The Fox Inheritance (Jenna Fox Chronicles 2)

She had been living while I was waiting to live.

"Yes, that's when I abandoned it," she finally answers, but I know there's more to her hesitant reply. Not quite a lie, not quite the truth. Something she is not willing to tell me. Silence and stale air hang between us. I nod awkwardly for no reason at all, just to fill the space.

Her hands drop to her sides, and she bites her lower lip. She looks at me like something is knotting inside of her. "I was up all night last night," she says. Her hand shakes as she reaches up to brush hair away from her face. "Once I got you settled, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I couldn't get it out of my mind. What's been done to you, it's my fault. The way my parents worshipped me--I never thought--" She shakes her head. "My father never meant to hurt you and Kara. Maybe he should have known, but he had no idea about Ash." She begins pacing, and word after breathless word races out of her. She is looking at the ceiling, her feet, everywhere but at me. "It was my mother's idea. They had already scanned my brain, because you know my parents, they would never let me go, but day after day, my mother saw your parents at the hospital, and she couldn't bear to see what they were going through, and she begged my father to scan your brains too just in case--"

"Jenna--"

She spins around to face me, her blue eyes fixed on mine, and whispers, "How did you do it, Locke? How did you survive for two hundred sixty years? I was only there for eighteen months, and it haunted me for years. It still--" She stops abruptly, shaking her head like it is too painful for her to imagine. Now she looks like the Jenna I knew. The Jenna who was sometimes frightened. The Jenna who held my hand and was as uncertain about life as I was. The Jenna who had more questions than answers.

That's something I'm still short on. Answers.

How did I do it?

She stares at me, unblinking, waiting.

I don't know how I survived. I'm not sure I did. I'm not the Locke I was.

I went where I had to go ... I survived on gulps of memory ... scraps of touch ... a good kind of quiet ... a peace. I went to be with my memories....

"Kara. And you. That's how I survived. You were with me."

Her head tilts slightly like she's confused.

"My memories, Jenna. I heard you once. You cried out to me before you left. I knew you were there. I looked for you, and when I couldn't find you, I remembered. You walked with me. You talked to me. 'My eyes, Locke, look into my eyes, and you will see the sky.' That's what you told me when I couldn't remember its color anymore. You, Jenna. That's how I survived."

Chapter 48

Jenna wouldn't let me stay at the house alone. She insisted I come to the mission with her, Allys, and Kayla. I was reluctant to leave. What if Kara came while we were gone? Jenna promised we wouldn't be gone long and that it might be days before Kara came. Besides, there was some business she had to take care of at the mission. But I couldn't get Kara out of my mind. Where was she? It had been two full days since we'd become separated. She should have been here by now. What if something had happened to her? After all we'd been through, how far we'd come, all the years, what if something as common and random as a car accident took her away again?

My breath catches in my chest. Jenna still hasn't brought up the accident. Neither have I. Everything that came after may have been her father's fault, or Ash's fault, or even Gatsbro's fault, but the accident that started it all, that was my doing. Jenna didn't want to go to the party, but I pushed, and pushed. I practically grabbed the car keys right out of her hand. I was so desperate to impress them, to seem older than I was, to seem like I traveled in circles that I didn't, that I never thought past the moment. Kara reminded me at least a thousand times, What did you do, Locke ... what did you do...? And that was when I would gladly have snapped her neck over and over again, as many times as she asked, What did you do...?

"Locke?"

Jenna's brows pinch together. I have lapsed. My feet are frozen on the pathway. I regain focus on the real world instead of the one I wandered into.

"I'm sorry. Sometimes I just--" I shake my head, but she prods me to continue and I tell her how I lapse, as Dr. Gatsbro called it, when I forget where I am and I go back to other places. My explanation doesn't erase the worry on her face.

Kayla skips down the path, missing my explanation entirely, and grabs my hand. "Hurry up, Locke." She giggles, amused by the sound of my name.

"We'll catch up," Jenna tells her. "I want to drop these off for Nana first."

Kayla lets go of my hand, giving us both another admonishment to hurry, and runs after Allys, who is waiting for her at the end of the path. They are on their way to the mission nursery, and then on to the stables.

When Kayla is out of earshot, Jenna turns back to me. "How often do you have these lapses?"

"Not often. I think. Sometimes I don't even notice I've had one until someone catches me. Like just now. I guess my BioPerfect isn't so perfect."

She grunts. "What is? Not my Bio Gel, either. It's sensitive to cold temperatures, you know? I've always been a slave to the seasons when it comes to travel. And did I tell you that when I first woke up, I couldn't taste a thing? Nothing. Father told me the neurochips would connect soon. Ha! It took eight years. So much for soon. Of course, I wasn't supposed to eat food anyway--just some bland nutrients Father concocted."

"What?" I grab her by the elbow to stop her. "You can't eat food?"

"Oh, now I can. That was the one modification I allowed. I was totally against any more so-called improvements, but eating fresh summer berries or biting into warm, fudgy brownies--I couldn't forgo those forever."

We begin comparing our new bodies like we are comparing the features on the latest model cars. The words pour out, and I talk about the changes without feeling like I am looking a gift horse in the mouth. We talk like old friends, which I guess we really are, and for the first time it feels like the decades between us are disappearing.

"And I'm two inches shorter. Father claimed it was because of mechanics and ratio, but I think Mother just wanted me to be perfect ballet height."

"I thought you seemed smaller, but then I thought it had to do with my being four inches taller. Who knows what Gatsbro's reasoning for that was. Probably more product for the buck."