“His father,” Kenji says.
Castle nods. “Yes. It’s my opinion that the supreme sent Warner out himself. That he wanted Warner to begin hunting us more aggressively. He’s always known about us,” Castle says to me. “He’s never been a stupid man, the supreme. He’s always believed the rumors about us, always known that we were out here. But we’ve never been a threat to him before. Not until now,” he says. “Because now that the civilians are talking about us, it’s upsetting the balance of power. The people are reenergized—looking for hope in our resistance. And that’s not something The Reestablishment can afford right now.
“Anyway,” he goes on, “I think it’s clear that they couldn’t find the entrance to Omega Point, and settled for taking hostages, hoping to provoke us to come out on our own.” Castle retrieves a piece of paper from his pile. Holds it up. It’s a note. “But there are conditions,” he says. “The supreme has given us very specific directions on how next to proceed.”
“And?” Kenji is rigid with intensity.
“The three of you will go. Alone.”
Holy crap.
“What?” Adam gapes at Castle, astonished. “Why us?”
“He hasn’t asked to see me,” Castle says. “I’m not the one he’s interested in.”
“And you’re just going to agree to that?” Adam asks. “You’re just going to throw us at him?”
Castle leans forward. “Of course not.”
“You have a plan?” I ask.
“The supreme wants to meet with you at exactly twelve p.m. tomorrow—well, today, technically—at a specific location on unregulated turf. The details are in the note.” He takes a deep breath. “And, even though I know this is exactly what he wants, I think we should all be ready to go. We should move together. This is, after all, what we’ve been training for. I’ve no doubt he has bad intentions, and I highly doubt he’s inviting you to chat over a cup of tea. So I think we should be ready to defend against an offensive attack. I imagine his own men will be armed and ready to fight, and I’m fully prepared to lead mine into battle.”
“So we’re the bait?” Kenji asks, his eyebrows pulled together. “We don’t even get to fight—we’re just the distraction?”
“Kenji—”
“This is bullshit,” Adam says, and I’m surprised to see such emotion from him. “There has to be another way. We shouldn’t be playing by his rules. We should be using this opportunity to ambush them or—I don’t know—create a diversion or a distraction so we can attack offensively! I mean, hell, doesn’t anyone burst into flames or something? Don’t we have anyone who can do something crazy enough to throw everything off? To give us an advantage?”
Castle turns to stare at me.
Adam looks like he might punch Castle in the face. “You are out of your mind—”
“Then no,” he says. “No, we don’t have anyone else that can do something so … earth-shattering.”
“You think that’s funny?” Adam snaps.
“I’m afraid I’m not trying to be funny, Mr. Kent. And your anger is not helping our situation. You may opt out if you like, but I will—respectfully—request Ms. Ferrars’ assistance in this matter. She is the only one the supreme actually wants to see. Sending the two of you with her was my idea.”
“What?”
All 3 of us are stunned.
“Why me?”
“I really wish I could tell you,” Castle says to me. “I wish I knew more. As of right now, I can only do my best to extrapolate from the information I have, and all I’ve concluded thus far is that Warner has made a glaring error that needs to be set right. Somehow you managed to get caught in the middle.” A pause. “Warner’s father,” he says, “has asked very specifically for you in exchange for the hostages. He says if you do not arrive at the appointed time, he will kill our men. And I have no reason to doubt his word. Murdering the innocent is something that comes very naturally to him.”
“And you were just going to let her walk into that!” Adam knocks over his garbage can as he jumps to his feet. “You weren’t even going to say anything? You were going to let us assume that she wasn’t a target? Are you insane?”
Castle rubs his forehead. Takes a few calming breaths. “No,” he says, his voice carefully measured. “I was not going to let her walk right into anything. What I’m saying is that we will all fight together, but you two will go with Ms. Ferrars. The three of you have worked together before, and both you and Kenji have military training. You’re more familiar with the rules, the techniques, the strategy they might employ. You would help keep her safe and embody the element of surprise—your presence could be what gives us an advantage in this situation. If he wants her badly enough, he’ll have to find a way to juggle the three of you—”
“Or—you know, I don’t know,” Kenji says, affecting nonchalance, “maybe he’ll just shoot us both in the face and drag Juliette away while we’re too busy being dead to stop him.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll do it. I’ll go.”
“What?” Adam is looking at me, panic forcing his eyes wide. “Juliette—no—”
“Yeah, you might want to think about this for a second,” Kenji cuts in, sounding a little nervous.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” I tell them. “But I’ll go.”
Castle smiles, relief written across his features.
“This is what we’re here for, right?” I look around. “We’re supposed to fight back. This is our chance.”
Castle is beaming, his eyes bright with something that might be pride. “We will be with you every step of the way, Ms. Ferrars. You can count on it.”
I nod.
And I realize this is probably what I’m meant to do. Maybe this is exactly why I’m here.
Maybe I’m just supposed to die.
TWENTY-NINE
The morning is a blur.
There’s so much to do, so much to prepare for, and there are so many people getting ready. But I know that ultimately this is my battle; I have unfinished business to deal with. I know this meeting has nothing to do with the supreme commander. He has no reason to care so much about me. I’ve never even met the man; I should be nothing more than expendable to him.
This is Warner’s move.
It has to be Warner who asked for me. This has something and everything to do with him; it’s a smoke signal telling me he still wants me and he’s not yet given up. And I have to face him.
I only wonder how he managed to get his father to pull these strings for him.
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
Someone is calling my name.
I stop in place.
Spin around.
James.
He runs up to me just outside the dining hall. His hair, so blond; his eyes, so blue, just like his older brother’s. But I’ve missed his face in a way that has nothing to do with how much he reminds me of Adam.
James is a special kid. A sharp kid. The kind of 10-year-old who is always underestimated. And he’s asking me if we can talk. He points to one of the many corridors.
I nod. Follow him into an empty tunnel.
He stops walking and turns away for a moment. Stands there looking uncomfortable. I’m stunned he even wants to talk to me; I haven’t spoken a single word to him in 3 weeks. He started spending time with the other kids at Omega Point shortly after we arrived, and then things somehow got awkward between us. He stopped smiling when he’d see me, stopped waving hello from across the dining hall. I always imagined he’d heard rumors about me from the other kids and decided he was better off staying away. And now, after everything that’s happened with Adam—after our very public display in the tunnel—I’m shocked he wants to say anything to me.
His head is still down when he whispers, “I was really, really mad at you.”
And the stitches in my heart begin to pop. One by one.
He looks up. Looks at me like he’s trying to gauge whether or not his
opening words have upset me, whether or not I’m going to yell at him for being honest with me. And I don’t know what he sees in my face but it seems to disarm him. He shoves his hands into his pockets. Rubs his sneaker in circles on the floor. Says, “You didn’t tell me you killed someone before.”
I take an unsteady breath and wonder if there will ever be a proper way to respond to a statement like that. I wonder if anyone other than James will ever even say something like that to me. I think not. So I just nod. And say, “I’m really sorry. I should’ve told y—”
“Then why didn’t you?” he shouts, shocking me. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did everyone else know except for me?”
And I’m floored for a moment, floored by the hurt in his voice, the anger in his eyes. I never knew he considered me a friend, and I realize I should have. James hasn’t known many people in his life; Adam is his entire world. Kenji and I were 2 of the only people he’d ever really met before we got to Omega Point. And for an orphaned child in his circumstances, it must’ve meant a lot to have new friends. But I’ve been so concerned with my own issues that it never occurred to me that James would care so much. I never realized my omission would’ve seemed like a betrayal to him. That the rumors he heard from the other children must’ve hurt him just as much as they hurt me.
So I decide to sit down, right there in the tunnel. I make room for him to sit down beside me. And I tell him the truth. “I didn’t want you to hate me.”
He glares at the floor. Says, “I don’t hate you.”
“No?”
He picks at his shoelaces. Sighs. Shakes his head. “And I didn’t like what they were saying about you,” he says, quieter now. “The other kids. They said you were mean and nasty and I told them you weren’t. I told them you were quiet and nice. And that you have nice hair. And they told me I was lying.”
I swallow, hard, punched in the heart. “You think I have nice hair?”
“Why did you kill him?” James asks me, eyes so open, so ready to be understanding. “Was he trying to hurt you? Were you scared?”
I take a few breaths before I answer.
“Do you remember,” I say to him, feeling unsteady now, “what Adam told you about me? About how I can’t touch anyone without hurting them?”
James nods.
“Well, that’s what happened,” I say. “I touched him and he died.”
“But why?” he asks. “Why’d you touch him? Because you wanted him to die?”
My face feels like cracked china. “No,” I tell him, shaking my head. “I was young—only a couple of years older than you, actually. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know that I could kill people by touching them. He’d fallen down at the grocery store and I was just trying to help him get to his feet.” A long pause. “It was an accident.”
James is silent for a while.
He takes turns looking at me, looking at his shoes, at the knees he’s tucked up against his chest. He’s staring at the ground when he finally whispers, “I’m sorry I was mad at you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” I whisper back.
He nods. Scratches a spot on his nose. Looks at me. “So can we be friends again?”
“You want to be friends with me?” I blink hard against the stinging in my eyes. “You’re not afraid of me?”
“Are you going to be mean to me?”
“Never.”
“Then why would I be afraid of you?”
And I laugh, mostly because I don’t want to cry. I nod too many times. “Yes,” I say to him. “Let’s be friends again.”
“Good,” he says, and gets to his feet. “Because I don’t want to eat lunch with those other kids anymore.”
I stand up. Dust off the back of my suit. “Eat with us,” I tell him. “You can always sit at our table.”
“Okay.” He nods. Looks away again. Tugs on his ear a little. “So did you know Adam is really sad all the time?” He turns his blue eyes on me.
I can’t speak. Can’t speak at all.
“Adam says he’s sad because of you.” James looks at me like he’s waiting for me to deny it. “Did you hurt him by accident too? He was in the medical wing, did you know that? He was sick.”
And I think I’m going to fall apart, right there, but somehow I don’t. I can’t lie to him. “Yes,” I tell James. “I hurt him by accident, but now—n-now I stay away from him. So I can’t hurt him anymore.”
“Then why’s he still so sad? If you’re not hurting him anymore?”
I’m shaking my head, pressing my lips together because I don’t want to cry and I don’t know what to say. And James seems to understand.
He throws his arms around me.
Right around my waist. Hugs me and tells me not to cry because he believes me. He believes I only hurt Adam by accident. And the little boy, too. And then he says, “But be careful today, okay? And kick some ass, too.”
I’m so stunned that it takes me a moment to realize that not only did he use a bad word, he just touched me for the very first time. I try to hold on for as long as I can without making things awkward between us, but I think my heart is still in a puddle somewhere on the floor.
And that’s when I realize: everyone knows.
James and I walk into the dining hall together and I can already tell that the stares are different now. Their faces are full of pride, strength, and acknowledgment when they look at me. No fear. No suspicion. I’ve officially become one of them. I will fight with them, for them, against the same enemy.
I can see what’s in their eyes because I’m beginning to remember what it feels like.
Hope.
It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence.
And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.
THIRTY
“This isn’t how we wanted it to happen,” Castle says to me, “but these things never usually go according to plan.” Adam and Kenji and I are being fitted for battle. We’re camped out in one of the larger training rooms with 5 others I’ve never met before. They’re in charge of weapons and armor. It’s incredible how every single person at Omega Point has a job. Everyone contributes. Everyone has a task.
They all work together.
“Now, we still don’t know yet exactly why or how you can do what you do, Ms. Ferrars, but I’m hoping that when the time comes, your Energy will present itself. These kinds of high-stress situations are perfect for provoking our abilities—in fact, seventy-eight percent of Point members reported initial discovery of their ability while in critical, high-risk circumstances.”
Yup, I don’t say to him. That sounds about right.
Castle takes something from one of the women in the room—Alia, I think is her name. “And you shouldn’t worry about a thing,” he says. “We’ll be right there in case something should happen.”
I don’t point out that I never once said I was worried. Not out loud, anyway.
“These are your new gloves,” Castle says, handing them to me. “Try them on.”
These new gloves are shorter, softer: they stop precisely at my wrist and fasten with a snap-button. They feel thicker, a little heavier, but they fit my fingers perfectly. I curl my hand into a fist. Smile a little. “These are incredible,” I tell him. “Didn’t you say Winston designed them?”
Castle’s face falls. “Yes,” he says quietly. “He finished them just yesterday.”
Winston.
His was the very first face I saw when I woke up at Omega Point. His crooked nose, his plastic glasses, his sandy-blond hair and his background in psychology. His need for disgusting coffee.
I remember the broken glasses we found in the knapsack.
I have no idea what’s happened to him.
Alia returns with a leather contraption in her hands. It looks like a harness. She asks me to lift my arms and helps m
e slip into the piece, and I recognize it as a holster. There are thick leather shoulder straps that intersect in the center of my back, and 50 different straps of very thin black leather overlapping around the highest part of my waist—just underneath my chest—like some kind of incomplete bustier. It’s like a bra with no cups. Alia has to buckle everything together for me and I still don’t really understand what I’m wearing. I’m waiting for some kind of explanation.
Then I see the guns.
“There was nothing in the note about arriving unarmed,” Castle says as Alia passes him two automatic handguns in a shape and size I’ve come to recognize. I practiced shooting with these just yesterday.
I was terrible at it.
“And I see no reason for you to be without a weapon,” Castle is saying. He shows me where the holsters are on either side of my rib cage. Teaches me how the guns fit, how to snap the holder into place, where the extra cartridges go.
I don’t bother to mention that I have no idea how to reload a weapon. Kenji and I never got to that part in our lesson. He was too busy trying to remind me not to use a gun to gesticulate while asking questions.
“I’m hoping the firearms will be a last resort,” Castle says to me. “You have enough weapons in your personal arsenal—you shouldn’t need to shoot anyone. And, just in case you find yourself using your gift to destroy something, I suggest you wear these.” He holds up a set of what look like elaborate variations on brass knuckles. “Alia designed these for you.”
I look from her to Castle to the foreign objects in his hand. He’s beaming. I thank Alia for taking the time to create something for me and she stammers out an incoherent response, blushing like she can’t believe I’m talking to her.
I’m baffled.
I take the pieces from Castle and inspect them. The underside is made up of 4 concentric circles welded together, big enough in diameter to fit like a set of rings, snug over my gloves. I slip my fingers through the holes and turn my hand over to inspect the upper part. It’s like a mini shield, a million pieces of gunmetal that cover my knuckles, my fingers, the entire back of my hand. I can curl my fist and the metal moves with the motion of my joints. It’s not nearly as heavy as it looks.
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