I never used to do a lot of things, but things change. Maybe that’s just what happens, I thought. How could we ever stay as close as we were in high school? Our lives were different now. Separate. I still missed her, but it was an entirely different feeling than before. I think what I really missed was how things used to be easy.
“Ame,” I said, trying to keep the irritation from my voice. “I want to go! You love this band! I’ll be fine.”
“Will you?” she said softly, more like a thought than a question. “I don’t think you’re fine, Lane. I’m worried.”
I stood, stretched, searching for my sweatshirt so I could go for a quick run. “Aspirin, exercise, and dinner. That’s all I need. I’ll be fine,” I repeated.
“That’s not what I meant,” she muttered, and then sighed. “Okay. Meet before dinner or after?”
“Um. Jack will be here…” I quickly scanned my messages. “Any minute, actually. So whichever you want. We can meet you. Thai maybe? And yes,” I added as she started to respond, “you can stay at my apartment. Of course.” At this point it was as much Amy’s apartment as mine.
“That’s not—” Amy sighed again. “So, Jack’s coming too? I thought it was just us.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought that. Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about it at all. “I’m sorry. He’s already on his way.” She didn’t say anything, but tension hung on the line. “What?”
“It’s just—is he ever not ‘on his way’ or already there anymore? Ever?”
What the hell? I yanked hard on the laces as I tied my sneakers. “He has class, just like I do. More than I do.”
“That’s not—argh!” I could hear her moving on the other end, pacing, or maybe getting ready to leave. “Maybe we could take one night off without him. I’d like to see you. Just you. I meant that I’m worried about you.”
It was true that I spent a lot of time with Jack, but he was my boyfriend. And I needed him a lot more right now than I needed her guilt trip. “Are you jealous?”
“Jesus, Lainey.” The noise on her end stopped, and she took a breath, and another. “What happened to being by yourself, doing this alone?”
I burst out laughing, incredulous. “You were all about Jack before!”
“I was all about…fun.”
“I’m having fun!” Funny how Amy had always been the one trying to get me to loosen up, and the one who didn’t like it when I did.
“I know, I know.” I could almost see her holding up her hands or tugging her curls. “And I mean I like Jack, but it’s—dangerous. Not healthy. You needed, like, a rebound, not, not this. You’re so serious about this guy and maybe—”
“What?!”
“Maybe it’s not good for you.”
“Are you serious?” Not good for me? Jack was just about the only thing keeping me sane.
But Amy said, “Yeah, I am. You never say no anymore! You’re just…not you.”
If I wasn’t me, who the hell was I? “Maybe I am. Maybe this is me and you just don’t like it.” Above me, my upstairs neighbor took heavy steps across the floor and I realized I was shouting.
Amy was quiet for long enough I thought she may have hung up and I might not have minded. Finally, she said, “You’re right. I’ll give you that. Maybe this is you…but not the best you.” Ouch. “It’s, it’s part of you,” she went on, faster, her words catching up with her thoughts, “like we all have those parts. And all I know is when I wasn’t being the best me, when the not-as-good-parts were showing, you called me on it. You were there for me! I’m trying—”
Blessedly, the door buzzer rang. “You know what?” I interrupted. I’d had enough. “Jack’s here. For me. Right now. I gotta go.”
“Lane—”
“Bye.”
And I hung up.
By the time I made it down the stairs to the entryway, I fumbled twice trying to turn the knob to open the door for him. I couldn’t manage to raise my eyes from the floor.
“Hey,” he said, and tipped my chin up to look at me before tugging me straight to his chest. I leaned there, soaking in his warmth and the scent of his fancy cologne, like expensive whiskey and nature. “What’s up? You’re vibrating. It’s okay now, whatever it is. I’m here.”
And he was. Amy was crazy. Jack wasn’t dangerous; he was my savior. How could spending so much time with someone who made me happy be less healthy than being depressed? Somehow, I’d lucked into a guy who made it easier not to think. Just to do. Be. Give my overactive psyche a break. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, his carefree nature or maybe even just his age. He was older and had done more. He did things like go to clubs and attend graduate school.
Or maybe it was all of those things, or none of those things. Maybe, no, definitely I was over-thinking it. Maybe it was just me. I’d been through tragedies. I was growing up. I gave myself permission to stop thinking sometimes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jack murmured and I pulled backwards.
“No.” I met his eyes so he’d know I meant it. “I want to go have fun.”
He smiled and held out his hand. “Then let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Carter
It’s amazing how fast your entire life can unravel. The edges had been fraying for a while, but I’d ignored it, tucked the little dangling strings inside to hide them. But once one was pulled, it all came apart. That’s what happened when the foundation was built on lies.
There were a dozen reasons Uncle Dan would not have told me about his relation to Lainey; a few were even decent. I couldn’t think of one for why he’d have checked in the first place. Unless—I pictured Lainey’s face again, something I’d been doing more and more, looking revolted on the graduation podium. Had she known and told him? And how? When? I needed proof, some kind of evidence, before I confronted him.
It took me longer than I wanted to break into Uncle Dan’s office. Getting in was simple; or it would have been if I could bring myself to do it. Every time I made the decision to go in and poke around, I started to hyperventilate. I was standing with my back to my cube wall, practicing Lainey’s ridiculous yoga breathing to calm myself down, when two staffers passed by. They were whispering to each other and oblivious to my presence.
“Did you see the latest poll today?”
“Yeah. Nomination looks like a lock now. At least something good came out of…Oh. Hey, Marita.”
“What do you need, Daly?” Marita, Uncle Dan’s assistant, said. “The senator is out for the rest of the afternoon and I’m on my way to lunch.”
“Oh, never mind then. I’ll come back later.”
This was it. As soon as they were gone, I slipped out of my cube and crossed the short distance to Uncle Dan’s door. It opened quietly with a Thought, like it had never been locked at all.
The office was familiar to me as my apartment, but once inside I stood still like a fool, looking around like I’d never been there before. The problem was I didn’t know what I was looking for. On impulse, I crossed the room to his desk and tapped the computer to wake it.
The password was no challenge. I’d watched Uncle Dan hunt and peck for the keys enough times, all I had to do was call up the memories and recreate the keystrokes. A few seconds later, I was in. His email was open on the screen, so I started there.
I scrolled through the recent messages, but nothing jumped out at me. Near the top was one that looked like spam, from a generic email address with no name and the subject line UPDATE. The rest were obviously Senate-related or condolences. Pages and pages of condolences. I kept going, still not sure what I expected to find, until a familiar name caught my eye. John Abernathy, Manny’s partner, two days before the gala: ITINERARY FOR REVIEW.
I opened the message. It was as described, a detailed itinerary for the day, planned almost to the second. There I was, listed bright and early. 08:00-08:30 Pick up C. Penrose. At the bottom was the text of the previous messages in the exchange. I scrolled down to read the
m in chronological order. John wrote:
Sir-
I’m completing arrangements for your visit, as requested. I’m not sure the date is the best choice. We need extra time that day to review security protocols for the event. The next weekend would be more flexible if you’ll consider it.
Uncle Dan replied:
That date is essential; it is the only time in my schedule. We will start early and I plan to oversee the security review. Also, ensure a nice range of weapons, including a submachine gun, if you would? I’d like to try my hand at one and I’m sure my nephew would as well.
—DA
Why, I wondered, was that date so important?
“Uh, hey, Carter. What are you doing in here?”
Shit. I started at the voice and cursed myself for it. Might as well have printed GUILTY on my forehead. I was such a terrible sneak, I’d left the damned door open. In it was the staff assistant who’d been whispering in the hall, a young hopeful distinguishable from the interns only because he drew a paycheck. An intern wouldn’t have questioned me. I glared at him like he was the one who shouldn’t be there right now. “My uncle forgot to leave a file for me.” I emphasized uncle slightly.
He cleared his throat. “I was told no one should be in the senator’s office without—”
“Well, Davey, I’m not no one.”
“Daly,” he corrected. I knew his name.
“Right. Daly. Do you know where the latest Budget Committee file is?”
He stepped further into the office and I risked a distraction. When he passed a stack of files on the floor, they toppled with a thud and whoosh of paper scattering. We watched a few escaped pieces float to the floor. Daly made a strangled sound while I exhaled an aggrieved sigh.
“Great. Just great.” I leaned on the desk and sighed again.
“I didn’t—I…shit!” Daly fumbled, and he was right. He didn’t. I did. But how else could he explain what happened? I was on the other side of the room. When he bent to sort the paper disaster, I bumped Uncle’s mouse forward until it lined up to close the message. I blinked a few times, using Thought to push the buttons so it wouldn’t be obvious what I was doing.
From the floor, Daly was muttering, “I can’t believe this. I swear I didn’t touch them—”
“Just pick them up,” I said sharply, feeling like a dick but knowing I had to keep acting that way. “And I won’t mention to my uncle what a mess you made.”
“Do you think you could hel—?”
“Here it is,” I said. No, I couldn’t help him, because I was about to do something the old Carter, the one who trusted his uncle to a fault, would never have considered. Something likely illegal. When I bent over the desk, I noticed the top file folder in the stack on the floor next to Uncle Dan’s chair. In neat, block handwriting I recognized as Manny’s were the words OFFICIAL REPORT followed by the date of the gala.
I took it.
“Sorry, but this is important,” I sneered at poor Daly as I breezed past him out the door. I walked calmly back to my cube, sat down, and opened the folder like I hadn’t just broken the law.
Evan Smith—such an unremarkable name for someone who’d changed my world so completely—was twenty-three years old. No evidence explained why he’d fired the gun. Tests showed the weapon was in perfect working order. Manny, or whoever prepared the report, postulated Smith, a junior member of the security team, had not been properly trained in semiautomatic weapons, resulting in the erratic discharge. Though none had surfaced at this time, they would continue to seek a motive for an attack, including evidence of radicalization or personal vendetta. Until then, the incident was considered an accident.
Of course, they hadn’t shown the evidence to me. I’d already known it wasn’t an accident, and as soon as I flipped to the photos, I knew exactly what happened. All the pieces fell into place.
I did it.
I fired the gun.
Because the gun pictured in a big, full color, eight by ten glossy and labeled as the weapon in question was the same “lucky” MP5 I’d used that morning. John Abernathy hadn’t been holding it after all—Evan Smith had.
Maybe guns of the same model were indistinguishable to most eyes, but I had Lumen-perfect recall. Every tiny scratch and line and imperfection was a marker for me, and I’d inspected that gun thoroughly. It was the first of its kind I’d ever held. And it was responsible for what happened—for my Godson’s death, for everything.
I was responsible.
The entire scenario clicked into my mind with the easy conviction of something you’d already known in your heart. It all added up:
The importance of our visiting the range that day, using that weapon, why Uncle Dan personally attended the security review. Why he’d insisted, more than once, that I stick close to him at the gala. Why all the shots went into the dirt, like the weapon had fired itself. And why I’d looked at the shooter before he’d even fired.
Because he didn’t.
I did.
Only one person could ensure a weapon belonging in a Secret Service agent’s hands ended up in poor fucking Evan Smith’s without anyone noticing. The same person who’d guaranteed I could fire it from anywhere in the world. But the reach of his gift was limited to direct sight.
Uncle Dan was likely the most powerful Thought Mover in the last fifty years, not counting me I supposed. But his gift was different. With the right Thought at the right time, he could do practically anything he wanted to someone’s mind—change it, make it forget, make it remember something else. But even he couldn’t make someone do and forget something if he was more than a few feet away.
The kid with the gun had been yards across the grass, at a lonely corner of the building, too far away for Uncle Dan’s gift to reach. But I’d been right there next to my uncle, just like he’d wanted, his trump card waiting to be played.
He’s used me to fire that gun and he’d nearly gotten away with it.
What better way to propel yourself to the lead in the polls than to fake an assassination attempt? It was almost perfect. He couldn’t have predicted what happened to the baby, but hell if it didn’t help his campaign even more.
Somehow I made it home before I threw up. I retched again and again until my stomach was barren, kneeling in the shower while the water went tepid, then cold, then frigid. Shivering, I dragged the soggy husk of myself out to my couch and cried.
Had anything—any damn thing—in my life been true? Did my uncle love me, or just want to use me? Had he been helping me, or shaping me? And the worst: who was I, if not just like him? I’d spent years observing and emulating him, building the foundation of myself on his example.
God, I was such a fool.
And now, was I a murderer, or was he? Did it matter? I was what he made me.
It was my worst nightmare come true. I’d been made a weapon. I’d always believed my Thought Moving would eventually kill me, not others, not my Godson. For a while as I laid there on my couch, I wished it had. I wished I’d just turned myself in years ago and let the Council vote. None of this would have happened. I retrieved the bottle of Scotch I’d won off Manny and wondered how long it would take me to kill that too.
About half the bottle later, my door opened, startling me awake. “‘Lo?” Alexis stood in the doorway, twinkling in a silver sequin dress. It barely reached mid-thigh and looked like starlight. I rubbed my eyes. I could still be sleeping.
“Carter?” she said, as if she wasn’t standing in my apartment.
“Hey, babe.” I didn’t even slur that badly. “What are you doing here?”
She took a few steps inside and dropped her bags on the floor. “Your uncle just dropped me off. After the Pendergest dinner? Remember?” Idiot, her tone implied, and I knew I was awake. She sparkled into the spot on the couch next to me, a distraction even more beautiful than the Scotch. I put an arm around her, drawing her close. “What are you doing?”
I nodded at the bottle. “Having a drink.”
<
br /> “Alone?”
“Not anymore,” I said and pulled her closer.
IN THE MORNING, while Alexis and most of the city still slept, I ran. It was drizzling, gray and cold, making it a perfectly miserable day. My head pounded in time with my steps, thud, thud, thud, on the wet sidewalk. It was awful, running after drinking, but in the way black coffee and Scotch were awful. Which is to say, I didn’t mind. I deserved it. It was less awful than thinking about—I forced myself to run faster.
But if anyone knew you couldn’t outrun or drink away your thoughts, I did. They always caught up. These thoughts didn’t so much catch as plow into me with the force of my entire world crumbling. All the things I’d lost pounded down on me, demanding to be acknowledged, starting with my Godson. My independence. My dignity. My thoughts. My trust. And Lainey. Selfish as it was, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. He was responsible for that too; I knew it as well as I knew the words of her goodbye note.
Sometimes a puzzle piece fits almost perfectly, so you let it stay. You want it to stay. Until you realize, too long later, you were forcing it the entire time. I pulled out memories that were vague, or incomplete, or didn’t quite line up. Years of them, since I was thirteen, up through the last few months. The inexplicable bullet hole in the shooting range wall. A tour bus wheel falling off the day after I’d lost minutes while looking at it. And finally: the fuzzy seconds at the gala, right before the person I’d trusted more than anyone in the world betrayed me.
I’d fallen to my knees on the stiff grass median, retching and shaking for God knew how long. Long enough for the back of my shirt to soak through. Long enough for a guy from the convenience store in front of which I crouched to become concerned.
I heard the door open and his few steps onto the sidewalk before his voice saying, “Kid, you okay?”
No, I was not okay. Did I fucking look okay? Anger boiled up from my empty stomach, but I realized it wasn’t at this guy. What was I doing, cowering on the ground and crying? Drinking myself stupid and running away wouldn’t change anything. I’d done enough fucking wallowing in the last year, in my whole life, and look where it had gotten me. I couldn’t change anything, but I could do something better than this.
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