by Inara Scott
“When are you going to see the truth?” Anna asked. “She isn’t rational about him, and today it almost got us all killed. Not to mention that she’s probably been seeing him behind our backs. Who knows how much information she’s been giving him? We can’t trust her.”
“Anna, stop,” he warned, slicing the air with one hand.
“You know how close they were before he left,” Anna pressed. “I bet you anything they’re still in contact. She wasn’t even surprised to see him in that car.”
“They were friends,” Cam said. “But that’s over now. Dancia would have told me if it wasn’t.”
The nausea intensified, though now for an entirely different reason.
“They weren’t just friends,” Anna spat. “They made out in her backyard last semester. Did she tell you that?”
Cam froze. He turned slowly to look at me. “You and Jack?” he asked, shocked. “You told me you were just friends.”
The beginnings of panic sent an adrenaline-laced tingle through me. “It was one kiss,” I said. “A long time ago, before you and I ever—”
“See?” Anna broke in triumphantly. “She’s been lying to you all this time. What else is she lying about?”
I tried to shake my head, but the movement sent pain coursing through my head and neck. “I never lied. All I ever wanted from Jack was to be friends. The kiss was a mistake. It happened once and I pushed him away. That’s why he got so mad at me last semester.”
The more I said, more deeply the lines of doubt were etched in Cam’s face. “What about now?” he asked, with a quick glance in Anna’s direction. “Are you still in touch with him now?”
I didn’t answer right away. Anna had her arms crossed over her chest, and she tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for my response. “Well?” she asked.
“I want her out of here,” I said. “You’ve had your fun, Anna. Now, get out of my room.”
Anna opened her mouth to protest, but Cam cut her off. He took her arm and guided her to the door. “Anna, she’s right. This is between the two of us.”
“Fine.” She turned back to me, tossing her hair. “And by the way, I’m talking to Mr. Judan right now. I’m telling him everything.”
“I see. Then I guess you’re telling him how you’ve been spying on me all semester?” I demanded, trying to push myself a few inches up off the bed.
“I don’t want to hear any more of this,” Cam said. “Anna, leave. If anyone talks to Mr. Judan, it will be me. Got it?”
Anna scowled at him, but nodded. Then she spun on her heel and slammed the door shut behind her. Cam turned back to me. He hooked his thumbs under his arms. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What happened?”
Tears pooled in my eyes. “I didn’t lie to you, Cam. I just didn’t know how to tell you about it. Jack and I were best friends, and one day things got a little out of hand. But that was never what I wanted. All I ever wanted was you.”
“I don’t care about that. I just want to know the truth. Is he still calling you?” Cam asked tightly. “Is Anna right about that?”
I lowered my eyes. “I’ve talked to him a couple of times. He told me I should join the Irin. I told him I didn’t want anything to do with them and hung up.”
“Did he say anything else?”
I hesitated. “He told me about someone named Ethan Hannigan. He said someone in the Program killed Ethan and pretended it was a suicide to cover it up.”
“And you believed him?”
“No!” I got to my feet. “Well, not entirely. But Cam, you’ve got to admit that the Watchers aren’t above killing someone they think is dangerous.”
He stepped back, bumping against the corner of my desk. “Wait. Are you telling me that all this time you’ve been listening to Jack saying these things, and believing him?”
“You know I would never be disloyal to the Program,” I said. “But I wanted to know where Jack was and how he was doing. And then he started telling me about Ethan, and then after D.C.…” I trailed off, not wanting to put the final nail in the coffin I seemed to be making for myself.
Cam fixed me with a hard look. “What?”
I dropped my gaze. “He said those papers they found in the warehouse in D.C.—the maps of the White House and stuff—he said those papers were planted there. He said it was a setup.”
Cam let his arms drop in disgust. “I saw the guns, Dancia. Did he tell you those were made up, too? And maybe the bodies were made of wax? Did he tell you how we faked the moon landing while we were at it?”
“No, Cam,” I said, clenching my fists. “And it isn’t that crazy to believe that Jack might be telling the truth. You even told me you felt wrong after D.C.”
“What does that mean?” Cam asked. “Now you’re on his side? And I’m the bad guy?”
“No!” I cried, feeling Cam slipping away from me. “This isn’t about you. It’s about this whole crazy place, and the Watchers, and the Governing Council. They lie all the time, Cam. Did you ever consider that they might be lying to you, too?”
We locked eyes for an endless moment. He turned away first, rubbing his hand over his face. “I just don’t see why you didn’t tell me the truth about Jack. The whole truth.”
I no longer understood, either. It seemed like something that had happened a long time ago. “I didn’t tell you that Jack and I had”—I forced myself to say the word—“kissed, because it didn’t have anything to do with us. It was a mistake, and I told him that. And then he was gone, and you and I didn’t talk about him.”
Cam pushed Catherine’s chair, shoving it roughly under her desk. A pencil rolled and fell onto the floor, and I watched it disappear under her bed. There would be hell to pay for that, when she noticed.
“And the phone calls?”
My head throbbed. I touched the lump on my forehead. “Anna scared me. She kept telling me she thought I was a traitor and shouldn’t be in the Program. Trevor told me he was watching out for me, but I couldn’t imagine he’d be sympathetic if he knew I was talking to Jack.”
“If you didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t have anything to be afraid of,” Cam said.
I grabbed the edge of my dresser for support. “I didn’t want you to have to choose between us.”
“Because you thought I might take their side? You thought I might try to get you kicked out of the Program?” He looked astonished. “Dancia, I practically got myself kicked out so I could tell you the truth last semester. You should know by now how I feel about you.”
“I know, and I do, but Anna—”
“Forget it.” He threw up his hands in disgust. “This was never really about Anna. This is about you not trusting me, when I never doubted you for a minute.”
I stiffened. “That isn’t true. You’ve been hiding things from me all year.”
“There’s been a few things I haven’t been able to tell you, because of the Program, but you ended up finding out about them anyway,” he countered.
“Everything? You’ve told me everything about the Irin?”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m part of something bigger than us. I can’t tell you everything we do.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. When it comes to the Program, I never know if I’m getting the truth from you or not.”
“That isn’t my choice. It’s theirs.”
“And you’d do anything they say?”
“Of course not,” he scoffed.
“Are you sure? What if they told you I was bad, Cam?” I pressed. “Would you believe them? Would you still trust me after that?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “When you told me I should stand aside and let Jack go free, I did. When you wanted to talk about the Irin, I told you as much as I knew. I’ve done everything for you, Dancia. Even when it wasn’t what they wanted.”
“Wait.” I held up my hand. “You didn’t let Jack go for my benefit. You did it because you knew it was the right thing to do.”
“No. It was
the wrong thing to do,” he said. “Today proves that beyond a doubt.”
I closed my eyes. “The only thing today proves is that Jack has no loyalty to me. If I were working with the Irin, why would they be trying to kill me?”
“I never said you were working with them,” he said. “But I don’t see why that matters—I doubt Jack’s in control of their little group. What they did today took things a step further than their usual antics. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gregori himself had something to do with it.”
My knees were ready to buckle, so I crossed over to my desk and sat on the corner of it, resting my hands on my knees and rocking a little as the nausea surged and then retreated. The tips of my nails were dark—with blood or dirt, I couldn’t tell which. “You told me they were just a training cell. Why would Gregori be involved?”
“Apparently, things in Seattle have changed. Maybe because of what happened in D.C., or maybe because of Jack. I don’t know. All I know is, before you came to Delcroix, things like this didn’t happen. Now it seems like they’re happening all the time.”
“And that doesn’t strike you as strange?” I asked. “It doesn’t make you wonder what else is going on?”
Cam turned his back to me and walked to the other side of the room. “Of course it does,” he said roughly. “But it doesn’t make me want to call the Irin—or that guy Thaddeus, and become his new best friend.”
Silence surrounded us. My shoulder throbbed, and all I wanted to do was throw myself into his arms and cry out my fear and hurt.
“So, what happens now?” I asked. “Are you going to tell Mr. Judan everything I said?”
Cam stared out the window. “I can’t. Not with everyone so upset. I’ll tell him that Jack called and tried to get you to join them, but that’s it.”
“Thanks, I guess.” I laced and unlaced my fingers. “And?”
“I need some time to think,” he said.
“About me?”
“About everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the tears building up in my throat.
“Me too.”
Catherine came in just as Cam was walking out, wearing her usual starched white button-down shirt and navy skirt. She took one look at me and sighed, “Not again.”
I hurriedly wiped the tears from my cheeks. “What?”
“You’re sick again, aren’t you?”
“No.” I moved to my bed, careful not to jostle my shoulder. I kept taking deep breaths in an effort to keep myself from crying. It wasn’t entirely working.
“What is it, then?”
“Nothing. I hurt my shoulder. No big deal.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t move.
It occurred to me that I probably had a layer of dirt and blood on my face that would belie my words. I started to pull a towel out of my drawer, but I had to pause to steady myself against a new wave of dizziness. I could feel her staring at me. “What are you looking at? I’m going to take a shower, okay? I just stood up too fast.”
She opened the drawer, pulled out an old pink towel, and handed it to me. “Did something happen between you and Cam?”
I didn’t have the energy to lie. “Yeah.”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
She pulled out her chair and unzipped her backpack.
“Catherine, I bumped into your desk and knocked off a pencil. It rolled under your bed. I’m really sorry,” I said hurriedly.
Amazingly enough, she didn’t even flinch. “I’ll get it later. So, are you breaking up?”
“I don’t know. I guess. He said he wanted some time.”
“That’s never good,” Catherine said.
It was hardly the nicest thing to say, but somehow the mere fact that she wasn’t being mean sent me over the edge. The tears started flowing, and before I knew it, I was sobbing like a two-year-old.
Catherine’s chair scraped on the floor and she pressed a box of tissues into my hand. “You want me to go find Esther?” she asked. “Or Hennie?”
Ever since spring break, things had been weird between me and Esther and Hennie. Esther spent hours on her appearance—straightening her hair, applying makeup, putting together the sexiest outfits she could get away with, then juggling the boys that fell at her feet as a result. Apparently, she couldn’t rely entirely on her talent to keep her looks in place all day long. I’d tried to talk to her about it, but she hadn’t wanted to be bothered. The only thing she wanted from me was information about Trevor, and when I wouldn’t give her any, she’d get mad and stomp away.
Things weren’t much better with Hennie, though she and I didn’t fight. I just didn’t see her very much, because she was spending all her time with Yashir. At least, I assumed she was. Every time I saw her, she was rushing somewhere, usually while listening to music, so I couldn’t get her attention. The door to her room was always closed, and she never hung out in the cafeteria after dinner. Sometimes I had the feeling she was deliberately tuning everyone out, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.
“No, thanks.” I continued to cry, blowing my nose every now and then until I had created a little mountain of Kleenex on the bed next to me.
“If it makes you feel any better, my parents are splitting up,” Catherine said.
I turned my body so I could look at her without twisting my shoulder. “As in, they’re getting a divorce?”
“Yeah. My dad hasn’t been home since Christmas. I thought it was just because he was busy. They told me about it last night. My dad called in on the speakerphone.”
“That sucks,” I said.
She gave me a tiny smile. “They haven’t really lived together for a long time. I suppose I had a fantasy that someday they’d remember how much they loved each other, and everything would work out. But it won’t change my life. It’s not like breaking up with the cutest guy in school.”
A fresh wave of tears came over me, and she slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
I laughed weakly. “It’s okay. He was always a little out of my league.”
“I thought you two were perfect,” she said. “Absolutely perfect.”
This time, when the tears came, I just let them flow.
OVER THE next week, as the weather warmed, everyone started taking lunch outside and playing Frisbee during free time. It was on one of those emerald-grass-and-cerulean-blue-sky days that Barrett walked me down to the basement of the Main Hall for my focus period. I hadn’t spoken to Cam since our fight the week before. Each time we passed each other in the hall, we averted our eyes. Anna ignored me completely. Trevor was so cold I winced when I caught his eye.
Nothing about Delcroix felt right anymore. Without Hennie and Esther, I wandered around aimlessly between classes, alone and unsure of myself. Breaking up with Cam meant I had nothing to look forward to in the evening. No long walks. No stolen kisses. Nothing to get me from one hour to the next.
I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering whom I could trust and what hidden schemes were going on all around me. I contemplated calling Jack, but that just made me feel like a traitor. If I hadn’t known it was futile, I would probably have begged Grandma to let me leave Delcroix and go to Danville High instead.
“Where are we going?” I asked Barrett.
“Art studio,” Barrett replied.
I followed him into a familiar room, where I’d taken ceramics last semester. The Main Hall was set into a hill, so there were long windows on one side looking out over the lawn, and there was lots of natural light.
In one corner of the room stood the pottery wheel. I still had bad memories of the misshapen pots and cups I’d thrown on that wheel. On the other side were easels, several with paintings on them: a landscape on one, a bowl of fruit on another.
“I felt like painting today.” Barrett tied a paint-splattered apron around his skinny waist and pointed to an easel with a blank sheet of paper on it. �
�That’s yours over there.”
“Mine?” I repeated as he handed me a matching apron. “I’m not very good at art, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter. Sometimes the only way to relax is to occupy your mind with something completely different.”
“Great.” I looked sourly at the blank page. “Something new for me to screw up.”
Barrett didn’t respond. He took a plastic paint tray and filled it with a variety of colors, then began brushing with broad strokes upon the empty canvas. First bright blue, then swirls of yellow.
My shoulder still throbbed when I tried to lift my arm, so I set my tray of paints on the table and picked up a brush, then turned to the easel. Moving awkwardly between the table and the easel, I dabbed red and orange petals on my paper.
Barrett hitched up his faded canvas shorts, which threatened to fall off below his apron, and smiled. “Flowers? You must be in a better mood than you look.”
“Ha.” I painted a black cloud in the sky. “That’s more like it.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
I trailed a line of blue paint around my flowers. It actually looked kind of pretty, in a kindergarten sort of way. I pulled that sheet off and decided to start over without the black cloud. “There’s not much to tell,” I said. “I basically ruined my life. I let everyone down, almost got us all killed, then managed to destroy the most important relationship I’ll probably ever have.”
“Slow down,” Barrett said. He sat down on a table, crossing one leg over the other. “Let’s take this one thing at a time. How did you let everyone down?”
“You heard about Jack,” I said. “And the van being run off the road.”
“That doesn’t mean you let anyone down. The way I heard it, you did your best to help but didn’t have anything left to give.”
“You’re just saying that because you like me.”
Barrett flashed a smile. “I do like you, that’s true. But I’m not the only one who thinks that. You were hurt, D. You can’t expect yourself to move a full-size car when you’ve got a concussion and a broken collarbone.”