Storm (Swipe Series)

realized. That was the word for it.
    Erin sighed and lay there thinking for some time. “I don’t wanna die, Logan.”
    “You won’t! We’re here now. We made it. Dr. Rhyne’s gonna fix this. It’s just a matter of time—”
    “Yeah, great,” Erin laughed. “Time. The one thing I don’t have too much of.”
    “True,” Logan joked. “Too bad it’s not just a matter of sarcasm.”
    “I’d be all set.”
    “Or recklessness—”
    “I think you mean bravery—”
    “Or—”
    “Okay, okay! I get it.” They were both laughing now.
    “You know . . . Erin,” Logan started. “If it makes you feel any better, I actually think you and I might be in this thing together. More than you think . . .”
    “What do you mean? You have nothing to worry about. You aren’t Marked.”
    “Well. Actually . . . ,” Logan said.
    “You aren’t. I may be barely lucid, but I can still see that you aren’t. You’re the Markless flag bearer, for crying out loud. I watched you dodge your Pledge. You’re, like, the last person who’s gonna catch Trumpet. Quit whining.”
    Logan laughed. He couldn’t help but smile at her, even in theface of all this. “You’re right,” he said. “There’s no nanoink on my wrist.” He paused and turned it over, rubbing at the skin. “But I did get the vaccine. The nurse does all that before the Marker comes into the room. And as I’m sure you remember, I managed to get that far before I defected.
    “Erin, as far as this virus is concerned—I’m as Marked as you are.”
    “Aw, Logan! Terrific. Now I have to be worried about that too? Come on—why would you tell me that?”
    Logan shrugged. “Solidarity?”
    “You’re an idiot,” Erin told him.
    “Yeah.” But Logan pulled a small book out of his pocket. “You know,” he said. “There’ve been a lot of times these past few months when I’d just about lost hope.”
    “Tell me about it,” Erin said.
    He handed the book to her. “A friend gave this to me,” he said. “Down in an underpass in New Chicago’s ruins.”
    Erin flipped through the book’s whisper-thin pages.
    “It helped,” Logan said. “Especially the last half.”
    Erin nodded.
    “So now it’s my turn,” Logan said. “That whole warehouse debacle you feel so sorry about? It was my fault. I put you in an impossible position. I should never have dragged you into it beforehand. The Pledge escape, I mean. It was wrong of me to do that. Really wrong.”
    “Are you kidding?” Erin said, sitting up with a jolt of renewed energy. “You’d be an IMP right now!”
    Logan frowned.
    “Besides,” she added. “I don’t accept your apology. That nightbeforehand is a nice memory for me. The ice cream, I mean, when we went out for it. You can’t just take that away from me now because things didn’t work out as perfectly as you’d hoped.”
    “Stop talking like that,” Logan said.
    “Like what ?”
    “Like you’re already taking stock or something. Like your best days are behind you. Just stop it, all right? You’re not going to die!”
    Erin closed her eyes again. She wasn’t so sure. But it wasn’t worth an argument.
    “Besides,” Logan continued, “your memory sucks. That wasn’t a happy occasion at all . We argued the whole time, we each made promises that we immediately broke . . . I mean, you didn’t even say good-bye to me at the end of it.”
    “You remember that?” Erin asked.
    “Of course I remember it!”
    Erin laughed. “It’s funny,” she said “which memories end up being the nicest. That whole fall we had in Spokie . . . I mean, it wasn’t exactly fun, going through it at the time.”
    “It was terrifying,” Logan specified.
    “And yet . . .” Erin stopped herself.
    The basement was quiet for a while. Slowly, Logan moved to sit at the foot of Erin’s bed. A tension rose. Erin ignored it. But neither of them breathed.
    “You know, when I found you back at the farm, in December,” Erin began. She pulled the covers up to her chin. “I really was trying to help you. I know you don’t believe me. And that’s okay, I guess. But I just thought, maybe, you know, if I could talk to you . . . just negotiate the situation, you know? Between you and DOME? I just figured . . .”
    “Sure,” Logan said, once it was clear Erin wasn’t going to finish.
    “I mean, seriously, Logan! Why’d you have to be such a jerk about it?” Erin raised her voice to the limits of her energy, legitimately working herself up