“I think the best thing would be to go about your normal lives. The FBI is increasing its team and we’ll be moving major resources to this investigation and your protection.”
“But the anniversary—”
“There is no way Gabriel is going to be able to get near you on the anniversary,” said Pearson. “You have my word. We’re doing everything we can.”
It won’t be enough. I’ve outsmarted them before. If it hadn’t been for that girl, everything would have gone according to plan.
Eli pushed his leg against Maya’s under the table. I got you. He flexed his fingers, wishing he had the gun right now.
He looked at the mask on the table. It stared back at him with its hollow eyes. The style was slightly different from the one he’d worn—a thicker elastic band, black instead of red—but he still felt it, wet from his breath, pressed against his face. The weight of the bottles, the pinch of the trigger making a red imprint on his thumb…
Eli drummed lightly on his legs, gritted his teeth.
It was all coming back.
It had never left.
It did, he told himself. I was getting better. But only because I was stupid.
“If you’re ready to go, we have a detail to follow you home,” Pearson said to Maya and her mom.
“Can Eli and I keep being in touch?” Maya asked.
“It’s all right with us,” said Pearson. The moms agreed, but for a moment as they were turning to leave, Eli caught a look from Maya’s mom: maybe fear, maybe hate, maybe both.
You are a weapon.
* * *
***
The police left just before midnight.
Eli huddled on the floor against the side of his bed. The hours ticking by. The gun in his hand.
There would be no trips to play miniature golf, to ride go-karts and skydive. No more sleeping over at friends’ houses or someday getting to go to a Seahawks game. There would only be this: more darkness and locked spaces. Swallowing him up.
Not fair, not fair, not fair.
He lay on his side, staring at the wall as time and space collapsed around him. The solid ground of these last few weeks gone. His life was a bottomless pit; he’d tried to escape but it was sucking him back in.
Walking home, eleven years old, looking at his cards when he should have been looking out. His life ended then. He’d been stupid to think he would ever be free again.
You should have blown up. Now everyone you know is in danger.
He held the gun up in the light from the window.
Only one way to keep them safe.
If you take away the bomb, no one can get hurt.
At the very least, all the noise will stop.
Maya would never forgive him. But at least she’d be safe….
Something thudded from downstairs.
Now a crash.
Eli sat up. A window? The door?
I’m here.
He stood, shaking, flexing his fingers around the cold metal.
A voice from downstairs. “Mom?” It was Melissa.
Eli opened the door. “Are you okay?”
Melissa looked up the stairs at him. “Yeah. It was from the basement. I think Mom’s down there. I’m going to look.”
“Hold on….” Eli shoved the gun back under the mattress and hurried down the stairs as Melissa opened the basement door.
“Mom?” No answer. Only a faint light. Melissa started down.
Eli followed her, past pantry shelves stocked with food and household supplies on either side, the rickety wooden stairs creaking with their footsteps. The stairs turned at the bottom and they had to duck under a large floor beam. The basement was long and low, unfinished concrete walls, cluttered with stacks of boxes and metal shelving packed with more boxes and bags. Washer and dryer and water heater at the far end. There was an old dining table along the near wall for projects or ironing. A lamp on it with a dim bulb. Shards of a wineglass there. A puddle like blood.
Mom was kneeling on the old frayed rug beside the table, head in her hands. Sobbing.
“Mom…” Melissa stepped carefully toward her. Paused to point out a curved shard of glass on the carpet.
There was a notebook in front of her, lying open, one of those graph paper composition books like Eli had been given in science lab. Pages were torn out and crumpled around her.
Melissa knelt and put her arms around Mom’s shoulders.
Eli just watched from a few feet away. Melissa looked up and motioned him over. He stepped closer, heart pounding, and knelt in front of them.
“I’m so stupid,” Mom said into her arms.
Melissa flipped through the notebook with her free hand. Eli saw page after page of clippings and printouts: articles, photos, excerpts from online forums, each one surrounded by small, careful writing with arrows pointing to this or that underlined phrase or circled detail. Some pages were x-ed out, while giant stars and exclamation points marked others. Hours of work. Years.
One page with a single photo: Eli’s class picture, grade five. A smile he never remembered having. That boy had no idea what was coming.
Eli looked around the basement, another dark lonely space, where Mom had been doing this secret work.
“It’s okay,” Melissa was saying. “We’re here. Eli’s here.”
Mom lifted her head, her eyes bloodshot and full of tears, her eyeliner streaked, cheeks puffy. She grabbed the notebook and hurled it across the room. It slapped against boxes. “It’s all such a waste!” She sobbed more. “There was never anything I could do, and there’s still nothing! He comes right to our door….”
Eli sat there, frozen. His mother was broken and it was his fault. Another life he’d ruined.
“But he didn’t come inside,” said Melissa. “We’re safe, if we stick together. We need you, Mama.” She tugged Eli’s arm. He nearly fell over, then shuffled closer. She wrapped them both into a hug, Eli’s face in his mom’s hair.
I’m sorry, Eli thought, holding them tight.
Melissa crying too now. All of them breathing, together.
* * *
***
He finally fell asleep, and woke up near noon. Melissa made pancakes and they watched Planet Rangers. It was the new version of a show from when they were little. The remake wasn’t quite as good, but okay. They did the whole thirteen-episode season, until October twilight shrouded the windows again.
Mom threw herself into working in their little garden out back. Clearing weeds and raking leaves.
Eli messaged with Maya a couple times. She was okay but said it was weird at home. Her parents had been fighting, but she thought it was because they were both worried.
His one message to Graham went unanswered. How was Sideshow Fantasy last night?
An hour later, he added:
I’m still sorry I couldn’t go. Also things have gotten dangerous with Gabriel. I’m kinda freaking out.
Graham didn’t reply.
* * *
***
Until Sunday:
The concert was amazing. But don’t worry. You don’t need to pretend like you care.
I do care, Eli replied. I said I was sorry.
She doesn’t even like boys. You know that, right? Also you tried to kill her. She probably likes you because of some messed-up Stockholm syndrome. Maybe you can put that to use.
Eli sat still on his bed, the phone lying on the bedspread as more texts rolled in. Another night lying awake until nearly dawn. At least this afternoon there would be a football game to watch.
Don’t even bother coming to Tech Squad this week. I can handle everything. You can spend all your time trying to get into Maya’s pants.
If she’s not too busy pulling the rest of her hair out.
Just FYI, I’ve h
eard she’s kind of a slut. She was fucking two guys last year. They probably did her from both ends.
Again just FYI.
More, two minutes later, Eli’s pulse quickening each time the phone vibrated.
Because I have BIG THINGS to do this week and I don’t need your help.
IMPORTANT plans to make. No more time to waste on bullshit friendships.
There’s only one righteous path for the worthy and we must walk it ALONE. It’s true, I guess: a lone wolf really is better after all. No one to let you down.
What plans? Eli replied.
Oh, and one last thing: I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t betray me any further. I shared my most personal and important ideas with you, back when I thought I could trust you. Everyone’s talking about my work, and the least you could do is not take that away from me by snitching.
We are friends, Eli replied. You can trust me.
REMEMBER I have this:
A moment later, a video file appeared. Eli clicked it and his heart pounded. Saw himself, holding the gun, shooting at the target in the woods.
Please delete that, Eli wrote.
No response.
Please don’t do anything dangerous.
Still nothing.
* * *
***
Sunday night barely sleeping. Monday a held breath.
Saw the police car out in the parking lot, its lights off. Kids eyeing it on their way in. Eli found himself peering at the trees along the edge of the lot, at the gaps between nearby houses. Gabriel could be lurking anywhere, watching.
Saw Officer Dawes talking to another woman by the entryway. They paused as he walked by. He gave them a slight smile. Walked straight. Keep it together. There was no way they’d be able to tell that he had a gun in his backpack.
Saw Graham, a couple times in the hall. He acted like Eli was invisible.
Saw Maya twice. The first time she was at her locker, staring into space with her hand rooting around in her hat. The second time standing by the stairwell doors in the science hall, scanning the passersby. When she saw him, she raised her eyebrows ever so slightly and tilted her head toward the stairs. Let’s talk.
But stairwells were isolated and exit doors led to car trunks and Eli lowered his eyes and gripped his backpack straps and passed her by.
* * *
***
Graham wasn’t at lunch. Wasn’t in study hall last period, and there was no pass waiting for Eli from Mr. McNaulty. He asked Ms. Walsh, who ran the study hall, if he could go to Mr. Caletti’s office. Ms. Walsh wrote him a pass and handed it to him like he might explode.
He sat in Mr. Caletti’s office and wrote to Maya:
How are you doing? Did you see the extra police this morning? I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you in the hall. I don’t want to put you in danger. You’re a special person and you don’t deserve it. It’s probably best if I stay away from you until after Friday. After that hopefully things will be better. I miss you but I want you to be safe. —Eli
After Friday…Eli closed his eyes, but he couldn’t picture it. Like his life didn’t go that far.
* * *
***
Pearson had nothing to report on the drive to Dr. Maria’s after school. Everyone still working hard, but no new leads yet. When she asked about Eli’s day, he felt like he couldn’t even remember it, like it hadn’t happened.
“Did Stephen ever say anything to you about why October twenty-sixth was significant?” she asked.
“He only ever said it was the best day for the crowds and stuff.”
And a good day to die, don’t forget that.
“But nothing about anything symbolic, or meaningful in his past?”
“He never talked about any of that. Why?”
Pearson shrugged. “It’s the anniversary of the Moscow Theater hostage crisis in 2002. Often people planning mass attacks will align them with prior events, as part of their statement, but we have no idea what connection Stephen might have to that event. He was in one prolonged combat mission in Kandahar Province over that date in 2006, and his unit took significant casualties, so one guess is that it relates to that, but otherwise we can’t find anything. Maybe it’s something personal, from his childhood.”
Like I’d be that obvious.
Eli could only shrug. He stared out the window and thought about Graham. He had used the twenty-sixth, just like Pearson was describing. Maybe he should mention it, but the thought made his stomach burn. Snitch. Besides, it was Eli’s fault that Graham even had those ideas about the Purpose, and the Barons, and the anniversary. Just another life he’d messed up. Telling Pearson would only mess it up further.
In their session, Dr. Maria coached him through breathing exercises to help him stay present. To remind him that he was safe. She asked him about his family: Fine. About his friends: Fine. None of them were fine, but everything felt like noise in his head and it was all his fault.
“I’d love for you to share some of it with me,” Dr. Maria said.
But the words weren’t there.
He spent the evening playing Xbox with Melissa, but his eyes kept straying to the windows, to the dark doorway to the kitchen.
Mom sat beside them, reading something on her tablet. Drinking wine. But she wasn’t on her computer. Not in the basement. Now and then she stood and peered through the blinds, at the car parked out front. She’d nod to Eli on her way back to the couch.
Eli tried to smile back but couldn’t quite do it.
There were messages on his phone from Maya since just after school:
Thought of you on the bus today because two different people were dozed off and snoring in stereo and it was the funniest sound but nobody noticed because they were all wearing headphones. It would have been a good start to a list!
And later: Hello?
Good night, Eli wrote. He put his phone on Do Not Disturb and lay down on the floor, the gun close by. He thought about getting it out, but instead tried the breathing exercise Dr. Maria had given him. Picturing a calm place and counting. The cathedral, Maya holding his hand.
Three…two…one…
* * *
***
Graham wasn’t at lunch again Tuesday. Eli looked for him in the halls, even stopped by the auditorium. He didn’t seem to be in school at all.
Eli heard kids talking before class about the Alpha videos. Apparently, there was a new one, and some people were freaked out. Others had heard that the videos were actually a theater project. Someone else said there was now a mash-up where the videos were remixed to some weird dance song.
Are you sick? he texted Graham.
No reply.
After lunch he found a note from Maya:
Eli—I know you’re avoiding me because you think that is protecting me but I don’t want to be protected! I want to be with you during this. My week’s been hard. Everything is starting to feel like it did before, and it doesn’t feel safe when we’re not communicating. Let me know how you’re doing!
Eli flipped over the paper. He tapped his pen against it. Wanted to write everything down, tell her about how he couldn’t see past Friday, his dark thoughts with the gun, how he was starting to worry about Graham, how everything felt like his fault, and yet it all felt like noise. Finally, he wrote:
Just a couple more days.
* * *
***
“We’ve had some developments,” said Pearson when she picked him up that afternoon.
Eli swallowed his afternoon pill, held his headphones in his lap.
“We’ve been talking to Stephen’s mother. She has late-stage dementia. Some days she insists that she’s seen Stephen that very day, other times that she hasn’t seen him for years. We can’t get a straight answer. But we did find an alias in the visitor logs, Arnold Wallace. Turned
out to be a fake driver’s license, but the nursing home had scanned it and the photo is a match to Stephen.”
Eli went cold. “Has he been there recently?”
Pearson exhaled slowly. “Turns out he’s been visiting like clockwork every two weeks. His last visit was two weeks ago tomorrow, just before we found his house.”
Eli held his breath. A wave of adrenaline rising.
“We also got the lab work back from the basement hideout. Stephen was very neat, but we did find some food particles. Analysis confirms that they’d been decaying for less than a week.”
“He was still there.”
The whole time.
Pearson shook her head. “We don’t know whether it was our discovery of the house that flushed him out, or whether he just so happened to be away when we arrived. Either way, it looks like we just missed him.”
If I’d remembered a week earlier.
“We’re staking out the nursing home in the hope that he makes an appearance. Though I don’t think the odds are very good.”
Eli could barely hold the thought in his head. This whole year, every day, Gabriel had really still been right here. “What was he doing?”
“You mean while hiding out?” said Pearson. “At the moment, we have no idea.”
Eli pressed his feet against the sides of his backpack, the gun in there. “So now what?”
“We increase our protections around you all. And we keep looking. You let us worry about it.”
Yeah, right.
* * *
***
Alone with the thoughts, late into the night: He’s still here. He’ll come. The gun beckoning as Eli lay shivering on the floor. After the last sounds from downstairs, he crept to the kitchen, found his mom’s wine bottle, and filled a plastic cup. He buttered a piece of bread, and took both to his room. The wine blurred the hours, kept his darker thoughts away, but it also muddled when he was awake and asleep. Confusing bedrooms, confusing shadows.
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