Fox Forever (Jenna Fox Chronicles 3)

“I know. I love you too, Locke. There’s a bond between us that won’t ever be bro

ken. But I don’t love you in the same way I loved Ethan.” She squeezes my hand. “And you don’t love me in the same way that you love Raine.”

I close my eyes. Hearing her say it out loud unhinges something inside of me I had locked away. I was afraid to even think it or believe it, much less say it. I have nothing to offer Raine. No life. Not even—

I blink, not sure I can even say it now. “Raine’s not like me. She’s different.”

Jenna shakes her head, biting the corner of her lip. She knows exactly what I’m talking about. “There’s nothing wrong with different, Locke. Get over your BioPerfect. Get over the technology. Get over it. Focus on what you have. She’s like you in the ways that matter.”

I see Raine’s eyes, glistening, looking into mine, wondering if my world could be her world. I remember the ache of wanting it to be so but saying nothing, hurting her, pushing her away with my silence.

The way I love Raine.

I need to tell her.

True Character

Wispy clouds cross the moon, thick cottony threads trying to become more, a new season trying to make its way into Boston. How many times did I ignore these subtle clues when I lived here before?

Raine is like me in the ways that matter. I learned that detail by detail, night after night, hour after hour, as one conversation rolled into the next, as time got away from us because we always had more to say. The devil isn’t in the details. Raine is. She’s every detail that inhabits my waking hours, and my sleeping hours too. Every step, thought, and breath of my day leads back to her.

As I pass the park, it’s quiet. Whatever Security Forces crawled through it yesterday are gone now, and any evidence they found was packed up with them. How much of my BioPerfect did they scrape up from the ground in the park? How much did I leave behind, dripped in a blue trail through the tunnels?

I’m making it, step by step, block by block, standing straight, not hunched, counting my breaths until I see Raine. My hair is perfectly tousled over my eye to cover a cut that the paint wouldn’t, my clothing loose and baggy to cover bandages, no excuse in mind yet for the gashes on my lip and cheekbone that still show. But none of that really matters to me now as much as seeing Raine and telling her the things I should have said before.

I’m early. A full forty minutes early. If the Secretary wants to haul me off to his office for another impromptu grilling session, I want to make sure there’s still time to talk alone with Raine before the others come.

This time when I step out of the elevator, I’m greeted by Raine.

She looks at my face and then down at my hands, registering how much I’ve healed in just one day. I see the distance in her eyes. She wants to ask about my rapid recovery but then that would mean she cares. She’s still angry. “Why are you here so early?” she asks instead. “I haven’t even—”

I kiss her. She hesitates for only a second. “Someone might see—” but then her fingers are sliding along my chest, wrapping around my neck, sliding behind my head, through my hair, pulling me close. My hands gently cup her face, Raine, pulling her closer, sorry that I ever pushed her away, but finally that’s what I have to do again, and I pull back. She takes a deep breath, her cheeks flushed.

“Raine, I have to talk to you. About last night. Is there somewhere we—”

“Not now. I have to get ready first. If my father sees me like this when everyone arrives, I’m not sure what will happen.”

Her hair is loose, falling across her shoulders. She wears a thin loose-fitting white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and smudged pants like she just came from her rooftop garden.

“Give me twenty minutes,” she says. “I have to shower and change.” She walks away and then turns, looking at me sternly. “We won’t have long. Make sure you have something to say this time.”

I nod. Maybe I’ve only slipped to an eight on the trust meter.

She disappears down the hallway and I step into the living room to wait. It’s less painful to stand than to ease myself in and out of chairs so I walk around the room, examining the artifacts the Secretary has collected. Maybe as I wait I’ll come across one of those bits that Carver has instructed me to find fast, but it mostly looks like expensive things a designer has collected for him. Items are artfully arranged on shelves and in nooks, a Chinese vase, silver filigreed masks, an antique tortoiseshell letter opener, things with no personal connection other than being suited to his tastes like the antique sword hanging behind his desk.

In the far corner, on a shelf almost out of view, I find three beautiful leather-bound volumes that look like antiques too, but when I pull them out I see they’re photo albums, not casual snapshots but professional photos taken for special occasions. Something personal at last. The first album has pictures of Raine as a toddler. The first photo is one of Raine dressed in a matching red dress and hat, held in the arms of a woman with auburn hair and a beaming smile. Raine’s other mother. I turn the pages, one after another, some with Raine alone, many with her mother, but only one with the Secretary present. He never did know what to do with me. And yet, he saves these pictures.

I look at the next album, Raine as an older child, five, six, seven … always smiling with her mother. At least she had that much, an adoptive mother who cared about her. Was this woman really unaware of how the Secretary obtained Raine, or was she so desperate for a child that she didn’t care? And finally the last album, beginning at about age twelve, only a quarter filled, probably because her mother died. The last picture is of the whole family, her mother, gaunt with a weak smile, Raine with a brave one, and the Secretary not looking directly at the camera but instead gazing somberly down at his wife and Raine. Worry or burden? Was he already wondering what to do with Raine once his wife was gone? Keep her or give her away?

“The Secretary doesn’t like those to be viewed.”

I glance over my shoulder to see Hap setting a tray of tea on a table. I flip another page. “Then why does he keep them?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “But before he returns home, I would advise you to put them back where you found them.”

I turn around. “The Secretary isn’t here?”

“There was a security breach two nights ago. His duties have required additional attention. But he’s due back later this evening.” A security breach? Just at the same time I went down into the tunnels? Since when did his duties include securing supposedly abandoned tunnels? This only confirms that the tunnels are home to more than half-dogs.