Me? She was talking about me?

"Oh, and of course, we know so much." She patted my arm. "Because we've lived it."

My brain was fuzzy, but I was beginning to get it.

"Come on, Callie, you're a PD client. You're a renter. Like me." She leaned in close and I smelled gardenia.

"You ...?"

"Don't I fit the list to a tee?" She waved her hand down her own body. "It is flawlessly beautiful, this little body, don't you think?"

I didn't know what to say. She was a renter. She might report me if she knew I was a donor who had somehow malfunctioned. I might be fired and never get the money to help Tyler.

"It's great."

"Okay, I confess, this is Club Rune, after all." She gestured to the room. "Lots of us come here, so you were easy to spot."

"There are more of ... us? Where?"

Madison scanned the room. "There. That guy over there, the one who looks like a star? Renter. And there, that redhead?"

"Renter?"

"Look at her." She put on an exaggerated accent. "Could she be any more perfect?"

"But the others are real teens?"

"For sure."

"What about him?" I nodded to a guy across the room who had caught my eye. He was holding a soda and talking to two other guys. There was definitely something special about him. "The one in the blue shirt and black jacket? He's got to be a renter."

"Him?" Madison folded her arms. "Oh, he's cute, all right. But I talked to him earlier. All teen, inside and out."

I wasn't very good at guessing. To me, he looked every bit as hot as the renters she'd pointed out. Maybe more so. He turned his head and stared right at us. I glanced away.

"Plenty of regular, filthy rich teens here," Madison went on. "You can tell because their provincial grandparents won't let them get any work done."

"Work?"

"Surgery. So they're not as beautiful as we are. And you can always test them by asking about life before the war. They barely know anything." She laughed. "Guess they don't teach history in their private Zype Schools."

I felt my heart racing. It was all so upside down. I had to keep reminding myself that the stunning Madison was really a hundred-and-something-year-old woman.

And the fact that she thought the same about me was really messed up.

"If you're feeling better, Callie, I really need to go get a drink. Something with a long, naughty name."

"They'll serve you?"

"Honey, this club is all private. Totally hush-hush, just like the body bank." She patted my arm. "Don't worry, sweet pea, I'll be just steps away."

She slinked off the love seat. I leaned my elbows on my knees and put my forehead in my palms. I wanted the world to stop spinning. But the more I tried to figure it all out, the worse it got. My head throbbed. Why had I woken up in a club instead of the body bank? What had happened?

Everything had been going so well before. I was going to get paid, going to get Tyler a warm place to sleep, a real home. And now this.

Then I heard a voice.

Hello?

I raised my head. It wasn't Madison. She was halfway across the room, standing at the bar. I looked behind me. No one was standing near me.

Had I imagined it?

Can ... hear me?

No, it was real, the voice was ...

Inside. My. Head.

Was I hallucinating? My heart raced. Maybe Madison was right and I was drunk. Or maybe I had hit my head when I fell. Something was very wrong. I started to hyperventilate.

The voice sounded female. I held my breath to try to calm down and also to hear better.

The club noise muffled my perception. I put my fingers in my ears and tried to listen, but all I heard was the pounding of my own heartbeat. I couldn't shake off the shock of hearing a voice this way.

Where was the exit? I wanted out. I needed air.

The next voice I heard was young, very male, and coming from right there in front of me.

"Are you okay?" It was him. The guy in the blue shirt, "all teen," as Madison had put it. He looked concerned.

What did he just say? He was asking if I was okay. I fought to control myself, not to appear panicked.

"Yeah. Good." I tugged on my dress in a lame effort to cover my legs.

He was even better-looking up close, complete with dimples. But I had no time for this distraction. I needed to see if that voice was going to come back again. He just stared at me while I listened.

It was silent in my head. Could it have been my imagination? Because I was so disoriented, suddenly being thrown back into my body this way? Or maybe this guy had just scared the Voice away.

Dimples wore an expensive-looking black jacket. I thought about Madison's verdict on him. I stood up and ran through the checklist.

No tats, piercings, or strange hair color: check. Expensive clothes and jewelry-what brand of watch was on his wrist?-check. Good manners, flawlessly handsome, check. Renter.

Then he turned his face toward the light from the bar, and I was close enough to spot an inch-long scar near his chin. No way Doris would've let that go.

"I saw you fall." He held out a hand towel. "I went to get this from the restroom."

"Thanks." I put it to my forehead and saw a smile creep over his face. "What's so funny?"

"It's not for your head." He gently took it back from me and wiped my arm, dirty from the floor.

"I slipped," I said. "Someone spilled a drink. And with these heels ..."

"Great heels." He glanced at them and smiled, sparking those dimples.

Being the focus of his attention was too much. I had to look away. A guy like this, rich and good-looking, interested in me, the street kid? Then I caught my reflection in a mirrored column and was jolted back to the new reality. I had forgotten I looked like a megastar.

As I turned back, I noticed Madison was still at the bar, struggling to get the attention of the Ender bartender, who seemed hard of hearing.

Dimples twisted to look in the direction I was looking and then dropped the towel on a small table.

"She your friend?" he asked.

"Sort of."

He held up a finger, like he was trying to remember. "Her name's Madison, right?"

I nodded.

"We talked earlier," he said. "She's kind of funny."

"How?"

"Asked me a lot of questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"History, if you can believe it. Things from like twenty or thirty years ago. I mean, would you know what holo won ten Oscars a decade ago?"

I squinted and tried to remember if my dad had ever mentioned that. He would have known. I shrugged.

"See, you don't know either," he said. "I obviously failed Madison's test. When I didn't know the answers, she just turned and left. I came to dance, not to audition for a game show." He looked at his feet and then at me. "Would you like to ...?"

"Me?" I realized the music had restarted, but quieter, slower. "No. I can't."

"Sure you can."

I thought about Michael, back there, taking care of Tyler for me. It didn't seem right. I had no business dancing. I still had no idea what had happened, or where I was, or how I had gotten there, and I really wasn't myself.

"I'm just too woozy."

"Maybe later?" he said, sounding hopeful. He raised his brows.

"Sorry. I'm gonna be leaving soon." I knew it was blunt, but there was no sense giving him false hope.

He hid it well, but his eyes reflected the disappointment I felt. He looked like he was about to make some other move, but just then Madison returned, a cup in one hand, a cocktail in the other.

"Here, the java is for you. I hope black is okay." She handed me the cup and then noticed the guy. "Oh, Blake, right? Hi again."

Blake nodded but didn't take his eyes off me. We shared a smile, a secret moment, at Madison's expense. One of those "she doesn't know we talked about her" bonding experiences. She didn't seem to notice, too busy freeing a piece of pineapple impaled on a tiny sword from her drink.

"Better get back to my friends," he said.

Madison swallowed the fruit and gave a polite smile. "So nice to see you again, Blake."

"Night, Madison." Then he smiled at me. "See you later, Callie." He cocked his head and turned on his heel in a kind of dance spin.

I had never told him my name. Somehow, he had found out.

I watched him walk away, hands in his pockets. I was feeling a little better.

Listen ... please ...

A chill went up my spine. No. That Voice again. In my head. If I was imagining it, I was doing a great job, because it sounded so very real. This was all wrong. I had to get out of here.

Wherever the Voice was coming from-from my mind or from someone else-the next words stabbed at me like needles.

Listen ... important ... Callie ... do not return to ... Prime Destinations.

CHAPTER FIVE.

I stood in the club, frozen. Was this some reaction to the drug Prime had given me? Or maybe it had to do with the chip.

I turned to Madison.

Don't say anything to her....

She gripped my arm. "Don't. Forget. The. Rules. About. Boys." She punctuated each word with a wag of her finger.

Madison brought me back to the physical world. She looked like a pop star but acted like a granny.

"Pay attention," she said, her slant-cut bangs falling over one eye. "This is important."

"Which rule are we talking about?" I asked neutrally.

"You know." She lowered her voice. "No s-e-x." She raised her brows. "Especially with real teens."

"What do you mean 'especially'? If it's a rule, then there's no 'especially' clause."

"You know what I mean." She rolled her eyes. "Just forget about that boy."

With voices in my head, I had much bigger things to worry about. "What boy?" I asked.