Numbers Ignite Read Online Free PDF

with stringy hair and a love for pranks. Now her blonde hair—the perfect NORA shade, ironically—fell in soft waves over her shoulders. She wore a red shirt and trousers that were tight in all the right places.
    She watched my gaze sweep over her and gave a wide smile. “So you see me now. You never noticed me before.”
    I cleared my throat. “Noticed what?”
    “It’s not important.” She tossed a water pouch into my cell, then pulled up a chair and sat so close I could touch her. She crossed her legs daintily and clasped her hands together. “Might want to drink that before they find out. They won’t waste water on a prisoner.”
    I sat and clicked open the pouch, grateful that the guards had finally removed my cuffs. A whiff revealed nothing about the contents. I stuck a finger in and sniffed, then wet my lips with it. It was definitely water, and not the disgusting NORA kind, either.
    “As untrusting as ever, I see,” Edyn said, swatting away a mosquito. “We only have eight days before your trial, and most of the settlers think you’re a traitor. We’ll have to change that.”
    I took a long swig, then wiped my mouth with my sleeve. Blasted Mills. He hadn’t been lying about the settlers’ loyalties. Not only that, but he’d also had two weeks to spread rumors about my involvement in the attack before I even arrived. My ragged clothes and stubble as they paraded me down here probably hadn’t helped either. “We?”
    “Of course. You and me.”
    “And you would help me because…?”
    She rolled her eyes, suddenly looking a lot more like the girl I’d known before. “Because I’m your lawyer, stupid.”
    “You, a lawyer?”
    “I’m the one who should be asking the questions, Vance. But, to satisfy your curiosity, yes. I’ve studied under Caralyn Kelly for the past two years. She’s too old and sick to help you, though, so don’t bother asking. Mills is the only other lawyer here, and he’s representing the prosecution, so you get me.”
    “Hold on, hold on.” I held up a hand and tossed the empty water packet aside. “You’ve been studying the last two years?” If she had received her NORA assignment at age sixteen, she could have only studied law for a year. There was no sign of a Rating implant in her forehead, but it could have been removed and healed by now.
    A little color swept into her cheeks, but to her credit, she met my gaze levelly. “I didn’t get captured.”
    I sat back. “Impossible.”
    “Quite possible. While everyone else was gathering, I climbed onto the roof and hid. I saw everything.”
    With that, the horrible memories of that night came rushing back. Rutner, her father, had started evacuating everyone. When they reached the tree line, the NORA soldiers had attacked. I arrived as the first bodies fell. I didn’t know then that the NORA soldiers intended to stun everyone and bring them down the mountain. All I saw were people falling left and right to their silent weapons and the fire spreading behind us. Some of the stunned settlers never made it out. Their bodies were enveloped before the NORA soldiers could get to them.
    Yelling to my people to run, barely feeling the rocky ground under my bare feet and fighting for everyone I loved, I had taken out soldier after soldier. I hadn’t known that NORA officials were watching.
    They didn’t shoot me. I had thought I was the only one.
    “Even if NORA soldiers missed you somehow,” I told her, “the fire spread too fast. Once it destroyed the settlement, it spread to the trees. It took NORA two days to contain it. There’s no way you could’ve gotten out of there alive.”
    Edyn’s gaze wavered. “I found the body of a NORA soldier and stole her clothing. Nobody noticed when I walked away.”
    She had walked away. During the fighting. I set my jaw, my anger fighting to the surface. “We needed everyone we could get.”
    “I went for help.” She laughed bitterly. “Seems stupid now, I know, but I