I didn’t want to work right

then. I was feeling too much and not understanding all of it.

He was on his side, returning my gaze. Suddenly he

laughed.

“My brain is infused with billions of clever-making nanites.

You’d think I could come up with a strategy to get a pretty girl

to sleep with me.”

“Nice use of ‘pretty’ there. Still working the old strategy?”

“I never stop.”

It was flattering and disturbing and exciting, to be wanted.

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Shannon Hale

And to want in return. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt so strong—

not even with the brute token—as when I said no, not yet.

So we lay there, not touching, just wanting. And it was a

feeling I didn’t mind prolonging. The best part of Christmas is

the dark side of morning, staring at the clock, anticipating the day.

I drifted to sleep, and when I woke it was night. I was pan-

icking even before I’d opened my eyes because I’d forgotten to

call my parents. So I crept to the bathroom and phoned. My

dad’s voice was anxious.

“You’re keeping safe?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“I mean . . .” He cleared his throat. “If you and Wilder are

sharing a room together . . . alone . . . I want to make sure that

you remember all the reasons why—”

“Dad!” The Sex Talk my scientist parents had given me

came complete with diagrams, brain charts, and science jour-

nal articles. They’d presented a solid argument about why teens

should wait. Dazzled by the data, I’d agreed.

But why did he have to ask me about that right now? “I

remember, Dad.”

“I know. I trust you, Maisie.”

My throat tightened.

I chatted with Mom and headed back to bed. It seemed

suspicious that Wilder purchased boxes of protein bars in an-

ticipation of my arrival but not a second mattress. When I lay

down, Wilder pulled me closer, my head against his chest, his

right arm curled around me.

“I’ll be good,” he whispered. “I’m a good boy . . .”

I swallowed a laugh because I suspected he was talking

in his sleep. But lying close felt nice, like I had a place, that I

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Dangerous

wasn’t homeless, weighted with a dead girl’s token, and doing

things that scared me.

We woke like that in the morning, still intertwined. When

I opened my eyes, his were open too.

“I wouldn’t share a bed with my parents,” I said. “Too wor-

ried I’d flail at a dream and chop off their heads.”

“I like that you’re not worried with me,” he said, touching

my cheek.

“Oh, it’s not that so much. If I accidentally killed you in my

sleep, just think of all the problems solved.”

“With that kind of power logic, you should be the thinker.”

We were both slow to get up. Holding someone in the

morning can be a lazy and euphoric way to start the day. I did

kiss him again. Not like the night before, partly because he kept

grinning.

“Am I the cause of all this amusement?” I asked him.

“I’m just happy. Really happy. And so relieved.”

“Because of me?”

He nodded, still grinning, and kissed my forehead. “For

the first time, I feel like everything’s going to work out, because

I know what to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“At the moment, just this,” he said, touching my hair. “‘I

am looped in the loops of her hair,’” he said, going back to Yeats.

For the next two weeks we slept beside each other at night.

By day we held hands. If he was on my right side, he held my

Fido hand as if it were no different. And though I missed feel-

ing his warmth and those electric pulses that shivered across my

skin, I’d never felt so accepted, so wholly me, than when Wilder

was holding the hand I’d made.

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Shannon Hale

He worked on his computer while I bench-pressed the car

in the garage or grocery shopped. We did a lot of stakeouts and

ate dinner in the backseat. We stared at each other.

I’d drawn a line. And he didn’t push it. There was just

holding and touching and breathing and yearning. And there

was some kissing. A lovely bit.

A tiny worm of worry burrowed into me that Wilder would

be bored soon. But I didn’t want doubt to taint this strange,

magical interlude.

When I called Mom to check in, she said, “You sound

happy.”

“I guess I am.”

I didn’t tell her why, and that made me feel all the miles

between us. Guilt nibbled at me for not yet saving her from the

convenience store and her Maria name tag. But Wilder and I

wouldn’t give up till we’d set everything right.

And so I floated along, blissfully happy and hormonally

insane. I wasn’t scared that it would end. It seemed inevitable.

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C h a p t e r 3 0

I got on Wilder’s tablet to surf the news and then wished

I hadn’t. Scientists still didn’t have a clue how the Jumper Vi-

rus was spreading across continents in such random patterns.

Over a hundred towns were quarantined worldwide. Elections

disrupted, some countries under marshal law, and the world

economy took a dive in all the uncertainty.

The mess seemed to bring out the crazies. I watched a se-

curity camera video of a man walking up the Delaware state

capital steps, sipping a drink through a straw and holding a

gun. The officer spoke to him; the man lunged. Another officer

rushed out and shot the man down.

“Whoa,” I said, and clicked on a new link.

“Wait, go back.” Wilder watched it again. Then again. And

again. It’d been disturbing the first time. By the fifth I wanted

to smack myself with a frying pan.

“Are you worried Mi-sun was involved?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh no, I just found it . . . weird.” He turned off the

tablet and jumped up. “Let’s get them. Today.”

He’d found another lead. Some of GT’s guys were in a

house outside Philly. We watched with binoculars from an alley.

“Most of Dad’s businesses are legit, but he keeps a thug

contingent to handle the dirty side of things.”

“Dude’s got power issues,” I said.

“You have no idea. I don’t sense any fireteam members

here.”

“But maybe GT’s guys can lead us to them.”

Shannon Hale

“Since it seems like they’re going to be a while...”

Wilder startled me, pushing me against the brick wall. My

instinct was to hold still so I wouldn’t hurt him. Clearly uncon-

cerned about his own safety, he leaned down to bite my neck.

“We’re working,” I said, resuming my watch through the

binoculars.

“You are brutal.”

“You wanna see brutal?” I leaned over and picked up a steel

Dumpster.

“If that’s an attempt to turn me off, it’s having exactly the

opposite effect.”

Neither of us noticed a guy in a huge parka coming around

the corner till he was right in front of us. He stopped short. I put

down the Dumpster.

“Hey,” said Wilder, uber-casual.

The guy fumbled for his cell phone. Wilder knocked it out

of his hand. The guy wound up to punch, but I grabbed him

from behind. He had ahold of Wilder’s shirt, and as I pulled

him back, Wilder’s shirt ripped at the neck.

The guy elbowed me, knocked his head back, kicked his

heels against my shins.

“Why don’t you feel pain?” he whined.

He clawed at Fido and felt what wasn’t skin.

“Oh no. You’re a robot, aren’t you? Some super-advanced

Japanese attack robot. Leggo, leggo, I can’t stand freaky robots.

Seriously, I’ve got a bona fide phobia, I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

“I’ve seen you before,” Wilder said. “You work for my father.

What’s your name?”