Taken (Erin Bowman)

anything and everything I said last night.”
    “Do you even remember last night?”
    “Some of it.” She examines the fruit but ends up drinking some water instead.
    “What’s Clipper doing with Harvey?” I ask, changing the subject.
    Bree rubs her temples. “He’s in training. Next in line for head of tech operations.”
    “Really? He’s the most qualified?”
    “Do you have a thing against young talent or something?” she snaps. “Clipper invented the clipping machine on his own and was responsible for a lot of our basic technology. None of it was as advanced as what we have now, but it got the job done when there was no Harvey.”
    “He just seems so young.”
    “What were you doing at twelve, Gray? Were you hunting for your village? Did people rely on you for things?”
    I nod.
    “Well, it’s no different here. We rely on people with talent regardless of their age.”
    “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Don’t get all worked up.”
    She snorts and blows a stray hair from her eyes. “Oh please. As if you could do anything to get me worked up.”
    “I seemed to be able to last night.”
    She glares at me. “Yeah, well, sobriety changes things.”
    She looks pretty even in her wrecked and hungover state, but she’s hot and unpredictable, a wild forest fire. What had we been thinking last night? Why had we gotten confused, even if only for a second? We are not a suitable match. We are better at each other’s throats, better when we challenge the other. We are deadly. But one thing is for certain: We are back to normal.

THIRTY
    MY FIRST TWO MONTHS IN Crevice Valley pass quickly.
    Training takes up most of my time, and I eventually graduate from Elijah’s group into my father’s. The work is harder, but my body has strengthened. I gain weight in ways I never had in Claysoot, muscles growing strong from repetitive workouts. My shooting lessons shift to include guns. I master them eventually, but only the long, slender ones. Rifles. I need a long barrel so that I feel I am holding a bow, and then my aim rings true.
    Training with Owen is enjoyable, although I still don’t feel like he’s my father. If anything, he is an aged version of myself, with similar ideals and as stubborn a personality. We grow close, over the occasional drink at the Tap Room or an extra one-on-one training session, but not in the traditional way a parent and child might. The only time he ever feels like a father is when I catch him staring at me as I train, some look of utmost confusion on his face, as if he is uncertain I am really his.
    The two of us visit Blaine often. Despite the fast recovery he wished for, his progress is slow but steady.
    “The steady is the important part,” our father says, “not the speed.”
    Most of our trips to the hospital consist of watching Blaine walk with crutches and telling him he’s doing fantastic even when he’s not. He knows we are lying and will change the subject of the conversation, asking questions about the Laicos Project or Crevice Valley. Most of the details my father spills are ones I’ve already heard, but I learn a few new gems during these visits, including the fact that our father joined the Rebels the way I did, after being captured and dragged through the door, and that Crevice Valley is such a fabulous and well-supplied site because it was once a military facility.
    “When Elijah found it, all the hallways and rooms were already in place, the Conditioning Room sat there like it was waiting to be used, and the Basin was filled with dead crops. People had been here before us. And the fact that much of this place has electricity, plus a few underground bomb shelters that would be protected during a major attack—well, that proves this is more than a nifty hideout in the woods.”
    “If it’s such a great military asset, why isn’t the Order crawling all over it?” Blaine asks.
    “We’ve often wondered that ourselves,” Owen says. “Ryder thinks knowledge of this place died long before Frank and the Order came into power. He wagers its location was top secret and known only by a few key officials, all of whom likely were killed during the war.”
    “Lucky break,” I say.
    “Extremely. If Frank is so hungry to breach Mount Martyr for Harvey, imagine how rabid he’d be if he knew Crevice Valley was actually a functional military facility.”
    “Well, what does he think?” Blaine asks, wobbling on his crutches. “That you guys are sleeping out under the