Specter: Circuit Series Book One

by Dailey, Lacey

  But then something strange happened. The darkness I usually saw during these moments cracked open and made some room. I ran towards it, tilting my head in confusion when all I saw was orange. And then I saw freckles. Hundreds of them, complemented by a pair of blue glasses and a bright yellow shirt. I heard snort after snort as laughter rolled from his chest while he peered into a box of crayons.

  My heartbeat found a steady rhythm. My tears began to dry as I stared, not at the darkness, but at the sun.

  I peeled my eyes back open and looked at Brett, wiping my face. He was regarding me intently, worry marring all his features.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” I sniffed and pulled my seatbelt across my body. “You’re an amazing brother, Brett. You know that, right?”

  The smile that erupted on his face made me feel like his baby sister again, taking the blame for breaking mom’s vase so he could still go to the baseball game with Jesse. “I do now.”

  “Good.”

  He clicked his own seatbelt and turned on the ignition. “Ready to go home?”

  “Actually, can we go to the store?”

  “The store? Sure. Which one?”

  “A craft store.” I relaxed into his seat, letting more weight melt off my chest. It wasn’t everything, but it was a small start. I told my mother the truth, confided in my brother. Most of all, I’d found my happy place. And I didn’t intend on letting it forget how thankful I am it appeared when it did. “I feel like painting a picture.”

  14

  Wren

  My least favorite nights were the ones I had nothing to do. I despised having the night off. I know, right? What an anomaly I was compared to the rest of the American population. I did not enjoy not having anything to do. The idea of spending an entire night relaxing made me itchy. If it were up to me, I would never have a night off, but Cruz forced everybody in Circuit to take at least two nights off a week. He claimed he didn’t want the job to take over our lives. I understood where he came from, but it was ultimately bullshit. The job took over my life long before Circuit came along and two nights a week away from my underworld would not change that.

  I could’ve easily taken a page out of August’s book and went to some bar or a club. I could’ve even gone a tamer route and went to go see a movie and enjoyed dinner somewhere that wasn’t my living room couch. But honestly? If I wasn’t at Circuit, my favorite place to be was my home. It’s where I was most comfortable. Where my thoughts and insecurities were the safest. I’d never been a people person. Never been able to make a lot of small talk or feel confident enough to go somewhere I wasn’t familiar with. I didn’t like to think of myself as a boring person, considering the whole illegal hacker thing and all, but I was. Video games and my couch were basically what made up my life on a night I wasn’t allowed to be seen inside Circuit. I tried showing up once, just because I had nothing better to do, and Cruz barked at me and kicked me out. Since then, I’ve dealt with it.

  August and Zelda liked to joke that I had no life. It always annoyed me. But ever since Sage crept into my life, their little comments about me not having a life seemed to enrage me. I had a life, it just consisted of screens, junk food, and Diet Coke rather than getting drunk, meaningless sex, and getting lost at a party I didn’t want to be at. I had a life, and I could live it however the hell I wanted to.

  Complaining that I didn’t have a life felt like an insult to Sage. It was her who spent sixteen months without a life. I mean, she was alive, yeah. But that felt like a technicality. Was she really living? Was she spending her days how she wanted to? Whether that meant playing video games in her underwear or going to dinner with a dozen friends, I doubted it. I knew nothing about what Sage went through but I knew she wasn’t making a single choice for herself. Her life was taken entirely out of her hands, and while I could sit here with a bottle of Diet Coke and a long night of playing Fortnite, humoring my friends when they joked I didn’t have a life, I knew it was Sage who spent so long without one.

  I screwed the cap back on my 2 liter of Diet Coke and set it at my feet beside the couch. My sister wasn’t home tonight so she couldn’t give me shit for drinking straight out of the bottle. Truthfully, I had no idea why the hell she cared. She didn’t drink the stuff. It was just for me. And why would I buy two twenty ounce bottles when I could buy a 2 liter for the same price? Seemed like a no-brainer.

  I lifted my PS4 controller from my lap only to realize I hadn’t actually turned on the TV yet. Considering Lilah lost the remote in one of the moments she tries to do a million things at once, turning on the television meant I had to actually get off the couch and press the button manually. That sounded like too much work. So I sat on the couch and drank my Diet Coke. It was laziness at its finest. And I was not mad. I was good at sitting in one place for a long period of time. The deep blue computer chair that perched at my desk in Circuit had my butt cheeks permanently molded into it. It was actually time I’d splurged for a new one. It was broken. A spring broke, and I hadn’t realized how bad it was until I walked in one day and found the thing completely lopsided. I could still sit in it, but it would be any day now the damn thing would collapse and take me with it.

  I lifted my phone and pulled up Amazon, deciding I was going to search for a brand-new chair. I had nothing better to do anyway. I would turn the television on when the pizza I ordered arrived. That way, I only had to get up once. Some called it laziness, I called it strategy. Before I could even type anything into the search bar, a low knock sounded at my door. I heaved myself off the couch and grabbed my wallet from the counter.

  I pulled the door open, a polite smile etched on my face. The smile morphed into a grin my face wasn’t used to when I caught sight of my visitor. It was not Dale, the pizza delivery guy whom I over tipped because he came here four nights a week. It was my phantom girl, standing on my welcome mat with her head dipped to the ground and white hair acting as a curtain. She had a wrapped gift clutched to her chest in an almost protective way. It was not in a box like the others she’d brought before. It was tall and flat. My first instinct was that it was some sort of photo or a poster.

  Her feet were covered in a pair of pink shoes. They were fidgeting against the welcome mat. Her knees seemed to tremble underneath a pair of light washed jeans. The death grip she had on the gift had me wondering if she was worried someone was going to snatch it away from her. Her knuckles flexed and her grip tightened. She took a step back and barely lifted her head. Still, I could spot the apprehension and doubt that seemed to be plastered all over her face.

  “Hi.” Her voice was quiet. If there were anyone else in the hallway or any background noises, I wouldn’t have heard her.

  “Hi, Sage.” I tried to keep my voice as light as hers, but it was virtually impossible. Sage didn’t even seem to speak. Her words were wrapped up in the small breaths she took.

  “I brought this for you.” She held out the gift. It shook from the force of the tremble that seemed to control her hands.

  I took it from her carefully, sliding it from her grip while being conscious our hands didn’t touch and peered down at it. I was struck to find my name written across the top. Not Specter. But Wren. That combined with the realization she didn’t just drop this off at the door and run, had me feeling like I’d just won a million dollars from a scratch-off ticket.

  “Thank you, Sage.”

  “It’s, uhm, just for you this time.”

  I smiled, hoping the freckles on my face masked any sort of blush that might appear. The downside of being the same color as a Pringle was that not a single emotion could be hidden. “I really appreciate it, Sage. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I made it.”

  My eyeballs widened behind my lens. “You made this?”

  “I’m not really an artist or anything. It’s actually not even that cool. I just, uhm, yeah. I made it.”

  “Well, that makes it a million times cooler.”

  Her he
ad was still dipped to the ground, and she hadn’t even attempted to meet my eyes. I couldn’t see her expression anymore, but I’d hoped she was smiling a little. She continued to fidget, her feet moving strangely as if she were fighting with them on whether they should take off or stay exactly as they were.

  “Did you want to come in?” As soon as the question left my lips, I regretted it. It seemed like the polite thing to do after someone had hand-delivered a gift they made especially for you, but with Sage, I had to do things differently.

  She stumbled backward, her hands wringing together quickly. “Uhm…”

  “Or we could stay out here.” I offered, trying my best to sound nonchalant. It was obvious she did not want to walk into a stranger’s home. From all she’d suffered, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I did not want to make her apprehension seem irrational.

  “Oh, no.” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your night or anything.”

  “You didn’t. Trust me. I was literally doing nothing. Sitting on my couch, drinking Diet Coke.”

  “Oh. You don’t have to go to…” She trailed off, looking around the hallway. I found it sweet she didn’t say the name Circuit out loud. Even though we were the only ones in the hallway, it was obvious she wanted to protect that piece of me.

  In that moment, I’d wished desperately I could protect whatever piece of her that seemed to be hanging on by a thread.

  “No. I have two nights off a week. This is one. I was going to play a video game until I couldn’t find the remote and was too lazy to turn on the television manually.”

  “Brett is like that. He’d rather sit and stare at the wall than stand off the couch and press a button.”

  “Brett understands me.” I said, keeping my voice light. “It takes a strong man to sit and do nothing. Laziness is hard work.”

  There was a beat of silence before she lifted her head and finally gifted me with her gaze. I looked into her eyes, noting the way they reminded me of the crayons sitting back on my desk at Circuit. I searched her gaze, looking for any sign that I might be scaring her. There was a look on her face that told me she was scared, but she didn’t seem to be filled with terror. Not like she was the day we met. She seemed apprehensive and jumpy. Like she was about to go to the doctors for a flu shot when she was afraid of needles. Or about to ride a rollercoaster when she was afraid of heights. She seemed to be trying to decide if conquering her fear was worth it or if she was just going to say “screw this” and take off running.

  I wouldn’t have blamed her if she went with the latter. But she didn’t. She surprised me by taking a step forward. That small step seemed to be filled with determination. It took a lot of out her, and I repressed the urge to say I’m proud of her and give her a high five.

  “I’ve changed my mind.” She announced. “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” I stepped back and gestured with my arm. She angled her body strangely and slid inside my apartment, looking around and scanning all her surroundings. I knew from our first encounter her brain was working triple time, logging every detail of my home into her memory. As if she were an architect trying to memorize a blueprint.

  I struggled with whether I should shut the door. Maybe I was overthinking the entire moment, but the last thing I wanted to do was shut the door and make her feel as though she couldn’t leave whenever the hell she wanted to. Then again, I didn’t want to leave it open and invite in whatever she was afraid of.

  In the end, I chose to shut it partly, leaving it open just a crack. That seemed to give her what it was she needed. She walked tentatively into my living room and perched on the couch, still looking around. I thought about sitting next to her before warning lights flashed in my brain and told me that was a bad idea. I sat down in my chair with the gift in my lap.

  I had never spent a ton of time looking around my own home. As Sage inspected it, I had to wonder what it looked like from her eyes. My sister made sure everything matched nicely, random wall decor hanging strategically around the television, coasters on the end table that matched the pillows she had on the couch. There was a massive rug with some swirls on it Lilah called paisley and a tall lamp that was crooked. It was supposed to be trendy, but looked like it was hit by a truck.

  Whatever Sage was seeing, whatever thoughts were inside her head, didn’t seem to be ones that frightened her.

  I cleared my throat and nodded at the gift in my lap. “Can I open it?”

  “Of course.” She angled her body to face me, watching as I slowly peeled the brown wrapping away from the gift. I let the wrapping hit the floor and lifted my gift so it was right in front of my face.

  Staring right back at me was the color yellow. It was brushed on a canvas, a little bigger than the paintings my sister had on her wall. There were brush strokes going from the top to the bottom of the canvas. It became clear to me she didn’t care much for smoothing it out. She wanted the uneven strokes and the globs of paint still on it. And it took me no time at all to uncover what this bright yellow canvas was supposed to represent.

  Sunshine.

  Sage gave me sunshine, and my God I wasn’t sure if I could handle all the tightness that constricted my chest because of it.

  “There was one like it in my counselor’s office.” I lowered the painting to my lap and pried my ears open so I could hear the words in her breaths. “I used to wonder why somebody would just paint it yellow. It seemed like they didn’t know what else they wanted on it and just hung it up to deal with it later. Today I looked it at and I... thought of you.”

  “Me?” What is it about this girl that made a man feel so damn honored?

  “Yeah. I thought of sunshine. And your yellow shirt.”

  “That’s a good shirt.”

  “I guess I just wanted to give you that in case you ever forget how cool you are.” She snorted and dipped her head. “Sounds super lame now that I’m saying it out loud.”

  “Not to me. I love when people call me cool. Please, go on.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I swore her lips quirked a little. “I spent a lot of time in the dark. And uhh, I hadn’t thought I’d get to see the sun again. And then you and your computer made some magic. So, I just wanted to give you that as a reminder that you’re a good guy.”

  “Sage.” I named myself after a superhero, but it was her and this moment that truly made me feel like one. “Thank you. I’ll hang this in my room.”

  Her lips parted as if she were about to say more. They slammed shut, trapping all her thoughts inside when the front door flew open. Sage went stiff as a board, her eyes slamming shut as if she were trying to pretend she was somewhere else. I jumped from my chair, throwing myself towards the front door.

  “Hey, Wren!” Dale’s loud, boisterous voice made Sage flinch roughly. “You know your door is open?”

  “Yeah, man.” I walked towards Dale, crowding his space so he was forced to move back into the hall. “How much do I owe ya?”

  Dale rolled his eyes. “Same price as you always do, Wilder. Somebody needs to teach you how to cook.”

  I gave him some cash and took the pizza from him. “But then you wouldn’t get to see me every week.”

  “Once a week is enough, my friend. Just because there’s meat on that pie doesn’t mean you’re getting your daily protein count.”

  “What are you?” I scoffed. “My pizza man or my nutritionist?”

  He smacked his gut. “Wife’s been barking nutritional facts at me. I can’t suffer alone.”

  “Here I thought you were looking out for me.”

  He flashed me a smile. “See ya tomorrow, Wren.”

  “Bye, Dale.” I laughed, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. I turned around, eyes locking on my phantom girl. She was impossibly stiff. Like I could lift her up and crack her in half. The tremble that appeared to always control her body was gone. She was so still, and I had begun to worry she’d stopped breathing.

  “Sage?”
/>   I dropped the pizza carelessly on an end table and squatted in front of her, searching her chest for signs that her lungs hadn’t seized up. I found it lifting and deflating slowly while she sat in front of me with her eyes closed. My first instinct was that her stillness was some sort of survival instinct. Ya know like when you go to the woods people always tell you to be very still if you come in contact with a bear. Or when a wasp lands on you and you have to make your muscles stop twitching until it goes away. Sage was waiting until the thing she thought would hurt her went away.

  “Hey, Sage?” I wanted to tap her on the shoulder, but again, warning lights flashed in my head and told me what an awful idea that was. “It’s just you and I again. Dale is gone.”

  She stayed still for a few long moments. I sat back, crossing my legs and letting my hands fall into my lap while I waited. I watched one of her eyes peel open, searching me tentatively. Slowly but surely, both her eyes opened fully. She looked around the room, taking in the door latched shut and then met my eyes again.

  “Hey, you.” I grinned. “Everything okay?”

  She nodded slowly. And then, something that changed my world forever happened.

  She smiled.

  Her cheeks rose, her lips curling upward while she flashed me all of her teeth. I rocked backward, thanking the sweet Lord I was already on my ass. People smiled at me all the time. I was a nice dude. But when Sage did it? Damn. It affected me on such a profound level. That smile blinded me. Made me incapable of seeing anything but the way her cheeks pinked up and the dimples that lie within them.

  I was shook. My whole equilibrium went off balance as I stared up at her like she was a unicorn falling from the sky. Her smile was rare, and here I was, staring directly into it.

  I shook my head and cleared my throat, attempting to form words. “I’m sorry if Dale startled you. He’s got a lot of energy.”