The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  The truth is, I get it. If someone could give me back the way our house felt when Ben was home, even a shred of it, I’d give them anything. People are made up of so many small details. Some—like the smell of cookies baking—we can recreate. Or at least try.

  The timer goes off inside the house. Mr. Phillip opens the door, takes a deep breath, and smiles. “Perfect.”

  Mr. Phillip liked to keep things neat. But on the screen, his apartment is in disarray. The room shown is one I only saw in passing on the way from the entry to the kitchen, an open living room with a wall of windows that look out onto a small, immaculate garden. But now the glass is shattered and the room is trashed, and Mr. Phillip is missing.

  I turn the volume up, and the reporter’s voice spills into the living room.

  “Well-known civil servant and recently retired judge Gregory Phillip is now considered a missing person, as well as the potential victim of an abduction.”

  “Mackenzie,” cuts in Dad, striding through the room. “You’re going to be late.”

  I hear the door close after him, but don’t take my eyes from the screen.

  “As you can see behind me,” continues the reporter, “this room of his house was found in a state of chaos—paintings ripped from the walls, books strewn across the floor, chairs toppled, windows shattered. Are these the signs of a violent struggle, or a robber trying to cover his tracks?”

  The camera cuts to a press conference, where a man with cropped reddish hair and a stern jaw issues a statement. A bar across the bottom of the screen identifies him as Detective Kinney. I wonder if he’s related to Amber.

  “There’s no denying the signs of foul play,” says Detective Kinney. His voice is low, gruff. “And at this time, we are treating the case as an abduction.” The camera cuts back to the still frame of the trashed room, but the detective’s voice plays eerily on. “We are investigating all possible leads, and anyone with information should contact—”

  I shut the TV off, but Mr. Phillip and the trashed room linger in my mind like echoes. What happened? When did it happen? Was I the last person to see him alive? Should I tell the police? What would I tell them? That I helped the man’s house smell like cookies?

  I can’t go to the cops. The last thing I need is more attention. Whatever happened to him, it’s tragic…but it’s got nothing to do with me.

  My phone goes off, and I realize I’m still standing in the empty living room, staring at the darkened screen. I dig it out of my bag to find a text from Wesley.

  Got your battle armor on?

  I smile, haul my bag onto my shoulder, and text back:

  Can’t decide what to wear over it.

  The conversation follows me down to the lobby.

  What are your choices?

  Black, black, or black?

  My favorite color. You shouldn’t have.

  Slimming.

  Sexy.

  Sensible.

  And good for hiding bloodstains.

  I smile and pocket the phone as I reach Bishop’s. Mom is busy talking to Ms. Angelli, a cat-happy antiques dealer from the fourth floor, and I swipe a muffin and a coffee and head out, feeling more awake than I have in weeks. Four hours of sleep, I marvel as I unchain Dante and pedal off.

  I keep my eyes peeled for the golden man from yesterday, but he’s nowhere to be seen, and I actually start to wonder if he was ever there or if he was just another side effect of the sleeplessness. I hope for the latter, not wanting to think about what the former could mean.

  The morning is cool, and I balance my coffee on the handlebars with one hand and steer with the other. As I ride, something fills my chest. Not fear or fatigue, but something lovely and light: hope. I was beginning to think I’d never find dreamless sleep again; but if I could find it in Roland’s daybed, then it’s possible to find it elsewhere, too. Right now, high on those four small hours of rest, possibility is enough.

  When I get to Hyde, I find Cash leaning up against the bike rack, holding two coffees and shooing freshmen away like flies from the spot he’s saving me near the front gate. He smiles when he sees me, a broad grin that brightens the morning and helps push any lingering thoughts of Mr. Phillip from my mind. He scoots aside so I can park Dante.

  “I wasn’t going to wait for you,” he explains, “but you see, the schedule flips. I showed you the route for the A block, but not the B block.”

  “Isn’t it just the A block in reverse?”

  “Well, yes,” he says, offering me one of the coffees. I take it, even though I just finished mine. “But I wanted to make sure you knew that. I didn’t want you to think me a negligent ambassador.”

  “That would be a travesty,” I say, tugging off the workout pants beneath my skirt.

  “Truly,” he says, sipping his drink. “I’m going to lose points as it is for not being able to show you to your morning classes. I’m on the opposite side of campus, and the teachers around here will lock you out if you’re late.”

  “I won’t fault you.” I get the first pant leg off.

  “Good. There are feedback cards around here somewhere, you know.”

  “I’ll be sure to fill one out….” My shoe catches on the second pant leg; when I try to tug it free, my backpack shifts from my other shoulder and my balance falters. Cash’s hand comes up to steady me, and his noise—all jazz and laughter and pulse—pounds through my head, loud enough to make me flinch and pull away, toppling the other direction, straight into the metallic rock band sound of Wesley Ayers.

  He smiles, and I can’t tell if it’s my rare moment of clumsiness or the fact I lean into his noise instead of away from it that makes his eyes glitter.

  “Steady there,” he says as I finally free the fabric from my shoe. I get both feet back on the ground, but his touch lingers a moment before sliding away, taking the thrum of music with it.

  “Morning, Ayers,” says Cash with a nod.

  “Where did you come from, Wes?” I ask.

  He tips his head back down the sidewalk.

  “What, no fancy car?” I tease.

  “Ferrari’s in the shop,” he shoots back without missing a beat.

  “And the Lexus?” chirps Cash.

  Wesley rolls his eyes and shifts his attention to me. “Is this one giving you trouble?”

  “On the contrary,” I say, “he’s been a perfect gentleman. One might even say a knight.”

  “In shining armor,” adds Cash, gesturing to his gold stripes.

  “He brought me coffee,” I say, holding up my cup.

  Wes runs a hand through his black hair and sighs dramatically. “You never bring me coffee, Cassius.”

  And then, out of nowhere, a girl swings her arm around Wesley from behind. He doesn’t even tense at the contact—I do—only smiles as she puts her manicured hands over his eyes.

  “Morning, Elle,” he says cheerfully.

  Elle—a pretty little thing, bird-thin with bottle-blond hair—actually giggles as she pulls away.

  “How did you know?” she squeaks.

  Because of your noise, I think drily.

  Wesley shrugs. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

  “All the cool powers were taken,” mutters Cash, half into his coffee.

  The girl is still hanging on Wesley. Perching on him. Like a bird on a branch. She’s chirping on about some fall dance when the bell finally rings, and I realize I’ve never been so happy to go to class.

  It’s a good thing I’ve had two coffees to go with my four hours of sleep, because Mr. Lowell kicks off the day with a documentary on revolutionaries. And whether it’s the healthy dose of caffeine or the strange way the subject sinks its nails in, I manage to stay awake.

  “The thing to remember about revolutionaries,” says Lowell, killing the video and flicking on the lights, “is that, while they may be viewed as terrorists by their oppressors, in their own eyes, they are champions. Martyrs. People willing to do what others won’t, or can’t, for the sake of whatever it
is they believe in. In a way, we can see them as the most extreme incarnations of a society’s discontent. But just as people elevate their revolutionaries to the station of gods, avenging angels, heroes, so those revolutionaries elevate themselves….”

  As he continues, I picture Owen Chris Clarke, eyes blazing on the Coronado roof as he spoke of monsters and freedom and betrayal. Of tearing down the Archive, one branch at a time.

  “But the mark of a revolutionary,” continues Lowell, “is the fact that cause comes first. No matter how elevated the revolutionary becomes in the eyes of others—and in his own eyes—his life will always matter less than the cause. It is expendable.”

  Owen jumped off a roof. Took his own life to make sure the Archive couldn’t take his mind, his memories. To make sure that if—when—his History woke, he would remember everything. I have no doubt that Owen would have given or taken his life a hundred times to see the Archive burn.

  “Sadly,” adds Lowell, “revolutionaries often find the lives of others equally expendable.”

  Expendable. I write the word in my notebook.

  Owen definitely saw the lives of others as expendable. From those he murdered to keep his sister a secret, to those he tried to murder—Wesley bleeding out so Owen could make a point—to me. Owen gave me the chance to come with him instead of standing in his way. As soon as I refused, I was worthless to him. Nothing more than another obstacle.

  If Owen was a revolutionary, then what does that make me? Part of the machine? The world isn’t that black-and-white, is it? It doesn’t all boil down to with or against. Some of us just want to stay alive.

  TEN

  A MBER’S LATE TO physiology, so she has to snag a seat in the back and I have to spend the period studying the nervous system and trying to stay awake. As soon as the bell rings, I’m out of my chair and standing by hers.

  “That eager to get to gym?” she asks, packing up her bag.

  “Question,” I say casually. “Is your dad a cop?”

  “Huh?” Amber’s strawberry eyebrows go up. “Oh, yeah. Detective.” She hoists the bag onto her shoulder and we head into the fray. “Why?”

  “I just saw him on the news this morning.”

  “Kind of sad, isn’t it?” she says. “I didn’t get to see my dad this morning.”

  Treading dangerous waters, then. “He works a lot?”

  Amber sighs. “On a light day. And the Phillip case is killing him.” She almost smiles. “My mom hates it when I use words like killing in casual conversation. She thinks I’m becoming desensitized to death. I hate to tell her she’s too late.”

  “My grandfather was a detective, too.” Well, a private eye, and mostly under the table work at that, but close enough.

  Her eyes light up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I grew up around it. Bound to make you a little morbid.” Amber smiles, and I take my shot. “Do they have any idea what happened to that guy, Mr. Phillip?”

  Amber shakes her head and pushes the door open. “Dad won’t talk about it around me.” She squints into the late morning light. “But the walls in our house are pretty thin. From what I’ve heard him say, none of it adds up. You’ve got this one room, and it’s trashed, and the rest of the house is spotless. Nothing missing.”

  “Except for Mr. Phillip.”

  “Exactly,” she says, kicking a loose pebble down the path, “but nobody can figure out why. He was apparently one of the nicest guys around, and he was retired.”

  “A judge, right? Do they think someone might have been angry with a sentence or something?”

  “Then why not kill him?” says Amber, pushing open the gym doors. “I know that’s cold, but if you have a vendetta, you usually have a body. They don’t have one. They don’t have anything. He just vanished. So my question is, who would go to all the trouble to make someone disappear and then leave a mess like that? Why not make it look like he just walked away?”

  She has a point. She has a lot of points.

  “You’re really good at this,” I say, following her into the locker room.

  She beams. “Crime dramas and years of eavesdropping.”

  “What are you two going on about?” asks Safia, dropping her bag on the bench. I hesitate, but Amber surprises me by giving a nonchalant shrug and lying through her teeth. “Arteries and veins, mostly.”

  Saf screws up her nose. “Ewww.” She keys in her locker code and starts to change, but Amber smiles and keeps going. “Did you know that veins move around beneath your skin?”

  “Stop,” says Saf, paling.

  “And did you know—” Amber continues.

  “Amber, stop,” says Saf, tugging on her workout clothes.

  “—that the brachial artery,” she says, poking Saf’s arm for emphasis, “is the first place blood goes after being pumped through your heart, so if you sever it, you could conceivably lose all five liters of blood in your body? Your heart would just pump it right out onto the floor—”

  “Gross, gross, stop,” snaps Saf, slamming her locker and storming away toward the gym doors.

  Amber looks back at me with a smile after Safia has stormed out. “She gets squeamish,” she says cheerfully.

  “I can see that.” I’d be lying if I said it didn’t lighten my mood. “Hey, will you let me know if they find anything?”

  She nods a little reluctantly. “Why so interested in the case?”

  I flash a smile. “You’re not the only one who grew up on crime shows.”

  Amber smiles back, and I make a mental note to spend more time watching television.

  There’s a nervous energy in my bones. I want to run—want to sprint until it dissipates—but I’m terrified of triggering another tunnel moment, so I spend the first half of gym walking on the track, trying to clear my head. Amber and Gavin are “stretching” on a mat across the room, trying to hide a magazine on the floor between them. Safia is fencing—she’s actually good, in an obnoxious way—and Cash is on the weight machines with a few other guys. And Wesley is…right beside me. One moment I’m alone, and the next he’s fallen casually into step next to me. I count the number of strides we walk in silence—eleven—before Wesley feels the need to break it.

  “Did you know,” he asks, affecting an accent that I think is supposed to be Cash’s, “that the hawk, which is Hyde’s mascot, is known for performing dazzling aerobatic feats to impress prospective mates?”

  I can’t help but laugh. Wes smiles, and slips back into his own voice. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Crime scenes,” I say absently.

  “Never a dull answer, I’ll give you that. Care to be more specific?”

  I shake my head.

  “Bishop! Ayers!” shouts the gym teacher near the sparring platform. “Come show these idiots how to fight.”

  Wesley knocks his shoulder against mine—a ripple of bass through two thin layers of fabric—and we make our way to the mat and suit up. I roll my wrist, testing.

  “Do you really have a Ferrari?” I ask as I cinch my gloves.

  He gives me a withering look. “For your information, Miss Bishop,” he says, pulling on his helmet, “I don’t own a car.”

  We go to the center of the platform.

  “Shocking,” I say as the whistle blows.

  Wes throws a punch, and I dodge and catch his wrist.

  “Waste of gas,” he says, before I turn and flip him over my shoulder. Instead of resisting, he moves with the flip, lands on his feet, and throws a kick my direction. I lunge backward. We dance around each other for a moment.

  “So you live in walking distance?” I ask, throwing a punch. He catches it—his grip oddly gentle around my bad wrist—and rolls my body in against his, one arm snaking around my shoulders.

  “I use the Narrows,” he says in my ear. “Fastest transportation around, remember?” He shoves me forward before I can try to flip him again. I spin to face him and catch him in the stomach, on his good side.

  “You could only do t
hat if Hyde School was in your territory,” I say, blocking two back-to-back shots.

  “It is,” he says, clearly trying to focus on the match.

  I smile to myself. That means he lives nearby—and the only houses nearby are mansions, massive properties on the land that rings the campus. I try to picture him at a party on one of the stone patios that accent many of the mansions, staff flitting about with trays of champagne. While I’m busy picturing that, Wesley fakes a punch and takes out my legs. I go down hard.

  The whistle blows, and this time when Wesley tries to help me up, I let him.

  “That’s how it’s done,” says the gym teacher, shooing us off the mat. “A little less chitchat would have been nice, but that’s the idea.”

  I tug my helmet off and toss it into the equipment stack. Wesley’s hair is slick with sweat, but I’m still picturing him with a butler. And maybe a pipe. On the Graham family yacht.

  “What are you grinning about?” he asks.

  “What’s your real name?” The question tumbles out. There, in the sliver of time after I ask it and before Wes answers, I see another one of his faces. This one is pale, raw, and exposed. And then it’s gone, replaced by a thinner version of his usual ease.

  “You already know my name,” he says stiffly.

  “Cash said Wesley is your middle name, not your first.”

  “Well, aren’t you and Cash just thick as thieves?” he says. There’s a tightness in his voice. He’s a good enough liar to hide discomfort, so the fact that he’s letting a fraction of it show makes me wonder if he wants me to see. He strides away across the gym, and I rush to follow.

  “And for the record,” he says without looking back, “it’s still real.”

  “What?”

  “My name. Just because it’s not my first doesn’t mean it’s not real.”