Took Me Yesterday (book 2 of The Tomo Trilogy)

Someone Will Die

Tasia drove me out to the edge of the water where Broden was stationed, and then she left me in the car. For additional security, I had to be handcuffed to the door. A weapon shouldn't be able to walk where it wanted, after all. It didn't bother me until the back door opened and Broden sat next to me.

"I'm telling you, Noah would've called me if—" He stopped speaking to Tame as his eyes landed on me. I tried to wave, but all I managed to do was wiggle my fingers at him. He sighed, resigned, and then slid inside. "You shouldn't have come the whole way out here."

"Well, I would've waited, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Tomery is purposely assigning you guys to the post furthest away from me."

Broden smirked. "So getting smuggled out in handcuffs was the next solution?"

"Smuggled and escorted is a very thin line."

He laughed, and I laughed back until Tasia warned us to get on with it.

Broden's face tensed. "Before you ask, I can't go against Noah."

"I'm not asking for that." I pointed into the front seat where a blue urn sat, one with a giraffe painted on it. "Take it."

Broden did as he was told, but his fingers drummed around the edges. "What is this?"

"An urn."

Broden's fingers stopped moving, and he stared down at the painted pot. "Is it—"

"It's Pierson."

"Ashes?" Broden's eyebrows shot up. "He was blown up to bits."

I cringed at the image. "Just..." I swallowed to get the bad taste in my mouth out. "Can you take it to Louis City?" Before he could argue, I added, "His family deserves that much."

Broden looked down, looked up, and looked down again. "Noah told me about Pierson's wife and family."

But Noah only knew what I had told him, and because of that, this would work.

"He also had a best friend," I said, trying to keep my voice level, "and Mr. Tomery agreed to let him move here, as thanks for Pierson's sacrifice to Noah's life."

"That wasn't exactly intended," Broden muttered.

I tried to reach for Broden, but the handcuffs tugged on my skin. "Please," I managed. "You're the only one with clearance that I trust to take this."

Broden's finger tightened on the urn.

"Even if it's not Pierson," I stumbled over the words, wishing the blue color of the urn was the same startling blue as Pierson's eyes. "All I ask is you take this and pick up Phil."

"Who's Phil?" Broden asked, quieter this time.

"Pierson's best friend."

"Okay," he decided, nodding as he did so. "I'll go."

"Thank you—"

"You know I don't believe a word you say, right, Sophia?"

I froze, feeling every word as they washed over me, a crashing wave against the shore we ran on weeks ago, the same beach Noah and I spoke on.

"You know his dad gave him the drug, right?" I asked, Noah's confession tumbling out of me like it was mine to share. "When he was a kid, too. And taught him that he has to find the world on his own," I said. "Do you get that?"

Broden looked at me like he understood everything a lot more than I did. When he laid one hand on top of my hair and used the other to wipe my face, I realized I was crying. I bent out of his touch and wiped the rest of the tears away on my sleeve.

"I told you to stay away from him," he said softly.

"I know," I mumbled into my tear-stained elbow, "but it's too late for that."

"It's too late to save him too," he said, "or me."

I stared over my arm.

Broden rocked his jaw. "I'll help you, but if you do this, you have to know we can't go with you," he continued, but he sounded far away, surreal and ghostly. "Noah won't leave his dad, and I won't leave Noah. I can't."

"I'll find a way," I protested stubbornly. "I'll find a way to free you two."

His grimace deepened. "I hope you don't," he said. "If you do, I imagine someone will die."

Goose bumps ran up my arms. "I'd never kill someone."

"Aren't you though?" He looked out the window, past the ships and nets and docks. "This morning I thought about it, thought like you, your plan." His brow furrowed like getting into my mind set was darker than anywhere he'd ever been before. "You're not convincing those guards to side with Tame, are you?"

I froze, but when he looked at me, I saw the shirtless boy in the laundry room—goofy grins and secrets exposed. His scar had meant something different back then, something that tied us together instead of something that tethered him to Noah.

I nodded. He was right. I hadn't told Tame my full plan.

Broden glanced at the urn. "When do you need me to come back?"

"Three days."

He opened the door and stepped out, Pierson tucked under his right arm, and then he shut the door. I watched him walk away, his brown hair highlighted red in the sunlight, and then Tasia handing him the keys she snuck out of the transport office. By the way he grabbed them and turned away, I imagined he didn't say a word, but Tasia grinned like he'd promised to bring Raleigh to the ground before giving it to Phelps or the Tomerys. When she got back behind the driver's seat, her eyes were wild with delight.

"How'd you convince him to do it?" she asked.

I kept my eyes on the empty space where he had once been standing. "I told him to take Pierson's ashes to his wife," I said, monotone, "and then I told him we were killing people."

Tasia's face collapsed. "Well," she turned back to the driver's wheel and grasped it, her eyes on my face in the rearview mirror. Something about it was oddly familiar. "You think that was a good idea?"

I shrugged, tearing my eyes away from her amber judgment. "If it's what I have to do."

Tasia shifted until she faced me. "Sophia?"

I looked up from the ground to stare at her. Tasia's eyes moved over my face. "You're not going to lose yourself in this, okay?"

I felt nothing.

"I don't care if I do," I admitted.

She smirked like she didn't believe my dramatics. "You don't have to be so tough, you know," she joked, starting the engine. "I've been there, done that. I mean, look at me." Her chuckle was the same as it was when I met her, but when I didn't laugh, her unease went through the Jeep. "You don't have to act like mortality doesn't scare you," she said.

"It doesn't," I said, staring out the window as the ocean faded away between buildings and sand hills. "I find living more frightening."