A remote trigger makes the most sense to Zack. So is Joey just a convenient soldier who can get close enough to blow something—or someone—up? But can’t you generate the signal from far away? Why do you need to get close? Maybe only to make sure Joey is part of the explosion? Part of the collateral damage?

Or is the phone itself the incendiary device? Can they do that nowadays? Probably they can do anything. And they’d trust that Joey can use it as a phone until the moment they explode it, with the phone still in Joey’s pocket or in his hand.

The dumbest, simplest, disposable off-brand phone available. Is that the easiest phone to get into, to modify? Zack had wanted a phone for just one thing—basic communication. Maybe they wanted it for one thing too—detonation.

It was only by seeing the phones side by side that you’d realize one had been altered. Zack still can’t process his luck in discovering that.

Although luck isn’t quite the right word.

Joey had explained to Zack that he wouldn’t be able to slip his tail more than this once. They’d have to communicate via phone.

That phone, thinks Zack, still staring at it. Because if Joey starts using a different phone, they’ll realize Joey knows.

Zack wants to look inside it. He knows that could be suicide, of course. Anyone clever enough to rig this phone is probably clever enough to booby-trap it. Although it’s likely they wouldn’t have bothered, figuring Joey was never going to know. Maybe Zack and Joey should take the risk. To understand it? To disarm it? To turn its ultimate use around?

And Zack knows exactly who to take the phone to. Who will know whether to even risk opening it or not. Who will likely know what they’re dealing with, technologically, at least.

If only he can get him to look at it…

If only he can get him and Joey to look at each other…

If only he can get him to be in the same room with Joey…

Because Zack really wants to take it to Steve.

55.

55.

Zack is back in the apartment with Emily.

“I couldn’t reach you today. I guess they had you working an extra shift?”

“Yeah…” Lie.

“You couldn’t text me to let me know?”

“They make us keep our phones off while we’re working. GreenGirl rules.”

No such rule. But it sounds good. Sounds reasonable.

“Extra shift? Why?”

“They were shorthanded. People didn’t show up.” Lie.

“But you show up.” She smiles warmly at him. “You’re reliable. They can trust you.”

His chest clenches. The lies actually hurt.

For once, a relationship had begun with no lies. Both of them completely themselves, their raw, truest selves, because of the threat they’d both faced. No time for posturing. No chance to pretend being anyone else.