Hideo winces visibly. He still says nothing.

I put a hand on his arm hesitantly. “Hideo, Taylor’s after your NeuroLink. Her people are behind every recent attack against it.”

“Let them come.” Hideo’s words are a quiet and clear threat. He rises from the couch, turns away from me, and walks toward the window. There, he puts his hands in his pockets and stares out at the city on the water.

My words fade away. After a while, I push myself off the couch and go to stand beside him at the windows.

When I glance at him, I can see the tears on his cheeks, his red eyes.

Finally, after a long moment, he turns his head slightly toward me, his gaze still directed outward at the city. “Does he remember anything?” he asks in a low voice.

I can hear the real question he’s asking. Does he remember me? Does he remember our parents? “He knows who you are,” I reply softly. “But only in the way that a stranger might know you. I’m sorry, Hideo. I wish I could tell you something better than that.”

Hideo continues to stare blankly out at the city. I find myself wondering what he’s thinking, if maybe he wishes he could use the NeuroLink to will away what happened in the past.

“Jax told me that the only way to help Sasuke is if we use your algorithm to turn Zero against Taylor.”

This breaks through his trance. Hideo looks sidelong at me. “You want me to link the algorithm to her.”

“Exactly. If you open the algorithm and connect Taylor to it, you’ll be able to control Taylor and free Zero from her.”

“What about Sasuke?” Hideo’s jaw tightens at his brother’s name.

“Taylor has archives of Sasuke’s past mind. All the iterations of him. If we can combine those versions with who he is now, we can make his mind whole again.” I pause. “I know he can never be real . . . but you’ll be able to have him back in some sense.”

“You’re asking me to give you access to my algorithm.”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

He’s still struggling to trust me, but with his guard down, I can once again see his beating heart behind the armor. All the thousands of possibilities of what could have happened to Sasuke are wiped from his gaze and replaced by clarity—a path forward. He has a chance to talk to his brother again, bring him back in some small way.

For this, I know he’s willing to tear the world’s order to shreds. He’s willing to risk anything.

Hideo looks back out at the water. A long beat passes before he finally says, “I’ll do it.”

Without thinking, I take a step closer to him until we’re nearly touching. My hand comes up to rest on his arm. I don’t say anything. He stirs anyway, sensing my own mix of emotions—the wavering trust I’m putting in him, the pull I always feel when I’m near him. My fear of letting him in again. Beneath his shirt, his skin is warm. I can’t bring myself to move away.

He turns to face me. “You’re risking your life, telling me this,” he says. “You could have returned to New York and left all of this behind. But you’re still here, Emika.”

For a moment, I imagine myself back at the little bar with Hammie and the other Riders. I see Hammie leaning forward and fixing me with her steady gaze. Why are you doing this?

Then I do something I never thought I would. I think back on the morning I’d crouched, thin and hollow and hopeless, in my foster-home bed and heard his story on the radio. I let the Memory form, crystallizing into a clear image, and then I send it to him, every last thing I saw and felt and heard that day. I let him see the broken side of me that had stirred at the knowledge of him, the pieces that somehow found each other again.

I don’t know how much of it he can see and understand. It’s a jumble of thoughts and emotions, not a real recorded Memory. Suddenly, I’m afraid that he won’t get what I’m trying to say at all. That this vulnerable, naked moment might mean nothing to him.

I turn away in embarassment. But when I glance back at him, his eyes are locked on me, taking me in as if I am all that matters. As if he understands everything I tried to share.

It’s almost more than I can bear. I swallow hard and force myself to look away. My cheeks burn hot. “Hideo . . . I’m never going to agree with what you’re doing. I’ll never feel right about the deaths connected to your algorithm or your reasons justifying them. But that day, when you were just a boy being interviewed on the radio, hiding your broken heart, you reached a girl searching for something to hold on to. She found you, and you helped her pull herself up.”

Hideo stares at me, his gaze searing me to my core. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

“You are forever a piece of my story. I couldn’t turn my back on you without turning my back on myself. I had to try.” My quiet words hang in the air. “I had to hold out my hand to you.”

He’s so close now. I’m on dangerous ground—I never should have come here. But I stay still and don’t move away.

“You’re afraid,” I murmur, noticing the emotions pulsing from him.

“I’m terrified,” he whispers back. “Of what you’re capable of. Because you’re here, walking on a razor-thin line. I’ve been afraid ever since I met you, when you looked me straight in the eye and broke down my system in a matter of minutes. I spent hours afterward studying what you did. I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.” An ache enters his voice. “I’m afraid that every time I see you might be the last.”

I think back to the piercing gaze he’d given me during our last meeting. Underneath that had been fear, all along. “You told me you never wanted to see me again,” I manage to say.

His voice is low and raw. “Because every time I see you, it takes everything in me to turn away.”

I realize that I’m leaning toward him now, yearning for something more. He must be able to sense it through our connection, and as if in answer, I feel the need coming from him, shadows of what he wishes he could do, fleeting thoughts of his hand at my waist, pulling me in. The space between us feels alive, sparking with a searing desire to close.

He hesitates. With his heart exposed and vulnerable, I can now see the fear in his expression. “What do you want, Emika?” he whispers.

I close my eyes, take a breath, and open them again. “I want to stay.”

It is the last trembling rope holding him back. He closes the inches between us, takes my face in his hands, and leans down toward me. His lips touch mine.

Any sense of control I’d felt now shatters. He’s warm, his body familiar, and I fall into him. There is none of the gentle hesitation of our first kiss—this is deeper, more intense—both of us are making up for lost time.

My arms wrap around his neck. His hand pushes against the small of my back, pressing my body to his. My fingers run through his hair. He breaks our kiss only to touch his lips to my neck, and I exhale, shuddering at his warm breath against my skin. Glimpses and fantasies and sensations spark from his mind to mine, mine to his, leaving me tingling down to my toes.

I vaguely register him lifting me effortlessly into his arms. He’s carrying me toward the bed.

Don’t do this, I warn myself. You’re on thin ice. You need to keep a clear head.

But when we fall against the bedsheets, all I focus on is the cut of his jaw in the shadows. I admire the slant of deep blue light against his skin as I fumble with the buttons of his shirt and tug his belt loose. His hands are yanking my shirt up over my head, sliding along my skin. The cool air in the room hits my bare chest, and I’m struck with a sudden instinct to cover myself in front of him. But he stares down at me, his eyes dark with desire. A shy smile touches his lips. The city’s glow outside catches on his long lashes.

When I reach for him, he kisses me on the cheek, then trails his lips along my neck and my collar. His breathing is heavy and uneven, his hands warm and gentle. I tremble against him, and after a heartbeat I realize that he is shaking, too. I run a finger along the muscles of his chest down to his stomach, blushing at the way this simple touch makes him shiver. His mouth brushes against mine, asking me in a whisper what I want, and I tell him, and he gives it to me, and in this moment, I don’t think about anything else, not the Blackcoats, not Zero, not the dangers waiting for us. I just think about now. Just my body entwined with his. Just his sharp intake of breath, my name feverish on his lips, the cool sheets beneath us, the heat of him moving against me, my fingers clinging desperately to his back.

Just me.

Him.

And the gentle lapping of the ocean outside, ink under a midnight sky, separating us from the glittering city that awaits us.

23

One Day until the Warcross Closing Ceremony

I don’t stir until the first rays of dawn enter the room, casting a weak palette of light against the tangled sheets. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am—an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed. The space next to me is empty. The room is rocking ever so slightly. A boat?

Slowly, the memories from the night before come back to me.

I frown, gathering the blankets around my chest and pulling myself up into a sitting position. Did Hideo leave? I look around the room until my eyes finally settle on a sliding glass door left ajar, beyond which the silhouette of a man stands bathed in gold, leaning against the ship’s railing and looking out at the city.

I let myself watch him for a moment. Then I reach for my clothes, pull them on, and slip out of his bed.

The air outside is still cool, smelling of salt and sea, and my skin prickles as I stop to lean against the open door. Two steaming mugs sit on a small table beside where Hideo’s standing. Morning dew lingers on the doors’ glass. I run an idle finger along it, noting the feel of the moisture, and remind myself that I’m in the real world now, not in a virtual one.

Hideo looks to his side so that I can see the profile of his face. “You’re up early,” he says.