The view was perfect from here. She settled down, sitting cross-legged with her back braced against the warm metal. The night had begun to cool, but it was still humid enough that sweat dotted her temples, even though she’d stripped to a tank top and her pajama shorts before realizing sleep was impossible.
The Hill stretched out in the distance, a perfect, shining beacon. Towers of glass and steel pierced the night, climbing two hundred stories or more at their tallest. Tiny, blinking lights zipped between them in spite of the late hour. Even before the Flares, the people on the Hill had given up such barbaric notions as cars. Automated AirLifts carried the rich and privileged of Atlanta from rooftop to rooftop in elegant luxury. Their feet never had to touch the ground upon which the peasants strode unless they found walking among the less privileged charmingly retro.
It was a stomach-churning indulgence when babies in Five Points went to bed hungry and parents tried to make a handful of credits stretch for a week. Sometimes Maya stared at the flickering lights and felt sick with the memory of how often she’d lounged on cooled leather seats as Birgitte traveled between meetings. A VP of the TechCorps lived well, on the Hill, and so did her data courier.
Until they didn’t.
Maya stared at the glowing lights until her eyes burned, but memories of the Hill didn’t overtake her. Convergence still throbbed inside her skull. The low beat of the music. The scents: sweat, cologne, liquor, dry ice. Gray’s hand at the small of her back, a burning warmth she couldn’t stop feeling.
That was new. Her memory had always been focused primarily on auditory retention, and she’d been trained ruthlessly to ignore her other senses and focus on her duty. There were exceptions, of course. Moments she relived with such piercing clarity she couldn’t always tell memory from reality. But that was usually the bad shit. Trauma etched into her neurons with blood and tears and fear.
Gray’s touch was different. Gentle and sweet. Warm.
Good.
Closing her eyes, Maya thudded her head lightly back against the iron railing. It didn’t help. Too much had happened in the past forty-eight hours. In the past, she would have stretched out somewhere quiet and ruthlessly forced her mind back into disciplined order using one of the dozens of meditation tricks Birgitte had drilled into her.
It’s survival, Marjorie. You must stay in control at all times. They watch data couriers for signs of instability. Showing weakness could be fatal.
For years, Maya had struggled against what felt like the inevitable, terrified that if she slipped for even a second, she’d hasten her own downfall. Because that was the secret Birgitte had told her, the one data couriers weren’t supposed to know. Eventually, the stress on her brain would break her. Her only strategy to prolong sanity was rigid training, the cultivation of absolute control, and to avoid using the full extent of her gifts any more than absolutely necessary.
Maya had never questioned her. She’d never had a reason to question her. For all of Birgitte’s flaws, the last thing she would have done was endanger Maya in any way. Not out of affection but practicality—Maya had been the heart of Birgitte’s rebellion. The only reason the organization had even been possible. Maya’s stability and functionality had been her primary goal.
At least, Maya had thought it was.
With her eyes closed, Maya re-created that moment in the warehouse. The feel of the gun in her hands. The darkness behind the mask. The giddy feeling of her mind stretching, as if she’d kept it locked in a too-small box for years and it was finally getting the chance to move. An ever-present ache had vanished in those few precious moments when she’d just … let go. She hadn’t realized how much she was holding in until she stopped. And now she didn’t know how to go back.
She didn’t know if she wanted to go back.
A trip to Convergence should have put her flat on her back, especially after the stress and chaos of Mace’s unexpected arrival on top of two days of handling everything on her own. But as jumbled as her mind felt, it didn’t hurt. Maybe because she wasn’t fighting it.
Or maybe the hurt was coming, and it would prove Birgitte right. Maybe she’d fall the fuck apart.
Nina’s boots echoed on the walkway as she approached. “Okay, I left a message with Jaden’s people. He and Dakota are out on a run, so it could be a few days before we hear back.”
Maya opened her eyes slowly, half expecting the world to swim the way it sometimes did when she felt overwhelmed. But she just saw Nina, still dressed in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, looking ready to face down the world.
Everything was always a little less scary with Nina around. “That’s good,” Maya said, tilting her head in invitation to sit. “You think Jaden’s gonna be an ass about it?”
“I doubt it.” The corner of Nina’s mouth ticked up as she slid down next to Maya. “He may not like that Dakota and I had a thing, but he’s a stand-up guy. He doesn’t want a place like Emerge BioCore operating any more than we do.”
“No, definitely not.” Maya grinned. “Maybe he’ll try to poach me again to run his books. His last offer wasn’t bad.”
Nina laughed. “Apparently it wasn’t very good, either.”
“I like the benefits package here.” Maya’s smile faded as she tilted her head to rest on Nina’s shoulder. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“How do you know when they lied to you? The Franklin Center? How do you even start to untangle it?”
Nina didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked up at the night sky, which was strangely light—and blank. There were never many stars this close to the Hill; the lights and skyscrapers tended to drown and blot them out. But a few remained, too bright and insistent to be ignored.
Finally, she spoke. “Honestly? I have no idea. Memory’s a tricky thing anyway, and when you throw in lies on top of that, shit gets muddled fast.” She turned her head and met Maya’s gaze. “Most of the time, I rely on things I know to be true now. Not just about the Center, but about myself.”
“That’s the part I’m not sure about.” Maya rubbed a hand over her chest, as if she could soothe away the tightness there. “I never even considered that Birgitte might lie about what they did to me. She was brutally honest, especially about herself and our situation. She was there to get a job done and to use me however she could.”
Nina waited.
“She told me so many hard truths.” Maya swallowed hard. “But that doesn’t mean she never lied, does it?”
“No.” Nina sighed. “Not all lies are as pretty as you’d think.”
Maya closed her eyes. “The first thing I remember them telling me is that the outside would be dangerous for me. That the sensory input would be overwhelming. They even discouraged us from learning any more than we had to for our jobs. It was basically, ‘don’t worry your pretty little heads,’ but they always made it sound like a perk. We didn’t have to do the boring schoolwork everyone else did. We got to watch movies and shop instead.”
How many times had the TechCorps blocked one of Maya’s requests for advanced courses of study as unnecessary to her core function? How many times had Maya gone to Birgitte, pleading, every part of her itching with the need to learn more? Birgitte had always found a way to justify the additional education, but she’d never let Maya forget—she could have her education, but she had to be unremarkable. Silent, efficient, and, as far as anyone else knew, placidly content with her place in the hierarchy.