Free The Taking 02: Hover by Melissa West Page B

relax. “Jackson?”
    He turns to me. “Yeah?”
    “Why are you okay with this? I mean, he’s your grandfather.”
    “You don’t know him the way I do. If you did, you’d understand. It’s late. We should get some sleep.” He shuts out the light and I pull off my boots and place the gun under my pillow. I think back to him at the Vortex, how controlled he was, how you could tell they wanted to impress him.
    “What?” he asks. I hadn’t realized I was staring at him.
    “You were unbelievable today,” I admit, embarassed to say it out loud. “The way they responded to you, respected you. I had no idea…”
    He slumps against his pillow on the floor. “It’s the name, Ari, not me.”
    I lean over the side of the bed, holding his gaze. “No. It was you, all you.” I lay back down before I give away just how enthralled I’d been with him. I fumble with my covers, my eyes on the ceiling. “So, what now? We try again tomorrow?”
    “No. We come up with a new plan.”

Chapter 7
     
    The next day, Jackson walks me to the Panacea for a required check with Emmy before RES training. He doesn’t mention Zeus all morning, and I find myself wishing we would talk about the new plan already so I could stop worrying about it.
    I notice the other Ancients watching us as we walk along the path that borders the Cutana River, and I find myself wishing I would have asked to go there alone. I don’t want the others to assume he’s going easier on me, not because I’m worried about how they’ll view me. I don’t want to jeopardize the respect they have for him.
    Emmy and I walk out the back of the Panacea and down the back steps into the Juniper Gardens below. Jackson left at Emmy’s insistence that she needed to observe me on her own, which at first made me nervous, but now I’m grateful.
    In front of us is nothing but row after row of flowers that smell so sweet they hit me like a spray of perfume the moment we near. To the far left I can see the factories that make everything we use for daily life. And then to the right I spy what I had been most curious about since coming to Loge. It is a forest full of trees, all the same size and shape, all perfectly spaced. A wooden sign stands post at the front of each row, each with a number on it, though from this distance I can’t make out what the numbers are or determine what they might represent. I know what the forest is without having to ask.
    “Those are Taking trees, aren’t they?” I motion to the forest, curious what it would have looked like just before the Ancients came to Earth to Take. The trees function as hyperspaces between Earth and Loge, which allowed the Ancients to travel between planets during the Taking. I imagine Ancients lined up in their designated rows, disappearing into the trees like magic. Now, it reminds me of a closed store back home, dark and lonely, desperate to be open for business.
    Emmy nods. “That the Taking Forest, though it not been used in some weeks now. Zeus have it monitored.”
    I remembered Madison mentioning it yesterday, but it was dark when we passed and I was too tired at that point to care. “What is that beside it?” I ask, pointing to the fenced in square structure to the right of the forest. It is smaller than the houses here, but no more than ten or so Ancients could fit inside. It has the texture of wood, but the sun reflects off it as though it were metal.
    “That the Earthly port. It link to the main ports on Earth.”
    My pulse speeds up. “You mean that takes you to Earth? Is it operational?”
    Emmy gives me a concerned look. “It dangerous, child. Guarded all day, every day.”
    I see what she means. Standing just inside the fence are two guards, both armed. “Right,” I say, but inside my mind is churning. Two guards. That’s nothing. I could—
    Emmy stops, her expression serious. “Not here.”
    “I wasn’t—”
    “Not here,” she repeats.
    “Okay.” I follow Emmy down the center path that