Free Tether by Anna Jarzab

of her to let her get near me. “My name is Selene. The more time we spend together and the closer we are to each other, the more control we’ll have over the bond. Haven’t you noticed how much stronger it’s already become?”
    The only thing more bizarre than coming face to face with my analog was hearing my own voice come out of her mouth. It was like standing in front of a mirror and seeing my reflection move on its own—the stuff of nightmares. But at the same time, strange as it sounds, it was like meeting a twin sister I never knew I had: comforting, like coming home after a long time away.
    “How can you do that?”
    “Do what?”
    “Send me your memories. And talk to me in my head. Can you read my mind?” That would be a whole new level ofweird, exactly the sort of thing I needed to break the tether to avoid. I didn’t
want
to control it—I wanted to
destroy
it. If she’d been spying on me all these weeks, she had to know that.
    “Not exactly.”
    “That’s not a no.”
    “I can sense some of your feelings and intentions,” Selene explained. “I’m sure you can sense mine, or you’ll be able to very soon. Sometimes I can tell what you’re thinking, but only when you’re projecting. As for the memories … since I was young, I’ve been cultivating an ability that, among other things, gives me greater control over the bond than I would otherwise have. We call it listening, but it has very little to do with what you can hear with your ears.”
    “ ‘We’?”
    “The others in my world. Those of us who are left. I’m so glad we found each other, Sasha. We have important work to do together.”
    “What work?” I demanded. I had my own work to do, and it occurred to me for the first time that I didn’t just have to
find
my analogs—I had to convince them to do what needed to be done, and I wasn’t even sure what that was yet.
    “We have to locate Juliana,” Selene said. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? But first, we have to get out of this place. We can’t do anything locked up here.”
    I bit my lip. I’d been thinking the same thing, but I couldn’t just follow her blindly—I didn’t even
know
her. It made me nervous, the way she kept saying “we,” as if we hadn’t just met, and that she already had a plan. And I still had no idea why she was in Aurora in the first place. “How are we going to do that? It’s not like the General’s going to let us walk out the front door.”
    “Of course not. I have something else in mind. I couldn’t do it without you, but now that you’re here …” She grabbedmy hand and I jumped, but she didn’t disappear. I glanced down at my wrist, expecting the anchor to have vanished, but it was still there, too, glinting in the light. On her wrist, I saw a silver tattoo of two overlapping circles.
    “We’re not supposed to touch,” I said in bewilderment.
    “You and Juliana can’t touch,” she said, holding on tighter. “And neither can Juliana and I. But you and I are not from Aurora. We cancel each other out here. In my world, we’ll have to be much more careful.”
    “Your world?” I was intensely curious about where Selene had come from, but I had no plans to leave Aurora. I’d just arrived. My mind turned back to Thomas. I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew where we stood with each other. I didn’t think my heart could take any more wondering.
    You asked why I was here.
Selene’s voice ricocheted through my head. I tensed up. It was hard to get used to hearing thoughts that weren’t mine.
My world—my planet
—
is dying, and I need your help to save it. Yours
and
Juliana’s. To do that, you both have to come with me to Taiga. Not forever. Just for a little while.
    She gripped my hand so hard it felt as if my bones were being crushed.
I would tell you more, but it would take too much time, and we’re out of that now. The guards are coming to get you.
    “How do you know that?”
    She smiled.