See?" she says. "tricked you. You're always staring at your opponents eyes-but that gives you a bad peripheral view.If you want to track my arms and legs, you have to focus on my chest." I raise my eyebrow at that. "say no more.

I feel so out of place here. No matter how much money the Republic throws at me, I will forever be the boy from the streets.

He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic's most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.

[...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing suddenly how much I'm anticipating meeting up with Tess again. Where she goes, I go, and vice versa. Peas in a pod. Then there's June. Even the thought of her name makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm almost embarrassed by my reaction. Are June and I a good match? No. It's the first word to pop into my mind. And yet, still.

Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.

The memory fades, and I’m left hanging on to the ghosts of his words.

June laughs. "I have to say, you look better than most people I see. I've heard a lot about you." "I hear about you a lot too," Eden replies in a rush, "mostly from Daniel. He thinks you're really hot.