VOLITION (Perception Trilogy, book 2) Read Free Page B

back
together.
    I knew it was my move: I just didn’t know what to do.
    Noah turned back to the scene playing outside and grimaced. He
grabbed his jacket off the back of one of the chairs and put it on.
    “I’ll get breakfast,” he said without looking at me.
    We didn’t have rain gear or an umbrella. “You’ll get soaked.”
    “Uh-huh. But I’m starving, and I’m sure you are, too. A little
water won’t kill me.”
    He left, and I flopped down on my back, and stared at the
spotted ceiling. We were supposed to leave today, but I couldn’t see how Noah
could get the battery recharged in this weather. Walking a few blocks to the
convenience store was one thing. Hiking back to where we’d hidden the car would
be much more difficult.
    At one point Noah and I had talked about heading north to
Canada, but then we realized we didn’t have any ID and even if we did we
couldn’t use our real names, so we turned east instead. I had no idea where we
were going to go from here, but Grandpa’s search for me and Noah was going
strong. Our faces had sprung up everywhere since the night I’d shot Jackson, on
billboards along city streets and highways, on electronic ad placements in
stores, on the television and the internet.
    I showered and dressed and had my hair dried by the time Noah
returned with bagels in a plastic bag and two cups of coffee.
    He shook himself off like a wet dog and I couldn’t help but
smile a little.
    “Here’s your sweetened latte.” Noah sat the cups on the table
and took off his coat. He pulled dry clothes from his backpack and disappeared
into the bathroom.
    I peeked inside the bag and removed a bagel. One whiff and my
stomach responded. I wolfed half of it down before Noah joined me.
    I stared at him from over the top of my coffee cup, averting my
eyes when he looked back. The heat of my humiliation from the previous night’s
rejection grew up my neck. I blew on the cooled coffee as a guise.
    “I thought about what you said yesterday,” Noah said after
finishing his bagel. “About your grandpa. I could get a cheap laptop. Go back
to my blog, maybe stir up some dissention.”
    “Wouldn’t he be able to track us through it?” Not that Grandpa
would do the tracking himself. He had people employed to do his dirty work for
him.
    “I could secure the system. At least for a little while. Long
enough to get something going.”
    “But it’s a risk?”
    He paused, then said, “Yes. It’s a risk.”
    I sipped my coffee and thought about the obnoxious commercial
I’d seen on TV the day before. “I think we should do it.”
    Noah crumpled up the breakfast wrapping and tossed it into the
trash. He pulled back on the curtain and gazed outside.
    “The rain’s let up. I’ll go now, see what I can find.”
    “I’ll go, too.”
    “No, I think you need to stay out of sight.”
    “But…” I pulled on my shortened hair. “I look different.”
    “I don’t want to take any chances. I won’t be long.”
    I was starting to get cabin fever, but I consented. Noah put on
his damp jacket and left for the second time that morning.
    I made the bed, brushed my teeth, and washed my clothes in the
sink with hand soap. My pink wig lay on the floor where I’d tossed it, taunting
me. I growled at it and threw it into the garbage can on top of our breakfast
trash.
    I turned on the TV and watched daytime soaps and advertisements
about the latest rage in domestic help: the humanoid. The machine washed floors
and windows, cleaned kitchens and baths. You could get female and male
versions, each with creepy, plastic faces that had stiff, fake expressions.
    The time on the bottom corner of the screen told me that Noah
had been gone for almost two hours. I picked at my nails as worry swirled in my
gut. I moved off the bed to stare out the window, willing Noah’s form into
view.
    “Where are you?” I spoke aloud.
    What if something had happened to him? What if he didn’t
return?
    Anxiety paralyzed me. I