Torn (Cold Awakening) by Robin Wasserman Page B

rewards, I shouldn’t have cared. So I’d exchanged one life for another. I’d lost nothing but pointless nights zoned out on bliss mods, cackling with Cass and Terra and all the interchangeable orgs who couldn’t deal with a mech in their midst. I’d lost a boyfriend who could barely tell the difference between me and my sister, or at least didn’t care which of our tongues was in his mouth. I’d lost a family I was better off without.
    I’d gained Riley. I’d gained time,
lifetimes
, a brain that could be eternally copied, a body that could be repaired, refreshed, exchanged. I’d trained myself not to think about whether it had been an even trade.
    As I’d trained myself not to think about how things would have been different, with Zo in the car, me safe at home.
    “I’m not going back inside,” Zo said, voice muffled. It was too dark to see if she was crying, and I knew that was the only reason I’d been allowed to stay. “Not ever.”
    “Okay.”
    This is not about me,
I reminded myself.
Not tonight.
    “So what now?” I asked.
    There was a pause. “I don’t know.” Zo puffed a hot breath against the glass, fogging up the window. Then smeared a finger through the condensation. A lightning bolt
Z
. For a second she was five years old again, and I was seven, and we were fighting sleep on a long drive, staking our claim on the foggy windows, painting names, flowers, faces—and then watching them disappear. We’d made a competition of it, who faded away first, who lasted. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
    Without asking, I reached across her and keyed in a set of coordinates, started the car. “Yes, you do,” I said, like a big sister should, fixing things.
    What I knew about myself: Given the chance back then, I wouldn’t have gotten in the car. I wouldn’t have saved her.
    At least this time, I could try.
    Zo stopped me before I could knock on Riley’s door.
    “Isn’t it kind of rude for us to show up in the middle of the night?” Zo asked.
    “It’s no big deal.”
    When she didn’t follow it up with the obvious dig about how often I did that kind of thing, I really began to worry.
    “Maybe we should go,” she said instead.
    “He’ll understand.”
    “He doesn’t even know me.”
    I had to laugh. “After that dinner the other night? I’d say he knows you.”
    Zo laughed too, and it sounded good. But it didn’t last long. “Maybe I should wait in the car.”
    I resisted the urge to take her arm. It was like herding a stray cat. You had to lure it in carefully, let it think the whole thing was its own idea. Or just grab it by the neck and toss it inside.
    I knocked.
    It took only a moment for Riley to appear. He opened the door just wide enough to slip out, then shut it again behind him. “Hey. What are you … everything okay?” He seemed off-kilter, like we’d woken him, but of course mechs didn’t sleep; we shut down at night as a matter of convenience and convention, switching ourselves back on with instant alertness. Noise “woke” us, as it did orgs. But there were no dreams to shake off; there were no dreams.
    “No,” I said. “Not okay. But—” I glanced at Zo. She looked zoned out, and I wondered if she’d swallowed a handful of chillers in the car, or if it was just shock. “Can we talk about it in the morning? We need a place to crash.”
    Riley paused. “I told you, the place is a mess …”
    “Riley, this is an emergency.”
    He didn’t move. Like he couldn’t see that this mattered more than some unwashed sheets.
    I pushed past him. “Whatever you’ve got in there, it can’t be—” I stopped. Stopped talking, stopped moving.
    It wasn’t a what.
    It was a who.
    The girl splayed on Riley’s bed had spiky red hair, bad skin, and no shirt. Her feet were kicked up on his pillows; her head lolled over the foot of the bed. She tilted her head back, watching me upside down.
    “Was wondering when I’d finally see you again,” Sari said, with