Fox Forever (Jenna Fox Chronicles 3)

I told Jenna I wanted to rest, and I’m lying on my bed so I suppose I am, but really I just needed to be alone. I close my eyes.

Cats and stairs.

And then the long convoluted story I told to go with it detracted poison.

How stupid could I be to think she bought it? She was only waiting for me to come clean. She gave me trust but I couldn’t give it back. How many notches have I slipped on her trust meter? But if I tell her about going into the tunnel, I have to tell her everything. She hasn’t called again, and I hope the Secretary isn’t putting her through another one of those scans. She described them as humiliating, but not as painful. How desperate could the Secretary be to get those numbers? If I had them I would give them to him just to make him stop. My head hurts thinking of all the possibilities—a good old-fashioned headache.

I try to put Raine out of my mind, concentrating on my hip, my back, my arm, trying to hurry the way Carver wants me to. Only a few days before the bits have to become something big. But every thought about the Favor and trying to figure it out drifts eventually back to Raine. And then, Shane. No doubt he was glad I wasn’t at last night’s meeting. Was he hovering over Raine? Letting his arm slip to her shoulder. Sliding his hand along her back.…

I sit up. I can’t let myself do this. She asked me last night if my world was her world. I couldn’t give her an answer then and I still can’t. Focus on the goal, Locke. That’s what I came here for. Not to—

Her expression flashes through my mind again, the way she looked just before she left last night. Retreating. Going back to the old Raine. The protective one. The one who keeps her distance. She didn’t even turn to look at me when she answered my last question.

Hap told me. I’ve thought about her answer over and over again. How did Hap know? Does he simply have access to the Virtual Collective’s files? Or has he been checking on me? Maybe on the Secretary’s orders? Is he just waiting for the chance to get me alone and finish the job he started on my throat the first time he met me? I get the feeling he has the memory of an elephant.

I walk out to the nook in the living room where V-files and the old crumbling paper plans are kept. I review them again, trying to see if there’s anything I missed, but I have them nearly memorized now. The one file that is conspicuously absent is Karden’s. No file at all in spite of him being what this is all about. I guess understanding him isn’t as important as finding him, but I have to wonder how someone smart enough to orchestrate such a perfect heist had his plan explode into a full-blown disaster at the end, his wife sent to prison, his baby daughter stolen, and the money lost because of missing bank account numbers. He split up the numbers, which seems like a reasonable precaution with so much at stake, but he claimed he had sent the other half. If he did, what happened to them? Miesha said she had only been gone to the market a short time when she came back to the burning house. How did Security Forces even know Karden was there? I look at the note window that Carver wrote out for me the first night I met him.

797213672084

Twelve worthless numbers. Nothing to indicate even which country they might belong to, and there are thousands now. Just like the United States, other countries have split into factions. North and South Italy. Eastern and Western France. And at least a dozen new countries from China alone. Any of these countries would be happy to absorb eighty billion duros, and in a matter of days, they will.

I find myself back at Raine’s file. The information contained in it is all useless to me now. I know the real Raine. I think I might be the only person who does.

“Your resting didn’t last long.”

I look up, startled. Jenna’s been watching me from just a few feet away. Raine’s face looms in the air between us. I quickly close her file. “I’ve rested long enough.”

She tells me it’s time to change my bandages again, and she reapplies the salve. Her fingers are gentle and she says I’m healing well but she’s still concerned about a few of the deeper gashes. Even bioengineered skin can’t be overstressed too soon. “It will tear open just like regular skin. No excessive movement or lifting for a few days.”

“And I was just ready to go volunteer down at the docks.”

She smiles and puts her supplies away. “I can’t stay long, Locke. A week, maybe two at the most. The weather will be turning soon.”

I look at her, realizing I had nearly forgotten about her first- generation Bio Gel and its limitations, but I’m overwhelmed by the thought of her leaving too. It’s comforting having her close. Someone familiar. More than familiar. She’s a piece of my past—and I had always hoped, my future. When I left California, that’s what I held on to. That one day, after I had lived life the way she asked me to, I’d return. Jenna and I have history together. She’s someone who knows everything about my past, including all of my mistakes, and still cares about me anyway. I get up from behind the desk. “Jenna, I’m sorry. I would never take a chance with your life. You know how much I care about you. I just didn’t think when I—”

She puts her hands up to stop my apology. “Locke, I’m fine, but I can’t take a chance on getting caught here in a freak early freeze. They still can’t predict these things precisely—the weather can have a mind of its own. And Kayla does need me, but for another week or two I’ll be all right.” Her sky blue eyes fix on mine for a few seconds before she turns and goes into the kitchen, and I feel a strange twist in my gut. It had always been Jenna I loved. It was Jenna I was trying to hurry and live for, to catch up to her three lifetimes.

I walk to the kitchen doorway and watch her. She rinses a few dishes by hand, out of habit I suppose. Some things from our past we just can’t leave behind. Her hair is still the beautiful silky blond it always was, still seventeen on the outside, even though there are lifetimes hiding on the inside. She’s still the Jenna I always loved.

I walk up behind her and touch her arm. She turns to look at me. She would never let me kiss her before. Will she now?

“Jenna…”

She looks at me, confused. “What is it, Locke?”

I step closer to her, looking at her face, her eyes, her lips, all the memories of Jenna that I held on to when I was trapped in that hopeless world for so many years. For decades. Every eyelash that I counted to keep from going insane. Her hands, the slant of her nose, the way her hair fell across her shoulders, the glimmer of each blond strand in my imagined sunlight, the sound of her voice, every ripple of laughter I ever remembered played over and over again to mask the screams of Kara. Every memory of Jenna that helped keep me alive.

“I have to know, Jenna. Once and for all.”

She exhales a slow deep breath. “Yes, I think you probably do.” She reaches up and touches my cheek, pulling me closer, kissing me. Her lips linger on mine. I feel their softness, her tenderness, her warmth.

Slowly, I pull my lips away from hers.

Jenna.

But the reality isn’t the same as the dream. It’s different now. She’s not the same girl I knew. I hear her words again … None of us are who we once were. How is it that she knew this all along, but I didn’t? I do love her, but not in the way I thought I did. Not in the way I had always imagined. Our lives race past me. All the times before. All the times with Kara when we were three. We held hands. We crossed a line. We made one another braver. All the things that Jenna meant to me at a certain time in my life.

I search her face, not knowing what to say. “I—”