Free MILA 2.0: Redemption by Debra Driza

isn’t exactly one of my best qualities,” I said.
    “Funny, I hadn’t noticed that at all,” Lucas deadpanned.
    I nudged him with my elbow. “There’s a rest stop about two miles ahead, Smart Guy.”
    “Great,” he said.
    A few minutes later we pulled off the highway and drove down a stretch of road that led to a building that looked like a log cabin. There were two signs out front: one read RESTROOMS and the other read VENDING MACHINES . Once Lucas parked the Caprice in the lot and shut off the car’s engine, he got out and went into the backseat, digging into his duffel bag. He returned with a pair of red-handled scissors.
    I said, “Let me guess. I’m about to change my hairstyle?”
    “It’s the first thing that’s about to change,” was his cryptic reply.
    “Okay, so should I just do it here and use the rearview mirror?” I asked.
    Lucas peered around to see how many people were close by. We spied a family in a minivan a few spaces away.
    “Let’s go inside and see if we can find one of those family bathrooms,” he suggested.
    I nodded, pulling up the hood of Tim’s dirty college sweatshirt and tightening it so that my face wouldn’t be visible to any hidden security cameras. We walked swiftly into the building, which was practically empty. To the left of the vending machines, I spotted a family bathroom andwe quickly ducked inside.
    “I don’t mean to rush you, but we should probably—”
    “Do this in a hurry? I know. I’ve been a fugitive for a while, remember?”
    Lucas frowned a little as he handed me the scissors, but he didn’t say anything else.
    I set the scissors on the calcium-stained sink and positioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror, yanking off my sweatshirt. A clog suddenly formed in my throat. Not over the prospective loss of hair. I couldn’t care less about that. But over my last haircut, back in a motel room, with Nicole—Mom—wielding the scissors, trying to protect me. That mad race to keep me out of Holland’s hands had basically signed her death sentence.
    Lucas studied my expression while I gazed in the mirror.
    “Want me to give it a try? I gave my mom a haircut a few times,” he said.
    I glanced at him over my shoulder curiously.
    “Agoraphobia,” he said simply. “By the time I was thirteen, she could barely leave the house.”
    “Wow.”
    I remembered the caged feeling I had at Holland’s compound, where I was essentially imprisoned. I wondered if Lucas’s mother had felt like that—except, instead of being held captive by another person, she’d been trapped by her own fear. Either way, it couldn’t have been an easyexperience—for her or Lucas.
    “That had to be hard on you,” I said, turning back to the mirror. I wished I wasn’t so preoccupied with my own problems.
    The fact that Lucas had a troubled past only made my admiration grow.
    “It was harder on her. I just did what I could to help,” he said.
    My fingers curled around the scissors, determined to help myself the way Lucas was always helping everyone else.
    “We’re all flawed, Mila. All of us,” Lucas said, his voice so calm and certain. “We muddle through life the best we can, and hopefully learn something about ourselves along the way. Maybe even become better people, if we’re lucky.”
    “I can’t imagine you getting any better, though.”
    Lucas approached me slowly, his image captured in the mirror, right beside mine. His green-gold eyes were bloodshot, but they were still warm. The stubble on his jawline made the angles of his face seem sharper.
    “I was about to say the same thing about you.”
    I stared, transfixed at his reflection, caught up in the ragged pitch of his voice, the raw emotion. The bathroom fan hummed, and beyond that, a stir of voices from behind the door. I wasn’t learning anything new about Lucas. I’d known almost from the start what kind of human he was: strong, ethical, compassionate. Why, then, did my artificialheart feel as though