by Susan Adrian
I want silent, so it suits me.
I drop my backpack on the ground and pull out my tools: notebook, pen, camera. A copy of Fairfax County, Virginia Gravestones, Volume IV, for reference. The first grave today is an oldie, the white marble mottled with lichen and dirt. I take a picture, then write the text in my book. Alda Thomas. Daughter of P. T. and B. P. Springer. 1831–1891. Sixty years.
“What are you doing with these, anyway?” Eric asks.
I look at him—squatting a couple feet back, watching me—then turn back to my notes.
He laughs. “You’re acting like a surly old woman. Just answer the bloody question and then I’ll leave you be for a bit, all right?”
I grunt. “I’m doing an analysis of the burials, and what you can tell about the families and social dynamics of the community by how they buried and recorded their dead.” I challenge him to make fun of it with a look.
He doesn’t. He seems mildly interested. “And do you touch the stones to get information about the people?”
“God, no. They’re dead.”
His eyebrows fly up. “I thought you could—”
“I can tell if someone’s dead. But that’s all. Weren’t you there when…?” I remember—when I tunneled with the tigereye, that was before he came. I shake my head. “It’s horrible, like tunneling to a black hole. It makes me physically ill. I asked them not to give me any of those.”
I turn back to the next gravestone. We’re both quiet. They’ll give them to me anyway. He will. We both know that. And lots of other objects I can’t even imagine.
“I’m sorry,” he says. I think I hear him say, at least.
He keeps his word after that and leaves me alone, and I manage to finish the row before my watch beeps, and we head back across the street.
* * *
We’re at lunch—me, Jeff, Chris, Eric, and Kadeem, all with pizza. We sit at our usual table. The girls—Caitlyn, Lily, and the rest, including Rachel—sit together four tables down.
It’s the moment of truth, isn’t it? Did she really want to talk to me? Will she acknowledge me with Lily right there?
I don’t know how I liked Lily for so long. I mean, she’s ridiculously hot and all. But … okay, I was distracted by the hot. But now that I’m away from her pull, I can see there’s more than that. Like smart girls. Girls who can talk about politics and graphic novels.
I glance their way, trying not to be too obvious. Rachel meets my eyes, smiles, and waves, small. But a wave.
I grin back, not hiding anything.
When I look away, I catch Eric watching me.
Eric’s cell buzzes. He gives it one look, then jumps up and takes it outside.
“Girlfriend?” Kadeem guesses.
I shrug. But I doubt it. I look over at Rachel again. She’s laughing. She looks so … carefree.
A minute later my phone buzzes. Text message, unknown ID.
Make an excuse, come meet me in the band room. Now.-E
I don’t even question. I say I’ve got to go see Coach Brammer and head out to the band room. It’s a small soundproof building off by itself behind the gym. It’s always locked during the day so nobody will skip off with the instruments. But the door’s open. Eric’s standing inside.
“How did you get keys to the band room?” I ask, incredulous.
He shakes his head. “You underestimate us. Close the door. I’ve got work—and this one’s an emergency. They just messengered it over.”
I sit at a desk, and he hands me a Ziploc bag. It holds a long silver chain with a pendant of two fish twined together. An emergency? Like somebody’s going to commit a crime right now and I have to witness it or something? I drop it into my hand, close my eyes.
It’s a woman. She’s medium height, skinny, hair in a dark bob at her chin, wearing business clothes. Her eyes are bright blue. Location: an empty, run-down office building, the west side of Detroit, along the river. 1800 West Jefferson Avenue. She sits in a chair, her feet bound, her wrists tied behind her back. There’s something in her mouth: hot, dry, sawing at her lips. A gag. She’s crying behind the gag, little panting sobs. A man stands in front of her, watching. A normal looking man, except for the very large knife in his hand. He presses the point of it against her cheek, slicing the skin, filleting her, as she screams—
“That’s enough, Jake.”
I open my eyes. My hand is pressed to my right cheek, still holding the pendant. My throat is raw. I must have screamed myself. I’d felt the pain of the knife. The panic of that woman. The helplessness.
That is happening to her right now. For real.
Eric paces on the other side of the room, talking intently into his phone. After a couple minutes he puts it away and sits at the desk next to mine. We both stare forward at the wiped blackboard, the music stands jumbled in the corner, the collection of drums. It all seems farther away than that woman. I pinch the back of my hand, hard, to bring myself out of it.
“Is she gonna be okay?” I know better already than to ask who she is, what’s going on.
“If we get to her in time. We’d have had no chance without you.” He turns to me, his voice marked with respect. “She’d have been long dead by the time we found her, without you. You okay?”
I nod slowly, feel my unmarked cheek with my thumb. In slow motion I put the necklace back into the bag, seal it, hand it to him. “Maybe you can give this back to her.”
“Maybe.” He’s silent a bit longer. “That one might help you understand, Jake. Why we push you. What you’re doing—what you’re going to do—is critical. People’s lives will depend on it. If you can do that every time, a lot of people.”
I’d never thought of a situation like that one, where I could actually, tangibly save someone. I hadn’t thought DARPA, a research agency, would have people in situations like that.
Wait. I frown. “That necklace wasn’t from DARPA, was it?”
He looks at me, steady.
“They messengered it … but it was from someone else. Like the CIA or the FBI. Other agencies do know about me, don’t they? I thought Liesel was hiding me from them? That you guys were the only ones who knew?”
He shrugs, back to the freckle-faced innocent. “That answer’s above my pay grade. You’ll have to talk to Dr. Miller.”
Crap. If the CIA or somebody else already knows what I can do, I’m in even deeper than I thought. No wonder I have all the security. But if Liesel lied to me about that, what else did she lie about?
“You ready to go back?”
I do go back: to lunch, class, tennis practice. But all of it—lectures, problems, serves, even Rachel and Chris—seems flat. Unreal. I can’t get my head out of the woman, the knife slicing her cheek open. All the surreal complexities of my life since last week. I can’t just go back to normal after that. After her.
As I turn out of school that night, a blue sedan that had been parked on the street falls in behind me. I’m tempted to wave.
But if I’m right, there’s a black car following them.
11
“Living a Lie!” by Daniel Zott
The last couple of days have been crazy, nonstop. This morning, I have to make time for Myka. It feels like I’ve been dropping that ball, and that’s the one I can’t drop.
We’re in the car, out of Ana’s hearing. Our safe zone. “So,” I ask. “What were you talking about last night, after Glue? What are you worrying about?”
It’s scary to ask. It’s not like I want Her Geniusness to figure out what’s going on. But ignoring won’t work with Myka.
She’s quiet for a bit. She braids her hair as we drive, with small flips of her wrists. “You,” she says finally.
“What about me?”
Quiet again, while she thinks how to say it. That’s how she works: everything deeply considered. I’ve seen her take half an hour to decide what kind of sandwich to have. You have to be patient, wait for her. I watch the road unfold, dingy snow piled on the sides.
“I know something’s going on with you, Jake.”
I go from zero to sixty on the adrenaline scale, gripping the steering wheel.
“I just don’t know what it is yet,” she says.
I relax my grip. Breathe. Listen for what she actually does know, so I can do damage control.
“You’ve been acting strange since last Friday. Since that guy chased us. You’re jumpy, distracted. And you just act weird.” She finishes the braid, wraps a clear plastic band around the end, lets it swing behind her back, and finds my eyes, challenging. Adding up the evidence in her mind. “Are you doing drugs?”
I laugh in surprise. Everybody with the drugs. “Since Friday? No. I swear, Myk, I’m not doing drugs.”
“Then what is it? You can tell me.” She lifts her chin. “I can deal with it.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“So there is something. I knew it. Now you have to tell me.”
I swallow. She’s too persistent to lie to outright. Once she starts something, she’s like an ant on a scent trail. She’ll go over or around anything to get to what she’s after. She’ll never believe everything is normal. But above all else I have to protect her. She can’t know anything about me and the government, the deal.
I have to confess a problem, but not the real one. Something she can relate to. What does Myka understand best?
Duh.
“Okay,” I say, like it’s a tough decision. “I’ll tell you. But don’t tell Mom yet, okay?”
Her eyes get big, and her lips press tight together like she’s already keeping it in.
We come to a red and I have to stop, shift. I look at her in the mirror. “I know you’re the smart one and all. But my advisor talked to me last Friday. There’s a chance—a really good chance—that if I kick ass on my project, I’ll get into Stanford. He knows the assistant dean of the history department, and he ran into him last week and talked about me. They’re interested, Myk.” I pause. “Stanford.”
“Really?” Her breath gets fast, she’s so excited. “But Stanford rejects ninety-four percent of their applicants.”
“I know. That’s why it’s such a big deal, dorkus.”
I drive for a while, tap on the wheel, and let her think about it. I even let myself think about it. With a Stanford degree in the public history track, I can get a job at a heritage site, or a museum. Ever since I first toured the Smithsonian on a second-grade field trip, I’ve wanted to work there. Work with real, significant artifacts like the Declaration of Independence. The original flag that flew over Fort McHenry. Silver-print photographs of the Civil War. Maybe I could do research and discover something important. Maybe even do tours for school kids like Myk.
“Stanford,” she echoes. “That’s awesome.”
“Sorry I’ve been weird,” I say, pressing it home. “I’ll probably have to put in a lot of extra hours and stuff, making sure the project’s perfect, keeping all my grades up. But I’m so close. It just kind of made me crazy.”
She sits back in the seat, eyes shining. “Promise I won’t tell Mom and ruin the surprise.”
Something shifts, and I realize what I’m doing. Cold, hard lying. To Myka. It actually hurts, like a fist clenched in the pit of my stomach. She’s the one I didn’t have to hide around, ever. Didn’t lie to. The only one who knew the real me.
But I have to do it to protect her. Don’t I?
And they did promise me Stanford. So maybe it will come true, Stanford and the Smithsonian and all that goes with it, just like I said. And then she’ll never know I lied.
* * *
When I walk into English, Rachel’s there, looking up at me. “Hey, Jake.” She smiles, her lips red today. Her dark hair’s pulled into a low ponytail, but there’s one strand loose, touching her cheek. I want to tuck it back behind her ear. At the same time I like it just like that.
I drop into the seat next to her, thankful Ms. Gieck (yeah, that’s her real name) doesn’t assign seats. Eric sits in front of me.
“Hey,” I manage. “What’s going on?”
I am. So smooth.
She looks down, rubs one finger across a dent in her desk. “I’m sorry I freaked out after the party.” She shifts in her chair, still focusing on the desk. “That was … weird.” She looks up, her eyes meeting mine. “Was that real? Or a trick?”
To my relief she doesn’t look disgusted or put off, like everyone did at the party. Just curious. Still, I don’t know what to say. If I say it was a trick, that makes me less of a freak. Look how much trouble I got into already by sharing. But if it was a trick then she’d think I lied, made up that part about her dad.
I can’t lie to her.
“Real,” I say, like it’s no big deal.
She nods slowly. “I thought so. That part about my dad—” She sighs. “I didn’t want to admit it, but it seemed right.”
“Sorry,” I say, quiet.
She shrugs. “Yeah. It’s pretty crap.”
Lily laughs, across the room, and I can’t help but look. She’s flirting with Mike again, leaning in close.
Rachel follows my gaze. “She doesn’t say nice things about you. But—” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “She’s not very nice.”
“You,” I say, “are very perceptive.”
Ms. Gieck starts writing something on the board about the Merchant of Venice, and everybody quiets down.
Rachel leans over. She smells like vanilla, and suddenly I want cookies. “Caitlyn’s having another party on Saturday, after dress rehearsal,” she whispers. “I thought maybe you could come? You … don’t have to do the thing again. Unless you want to. But we could hang out?”
Her eyes are a very deep brown. Sparkly. It’s hard not to stare at them. At her. I want to go and hang out more than life itself.
But I have plans on Saturday. “Damn,” I say. “I promised my grandpa I’d go see him this weekend. He’s in upstate New York.”
“Oh,” she says, frowning. “That sucks.” She realizes what she said. “I mean, not about your grandpa—”
Ms. Gieck starts talking about Shylock, and I have to turn to the front. “I wish I could come,” I whisper sideways.
“I’m sure I’ll see you around at something else,” she whispers back. “Soon.”
I grin, tap my pen on the desk. I totally didn’t expect that. Today is looking up, in a big way.
Eric raises his hand and asks to go to the nurse’s office. He grabs up his stuff, snatches a permission slip from Ms. Gieck, and stalks out the door without looking back.
I stare after him. Whatever that was about, it can’t be good.
* * *
He’s waiting for me outside the cemetery, leaning against the wall. Face as blank and serious as I’ve seen it.
“What’s the matter?” I say, as soon as I get close enough. “I didn’t need supervision in English today? Or are you really sick?”
He slings his backpack over his shoulder. “Let’s go to the crypt. We need to talk.”
“It’s a mausoleum,” I say. “A crypt is underground.”
He ignores me, strides up the path.
The fist is back in my gut. I follow.
Once the gate’s shut behind us he drops his pack on the stone floor and plops down. “Sit.”
Okay. I sit. “What’s up? National emergency?”
He sets his hands in his lap, carefully, like he’d rather be doing something else with them. “Were you serious that you were going to go to your grandfather’s this weekend? Or was that just an excuse for the girl?”
I frown. “Why would I make an excuse to avoid Rachel? Yeah, I was serious. He asked me to come.”
“To upstate New York,” he says, flat. “This weekend. And you didn’t think to tell us?”
Oh.
“He’s my grandfather. How threatening is that?” The truth is, I hadn’t thought much about it at all, with everything else.
“I spoke to Dr. Miller,” Eric says. “You’re not going.”
>
“What?” I cross my arms, sit up straight against the wall.
“You’re not going. You haven’t been cleared for a trip like that. We don’t know where this place is. We’d need time to check it out, assess the threats. Our covers are just getting settled—it hasn’t been long enough for me to reasonably accompany you. And you’re not going on your own. Out of the question.”
The anger rises up my chest, acid in my throat. I rein it in, barely, remembering the gun. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
His eyes narrow. He looks completely different like that—like this. Not my age at all.
“Jake. I know it’s very new,” he says, over-patient, like I’m a kindergartner. “But in the end, you have agreed to work as a high-level asset of the U.S. government. You are under twenty-four-hour security detail. You do not—” Red is seeping into his cheeks. He stops himself, lowers his voice. “You do not go waltzing off on out-of-state trips unprotected, not without giving us time to properly prepare. I’m sorry. No.”
I get up and walk out into the graves, the mausoleum gate clanging behind me. My breath pumps clouds of steam. My hands clench tight inside my coat.
I feel like a toddler straining against one of those asinine leashes. I’ve worked to gain independence: my own bike, my own car. Trust. Responsibility. I’m eighteen, an adult. I’m almost out of high school, on to the rest of my life. My choices, on my own merits. My plans.
But now all of a sudden I’m back at square one. Don’t do that, Jakey. Stay here, Jakey. Do only what we tell you.
I get it: I can help people. I’ve agreed. Plus, they’re protecting me. But everything in me strains to run away, to start over. I can’t. I’m trapped.
“You could go in a couple of weeks,” Eric says, behind me. “If you give us the address. We’ll get everything sorted, and then you and I can go.”
I clench my jaw, turn. I have to be an equal partner in this deal. “I want to talk to Liesel. Now.”