Tether by Anna Jarzab

Author:Anna Jarzab [Jarzab, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-97726-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

By the time we reached Gorman’s Gate, the sun was close to setting. Darkness spread across the sky like ink, and everyone in the car was growing restless, even Selene, so you could feel the collective relief when Thomas pulled off a lonely country highway onto an even lonelier private dirt road.

“Okay,” Thomas said, parking. “You all wait here. I’m going to go talk to her.”

“Who’s her?” Tim asked.

“Philomena Dryden,” Thomas told us. “Or, well, that was her name when she was an active KES agent. I don’t know what she goes by now. But this is where she lives. She’s friendly.”

“To whom?” Cora asked.

“To our cause,” he said. Cora and Navin exchanged a look, and I could imagine what they were thinking: Thomas didn’t seem to know very much about this woman at all. “Sasha, come with me?”

“Why?” Selene demanded. She was reluctant to be separated from me, even for a second; she was a stranger in a strange land, and I was the only person in Aurora she trusted. Thomas made a frustrated noise.

“I think it will go a long way toward getting Agent Dryden to hear us out,” Thomas said, but he didn’t explain further. As I climbed out of the car, Selene’s mind poked at mine inquisitively, but there wasn’t anything I could tell her. Maybe Thomas didn’t really need me. Maybe he just wanted me close.

Thomas and I walked in silence down the dirt road—actually, road was a bit generous. It was more of an overgrown path. As soon as we were out of sight of the car, I grabbed him by the hand and pushed him up against a nearby tree. He started to laugh, but I silenced him with a long, hard kiss. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me onto the tips of my toes.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since Almond,” I whispered when we came up for air.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the Labyrinth,” he whispered back. “Where have you been?”

I laughed. “Distracted.”

He kissed me again. “What about now?”

“Now I’m perfectly focused.” I snaked my arms around his neck and trailed a line of kisses down the length of his jaw.

He leaned his head back against the tree trunk and sighed. “I think we’d better keep moving.” I groaned. “I know. But they’re going to wonder if we’re not back soon.”

“Let’s just run,” I suggested. I was only half-joking. I would’ve given anything in that moment to take off with him and never look back. Forget the tether. Forget Selene and Juliana and the KES. Let them fight their own wars. Let the tether remain, no matter what it might do to me. If it meant being with him, alone and safe, then screw everything else. “They can’t see us. By the time they notice we’re gone, it’ll be too late.”

“Good idea,” he said, playing along. “Where should we go?”

And just like that, my whole escape fantasy crumbled. There was nowhere to go. “I don’t know,” I said, feeling deflated.

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