Still Point by Katie Kacvinsky

what this is, a game of right versus wrong? Good versus evil?”
    â€œI’m here to finish what I started when I was fifteen. You said that you were open to listening. I didn’t come home so you could ground me. I’m not your property. And I’m not a kid anymore.”
    He unlocked a side desk drawer by scanning his fingerprint. He pulled out a white square box and took off the lid. Inside were narrow strips of paper, the size of Band-Aids. He took one out and peeled off its backing.
    â€œI’m putting a skin tracker on you,” he said, and held the sticker out to me.
    â€œDad—”
    â€œThe adhesive lasts for one month.”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œIt’s safe,” he assured me. “It dissolves in your skin.”
    â€œI don’t care if it gives me superhero powers,” I said. “I’m not letting you track me.”
    â€œMaddie, I don’t want you to run off to Eden, or back to
him.
That’s what worries me. I know you’re wired to run on your emotions, but that’s what gets you into trouble. You need to try to control your flight reflex. That’s why I don’t want you interacting with your friends, especially Justin. They’ll just tempt you.”
    I looked skeptically at the tracker in his hand.
    â€œIf you can use it to track me, what would stop the police? Or Vaughn? Couldn’t someone else trace this?”
    My dad shook his head. He pointed to the second tab on the paper.
    â€œIt has a twin signal. The only way I can follow you is by keeping the other half. I’ll wear it, just like you. There’s no way for a third person to track it.”
    I looked down at the bird tattooed on my wrist. I rolled my fingers into a fist and squeezed to make my blood flow faster.
    My mom stood watching from the door. I looked up at her and her eyes were sympathetic. She walked around to the side of my chair and leaned down next to me.
    â€œIt’s temporary, Maddie. This is all very temporary.”
    Great,
I thought.
My life will suck, temporarily. For the time being, my life is going to be claustrophobic and awful and lonely and desolate and depressing. Temporarily.
    She put her arm around my shoulder.
    â€œYou have me and Baley, and you can start looking into college classes. I found an online soccer team you can join. The team you played on last fall ended. They couldn’t find enough girls interested to keep it going. I dusted off your running machine.”
    I wanted to shrug her arm off me. All of these things felt like a punishment now. But she didn’t understand. Her hand slipped off my shoulder.
    â€œDad, what prison movie are we starring in right now?”
    He bit the inside of his cheek. It was one of his mannerisms that showed he was losing patience—subtle, but one that I had picked up on, since he usually did it in response to me.
    â€œI’m sure it seems strict after you’ve been running around in Eden for the past month with all the other invalids.”
    â€œStrict?” I said. “Where do you get your parenting ideas? Dictatorship dot com?”
    My dad almost cracked a smile, but it was more of a lopsided frown. “I take it you aren’t willing to cooperate?”
    He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. I was trying to read into his movements, into all the things he wasn’t saying. He was fidgeting more than usual, that much was evident. Something was at stake here.
    I pressed my feet against the side of his desk and swiveled the office chair back and forth. My dad wanted me home for his own reasons, reasons he wasn’t willing to discuss. I realized my bargaining chip was
myself.
My dad had one goal: to keep me under his watchful control, as if the future of digital school rested on his ability to keep me in check. Instead of being frustrated that he was trying to lock me down, for the first time in my life I was intrigued. It was a compliment that my dad was