Free Take Me Tomorrow by Shannon A. Thompson Page A

glaring at someone else entirely – Nate Harper, an innocent military student. “What’s with your attitude?” I bit back.
    His smile only grew. “Coming from you, that’s an ironic question.”
    “Can you stop deflecting everything I ask you?” I groaned. “Please?”
    He stopped in his tracks, and I had to mirror him to look him in the eye. His brow was creased, and for the first time, I noticed the slight sweat on his hairline. He was worn out. “I can do my best,” he said after a moment, “but I honestly can’t tell you everything. Not yet.”
    Yet. The word stuck out.
    He kicked the ground as he started to stride forward, slowly this time. “So, ask what you want,” he dared.
    I knew I had to start small. That’s how successful interrogations began. You had to build a bond first. You had to make them think you weren’t going to move into important topics, and you had to move into vital topics with care. “How did you get out , anyway?” I asked, focusing on the sage color. If it weren’t for the forest, I would’ve hated the color green. It represented everything in the State that I hated.
    “Starting small, aren’t you?” he asked, revealing that he knew everything I was thinking, but he didn’t fight it. “Getting out is easy. It’s allowed,” he said. “Getting back in after curfew is the hard part.”
    I sighed. “So, how do you plan on getting back in?
    “I know someone.”
    “Name? ”
    He was hesitant. “Tasia,” he admitted a name. “She’s one of the night watchers.”
    The information wasn’t something I could take lightly. He had revealed a comrade, someone I could expose with a simple call to the police. He had told me something that could get another person killed, but the fear came from something else entirely. Tasia, whoever she was, had to be a government worker. It seemed like everyone was in on it somewhere.
    “Does she know who you are?” I managed as I saw my property appear on the horizon.
    “Not exactly,” he said, surveying the same land where we met. “To some people, it doesn’t matter who I am. It just matters what I’m doing.”
    “And what are you doing exactly?”
    “I can’t tell you that,” he answered quickly.
    I crossed my arms, and my steps turned into angry stomps. The dried twigs cracked under my feet as he ran to keep up with me.
    “But I will,” he added.
    I hadn’t been expecting that response. “When?”
    He ran a hand through his hair. “Once I get permission.”
    “From who?”
    “From someone I deeply respect,” he was starting to sound annoyed. “It wouldn’t be my business to tell you without asking him first.”
    “Him?” I repeated, knowing about our mutual friends. “Broden doesn’t care.”
    Noah tilted his head back and laughed toward the stars as they began to appear. “I respect Broden,” he said, “but he isn’t about to tell me what to do.”
    Whoever he was getting permission from was not someone I knew. “Who , then?” I pressed.
    “We’re going to have to end this lovely interrogation here,” he said, stopping in his tracks. He pointed through the trees to the flickering lights my house gave off. I could see Lyn in the living room. “We’re home.”
    My face heated. “This is my home.”
    His hand dropped to his side. “Has it always been?”
    When I looked at him, his eyes sliced through me. Even though the four-worded sentence was simple, it was filled with a meaning I couldn’t comprehend. I knew he was laying the clues out for me to see, but he might as well have put a blanket over them. I glanced at the house I had spent the majority of my life in, but I didn’t see anything but my present. Living in the Albany Region was too distant of a past to recall. I barely remembered my mother, but I found my hand on the necklace she had given me through Lyn.
    “I’ve lived here for a long time,” I said.
    His gaze landed on my exposed neck. “How long?”
    “Why’s that your business?”