“Yes, for the most part.” Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “The truth’s a bitter pill,” she says. “Don’t look so put out.”

Put out? Hardly. I study her, trying to figure out what she wants. Her face is hard. Each plane a mask, hiding something beneath. She closes everyone out. I think my chances with Vina were better, but then, her father isn’t the Secretary who has the information we need.

I shrug. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So your mother lets you walk the streets of Boston in the middle of the night?”

“And your father lets you straddle rooftops?”

She glances over her shoulder to where the Secretary had been sitting.

“He’s gone,” I say.

She looks back at me. Her eyes are large worried pools of deep brown, soft and beautiful, but her pupils are the tight hard circles from the photos. Something inside of me catches. Is she frightened of her own father?

“I won’t tell anyone,” I whisper. Her hands relax on my shoulders and I reach out and try to pull her closer like I did with Vina so we can really dance.

She vacillates between stepping forward and pulling back, both of us acutely aware of my hands on her waist, a moment that seems to stretch on forever, and then she jerks away from me. “Never come to my park again. Capiche?”

She stands there waiting for a response to her ridiculous order with her hands on her hips and her brows raised like I’m her dense gold-headed Bot.

Capiche?

Lesson two: Restraint. Restraint, Locke. Don’t blow it. Don’t let her push you. But something else inside of me speaks up. I’m not a Bot or her lackey. I’m not anyone’s lackey.

“I don’t speak Italian,” I finally answer, my tone thick with ice.

She hesitates for only a second before rage flashes across her face and she turns and walks away.

A Pig’s Eye

I walk down the steps to the PAT station. I’m not ready to go back to the apartment.

Her park? Capiche?

I’m livid. At myself. At her. I want to break something. Maybe my own bonehead. I didn’t let Carver push my buttons when he asked about my past. Why did I let her push them? Yes, something about her is dangerous. And incredibly annoying.

I hope Xavier doesn’t try to call me tonight but I know he will. Did you charm her? Are you in? What will I tell him? Is there any way I can salvage this? Vina took an interest in me, but Vina won’t open the doors I need. Even if she gets me into their small group, that isn’t going to get me close to the Secretary.

The PAT pod opens and I step in. “Ashmont,” I say.

“Not a valid destination.”

How can Ashmont not be a valid destination? But I don’t care where I go. Anywhere away from here is fine. “Jackson Square.”

“Not a valid destination.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Not a valid destination.”

“Copley Square!”

The hatch closes and the pod takes off. I try to focus on the speed, the lights, the thrill, but none of that feeling is with me now. I redirect three times and exit as I’m required, still feeling just as ready to blow as when I started. I’ve walked two blocks before I realize I’m not even sure where I’ve ended up.

The skin of my palm ripples. The iScroll is alerting me to a message. I don’t answer. Whoever it is, Xavier, Carver, or Livvy, they’ll have to wait. It ripples again a minute later. I swipe the iScroll, and yell, “Off!” The iScroll goes silent and disappears, the tattoo invisible in my palm. I imagine Percel cowering somewhere in my hand, wondering what set me off.

I look around for a street sign, trying to figure out where I am, but there are none. I sit down on the steps of a nearby stoop and lean forward, running my hands through my hair, staring at my scuffed boots. How could I let her rattle me so much? Something about her gets under my skin.

My park. Maybe that was it. Those two words exploded in my head when she said them. With all the change I’ve had to deal with, the Commons is the only thing that still seems the same in Boston. It’s belonged to everyone here for hundreds of years, and in one dismissive sentence she bans me from it? In a—

I smile. Pig’s eye. One of my dad’s favorite phrases. I haven’t thought of it in years. I almost forgot it. But it fits perfectly.

That’s right. In a freaking pig’s eye I’ll stay out of her park.

The long walk to the Commons and the darkness of the park calm me. For 260 years, I hated the darkness. It terrified me. But now, for the second night in a row, I find this darkness freeing. It disguises the world I’m barely hanging on to. It blurs its edges. At least for a few hours, it makes it the world where I once belonged. No way will she ever ban me from the Commons. I plant myself on the same gnarled tree root as last night, looking up, just daring her to appear on the rooftop. I hear the rustling of the bushes. The nightlife better get used to me. I plan on coming here a lot.

“You don’t follow orders well, do you?”

I leap to my feet and whirl around, my heart pounding so hard I think it’s going to burst through my chest.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I catch my breath. “I think that’s exactly what you meant to do.”

Raine grins. “Maybe.” She’s shed her drab gray clothes and wears a simple sleeveless blue shirt and some dark blue pants that reach only to her knees. Her feet are bare.