Tether by Anna Jarzab Page A

his shirt and drew him to me, so close that our noses were touching. “I don’t want to talk right now. I just want to do this.” I brushed his lips with mine. He caught my mouth and pressed his palm against the nape of my neck, burying his fingers in my hair.
    “We have to get you out of here.” He took a deep, steadying breath and sagged against the wall. I traced the arc of a long, angry scar across his temple with my fingertips. I’d known he was strong, but to survive torture without breaking took a different kind of strength, one most people didn’t have. Whathad it been like for him, alone in that cell, waiting for death? What had it done to him?
    “I’m not going back to Earth,” I insisted. “I came here to find you, and I’m not leaving without you.”
    He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think Earth is even an option right now. If you run, that’s the first place they’ll look.”
    “I know.” Guilt over leaving Granddad behind again—this time on purpose—gnawed at me constantly. The least I could do was not draw danger to his doorstep. “Selene’s got a plan. She wants me to escape with her tonight.”
    Thomas laughed. “This is a high-security military compound. There’s only one person I know of who managed to escape the Labyrinth since it was built. How does she think she’s going to get out of that cell, let alone the building?”
    “I have no idea. But I believe she can do it. She seems capable of pretty much anything.”
    “Yeah, that’s what worries me.”
    “Come with us,” I implored. “We can leave together. I know you don’t want to stay here.”
    Thomas raised his eyes to meet mine, and I realized I didn’t know that at all. But I wanted so badly to believe it. “I have to. For a little while, at least. To distract them and give you time to get away.”
    “So you think I should go with her?”
    “I think you already know what you need to do,” Thomas said. “But first things first.” I was wearing a bobby pin to keep my bangs out of my eyes, and he plucked it out. My hair fell in my face, and I gave him a curious look—what the hell was he doing? Then he took my wrist and did something to the anchor; it fell open on its hinges and dropped into his palm.
    “How did you do that?”
    “There’s an emergency latch release on the inside of the band,” he explained, shoving the anchor into his pocket. “You just need something thin and strong enough to trip it. It deactivates when you remove it.”
    I rubbed my wrist, happy to be rid of that thing. “Now you tell me.”
    He gave a low chuckle, sliding his hands up my arms. I shivered in spite of the heat that hung in the air between us. “Now when you run, they won’t be able to track you.”
    “I’m afraid to go,” I confessed. All the time I’d spent in Aurora, I’d been in the care of someone else. Even when I’d escaped from the Castle, I’d been with Callum. “I don’t know this world. I don’t even know where Juliana is.”
    “Juliana?”
    “I need to find her. I have to break the tether before it breaks me.” I told him about the visions, how they were becoming more and more frequent, blurring the edges of my reality. The fact that Selene could read my mind and push her own thoughts and memories into my head was further proof that the tether was dangerous. But for the first time since Dr. March planted the idea in my head, I felt that breaking the bond connecting me to my analogs was possible. I only wished that I knew how to actually do it.
    Thomas cupped my face in his hands. “You’re brave, Sasha Lawson. And you’re smart as hell. If you want some advice, here it is: trust your gut, and don’t let fear get the best of you.”
    “Is that in the KES training manual?” I joked.
    “You bet it is.” He smiled. “Lesson one.”
    “And Selene? You said yourself you don’t trust her. I’m not sure I do, either.” Reason told me I shouldn’t, but everything I felt through the