by Nya Jade
“Maybe she got nervous.”
“Maybe she couldn’t handle the stress.”
“Maybe she really had to go pee.”
But it was Karli who seemed to enjoy Phoebe’s spectacle the most. “When it comes down to it,” she said loudly to the girls gathered at her table. “He just picked an amateur. I would have never done anything like that. They are so over.” And although the opinions were many and the voices penetrating, somehow Karli’s cut through the most.
“You don’t need this,” said a voice at Phoebe’s elbow as she joined a buffet line. She turned to see Hayley, a brown paper bag in each hand. “I packed us a to-go breakfast,” she said. “So, let’s go.”
A gust of relief rushed into Phoebe. “Thank you,” she mouthed. They exited the cafeteria, leaving the low, animated sound of mindless gossip behind.
“So how bad was it?” Phoebe asked when they had settled themselves on Hayley’s bed. She fixed the TV with a nervous stare.
“I’m not going to lie,” Hayley said, between bites of yogurt. “It was pretty bad . . . but you don’t have to watch it. I mean,”—Hayley snatched the TV remote that lay at Phoebe’s feet—“I only recorded it so that we could gush about it later.”
“That would have been fun,” Phoebe said, mourning what could have been and toying with her bagel. “Especially since I was excited to come back and tell you that we made out—”
“You—what?” Hayley bounced on her bed like a sugar-high toddler, her loose curls swirling around her face. “Holy crap! How was it?!”
For a moment Phoebe allowed herself to get caught up in Hayley’s excitement. “It was amazing,” she admitted airily. She shook herself from it, remembering that she’d kissed the enemy.
“God, making out with Colten Chase must be like losing your virginity on prom night—a little overboard?” Hayley said, noting Phoebe’s sharp, disapproving frown.
“A lot overboard,” Phoebe said, and then laughed
“Did you lose your shirt?”
“No. But my hands went under his and that chest is all muscle!
Hayley picked up a pillow and shrieked into it. Once she’d regained her composure, Hayley flung the pillow at Phoebe. “So then what the hell happened on the carpet?”
The smile slipped from Phoebe’s face. She’d decided that she couldn’t tell Hayley the truth. She knew that Hayley would react in one of two ways. She’d either remind Phoebe of their sworn oath and insist that they report Colten, or she’d choose to protect the secret and help Phoebe unravel the mystery. If it were the latter, Phoebe feared the consequences. The thought of Hayley facing treason charges on account of her, made Phoebe shudder. She wanted her friend to have plausible deniability.
“I got spooked,” Phoebe finally said. And then to sell it, “I’ve no business becoming an SIS agent.”
Hayley shook her head. “You rock for even signing up to be bait. You’re a Hastati-year, remember? And I’m sure if we think hard enough we can come up with a believable excuse for you to tell Colten.”
Phoebe grimaced. That was the furthest thing from her mind.
The rest of the week continued to be horrible for Phoebe. Colten’s conspicuous absence kept the story fresh in people’s minds while Afua’s attendance at each of her classes Below made Phoebe more paranoid by the day as she worried that the Blackcoat knew she was hiding something. As if that weren’t enough, on Friday Montclaire raised the tank in class for a segment on Vigo physiology. Each time Phoebe gazed upon the Tiger, her stomach burned at the thought of Colten being one of them.
At the end of Bio Encryption, Phoebe muttered apologetically as she shoved her way out of the classroom and through the throngs in the hallways. In a haze of fatigue, she slumped to an overcrowded corner of the courtyard and did something she would normally never even consider. She lowered her mental gate. Completely. At once, strangers’ emotions that had been gnawing at the boundary of her mind came crashing in—all the things-really-suck feelings . . . jealousy . . . happiness . . . horny-teenager frustrations. Like a furious torrent of spinning balls, they banged against the neural walkways of Phoebe’s mind until they’d managed to do what she had wanted them to do: drown out the sound of her own desperate emotions.
Phoebe’s mind practically rattled in her skull, but she didn’t care. In that moment, she felt liberated. There were no thoughts of Colten. No confusion over whether or not to tell the Blackcoats what she knew. All of her heartache and sense of betrayal was gone. For now.
“—hit someone,” a voice said in Phoebe’s ear, returning her to her senses. She looked up to find Scott watching her, his white shirt half untucked from his pants. He flicked at a lock of black hair that fell across his eyes.
“Oh—hey,” Phoebe said, blinking hard and working to snap her mental gate back into place. “What did you say?”
“I said you look like you need to hit someone,” Scott repeated and grinned. “And I think that someone should be me.” And when Phoebe looked at him baffled, he laughed. “We have a rain check on you teaching me fighting techniques, remember? So how ’bout we do it tonight—take your mind off things?”
“Oh, that . . .” Phoebe said, distracted, staring curiously around her. She couldn’t help wondering where some of the strong emotions had come from. Some cadet in one of the groups nearby was harboring dark anger and pent up aggression. Phoebe brought her hands to her head and pressed her palms against her throbbing temples, the severity of her emotion-induced headache suddenly registering.
“You okay?” Scott studied Phoebe. Then he said very seriously, leaning in, “You’re not looking too hot—I mean”—he ran a hand over the scars on his neck—“you’re hot, but not looking great, that is—have you been sleeping—?”
Phoebe, who had suddenly spotted Afua threading through the courtyard crowd with Gabe talking at her side, cut Scott off. “Let’s meet tomorrow after dinner,” she said pointedly, keeping her gaze down, not wanting to catch Afua’s eye as the Blackcoat and the custodian moved in their direction.
Phoebe had barely been aware of leaving Scott; all she knew was that she had shouldered her way through a few knots of students to the narthyx chamber and was now racing up a passageway. There was an edge of panic in her need to get Above. Phoebe knew that Afua was conducting her one-on-one debriefings with the agents involved in the sting, which meant the Blackcoat would be pulling her in soon for their session. Phoebe didn’t want “soon” to be “now.”
“So what if it made the cover of Dish?” Hayley said the next afternoon. She speared a piece of lettuce with her fork and made a funny face at Phoebe who was flipping through the issue that had just arrived. “People are fickle with their celebrity disasters.” Hayley continued speaking around the salad in her mouth. “Trust me. Once the next thing happens they’ll forget all about this one,” she insisted with false conviction in her voice.
Phoebe found herself frowning; she was eager to get off the disaster roller coaster she seemed to be on. She could do without the continued whispering and the less than discreet finger pointing every time she moved through the hallways or entered a classroom. And if she heard one more snide remark from Karli, it was possible that she’d explode.
“How did you find this place anyway?” Hayley said. “It’s so much better than the barn.” Between it being Friday, and Phoebe wanting to avoid scrutiny, she had dragged Hayley up to the Garden Café for lunch. But she wondered about her real reason for being there as her eyes flashed around the greenhouse, stopping on any boy in a baseball cap who was even remotely tall.
Hayley put her fork down and asked the question again. Phoebe, returning her eyes to Hayley, opened her mouth to explain and then stopped, not wanting to walk a line of conversation that involved Colten. Any mention of him and Hayley would launch into her don’t-worry-he’s-not-avoiding-you spiel, trying to convince Phoebe that things between her and Colten would return to normal once everything blew over. At that moment as Hayley’s eyes burne
d with impatience, Phoebe’s thoughts went to Mariko and Lewis. Were they nearby? Were they hurt? Had her blunder on the red carpet sealed their fate? So ignoring Hayley’s question, Phoebe instead asked, “Anything new from Liam? Any mention of the missing two?”
Hayley shook her head. “He’s been quiet on the blog for the past week or so,” she said, and then thinking, added, “I wonder if that means no news is good news. What do you think?” But Phoebe had stopped listening. A sickening feeling twisted her stomach. She couldn’t give in to coincidence that in the week of Colten’s absence, Liam had nothing new to report. Was Vigo activity related to Colten activity?
When Phoebe met up with Scott the following night, he greeted her with a mysterious smile. She looked him over and frowned at his choice in clothing. He wore a faded t-shirt, grass-stained jeans and a pair of Converse sneakers. “You’re not planning to fight in that?” said Phoebe, who’d arrived in a black jogging suit.
“Change of plans, Pope.” Scott threw his arm around Phoebe and began to lead her out of the athletic wing.
“Got scared, huh?” Phoebe teased.
“Yup. Decided my ego wouldn’t survive the beating.”
Phoebe laughed. “So where are we going?”
“Not far,” Scott said as they climbed a flight of stairs. Soon, they arrived at a door that bore the words: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL.
Scott pushed Phoebe through the door saying, “Welcome to the best light show you’ll ever see.”
Phoebe came to a stutter stop. She was in a long, rectangular room, with more than fifty rows of tables draped with the purest linens, each holding locked, glass display cases full of nothing but Utaviium. The bolts of lightning bouncing around within their blue, crystal cylinders were almost blinding.
“How do you know about this place?” Phoebe said, her face breaking into a look of astonishment and pleasure, she turned to look at Scott who beamed at her.
“I had to polish those cases as part of my doghouse punishment,” he said. “Sit down, I want to show you the best part.”
Phoebe settled herself comfortably on the ground, pressing her back against the wall. Grinning, Scott switched off the lights. A loud gasp immediately fell from Phoebe’s lips. The darkness had made the display cases invisible, creating the illusion of fiery lightning bolts floating in the center of the room.
“Wow,” Phoebe said.
“Thought you’d dig it,” Scott said, sliding down the wall beside Phoebe’s outstretched legs.
A warm feeling of contentment burgeoned in Phoebe’s chest, one that she wouldn’t have expected Scott to stir in her. She was stressed, she hadn’t been sleeping, her thoughts were conflicted beyond measure, and with this field trip, Scott had managed to do what she didn’t think was possible—take her mind off of things. Gratefulness washed over her like a warm bath.
Phoebe’s eyesight adjusted to the dark, giving her a better look at Scott; she was surprised to see a frown on his face.
“Hey,” she said, nudging him with a foot. “What’s wrong?”
Scott turned his face to Phoebe, and it held frustration and a morose expression. “I bailed on fighting tonight ’cause you shouldn’t have to teach me,” he said. “It’s been weeks. I don’t get why they haven’t bothered to show me a few things. I mean, hell, I’m still on that hit list. . . .”
Phoebe looked away; she drew her knees up to her chest, watching the brilliant lights dance against the darkness. She thought over whether or not to tell Scott about the sting and decided that discretion was no longer necessary now that the field operation was over.
“Listen,” Phoebe said, looking at him. “Don’t feel slighted. There was a very specific reason they had to train me when they did.”
“What are you talking about?”
Phoebe took a breath to assemble her thoughts. “Contrary to what you might think, I didn’t go to that premiere for fun,” she said. “The Blackcoats asked me to go—”
“They what?” Scott turned to face her fully. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“Because they think the abductions are an inside job,” Phoebe explained. “The point of my going was to set up a sting. The Blackcoats were trying to flush the traitor out.” Scott said nothing, his face darkening with each word Phoebe spoke. “But I was protected the entire time. They pulled in extra agents for the event. Afua just gave me a head start in fighting just in case—”
“They shouldn’t have dangled you out like that!” Scott said cutting her off, sounding livid. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“You should have told me all this was going down.” His eyes were liquid with hurt and obvious fear for her.
“I couldn’t,” she said softly, her voice laced with regret. “I wanted to.”
“I know, I know,” Scott said, patting his pockets nervously for a cigarette and finding none. “Information containment.” Then, sounding a good deal calmer, “You’ve got some balls on you, Pope. Don’t think I would have done it.”
Phoebe shrugged off the comment. “I didn’t quite complete the mission.”
They sat in silence for awhile, then Scott said, “I don’t even know why I bother caring, anyway. I’m not planning on enrolling in SIS when I’m done here.”
“What?” Phoebe said, shocked. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would go through the double course load if it wasn’t a career path.
“I want to play pro soccer. Got my eyes set on the Shaper World Cup, Pope,” Scott said. “But my old man’s not cool with it, so he sent me here.” Scott chuckled darkly. “He thinks three years of discipline will set my head straight, but I’m just doing things his way now so I can do it my way later.”
“Three years is a long time to work toward something you don’t want to do,” Phoebe said.
“I have to wait that long anyway until I’m eligible to try out for teams.” Scott patted himself again for cigarettes as though he still couldn’t believe he didn’t have any. “How about you, Pope? What would you do other than SIS?”
Phoebe shrugged.
“C’mon. There’s gotta be something?”
“I’ve thought about photography,” Phoebe said at last. “But sometimes I think I’d hate it if I was getting paid to do it.”
“Personally,” Scott said, briefly meeting her gaze, his eyes unreadable. “I think you’re on the wrong side of the camera.”
Because she couldn’t stop her flush, Phoebe bit her lip and changed the subject. “Are you sure we can be in here?” she asked with a wavering voice.
“No,” Scott said, laughing. “Don’t rat me out to Yelena.” He stood and helped Phoebe to her feet. Almost simultaneously, they both reached for the light switch, their faces barely inches apart. A brief flicker of a smile started on Scott’s lips and he leaned forward. Phoebe was startled by the intent she saw in his eyes, and took a hasty step back.
Scott bit his lip and crossed one leg over the other, “I’m sorry,” he said, scrubbing the back of his neck with his hands as Phoebe put more distance between them and averted her eyes. “I wasn’t—I shouldn’t—” Scott was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
“This place is not a hangout,” said a male Blackcoat, poking his head into the room and turning on the light.
“We were just leaving,” Phoebe said, pushing past the broad-shouldered agent who was her shadow. Scott may have followed, but she didn’t wait or look back to see. As she picked up her pace, now fairly jogging down the hallway, Phoebe realized that it wasn’t Scott’s attempt to kiss her that she’d found most upsetting; it was the fact that somewhere deep inside, she knew there was a part of her that would have been happy to let him.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Ihope you haven’t been waiting for me, lass?”
Phoebe looked up. A berobed Gabe stood smiling at the end of her pew. Behind him, the logs in the chapel fireplace crackled with hearty flames.
“No,” she said smiling back. “I just
needed a really quiet place to get some work done.”
“Your father used to do his homework in the chapel, too.” The custodian gave a soft chuckle. “Said it was the one place he could count on being empty during the week. Please don’t let me interrupt you,” he quickly added as Phoebe closed her laptop.
“My French essay isn’t due until next week,” she said, slipping her computer into her backpack.
Gabe sat on the pew in front of Phoebe and turned to face her. “How are you finding your Above classes?”
Phoebe shifted on the velvet cushion and shrugged. “Fine, I suppose,” she said. “It’s hard to focus on them—or anything really—with everything that’s going on.”
Gabe stared down at his lap. “I can only imagine what you’re going through,” he said, his pensive voice barely audible.
“Can I ask you something?” Phoebe said, leaning forward.
Gabe looked up. There was a flash of hesitation in his eyes. Then he said, “Sure, lass.”
“How’d you get to know my father?”
A smile crinkled the skin around Gabe’s eyes. “He was my intern at the Eye.”
“Huh?”
“In your Triarii year, you’ll be given an opportunity to intern with an instructor of your choosing. Your father chose to intern with me. He was fascinated with the Eye and surveillance in general. It was an unusual request since I’m not faculty, but the school allowed it. Your father,” he added with a warm smile, “was a star student. If he’d wanted to intern with the janitor, the school would have let him.”
Phoebe laughed, trying to picture that. Then solemnly, “I didn’t know any of this.”
“Did your father not talk about his time here?” Gabe said, furrowing his brow.
“Sometimes. But only when I pressed him.” Phoebe sighed and leaned back against the pew. “Even then, he wasn’t that forthcoming. He didn’t want me to—”