Resistance (The Institute Series Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

think they’ll send us on a wild goose chase for a few more months before reassigning us.”
    “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Chad replies.
    “Yeah, well you’re not the one who has to put up with Drew twenty-four hours a day. I want to get reassigned, I want a new partner. Actually, if I’m demanding things, I want Shilah to be out of there so I don’t have to work for them anymore.”
    “You know you don’t have to now, right? Paxton and your aunt said they’ll get Shilah out,” Chad asserts.
    “Yeah, well, you’ll have to excuse my lack of trust in people these days,” I retort.
    He sighs. “Do we really need to have this conversation again? You said you understood.”
    “I do understand, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to be angry about it. You lied to me. Tate lied to me. My whole family lied to me for most of my life. I understand why you all did it, but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful.”
    We’ve had this conversation many times over the last three months and I know I don’t have the right to be angry. They lied to protect me, I get that. I just… I don’t know. I feel betrayed. What they did is not much different to what Drew did to me. Except they gave me a choice to join them, Drew and the Institute gave me no such choice. I don’t want to be upset by it, but for some reason it still bugs me.
    I’m not really angry at Chad though. He just has to bear the brunt of it because he’s the only one I see.
    “I’m sorr—”
    I interrupt Chad before he gives me yet another apology. I’m sick of hearing them. “Don’t apologise again. You don’t need to. None of this was your fault. I know that.”
    “I think maybe you’re right – we should just stick to business talk tonight.”
    “Fine,” I say with a sigh. “Drew says we’ll be staying where we are until we get a lead off someone who knows the Johns family, but they haven’t been here all that long. I don’t know if we’ll be able to find anyone helpful.”
    “So I guess we won’t need to meet up again for a while.”
    “I guess not.”
    “It’s probably best. The less you sneak out, the less chance of Drew finding out.” He practically spits Drew’s name at me. It annoys me because it’s not like that between Drew and me, not anymore.
    “How’s Ebbodine?” I ask, not even trying to hide the passive aggressiveness of my tone.
    “I wouldn’t know. Even if I was at the compound, I wouldn’t know,” he replies.
    I just roll my eyes.
    “It’s not my fault you thought we were together.”
    Chad and Ebbodine were never together as he led me to believe. Chad merely recruited her and that’s the extent of their relationship. Or so he says.
    “Letting someone believe something that’s untrue to cover other lies, is still lying,” I state.
    “I couldn’t tell you how I knew her because I couldn’t tell you about the Resistance,” he says in frustration, picking strands of grass out of the ground repeatedly.
    “So much for only talking business,” I mutter.
    I wish there were magic words that could fix everything between Chad and me. Most of our meetings have been fine but we just seem to get on each other’s nerves when the whole ‘Resistance versus Institute’ thing comes up. I think he just assumed that I would leave and was shocked when I decided to stay.
    For a moment – while they were all trying to convince me to leave and join the Resistance – I thought Chad was asking me to go to be with him. I sometimes think that when I chose Shilah, Chad thinks I actually chose Drew. Nothing has come of ‘us’ ever since.
    Any romantic feelings I had for Chad were shelved when I found out about the Resistance. Shelved, but not thrown out. Butterflies still attack my stomach when he smirks at me, or when we’re training and our bodies are up against each other. I still blush when I think of our almost kiss at the Institute.
    I wish I could just tell him how I feel, but no, my