Activated, p.25
Activated, page 25
My eyes are still closed. As I’m wrapped up next to him, the frequency of his heartbeat mixing with his voice pours over me like it did in the Banquet Hall. These combine with brain fog from severe exposure, and words I shouldn’t say tumble out. “You found me…you always find me.”
There’s a huge spike in his frequency—not necessarily a nice one. Silence. Two deep breaths. He clears his throat. “Don’t talk, Jo. Just rest.” Wrapped so close I feel his arms grow tense and his jaw harden.
His words hurt, but in my delirium I can’t pinpoint why. My numbers detect a deep frustration sizzling in him too—he’s worried or extremely upset. Kai always hated to see me in danger. Despite the circumstances, knowing he still might want to protect me makes me feel better.
The dry sauna air grows warmer—I know this from numbers alone. We stay like this for, 3, 12, 25 minutes until my shaking stops and my mind becomes clearer. My fingers are on his abdomen when slight feeling returns in them. Lines I don’t recognize are on his skin. My finger traces it. Scar tissue runs from his ribs to his lower abs. I shudder. When I found him in Tunisia, they’d cut him open. The wound is much longer than I expected. I keep my hand over it, flashes of him in the helicopter returning in droves.
My eyes finally blink open. I tilt my head and look at him. My breath catches. His black hair falls against his cheekbone. His jaw is set tight. Every inch of his face pulses a memory I fall into; a story I want to read. My heart pounds against his chest. His lips are so close to mine. He peers down at me, his heart thudding in his chest too. He eyes my lips for one long second. I’d do anything to understand what he’s thinking in this moment, but then he jerks away.
Reality hits me like a bat to the head. What am I doing? This can’t be happening right now. I came here to end this war inside me. Not make it worse.
Whatever change just happened inside me, Kai feels it. He props himself up, finds my pulse, and checks my temperature again. He sighs with relief, then starts climbing out of the sleeping bag.
Before I can stop it, a word I shouldn’t say rushes out of me. “Stay…” Then I cringe at my foolishness. He climbs out anyway leaving a huge void—in the sleeping bag and maybe my heart.
“Your body is warming up on its own now.” His words should comfort me but all I hear is our conversation from the tunnels: I don’t trust you anymore...
And he doesn’t. Looking at him now, the numbers are painfully clear. A deep pain throbs inside me alongside the physical pain of my body thawing. I squeeze my eyes shut. Kai shouldn’t even be here. He has a job to do—one I’m compromising. Again.
Agent Ramos’s warning starts throbbing through my veins. Stay away from Kai. Don’t bring up the past. Let him survive this. An ache I don’t understand worsens. I pushed him away so he could do this job, but here he is, three feet from me. Why can’t I escape him?
Kai fumbles for his shirt. I should look away but I don’t. Instead, my numbers are pulled to him like magnets. Right before he pulls his shirt over his torso, a marking on his left side upper abdomen, which wasn’t there 3 months ago, catches my eye. A razor thin black symbol of an infinity sign. I shiver again, this time not from the cold.
Chapter 53
KAI PULLS TIGHT his jacket, hood and facemask. “I’ll be right back. The rocks are getting hot, but I need more wood.” The door closes behind him.
In the firelight, I survey the sauna. Rich pine wood lines the walls, floors, and benches. Small wooden buckets with ladles are stacked in the corner. A typical altar of rocks sits just five feet away. A round thermometer is nailed to the wall. Frequencies of heat move in small waves in the air. I imagine smoke pumping outside. Thankfully, the fire won’t give our location away. In extreme cold, surface temperature inversion makes it so the smoke can’t rise. It gets trapped between two layers of cold air making it travel horizontally and much harder to detect in a snowstorm.
Waiting for Kai to return, my thoughts hop around and blur together. I almost just froze to death. What is happening with Noble right now? Are my dad and Cesare ok? Kai is here… Restless calculations wrestle in my mind until an unforgiving blast of cold air rushes at me as the door reopens and Kai enters.
My eyes follow him. I’m aware my heart is picking up pace again, but I’m not sure why. Kai has more wood in his arms. He sets down the logs then pulls off his facemask and his hood. Kai feels my stare. His dark brown eyes flick to mine for a moment, before he looks away. He’s not happy, he’s guarding himself—and he’s not hiding it. He, too, is calculating what’s ahead.
“You feeling a bit better?” he asks in a polite but distant manner. I nod. Feeling in my legs has returned and I can move my arms again. “Okay, just rest while I see to your wounds. You’re covered in blood. Your lip is busted, and your right cheekbone is pretty banged up, too.”
I push out more breathy words. “Thank you…for coming for me…”
Kai doesn’t respond. Of course he doesn’t. Just like in the tunnels, it’s obvious how much I’ve hurt him. His numbers prove it. I left him without a proper goodbye. Now, by helping me, Kai is doing the exact opposite of what PGF ordered. If he messes up again...he could lose his job or get killed.
Kai hovers over me with a medical kit. I stay as still as I can, avoiding his eyes and focusing on the hissing and popping of wet wood as he works fast, but efficiently. His ungloved fingers wash and disinfect my cuts, and he sets a butterfly bandage on the edge of my eye. He slides an ointment over my cheekbone. My pain level reduces so quickly I must be delusional. More feeling returns. His hands are warm. I find myself wishing he would lean in closer, hold me to his chest again. But he doesn’t. What makes it worse, Kai clenches his jaw with each touch of my body. I have to make it right. I’ve lived through enough fear and pain to know what I have to do.
“Where are you supposed to be right now, Kai?” I ask, my voice returning.
“Not here.” His voice is low and stern.
“You can’t stay,” I say. Agent Ramos’s warning is screaming in my ear. “You’re putting yourself in danger. You should leave, now. The whole point of your job is so you can save lives.”
His glance is deep and painful. “Whatever we aren’t right now, I could never just do my job, knowing you might die out here.” His voice breaks. “Palermo’s men called in an alert that the girl who blew up the Dome escaped. Not hard to guess who. What was I supposed to do? Hope you’d make it? Unfortunately, I can’t do that.” He groans. His hand, which was applying a bandage, pauses but his fingers stay on my face, sending mini shock waves through me. “I asked you not to come, Jo. I also asked you to get my father out of this, which you didn’t do either.” I focus on his moving lips. He won’t meet my eyes. He’s as taut as a bowstring. Because he can’t do his job properly knowing his father is in danger—and he despises me for it.
Silence…
I don’t argue with him because he’s right and I don’t have any strength. Why does all of this feel so wrong? He was supposed to be happy in this job.
We should talk about a plan and what I can do to solve this. But he’s upset and I can’t think beyond this sauna. I never got to say goodbye to him. Never explained why I really left him. Maybe this is my chance.
I roll toward him. “I’m sorry, Kai...for everything.”
My words are met with stark silence, and layers of numbers. Kai stiffens. Whatever he is feeling goes beyond hurt. He truly does not trust me. And it makes me feel so sick.
He finishes bandaging me. He removes his hand from me with as much determination as in the Banquet Hall. But for me, his touch unchains a beast I’ve held at bay since I wrote him my goodbye letter. Only now it mixes with the conversation I had with Chan replaying in my head. Kai wasn’t bored…he could never hate you…
Ugh. Why am I debating this? Nothing has changed. Kai is technically still ‘gone’ for one to three years, and I came here to find Noble and see what is between us. I have to back off. Agent Ramos knows what he’s talking about, and Kai is clearly not okay with me being close to him. Why is everything such a mess?
Kai looks at his watch. “Why don’t you sleep, Jo. When it’s light, I’ll take you to wherever you need to go. Hopefully back to Helsinki.”
I let out a sigh, knowing he won’t like my destination. “That would be the Scale Tech Lab gates, where my father and Cesare will be waiting for me.”
“Cesare and your dad?” He groans and runs a hand through his hair again.
I dart a glance to my gear lying on the floor. “I need to charge my suit so I can meet them. There are battery-powered heat panels built into the lining. But something malfunctioned…” I trail off.
“You’re not going anywhere for a few hours.” He picks up my suit jacket. “I’ll try to fix whatever’s wrong.” He grabs a tool in his pack, and the part of him that loves tinkering takes over.
Kai doesn’t look at me at all while he works. But my eyes stay on him, watching the light of the flames bounce off his cheeks until my gift surges and I nearly gasp.
His frequency brightens like in the Banquet Hall. Only this time, it’s clear and it’s pulsing side by side with mine, almost in tandem. I’ve never seen that happen before. But the characteristics of it are so familiar…
After a grueling 4 minutes and 28 seconds of silence he says. “It should charge now. I’ll connect it to my battery.” He plugs it in then puts the suit by the fire to dry. His face is red now from the heat. He peels off a layer of clothing until he’s in a V-neck undershirt. Funny. He’s starting to sweat, while I’m only now starting to feel warm. He drinks from a water bottle, and a thirst I didn’t know I had rages in me. He notices, and bends down beside me, letting me drink then gets serious. “Who did you come here with?”
“My dad.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “That’s it? No bodyguards?”
“No.” I keep my eyes on him since he’s actually looking at me, and I can’t stop staring at his frequency. And almost freezing to death must also have something to do with it because Agent Ramos’s warnings are so faint I can barely hear them now.
Kai lets out a frustrated sigh. “Why not?”
A memory comes to mind, and I look at him square in the face. “I’m done with those bodyguards. I don’t want them anymore,” I say, my heart splitting and speeding up. “None of them are right for me.”
Our eyes lock. Kai’s heartbeat is off the charts but he’s clearly not happy I said that—I’m not either. We’re getting too personal. I need to stop, to bite my tongue and stop talking. But his frequency is doing strange things to me.
My numbers can’t help but calculate him deeper. His heartbeat speeds up as my numbers streamline into him. He doesn’t stop me, but he moves two feet away, taking more gear out of his pack, putting distance between us on purpose. In an eight by twelve-foot sauna, he can’t get too far away. But I get the point. He’s not here for me. He has a job to do. And so do I. Lives are at stake and no matter what, the sun will come up in a few hours. But I can’t seem to hold my tongue.
“Kai, I wanted to talk to you before I came here, to Finland.” My voice cracks. “I went to ‘the street’ but everything was—”
He cuts me off before I finish. “We have nothing to talk about, Josephine. Except tomorrow.” My stomach collapses inside me like a black hole. “If you’re not going to sleep, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”
I nod, my eyes tearing apart the wood grain above me. “Cesare, my dad, and I plan to find Rafael and stop Palermo,” I say, mechanically. “…and help Noble.”
“Noble, huh.” Kai shakes his head. “I guess you know now that your new boyfriend is the one building their blackout weapon.” Kai doesn’t look up but speaks into the flames. “He ruined my perfectly good plan. Against my better judgment, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Look how that turned out.”
My head snaps over. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, perking up. “And what do you mean he ruined your plan?”
Kai scoffs. “It’s not surprising he didn’t tell you,” he says, his voice low. “Jo, I’m the one who brought Cesare to him. The plan to let Cesare’s men into Scale Tech to stop Palermo was mine.”
Chapter 54
THE SAUNA FEELS much hotter and smaller now. This time, it’s me who can’t move far enough away. I asked Noble how he and Cesare met, but he wouldn’t say.
Kai throws another log into the fire. “I saw him at the labs working with the scientist. I recognized his face. And he recognized mine.” Kai tightens his jaw. “So I confronted him. He was not happy to see me.”
Those two in the same room together? My thoughts tumble down an awkward road. “What did he say?”
“More than I cared to hear.” Kai’s frequency skips in fast waves. He doesn’t look at me. “I knew what he was doing for Palermo. He claimed he was forced into it, so I offered him a way out. Rafael was there. Cesare was coming for Rafael no matter what. All he needed was a way past the Dome. It was the perfect way to stop Palermo’s plan. But I couldn’t be the one to help Cesare. I needed to maintain my cover.” Kai sighs. “Eventually, Noble agreed to the plan. But he backed out. He’ll be a prisoner now.”
I roll to the side, my body obeying my commands again. “Kai, the scientist who Palermo is holding hostage is his father. Palermo threatened his mom too.” I explain everything that Noble told me in the note.
Kai breathes deep. “Guaibude. I’ve never seen Noble speak to the scientist. But his unease, his tension, his struggle with the man, made me wonder what was between them.”
“Noble’s never had it easy,” I say, wondering how Noble is doing. “His gift is like mine, but his parents never nurtured it—they only manipulated him for their own gains. As kids, we were the only ones who could understand each other.” My brows knit together. The thirteen-year-old me is balling up her fists, ready to fight. I loved him and hated to see him scared and unappreciated. I was glad when he told me he planned to run away. Right now, I hate that he’s forced into this mess. Once again, his gifts are being manipulated. It makes me so mad and confused.
“I noticed his gift right away. Must be nice to have someone who can understand that part of you.” Kai tightens his jaw, pausing in thought. His frequency thunders. “But Palermo won’t stop. He’s already forced Dr. Adams to work on other designs, some just as dangerous as the blackout weapon. When this is over, Palermo won’t hesitate to get rid of Noble and his father if he thinks they won’t be cooperative.”
“Noble has another plan—a way to stop Palermo. I know he does. But my calculations don’t look good. Either way, something will go wrong. Noble knows it too. I saw it in his eyes. I’m not sure he’ll make it out.” My voice trembles. “That’s why I have to get into those labs. Noble needs—” I choose my words carefully “—my gift. I’m the only one who can help him.”
Kai’s face straightens as he stares into the fire, nodding slowly. His breathing slows down, moving into a deep and methodical pattern. It’s the same way he prepares before he spars with his kung fu masters. He’s planning, making decisions. He knows what he has to do and sets his mind to it. “Terra Liberata is far bigger than just Palermo’s plan to gain a monopoly on telecommunications. We have to be careful with how this plays out, or we won’t be able to stop everything Terra Liberata has set in motion.” He folds his hands into fists. “But I think I have a plan. I’ll get you into Scale Tech and to Noble. We’ll stop this—no matter what.”
Kai’s eyes are distant as he says his name, but as always, his confidence wins out. Kai, the boy who does what is right, even at the cost of his own feelings.
“Okay…whatever your plan is, I trust you.” My voice is a whisper.
The words visibly irritate him. He stands and adds another log to the fire, and the sauna blazes. I let dry heat tear into my core. He sits on the bench opposite me. His face is distant and hard, but his numbers are going wild.
I’m exhausted and should sleep, but my brain keeps assessing my body and going over the escape and severe exposure. According to my numbers, if Kai was even five minutes later, I might not have fingers or toes. Which makes me wonder. I turn to him.
“Kai? How did you find me?” I ask. “I was practically a corpse buried in snow, hidden beneath a tree. The odds are nearly impossible.”
“I had night vision goggles on, but it was your tech glowing like a beacon that helped me find you. I told you to fix that in Helsinki,” he says. “After I traced one of the men’s phone locations to the lake where they lost you, it took less than 10 minutes to locate you. I saw you from fifty feet away, at least. No wonder Palermo’s men caught you so easily.”
I give him a puzzled look. My tech was deader than dead so I’m not sure what he was seeing. His night vision tech must be highly sensitive.
Kai blocks the door with logs and sits on the lower sauna bench monitoring the temperature of the sauna. He pulls a sweater over his head. His black hair is swept down on his face. I inwardly sigh; he’s so close but so far away.
Kai pulls out his phone. His face softens as he reads whatever is on the screen. His thumb taps what I assume is a reply to whoever is communicating with him. A jolt in his frequency makes me think it’s someone he trusts. He isn’t supposed to be in touch with anyone else. Then I remember the girl in Helsinki. My stomach sinks, almost nauseous.
At the same moment, Kai looks up. “We have roughly four hours until we need to leave. We need to get some sleep while your suit is charging, then leave while it’s still dark.” He exhales, looking out the window into the storm. “You sleep first. I’ll stay awake for a bit and keep the fire going.”
“Alright.” I lie down and close my eyes.
My dad’s speech about the Continental Divide percolates in my mind. “It wasn’t which path had least resistance. Both directions had their mountains and valleys. But it became about who I wanted to face those mountains and valleys with, and if we were both headed in the same direction…so no matter what stood in our way, I knew we’d make it to the sea.”
