Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(97)

“I know.” I shrug. “It’s weird, but it’s real. See?” I move to the cart, take a bite of a cherry tart, and chew demonstratively before swallowing. “Safe.”

That’s enough for Hawthorne. He lifts the closest thing to his hand, a croissant, and shoves the entire thing in his mouth. Roselle does the same with a scone. They both chew, roll their eyes, and make small groaning noises as they ravish the trays, dropping crumbs everywhere. I know that kind of hunger, and it pains me to see it in them. I move around the room, filling in cracks in the plaster and repairing broken panes of glass. I create a large brass tub with handheld showerheads. A bed comes next, and a wardrobe of clothes, and another with weapons and armor.

The air in here feels taut, supercharged. The maginots below begin to whine. I’d keep going, but I need to let the atmosphere rest, give it a chance to rebalance.

“I’ll leave you two to shower and change,” I say. “I’ll wait for you outside in the yard.” I walk to the gray doors and out onto the balcony. Climbing up on the stone ledge, I jump two stories to the ground below and land on my feet.

Above me, Hawthorne calls, “You’re freaking me out!”

I glance up and see him gripping the stone railing. A small smile forms at the corner of my mouth. “You ready for an upgrade, Trugrave?” I ask.

“I’m ready for a shower. Please don’t die while I’m in it.”

“I promise,” I reply so he can hear me, and then add, under my breath, “I can’t die.”

It’s not long before Roselle and Hawthorne join me in the yard. They’re both garbed in light armor with Sword-soldier tagging that I provided. It’s better than any armor they’ve ever had, and it’s fitting because Roselle is The Sword in this world. I push away the maginot who has gently caught my arm in its massive maw.

“He looked like he was about to eat you,” Hawthorne says.

“Funnyface would never eat her—me,” Roselle and I say at the same time.

“This is weird,” Hawthorne says with a chuckle.

Roselle ignores him. “Do you have a plan?” she asks me.

“I do. I want to see how you wake someone up from the collective.”

“I’d show you”—she gives me a sheepish look—“but I can’t find any more of them on the ground, so to speak. When we awoke a few days ago, the sky was red, and everyone was gone . . . up there.” Roselle points to the sky.

“All the food was gone, too,” Hawthorne adds. “We’ve been starving ever since. I thought I’d go insane with the noise the groaning sky was making.”

I want to ask him again why he’d think this world was the real one after that, but I don’t. “Okay, we’ll get to them soon. First I’d like your permission to go inside your heads. I think I can improve your situations if I do, but I won’t try without you saying it’s okay.”

Hawthorne glances at Roselle.

Roselle nods. “She’s me, Hawthorne. If you trust me, then you should trust her.”

“You heard her when she told us she murdered the other me, right?” he asks.

“How did Hawthorne die?” Roselle asks.

I explain what happened, how Hawthorne drowned, and how I came back to life—twice.

Hawthorne frowns. “You didn’t murder the other me. You tried to kill Crow.”

“That’s intent. The fact remains that I did kill you. You’re dead.”

“I’m not dead. The other Hawthorne is dead. I’m very much alive.”

“You are,” I agree.

“He’d be okay with it,” Hawthorne says. “If he were me. He’d only regret that it didn’t work.”

I feel like I’m dying inside. I push back my tears. “I can’t talk about this now. Will you give me your permission?”

“Yes,” Hawthorne says, relaxing his shoulders. “Whatever you’re gonna do, it’s better than starving to death here.”

“I’m going to touch you,” I say. He nods his okay, and I move to him. I reach up, slide my hands over his freshly shaven cheeks, and rest my palms on his temples. His scent is the same. My heart aches, but I push that aside and focus. He has a VPMD implant. Of course he does—he’s a copy. Roselle must have somehow scrambled parts of it when she freed his consciousness from the collective, because it no longer accepts Spectrum’s signal. I can feel the frequency of the signal streaming around us. I wander a little in his mind, taking its measure. “That fantasy you’ve got going on in your head—the scenario with Roselle and me and you—it’s never going to happen, Hawthorne,” I tease him.

“A guy can dream.” Hawthorne grins, unashamed. He fights the impulse to wrap his arms around me and ravish me . . . but then a thought occurs to him, and he stops smiling. He’s worrying about me. Not the other Roselle—me. He’s afraid that I’m alone without him. He still loves me, and he’s getting a sense of my sorrow.

“I’m okay,” I say aloud.

“No, you’re not.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Hawthorne.”

“Can you show me?” he asks. He raises his hand with the intent of putting it on my hip. He stops himself, balling it into a fist.