Soulprint by Megan Miranda Page A

the couch with it.
    â€œDon’t,” he whispers, but I have no idea what he wants me to stop doing, or why. He has my elbow in a grip just as I’m lifting a couch cushion, and he looks completely confused but doesn’t let go. I shove the rope under the cushion with my free hand and drop it back down just as Dominic enters the room again.
    â€œWow,” he says, eyeing Cameron with his hand on me, standing perfectly still, so close I can feel his breath on the side of my face. “What the hell happened in that trunk? No, don’t tell me, I bet I know.”
    My entire face is burning. I know what he’s going to say from the way he’s leering at me. I shouldn’t be ashamed of kissing him. I did it to distract him, so I’d have a moment to think, to act.
    I kissed him, and then I ruined him, and I cannot look him in the eye. I can’t look at Cameron either.
    â€œShe got carsick,” Cameron says, a second before Dominic speaks. “And then she hiked four miles across the state border.” My pulse races, because he’s giving me information. I know he knows it, too. And he hasn’t said anything about the rope or my search of the room. “She needs something to eat.”
    I pull my arm away, let my eyes wander the room like I’m mindlessly assessing it. I know better than to hope blindly, but I relish the information.
    I will use it.
    Casey pokes her head out of the back room, swinging the door open. “All set,” she says. But she doesn’t smile, and so neither do I.
    There’s something humming in a back room. It sounds like ten refrigerators, and I really hope that’s the case, because I really am starving. On the island, someone would’ve brought me food by now. Someone would’ve made sure I had enough.
    My stomach growls and my legs are shaky from the hike, but all thought of food leaves my mind as I enter the room behind Cameron. There’s a generator, I think. Something to power this place, so far off the grid. It’s humming, and the computer it’s hooked up to is humming, too. There’s another machine with a computer screen attached, but it’s long andrectangular and has a pin dropping out of an alcove in the middle, currently resting in a beaker of something. Maybe water. Maybe not. But the most uncomfortable part of this room is not the things that are unfamiliar. It’s the thing I know: a narrow cot, a metal tray covered in Saran Wrap, a box of gauze, a bottle of disinfectant.
    Dominic comes up behind me and places a hand on my tense shoulder. “Relax, Alina, it won’t hurt much.”
    But my shoulders go tense because I don’t understand. “What the hell is this?” I ask. Nobody looks me in the eye. “Casey?” I say, but she keeps herself busy at the screen. Dominic wanted a sample from me in my room as well. He didn’t tell me why then either. “Cameron?” I say.
    Cameron cuts his eyes to Dominic. “I thought you said she wanted this,” he says.
    â€œWanted what?” I ask, panic rising, rage rising. “Wanted
what
? You think I’m not her?”
    Dom looks at me with something close to compassion. “No, I know you’re her. Calm down, Alina,” he says, but that only succeeds in making me even less calm, because he’s also blocking the door.
    We all know June’s soul is mine; what more do they intend to see? There
is
nothing else to see. That’s the problem with soul fingerprinting. We still don’t know what it can do, what it can tell us. All we can do is find a match.
    There have been several studies on the nature of the soul, but it’s not information that comes from the soul fingerprint itself—there’s no secret revealed in the readout; it’s like seeinga DNA strand but having no idea what it codes for. The only way science has learned anything so far is by linking the soul with a person,