The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  I let my gaze slide over the room. Near the windows, it slides off.

  My chest tightens. A shortcut? Here?

  And then a pit forms in my stomach as I realize it isn’t a shortcut. Shortcuts—the invisible doors Crew use to cheat their way across space—disturb the air, but they are smooth, and this is jagged, snagging my gaze and repelling it at once. My heart starts to race.

  A shortcut wouldn’t do that.

  But a void would.

  Voids are illegal, tears made in the world, doors to nowhere. The last—and only—time I saw a void was the day I made one. The day Owen broke free and the fight spilled out of the Narrows and into the Coronado, through the halls and up the stairs and onto the roof.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and can feel Owen’s grip tighten around me, his knife between my shoulder blades, his cold blue eyes full of anger and hate as I lift the Crew key behind his back. I turn the key in the air and there is a click and a crushing wind, and Owen’s eyes widen as the void opens and rips him backward into the darkness.

  And then it closes an instant later, leaving only a jagged seam in its wake.

  A seam, just like the one in front of me now. My pulse pounds in my ears. That’s why there’s debris and broken glass but no body. Voids only open for an instant, long enough to devour the nearest living thing. A perfect crime, when you consider no one can see the method, the mark.

  But who would do this? There’s only one tool in the world that can make a void door.

  A Crew key.

  And then it hits me: Eric.

  What was it he said in the park last night?

  What are you going to do with them?

  Make them disappear.

  Mr. Phillip and Bethany and Jason. They all went missing after I crossed paths with them. Eric hasn’t been following me to look for evidence. He’s been planting it. Setting me up.

  Panic chews through me as I bring a trembling hand to the nearest wall, already knowing what I will find. Nothing. The same white-noise nothingness that I found on the Coronado roof that day. Voids cover their own tracks, eat through time and memory and make it all unreadable. But I have to try to see, so I close my eyes and let the memories float toward my fingers. I reach out, taking hold of them and rolling time back. The room flickers into sight. At first it is empty; then, bit by bit, it fills with people: officers and men taking photographs. The images spin away and the room empties again, and for a moment I think I might see something. I can feel the void hovering beyond the quiet.

  The memory brushes against my fingers.

  And then it explodes.

  My vision floods with white and static and pain. The room vanishes around me into light, and I wrench my hand away from the door, my ears ringing as I blink away the blinding white.

  Ruined. It’s all ruined. Whoever did this, they knew they wouldn’t show up. They knew the void would hide their presence. But they can’t hide the void itself. Not that anyone’s going to see that evidence. No, the only evidence anyone will see is mine. My prints somewhere in Mr. Phillip’s kitchen and on Bethany’s necklace, my number in Jason’s phone.

  I tug my sleeves over my hands and rub any fresh marks from the wall.

  And then I hear the car door slam.

  The sound makes me jump. I knock into the table by the door, and my silver ring rolls off, hitting the hardwood floor and rolling into the debris as footsteps and muffled voices sound from the front path.

  I drop to a crouch and scramble forward, kneeling on an open book. I knock aside a binder and a heavy glass ornament as I grasp for the ring. The smooth metal circle fetches up against a toppled chair, and I grab it and shove it back onto my finger just as the front door opens down the hall. I freeze, but the glass ball continues to roll across the hardwood floor with a steady, heavy sound before coming to rest against the wall.

  I hear it, and so do the cops.

  One of them calls out, “Hey, someone here?”

  I hold my breath, weaving my way silently between pieces of debris toward the wall, where I press myself back against it like it’ll do a damn bit of good if they decide to come in.

  “Probably just a cat,” says the other, but I hear a gun slide from a holster and the heavy tread of approaching boots. They’re coming this way. I scan the room, but there’s nothing large enough to hide behind, and there are only two ways out: the hall the cops are coming down and the back door I first came through. I gauge how much time it will take to reach it. I don’t have a choice.

  I take a deep breath and run.

  So do the cops.

  They’re halfway through the house when I crash through the back door. I take three sprinting steps toward the fence and then a wall of a man comes out of nowhere and catches me around the shoulders. The moment I try to twist free, the officer spins me, wrenches my arms behind my back, and forces me to the ground, where he kneels on my shoulder blades. I wince as the metal of the handcuffs digs into my bad wrist. My vision starts to blur and my pulse pounds in my ears, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut and beg my mind to stay here stay here stay here as the tunnel moment tries to fill my head like smoke. I force air into my lungs and try to stay calm—or as calm as I can with a police officer pinning me to the ground.

  But as he drags me to my feet, I’m still me. It’s a thin grip, but I hold on. And then I recognize him from the TV.

  Detective Kinney.

  He pushes me into the house—around the crime scene—and through the front doors. We’re tracking dirt, and it’s ridiculous, but I pause to think about how put out Judge Phillip would be just before Detective Kinney slams my back up against the cruiser door.

  “Name,” he barks.

  I nearly lie. It’s right there on my lips. But a lie will only make this worse. “Mackenzie Bishop.”

  “What the hell were you doing in there?”

  I’m a little dazed by his force and the anger in his voice. Not a professional kind of gruff, but actual rage. “I just wanted to see—”

  “You broke into a private residence and contaminated an active investigation….” I cheat a look to either side, searching for signs of Eric, but Detective Kinney grabs my jaw and drags my face back toward his. “You better focus and tell me what exactly you were doing in there.”

  I should have grabbed something. It’s easier to sell the cops on a teen looter than a teen sleuth.

  “I saw the story on the news and thought maybe I could—”

  “What? Thought you’d play Sherlock and solve it yourself? That was a goddamn closed crime scene, young lady.”

  I frown. His tone, the way his eyes keep going to the Hyde crest on my shirt—it’s like he’s talking to Amber, not me. Amber, who likes to play detective. Amber, who I’m willing to bet has gotten in the way of work before.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, doing my best impression of a repentant daughter. I’m not used to being yelled at. Mom runs away to Colleen, and Dad and I haven’t had a real fight since before Ben. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You should be,” he growls. One of the cops is still inside, no doubt assessing for damage, and the other is standing behind Kinney, wearing a smug smile. I bet he thinks I’m just some rich girl looking for a thrill.

  “This kind of stunt goes on your record,” Detective Kinney is saying. “It hurts everything, everyone. It could sure as hell get you kicked out of that fancy school.”

  It could do a lot worse, I think, depending on how much evidence you’ve found.

  “You want me to take her to the station and book her?” asks the other cop, and my chest starts to tighten again. Booking means taking prints, and if they take mine and add them to the system, they’ll find a match here at Judge Phillip’s, and maybe even on Bethany’s necklace—unless she rubbed the marks away.

  “No,” says Kinney, waving him away. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Look,” I say, “I know it was really stupid, I was really stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking. It will never ever happ
en again.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he says, opening the cruiser door. “Now, get in the car.”

  SIXTEEN

  DA NEVER LIKED THE word illegal. Semantics. There was no line between legal and illegal, he’d say, only between free and caught.

  And I’m caught at the station, handcuffed to a chair next to Detective Kinney’s desk. My fingertips are stained black from ink, and Kinney’s holding up the page with my prints.

  “This right here,” he says, waving the sheet, “isn’t just a piece of paper. This is the difference between a clean record and a rap sheet.”

  My eyes hover on the ten black smudges. Then he folds the page and slides it into his desk drawer. “This is your one and only warning,” he says. “I’m not going to book you today, but I want you to think about what would happen if I did. I want you to think about the ripple effect. I want you to take this seriously.”

  Relief pours over me as I drag my eyes from the drawer to his face. “I promise you, sir, I take it very seriously.”

  The detective sits back in his chair and considers the contents of my pockets on the table in front of him. My cell phone. My house key (he left the one around my neck). Da’s lock pick set. And my Archive list. I hold my breath as he takes up the paper, running his thumb against it as his eyes skim the name——before he drops it back on the desk, face up. He takes up Da’s lock pick set instead.

  “Where did you get this?” he asks.

  “It was my grandfather’s.”

  “Was he a deviant, too?”

  I frown. “He was a private eye.”

  “What happened to your hands?”

  “Street fight,” I say. “Isn’t that what deviants do?”

  “Don’t talk back to me, young lady.”

  My head is starting to hurt, and I ask for water. While Kinney’s gone, I consider the drawer with the page of prints, but I’m sitting in the middle of a police station, surrounded by cops and cuffed to the chair, so I’m forced to leave it there.

  Kinney comes back with a cup of water and the news that my parents are on their way.

  Terrific.

  “Be glad they’re coming,” scolds Kinney. “If you were my daughter, I’d leave you in a cell for the night.”

  “She goes to Hyde, doesn’t she? Amber?”

  “You know her?” he asks, his voice gruff.

  I hesitate. The last thing I want is for Amber to hear about this incident, especially since I’ll need her case updates more than ever. “It’s a small school,” I say with a shrug.

  “Kinney,” calls one of the other officers. He strides toward us.

  “Partial prints are back on the Thomson girl’s necklace,” says the officer.

  Thomson. That must be Bethany’s last name.

  “And?”

  “No match.”

  Kinney slams his fist on the desk, nearly upsetting the cup of water. I almost feel bad for him. These are cases he’s never going to close, and I can only hope I catch whoever’s doing this before they strike again.

  “And the mother’s boyfriend?” asks Kinney under his breath.

  “We rechecked the alibi, but it holds water.”

  My gaze drifts down to Kinney’s desk. And that’s when I see the second name writing itself on the Archive paper.

  Kinney’s attention is just drifting back to the table when I rattle my handcuff loudly, hoping he reads my panic as natural teenager-in-trouble panic and not don’t-look-at-that-paper panic.

  “Sorry,” I say, “but do you think you could take these off before my parents get here? My mom will have a stroke.”

  Kinney considers me a moment, then gets up and wanders off, leaving me chained to the seat.

  Ten minutes later, Mom and Dad arrive. Mom takes one look at me cuffed to the chair and nearly loses it, but Dad sends her outside, instructing her to call Colleen. Dad doesn’t even look at me while Kinney explains what happened. They talk like I’m not sitting right there.

  “I’m not pressing charges, Mr. Bishop, and I’m not booking her. This time.”

  “Oh, I assure you, Detective Kinney, this will be the only time.”

  “Make sure of it,” says Kinney, unlocking the cuff and pulling me to my feet, his heavy static only making the headache worse. He hands me back my things, and Dad ushers me away before Kinney can change his mind.

  I try to wipe the ink from the fingerprint kit on my skirt. It doesn’t come off.

  I feel the eyes on me as soon as I’m through the doors and look up expecting to see Eric watching. Instead, I see Sako. She’s on a bench across the street, and her black eyes follow me beneath their fringe. Her gaze is hard to read, but her mouth is smug, almost cruel.

  Maybe Eric’s not the one I should be worried about.

  My steps have slowed, and Dad gives me a nudge toward the car. Mom’s in the front seat on the phone, but she ends the call as soon as she sees us. Across the street, Sako gets to her feet, and I clear my throat.

  “See Dad?” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “I told you it was all just a misunderstanding.”

  “Get in the car,” says Dad.

  On the way home, I almost wish I could have another tunnel moment, lose time. Instead, I’m aware of every single second of weighted silence. The only sounds in the car are Mom’s heavy sighing and the tap of my phone as I delete the texts I sent to Jason. I can’t erase the prints from Judge Phillip’s kitchen or Bethany’s necklace, and I can’t unsend the texts or unmake the calls, but I can at least minimize the evidence. I whisper a silent apology as I erase his number.

  Dad parks the car, and Mom gets out and slams her door, breaking the quiet for an instant before it resettles, following us up the stairs and into our apartment.

  Once inside, it shatters.

  Mom bursts into tears, and Dad starts to shout.

  “What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “Dad, it was an accident—”

  “No, it was an accident that you got caught. But you broke into a crime scene. I come home and find your schoolbag here and your bike missing, and then I get a call from the police telling me you’ve been arrested!”

  “It doesn’t count as an arrest if they don’t process you. It was just a conversation with—”

  “Where is this coming from Mackenzie?” pleads my mother.

  “I just thought I might be able to help—”

  He throws the lock pick set onto the table. “With those?” he growls. “What are you doing with them?”

  “They were Da’s—”

  “I know who they belonged to, Mackenzie. He was my father! And I won’t have you ending up like him.”

  I pull back. If he’d struck me, it would have hurt less.

  “But Da was—”

  “You don’t know what he was,” snaps Dad, running his hands through his hair. “Antony Bishop was a flake, and a criminal, and a selfish asshole who cared more about his secrets and his many lives than his family. He cheated and he stole and he lied. He only cared about himself, and I’ll be damned if I see you behaving like him.”

  “Peter—” says Mom, reaching for him, but he shrugs her off.

  “How could you be so selfish, Mackenzie?”

  Selfish? Selfish? “I’m just trying to—” I bite back the words before they escape.

  I’m just trying to do my job.

  I’m just trying to keep everything together.

  I’m just trying to stay alive.

  “You’re just trying to what? Get kicked out of Hyde? Ruin your future? Honestly, Mac. First your hands, and now—”

  “That was a bike accident—”

  “Enough,” snaps Dad. “Enough lies.”

  “Fine,” I growl, throwing up my hands. “It wasn’t an accident. Do you want to know what really happened?” I shouldn’t be talking, not right now, not when I’m tired and angry, but the words are already spilling out. “I got lost coming back from one of Mom’s errands, and it was getting dark, so I cu
t through a park, and two guys jumped me.” Mom sucks in a breath, and I look down at my bruised knuckles. “They cut me off…” It feels so strange, telling the truth. “…and forced me off the bike…” I wonder what it would feel like to tell them about my wrist. About Owen and all the different ways he broke me. “…and I didn’t have a choice…”

  Mom grabs me by the shoulders, her noise scraping against my bones. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No,” I say, holding up my hands. “I hurt them.”

  Mom lets go and sinks onto the edge of the couch, her hand to her mouth.

  “Why would you lie about that?”

  Because it’s easier.

  Because it’s what I do.

  “Because I didn’t want you to be upset,” I say. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  The anger bleeds away, leaving me bone-tired.

  “Well, it’s too late for that, Mackenzie,” she says, shaking her head. “I am worried.”

  “I know,” I say.

  I’m worried, too. Worried I can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep playing all the parts.

  My head is pounding, and my hands are shaking, and there are two names on my list, and all I want to do is go to sleep but I can’t because of the boy with the knife waiting in my dreams.

  I turn away.

  “Where are you going?” asks Dad.

  “To take a bath,” I say, vanishing into the bathroom before anyone can stop me.

  I find my gaze in the mirror and hold it. Cracks are showing. There’s a glass beside the sink, and I dig a few painkillers out of my medical stash under the counter and wash them down before snapping the water on in the tub.

  What a mess, I think as I sink to the tile floor, draw my knees up, and tip my head back against the wall beside the tub, waiting for the bath to fill. I try to count the different things Da would give me hell for—not hearing the cops in time, getting caught, taking a full two days to notice I was being set up—but then again, it sounds like Da wasn’t as good at separating his lives as he thought.

  He only cared about himself, and I’ll be damned if I see you behaving like him.

  Is that how Dad really saw him? Is that how my parents see me?