Took Me Yesterday (book 2 of The Tomo Trilogy)

The Bombs

It was the new moon that gave it away. After tomo stopped working on Noah, Broden started taking it to see what he could. Mostly to see if he experienced Noah's death when it happened. But all Broden felt was painstaking sadness and rushing wind and tears on his face as he looked up at the sky. The empty sky.

I ignored that empty sky as I marched down the streets. The strong winds tunneling through made everything feel so much worse, and so incredibly close.

Tonight, Noah would die.

"Well, that explains things," Pierson said after I told him why the two fought. It wasn't my business to share, but Pierson wasn't going to let me go otherwise, and I needed his help keeping Broden inside. With Pierson's order, Tasia had sedated him. "I knew the kid had medical problems, but..."

"Not that?" I finished. "I know what you mean."

From the outside, Broden seemed perfectly healthy. A bit too thin for how tall he was, but a strong runner. And friends with a tomo addict. Though, a part of me had forgotten Noah was an addict, especially since the drugs stopped working for him. My heart raced at the thought, but I pushed his probable death out of my mind. That, and the fact that Pierson didn't know about Noah's future or my defying tomo or anything that he should've known when agreeing to help me.

Secrets would be the death of us all.

"Why are you helping me anyway?" I asked after passing the twelfth bunch of drunks in the music district. The street already smelled like vomit. Considering the amount of fish guts lingering around, the sour scent was impressive.

Pierson rubbed his nose like he was thinking the same thing. "I don't know," he admitted, half-shrugging. "Maybe because I hate to see friends fight."

"You mean, you don't like to fight with Jack?"

"Jack?" he stumbled over his friend's name from Louis City. "Why'd you bring him up?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, come on, I saw it from a mile away. You and him." Pierson waited. "You both love Penelope, but she's with you."

Pierson rocked his jaw. "And?"

"And," I added, "you want to hate Jack. But you can't. And so, you fight."

"Is that what you think?"

I shrugged. Pierson laughed. "Kids," he said it like he didn't pretend to be one all the time. But then, he looked at the sky overhead and nodded. "I guess you're not wrong."

I cringed. "Double negatives are the worst."

"Well, excuse me then." Pierson fanned an apology. "Besides," he went serious, "you're right. I wish I could hate Jack. At least I did when I was your age. I'm over it now."

I waited, hoping he'd expand, but we passed two more streets in silence before then. "We were all on the doctor's route, you know." Pierson chuckled at something in his past. "Jackson was by far the worst of us, but Penelope—" He broke into a smile. "She loved his determination, and I loved her will to help people."

"And that's where it started?"

"That's where it practically ended," Pierson corrected. "They started dating, and neither of them had anything to do with me."

"What?" My heart pounded, thinking of the way Penelope and Pierson revolved around one another. "Penelope was with Jack?!"

Pierson nodded. "Until Jack's dad got sick from...Well, you know what happened." The poisoned soil. "Jack couldn't take care of his father and keep up with Penelope's tutoring, so he dropped out of school, and I swooped in."