Storm (Swipe Series)

Logan said. “It was just someone going rogue. But you’re right. And I won’t be staying long.” Logan swallowed. “Hailey and I have already made the arrangements, in fact; I came to say good-bye.”
    Erin looked down. She pulled her blanket up past her shoulders, tucking it in around her neck. “Oh.”
    “There’s been a, uh . . . development.”
    Erin looked at him. “What kind of development?”
    Logan scanned the various monitors, all beeping and flashing above Erin’s bed. He still didn’t know what any of it meant. It made him nervous to look at them. Were any recording sound? What about video? Was the room bugged? Who was listening?
    Logan leaned in, taking every precaution, pretending to give Erin a hug. He whispered into her ear, “The IMP that found me . . . it was my sister.”
    “ Lily? ” Erin sat up now, just a little.
    “ Shh! Act like you’re hugging me.”
    “Why?”
    “Just in case,” Logan whispered.
    “Logan, the room’s not bugged.”
    “ Yeah, but just in case .”
    After a moment, Erin put her arms around him, reluctantly at first. But soon they just rested there. Comfortably. They felt natural there, somehow, clasped around the back of Logan’s neck.
    For a moment, the two of them were quiet, perhaps pretending the hug was real.
    But that’s silly , Logan thought. Of course it’s not.
    “Lily, uh . . . she had no intention of turning me in,” Logan whispered. “She was trying to help me. Or, more accurately, to see if I might help her .”
    Erin didn’t speak for a few long breaths, her arms still draped around him.
    “You gonna tell me not to trust her?” Logan asked. “Everyone else is. Peck’s not even coming,” he added, somewhat bitterly.
    Erin frowned. “Lily’s not out to hurt you, I don’t think.”
    Logan nodded. “That’s a relief, hearing you say so.”
    “Doesn’t mean you can trust her, though; don’t get me wrong. Not too long ago, you and I were enemies. I wasn’t out to hurt you either. But we were enemies all the same.”
    “We were never enemies,” Logan said. “Your intentions were too good for us to be enemies.”
    “Oh yeah? Well, look what good that did us.”
    “It did do us good,” Logan insisted, breaking away from their pretend hug. “You got me out of Acheron. You saved my life.” He sat down at the side of Erin’s bed, and Erin laughed.
    “Yeah. Great. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” Erin sighed and wrapped an IV cord a couple of times around her finger. “So where are you off to now?”
    And Logan told her everything. About Lahoma, about the weather mill, about the drought, about Connor Goodman’s plans and the need to stop them at all costs . . .
    “Don’t go,” Erin said suddenly.
    “ What? Why?”
    “I don’t know,” Erin said. “Something’s fishy about it.”
    “How is it ‘fishy’? There has been a drought. Grandma’s been saying that for weeks. She’s been getting her reports straight from Dane out in the Village. It’s bad out there for them, Erin. Scary bad.”
    “Well, sure, I believe the drought’s happening ,” Erin said. “I believe the mill is down. I even believe there’d be someone out there crazy enough to make sure it never came back up. But, Logan, why you? Last time we saw Lily, she was throwing you into a BCI helmet. And now here we are, doing actual good work to stop an impending plague, and we’re expected just to trust that her intentions are good when she comes to pull you away from all that? To deal with another threat entirely? One that just came up out of nowhere? Just all of a sudden?”
    “It isn’t sudden,” Logan said. “This has been going on since September. And she came to me because who in the world else is she supposed to go to?”
    “So how’d Lily hear about this weather threat?” Erin asked. “How’d she get so lucky?”
    “She’s been assisting Lamson personally these last few weeks. She found out from one of his letters.”
    “So how’d she get that position then? That’s a pretty remarkable promotion for her to have gotten, so quickly like that.”
    Logan shrugged. “Well, she did just throw her own brother into Acheron’s ninth level. I mean, if that didn’t get people thinking she’s loyal . . .”
    “So Lamson requested her assistance then? She told you that specifically?”
    “Well, no,” Logan said. “But who cares who promoted her? Look—the story checks out, all right? She’s on our side. And even if it