Undertow

by Michael Buckley

  Someone in the back tells him to go to hell.

  “And I bet some of you wanted to meet them but you were afraid of the thugs who used to run this school. They stomped around here with their stupid T-shirts. Well, they’re gone. We don’t need them here. They don’t deserve to have this experience. Now you can all start over and try to get to know these kids. Talk to them. Ask them questions. They have lived lives you can barely imagine. They lived underwater! Do you get it, kids? This is like walking on the moon.

  “We could have prepared you better. We could have guided you toward each other. I don’t know. We could have done lots of things differently than we did. For that, I apologize, but I ask you, what did you do? Did you help? Because if you didn’t, you are no better than the boy who opened the door and let the lunatic in here. If you painted nasty words on a locker, you let the lunatic inside. If you bullied the new students, you let the lunatic inside. When you won’t give new faces a chance, you open the door and invite madmen into our halls. And you saw what happened. All of us suffer. Which one of you will open the door and let the next one in?”

  The crowd is stone still.

  “So here’s my idea. Every day since the school year started, you have had to weed through a bunch of idiots just to get inside. They’re out there: the blowhards, the gangstas, and even our favorite politician. There’s nothing we can legally do to make them go away, but you can show them they are wasting their time. You can tell them all that this is our school and they need to stay out. Tell them we’ve let the last lunatic into Hylan, damn it!”

  There’s applause and laughter. I’m not sure if it’s just teenage rebellion, but who cares? It’s pissing Bachman off, so it can’t be bad.

  “Come to this school with an open mind,” Ervin continues. “You don’t have to be friends with the new students. All you have to do is be respectful, just like you are with everyone else who is different from you. There are kids from every corner of the world here, who practice different religions, speak different languages, and you didn’t have a rumble every single day. And that goes for the Alpha kids too. Stop with the crap. Get to know us.”

  Doyle steps forward, and Ervin reluctantly surrenders the microphone.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ervin,” he says. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. In fact, I think he’s just given me a great idea. Could Lyric Walker please come up here?”

  I reluctantly stand and make my way to the podium, but I’m cooking Doyle with my eyes at every step. What is he doing? He knows I need to remain under the radar, and he’s risking that for his stupid games. When I get to the podium, he flashes me his conspiratorial grin and I’m reminded that I am just one of his pawns.

  “All of you know Lyric, but you probably don’t know what she’s been up to lately. In the last few weeks, she’s taken part in an experiment. Every day she has met with one of the new Alpha students. His name is Fathom.”

  I feel like he’s just kicked me in the gut. How can he betray me like this?

  “Ms. Walker did not want to be part of this experiment. She worried that some of you would turn on her, even attack her. She was right. But I made her do it. In fact, I called her father’s boss and arranged it so that if she refused me, I would have him fired. She had no other choice.”

  I turn to face him, wondering if he hasn’t lost his mind.

  “Now it’s your turn. Gabriel Bowen, Ghost, please step up here.”

  And then I get it, and a huge smile comes across my face as I watch them come to the front. I know what Doyle’s going to do, and no one in the world deserves it more than Gabriel.

  “The two of you are assigned to each other. Ghost is going to be in every one of your classes, Gabriel. He’s also going to meet with you privately every single day.”

  “No way,” Gabriel says.

  Doyle laughs. “I’ll make sure your father knows you said that when I call him today. He works for the Department of Motor Vehicles, right?”

  Gabriel’s face falls.

  “Tyrese White? Where are you?”

  A thin black kid stands. He doesn’t look happy.

  “Tyrese, allow me to introduce you to Luna.”

  Luna turns in her seat, and they eye each other.

  “Nicolette Wilder, you will be spending time with Bumper,” he says.

  Nicolette looks likes she’s going to vomit.

  Arcade is assigned to Lynn Plumber. Both of the girls look like they’re ready to leap at each other.

  Surf is placed with Dougie Harris, a scrawny freshman. Dougie looks like he’s going to faint.

  “I bet you’re all thankful your names weren’t called. Folks, they will be. Each one of you will be rotated in for a turn with your new classmates.” Doyle takes a sip from his coffee mug. “All right, let’s get to class and have a good day.”

  I turn to him and he’s grinning. He gives me a wink.

  As soon as I get a chance, I dart to the nurse’s office. Doyle has just arrived and is still turning on his monitors. He looks smug, even with the nasty bruise around his eye.

  “Let me guess why you’re here,” he says.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  Doyle was not expecting that question and his face shows it. I feel transparent.

  “He gets hurt a lot,” I say. It’s an honest reaction, if not completely true. “We were in a fight over the weekend—”

  “Yes, I am aware of that. He’s here, and he’s no more injured than any other day. Mr. Lir recommended that Fathom be kept out of large group settings in case of another attack. There was also concern that the boys he attacked have brothers and sisters who go to this school. Funny, I thought you were going to ask me to reassign him.”

  “Would you?” I say, trying to make it sound hopeful rather than laced with fear.

  He stares at me for a long time. His eyes feel like they’re flipping me over, looking at all my angles, studying every corner and edge. It makes me want to crawl behind a chair and hide.

  “You have been a good influence on him, Lyric. He trusts you,” he says. “Maybe there’s something about you that calms him down.”

  “An Alpha thing?”

  He shrugs. “Does he know?”

  I shake my head. “Only you.”

  “Not even your friends?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to put them in danger.”

  “Quite a burden to carry around,” he says, shaking his head in sympathy. I’m not sure I believe it’s sincere, but if it is, maybe I can make him understand.

  “That’s been my life for three years, Mr. Doyle. Hiding, worrying, panicked that I’ll be discovered.”

  “Like the Benningfords. That was unfortunate,” he says. “Why don’t you go to the beach? Your mother’s people would protect you.”

  “It’s not an option.”

  “Why?”

  “My mother picked the wrong team.”

  He stares at me for a long time. “Give me one more week. Five more days and I’ll put him with another kid.”

  “And then I get the envelope?”

  He nods. “Do you know where you’ll go? You know what? Don’t tell me that.”

  “I wasn’t going to, Mr. Doyle.”

  He smiles. “Smart girl. You’re learning. Come see me on Friday, Lyric, and we’ll say our goodbyes.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The first hesitant steps to get to know the new students are occurring all around me, tiny buds peeking out of the soil: an introduction, a small smile, a nod of acknowledgment when Ghost or Luna walks past. A girl compliments Arcade on the metal glove she wears and asks if she can buy one herself. When Bumper drops a book, three kids bend down to pick it up for her. Most people still steer clear of Surf, but miracles take time. Doyle said he’d make this place work, and as I watch it happening, I can’t help but give the man his due. He is a mad, coffee-addicted genius and a manipulative liar, but I can’t argue with the results.

  “I wish I had my phone,” Shadow says as w
e walk down the hall. “This is something my fans should see.”

  I wish I had mine, too, so I could play a game of “I know something you don’t know” with my parents. Doyle has given us a ticket out of town, and now he’s given me an exact day when it will happen. No more “We have to live beneath the smothering blanket of the unknown.” In five days we can grab our things and walk through the blockade.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Bonnie says when I show up for my meeting with Fathom. “Wish I could say the same for him.”

  “Grouchy?”

  “I was going to go with surly,” she says.

  “Well then, I guess I’ll see you guys in a few minutes when I storm out of there,” I say.

  Terrance chuckles to himself and opens the door. “Good luck, Ms. Walker.”

  I review a list of reasons I have compiled all morning on why my feelings for Fathom are stupid, embarrassing, and self-destructive.

  1. Fathom has a fiancée.

  2. Said fiancée has swords that come out of her arms.

  3. Fathom is a brooding grouch, frequently horrible, and violent.

  4. Your life with him would be an endless street fight that he doesn’t have the sense to walk away from.

  5. You have a history of poor decision making, so these feelings cannot be trusted.

  6. You are leaving town in five days.

  7. FIVE DAYS!

  It’s a very rational list. There’s no arguing about these facts. I have wrapped my brain around each one and come to the obvious conclusion that it would never work between us. I feel good about my decision. I can do this, I tell myself, then I step through the door.

  Fathom stands in the middle of the room. He isn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Not fair,” I whisper.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” I grumble, doing my best not to stare. I set the kids’ books on a desk and search for something to distract me, but it’s no use. There’s nothing as distracting as him.

  “I need your help,” he says as he turns his back to me. A horrible rash filled with black thorns stretches from his neck to just below his rib cage.

  I cringe. “What are these things?”

  “Nix talons. They break off in the skin and turn to poison if they aren’t removed soon enough.”

  “You need to see a doctor for this,” I say.

  “You have become predictable, Lyric Walker.”

  “What kind of poison?” I say.

  “They cause your body to overproduce blood until you swell—”

  “Okay, I get it,” I interrupt as I pull the black fingernail out of his skin. It’s so gross. “Every day with you is blood.”

  He turns. “You are angry with me.”

  Oh, so we’re going to talk about it. “They were kids.”

  “They were my age,” he says. “Some older. And they threatened us with weapons.”

  “You’re stronger and faster than them,” I argue. “And you have swords in your arms.”

  “They are not swords.”

  “Fine, they’re jagged, sharp, stabby things that can cut a person’s hand off. You should have held back.”

  “I did hold back,” he seethes. “They still live, don’t they? And let me remind you they had a jagged, sharp, stabby thing themselves.”

  “Let’s not talk about it,” I say as I continue with my amateur surgery. “We’re just different.”

  “Yes, we are different,” he says. “Despite your efforts to change me.”

  “Change you?”

  “Is that not what Doyle asked you to do? Make me human? Turn me into a person who backs down from challenges? Please inform him that you have failed.”

  “I did. He’s giving you to someone else so they can try.”

  He spins around on me. His eyes are full of hurt. It’s like I slapped him.

  He cares.

  If that’s true, I need to get out of this room. My list only works if he doesn’t have feelings for me. If he does, I won’t be able to stop myself. I turn to the door, but he takes my arm.

  “I—”

  “Let me go,” I say, staring at the door.

  “Wait—”

  “Please, let me go,” I beg.

  “I cannot, Lyric Walker.”

  Suddenly I am spun like a top and pushed against the wall. His hands swirl around the small of my back, and he pulls me to him. I open my mouth in surprise and he presses his to mine. His kisses are hungry, devouring. I have never been kissed like this before. I didn’t even know I could be kissed like this, dragged off my feet into his undertow, bounced and thrown around in a swell of want. This scares me, not because he is wrapped around me but because I am kissing him just as hard. We stumble around, pressing even tighter together, each of us trying to merge into the other’s body. And all around me I feel the world changing, morphing into something I know I will not recognize when I open my eyes. The ground will be up and the sky will be down and nothing will make sense to anyone, not even us. When we walk out of this room, everyone will know what we’ve done. You can’t kiss someone like this and think the world won’t see the transformation. But I don’t care. I want to drown in him.

  I hear the faint whir of something mechanical, and my eyes pop open. The camera mounted on the ceiling slowly turns its eye, focusing a black lens on us. In a panic, I peel myself off of Fathom. It feels like being ripped out of my own skin.

  “The camera.”

  He peers at it and then scowls. “They watch us.”

  “We can’t do this,” I say as I struggle to catch my breath.

  “I had to. Just once, before . . .”

  “Before what?”

  He gives me a final pained look, then walks out without another word, leaving me behind to shake and tremble. I try to get ahold of myself, but every one of my nerve endings cries out for more of him, demanding another fix. My engorged heart feels like it’s going to push aside my ribs and explode out of my chest.

  Bonnie pokes her head into the room. “That’s a first.”

  I stare at her a moment until I understand she’s making a joke. Fathom was the first to walk out this time.

  “Yeah, it was. I guess I’ll just sit here until the end of the hour.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bonnie says, and she closes the door.

  I fall into a chair and spend the rest of the time trying to calm down. When the bell rings, I’m still shaky but make my way to the door. It’s then that I notice he’s left me something. On a desk is a copy of Where the Wild Things Are, the same one he ripped in two in a fit of anger. He’s mended it with tape, carefully placing each page back the best he could.

  My brain is playing “the kiss” on an endless loop. I can still feel his hands in my hair, on my hip, on my back. I can still smell his neck and taste his salty mouth. It’s got me so keyed up, I can barely think straight. My skin feels too tight for my body. It’s like he took me apart and put me back together without the instructions.

  Shadow and Bex are already eating when I show up in the cafeteria. I watch them from afar, soaking in the easiness of what they have become. He laughs. She laughs. They touch each other on the arm, stare at each other with shiny eyes. They share kisses and smiles. I want to run to them and tell them that I know what it is they are feeling. I want to share the kiss, how it started, how it ended, how it felt like I was suspended in it for hours and hours, but I stop myself. I don’t know how they feel. What I have is not the same, because what they have has potential, real potential. It is realistic and hopeful and the world accepts it, embraces it with open arms. They just slide together like jigsaw-puzzle pieces, and people will celebrate it. Fathom and I will never have that, because we will never be allowed to be Fathom and Lyric. Even if I were staying here in this horrible, soul-crushing town, the whole world would rise up to shake its collective finger at us and say, No, no, no. This is not allowed. It is good that I’m leaving, because I know I cannot stop myself.

  And then it h
its me. I’m leaving in five days. Bex is supposed to come with me. I can’t take her away from Shadow. I can’t break that up. He has to come with us. My mother and father will lose their minds. It’ll make it harder for us, but I just can’t do it to Bex. Bex spots me and waves me over. It’s now or never. I have to tell them both the truth. I sit down at their table and open my mouth, but Fathom and the rest of the Alpha enter.

  “So, we’re supposed to be nice to them,” Bex says. “I know! Shadow should invite them to one of his Dungeons and Dragons parties.”

  “I have never played Dungeons and Dragons,” he says, matter-of-factly.

  Bex frowns and gives him a knowing look.

  “One time!” he cries.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say, barely over a whisper.

  “Shadow, we aren’t judging you,” Bex says as she flashes me a mischievous grin. “Personally, I’m hurt you haven’t invited the two of us to play. Listen, just once! We’ll come over tonight and you can show us your cool secret life. Should we bring some thirty-sided dice or something?”

  The boy shakes his head and laughs despite himself. “I am never sharing anything with you again.”

  “You’ll have to show us how to roll characters,” Bex continues. “That’s what you call it when you make your imaginary friends, right?”

  “You’re really not that funny,” he says, trying not to grin.

  “Yes I am,” she sings.

  I just can’t take it anymore.

  “Lyric, what’s wrong?” Shadow says.

  I wipe away my tears and look around to make sure that no one is listening. “We’re leaving on Friday.”

  Shadow leans in. “You’re leaving the Zone?”

  I nod.

  “But that’s good news,” he whispers. “Why are you crying? Everyone wants to leave the Zone.”

  I look to Bex, and all the laughter inside her is gone. “Shadow, I need to talk to you.”