“Oh.”

I hear the doubt in her voice. Even now, I know she’s retracing our steps through the courtyard, knowing she was distracted, but always aware of where I was and who I spoke to. Raine doesn’t miss much. I’m wondering if I should try to explain further, but too much explanation can backfire, and right now I’m a ten on the trust meter. I decide to ride that and let her chalk it up to distraction.

Shane sees us whispering and marches over from his safe encampment with the Menace. “We’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here, Raine.” He reaches for her hand, but I step in his way.

“We’ll catch up with you,” I tell him.

He tries to step around me. “I don’t think—”

I block him again. “That’s your problem, Shane. You don’t think. Back off.”

He steps back, his shocked expression quickly changing to a glare. He looks at Raine, who gives him no ground, and then looks back at me. “So … that’s how it is. Let me warn you, you’re making a big, big mistake.”

“Probably so,” I answer.

He stomps off, heading toward the alley.

Raine shakes her head and sighs. “Oh, Locke, I could have handled him on my own. I have for three years now.”

“I don’t doubt that. But there’s safety in numbers too. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have someone who cares about you covering your back.”

“He’s hardly a threat. Just an annoyance.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I’m not so sure. Especially since the Secretary seems to think he’s a good match for Raine, and the Secretary is used to getting what he wants.

When we reach the alley she pauses and gazes back over her shoulder into the courtyard, looking at what I don’t know. The Non-pacts have all gone back inside. I watch the breeze lift loose tendrils of hair at her neck, her lashes casting a shadow beneath her eyes; I watch the tenderness of Raine, trampled beneath years of obsessive control, all the wasted years that even eighty billion duros can never buy back, and I think about how much Miesha would have loved Raine the way she deserved to be loved. If only she had had the chance.

Tossed

“And this?”

Raine and I lie on the grass looking up at the stars. It’s a sweltering night in Boston. Probably one of the last before the season changes, before leaves begin sprinkling the sidewalks and winds bring on weather that my mother said made for hearty stock like us. Hearty. If she only knew.

“That’s the pit of a chocolate peach.”

Raine’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “Why are you saving that?”

“Just a reminder. A friend gave it to me, telling me to savor it. Savor everything.” I roll over and kiss her shoulder, her neck, and finally her mouth. “See? It works.”

“Hmm,” she says, licking her lips. “I guess I need to get myself one of these.” She wraps her hands behind my neck and pulls my face down to meet hers again, our lips barely touching, our breaths mingling, smiling, then laughing, so close our noses bump. “Okay, enough of that.” She playfully pushes me away. “Next!”

She reaches into my pack, and blindly rummages through it with her fingers to pull out the next surprise. When she first asked me what I carried in my pack, I shrugged, trying to avoid the question, but she pressed, and then I found I wanted to share with her. There’s so little I can tell her about the real me.

She pulls out the Swiss knife. Her father’s knife. “Something of substance—at last! Tell me about this.”

“It’s a Swiss knife. You’ve never seen one?”

“No.”

“You need to get out more. They’ve been around for a million years at least. They’re more than knives really. They’re emergency tools.”

She pulls out a few of the tools and blades and examines them. “Even a toothpick? Really? Have you ever used it?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. The only thing I’ve used so far is the large blade.”

“That seems like a waste.”

“I’ll get around to them all eventually. I haven’t had it very long.”

“Where’d you get it?”

I roll back over and look up at the sky. From your mother. She gave it to me. Your mother who doesn’t even know you’re alive. But I stick to the Network story. “My dad.”

She reaches into the pack again, pulling out protein cakes, energy water, phone tabs that I explain away as freebies, the black government-issue coat still in its small cylinder that I explain as a mere practicality, and the small stuffed blue elephant that I tell her was a gift from a little girl I used to know named Kayla, probably the truest thing I’ve said that night.

She leans up on one elbow, looking into my eyes. “Who are you, Locke Jenkins? You’re not like anyone I’ve ever known. You are—” Her eyes glisten and she smiles like she’s trying to erase the emotion behind them. “Don’t you dare make me cry. But, I think—” She swallows. “I—” She leans down and lays her cheek against mine. I feel the deep breaths of her chest and the shuddering of air as she lets it out. She pushes away and grins, the potential flood of tears gone. “Next.”

She rummages into the deepest corners of my pack and pulls out the last item. “And what in the world is this?” she asks, holding up the frosted green glass.

“That’s the best piece of all. It’s the eye of Liberty.” I tell her the story that Lily told me, that the Statue of Liberty once had beautiful green eyes but they were lost at sea and after all these years of being tossed on the sands, this small piece of green glass is all that’s left. But there’s another eye of Liberty out there somewhere waiting to be found on a sandy beach.