Shattered

by Amanda Valentino

  We sat in silence for several more moments, going over each question while still trying to flesh the theory out.

  “I wonder why Thornhill no longer has the hospital bracelet,” Hal ventured finally. “I mean, how did it end up in Amanda’s box?”

  “Who knows,” Callie said. “But the fact that he once wore it certainly explains why the ring was so big. Like I said, it was definitely big enough for a man’s finger.”

  “And like he said,” Zoe continued, “all of this search business basically stems from Amanda’s birth—from the fact that she was ever born.”

  “Well, and since we’re on the topic of curious items stored in Amanda’s all-important box,” Hal began, “why would someone hold on to a photo that has the heads cut out of it? I mean, wouldn’t you normally just throw those scraps away?”

  “Not if you’re hoping to fit them together with the missing photo-heads when you find them,” Zoe said. “That’s what I’d do, especially if I wanted to be sure who my father was. Perhaps that’s the missing clue.”

  “Hang on a second,” Callie said, holding the apparent ache in her head. “This is going way too fast. I mean, Thornhill? Amanda’s father? Just picture the two of them together. Thornhill hates Amanda. All they do is fight.”

  Zoe cocked her head. “And you never fight with your dad? What was the birth date on the bracelet?”

  “February thirteenth,” I said, remembering how it was just one day shy of Valentine’s Day.

  “Okay, but Amanda told me she was born on New Year’s Eve,” Callie said.

  “No she wasn’t,” Hal argued. “Her birthday’s in the summer. I know, because she said she wanted to have a party on the beach this year—just a small group thing with a bonfire and some food . . . She even mentioned there’d be a full moon.”

  “Here’s a news flash: Those were all red herrings,” Zoe said. “Because she and I just celebrated her birthday. It was last month. We went to Café Carla’s and had red velvet cupcakes and mocha lattes with extra whipped cream.”

  I racked my brain, trying to remember if Amanda and I had ever even talked about her birthday, but aside from a conversation about astrology, and the fact that she was a Capricorn—which is a December/January astrological sign—I honestly couldn’t recall.

  “This is all so messed up,” Callie said, rubbing at her temples.

  “But not as messed up as your arm,” Hal said, nodding toward it.

  Callie slid her fingers over the now-invisible gash. I pulled the scarf from my bag. Her bloodstains were as clear as day. And yet her wound was completely gone.

  “What’s up with that?” Hal asked.

  “And what’s up with all the C-33 program stuff?” I asked, realizing we had yet to discuss it. “What did Thornhill mean by Dr. Joy’s ‘original intent’?” I looked to Zoe to see if she might know; but if she did, she didn’t let on.

  “Well, obviously he was referring to the list of names with all the coding,” Hal said.

  “Yes, but what is the program?” I asked.

  “I’m guessing it was something started by Dr. Joy,” Hal said. “And the Official, whoever he or she is, intercepted it.”

  “It might also have something to do with the former Orion College of Pharmaceuticals . . . or at least what’s happening at some of those buildings.” I told them about the “Property-Of” tags I’d spotted at the hangar, after which I caught Zoe up on all the serpent-and-bowl-with-the-onyx-eye business.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Zoe began, “Amanda warned you that someone who was once affiliated with the college—some scientist or something—might be behind some of this C-33-Amanda-gone-missing stuff?”

  “Maybe,” I said, remembering that when Amanda and I had visited the pharmacy on Rantoul Street, the woman who’d answered the door was wearing a lab coat that said ORION COLLEGE OF PHARMACEUTICALS. “Why else would the hangar have some of the college’s property?”

  “And why else would the C-33 people only use those campus buildings?” Hal asked. “They must own all of them. And like Amanda said, they must use the onyx eye as a marker for colleagues to find them.”

  “And then they rent out the various buildings when they are finished with them,” Callie continued. “So that they’re always one step ahead.”

  “Yes, but the hangar doesn’t belong to the college,” Zoe said, fidgeting slightly on her bale of hay. “There was no serpent-and-bowl marker outside it.”

  “Right, but it’s also located someplace remote,” I told her. “Not in the middle of a bustling town.”

  “Bottom line: We definitely need to go to Washington, D.C.,” Hal said. “We need to find out who this Official is, and why Dr. Joy started the C-33 program.”

  “We don’t even know who Dr. Joy is,” Callie said. “I mean, not really.”

  It’s true—we didn’t. I felt like all we had were bits and pieces of fragmented information that, when all put together, didn’t really amount to much. “Okay, one last question before my mind short-circuits: What happened in the closet-turned-doorway . . . the one that led down to the hangar basement?” I asked, referring to the surge of energy when we all came together.

  No one answered. But no one denied that something took place. They just sat there, staring at me, without admitting what they’d obviously experienced.

  “Let’s try it again,” I told them.

  I moved to stand in the center of the bales and gestured for them to join me. Hal hesitated at first, but then he got up and took my hand. Callie stood up and took his.

  “I don’t know.” Zoe sat firmly in place.

  “Come on,” I said, extending my hand to hers. “You’re a guide, too, after all.”

  After a long look, Zoe finally got up and clasped my hand, closing the circle by taking Callie’s hand, too.

  It was just as I’d expected. Electricity coursed through my veins and ran over my skin. I looked at Hal. His eyes were closed and his lips pressed together, as if he were someplace else entirely. As if he clearly felt it, too.

  Zoe took a step back to break the circle.

  Callie let out a breath, as if she’d been holding it the entire time. “What was that?” she asked.

  I shook my head, because I honestly didn’t know. But still I could feel it—a tingling sensation over my skin. It crept up my spine and swam down my limbs.

  “Let’s do it again,” Zoe said.

  I nodded and took her hand. Callie and Hal followed suit, until we were one solid ring.

  The feeling was even more intense this time—I almost had to pull away. My heart beat fast and my head started spinning.

  “We have to go,” Hal announced suddenly, dropping hands. “Those guys are close. I can feel it. They’re as far as the gravel path, at least a mile or two back, in the golf cart. One of them has a gun.”

  “The guys from the hangar?” I asked.

  He nodded and looked away, seemingly freaked by what he’d just experienced—by what he was able to sense so clearly.

  “How can you feel it?” Callie asked.

  He collected his bag and moved toward the door. “I just know, okay?” We all started grabbing our stuff and followed.

  “Like what happened in the hangar basement,” I asked. “When you just knew those guys would be returning soon.”

  “I may be stating the obvious—but I’m with this guy. Let’s leave before the gun gets here,” Zoe said.

  “Flight seems like a very good option right now,” Callie agreed. “But, um, can we talk about all of this later? I mean the vision and the powers . . .”

  “When there is time.” I looked toward the door, still open a crack, just to be safe. It was getting dark. We still had a long ride home. And we obviously needed to hurry if we wanted to get out of there before they found us.

  CHAPTER 28

  We ended up ditching Zoe’s tire-blown bicycle inside the barn. There was no time to walk it home, with those guys hot on our trail.

  Da
rkness was quickly approaching. It was five o’clock and overcast outside, and the twilight was bringing a descending mist, which didn’t give us a lot of daylight left. As if scary men with guns were not enough reason to rush, the talent show started at seven, and Hal’s band members were counting on him to play.

  As we pedaled down a long dirt path heading away from the barn, I kept glancing over my shoulder, making sure that no one was following us.

  While Zoe balanced on Callie’s handlebars, doing her best not to topple off, she tried to make sense of her map as it flapped and bounced. “Ah, I see exactly where we are,” she said, turning the map in an unlikely direction to see if that would make a difference.

  Meanwhile, I tried to keep myself calm by going over some of the clues in my mind. I thought back to the Van Gogh exhibit with Amanda, and her insistence that I notice the Road Less Traveled painting that day. Also, she couldn’t seem to get enough of the Sunflower series.

  The Sunflower series . . . Sunflower Street.

  A coincidence, too? I thought not.

  Finally, after a good twenty minutes of pedaling, the situation was starting to look a bit more promising. The tall, haylike grass that bordered our path was beginning to thin out. We also passed by a couple of ranches with spotlights shining over them, as if people were actually living there. Callie suggested we might stop at one of them to use their phone, since none of our cells were working out here, but Zoe and Hal insisted that they were starting to recognize things.

  “I could’ve sworn we passed by that house on the way out here,” he said, pointing to a cabin in the distance.

  I was pretty sure I’d seen it, too. It had white accents, a large front porch, and was positioned beside what appeared to be a storage facility of some sort.

  “I’m almost positive that we rode up on the other side of it,” Hal said. “On the way to the hangar. The main road must be on the other side.”

  “Kind of focused on pedaling here,” Callie huffed, although actually, she was barely winded. “Tell me where to go, and I’ll go.”

  Without a word, Hal continued to pedal, cutting through someone’s backyard and passing by a strip of abandoned cars, until we finally reached the back of the cabin.

  The street was visible through the driveway.

  “Yes!” Zoe pumped her fist.

  “Remain seated until the captain has turned off the seat belt sign,” Callie snapped. “No sudden movement.”

  We rode through the owner’s driveway, and finally back out onto the road. It was all I could do to contain myself from cheering—that’s how relieved I was. How relieved we all were.

  Zoe hopped off Callie’s handlebars. “We’re free!” she shouted, rubbing at the literal pain in her butt from Callie’s handlebars.

  We all spent the next several minutes calling our parents and coming up with some creative excuses about where we’d been all day.

  “We just got out of the Bogart festival,” I told my mother, feeling a lot less guilty for lying, considering that she was keeping secrets, too. “We were all going to head over to school now for the talent show . . . if that’s okay?”

  My mother hesitated a moment. “I made us some cinnamon churros; I thought we might sit and chat for a while before I have to head down to the church for the final auction setup.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, my guilt returning.

  “But you go with your friends,” she continued. “I’m glad you’re having fun. We will have a very late dinner tonight. But if it gets too late, we won’t wait. You can eat some leftovers when you get home and we can catch up then.”

  “Perfect, Mama.” I smiled, flipping my phone shut. I peered down both ends of the street, suddenly—and almost surprisingly—invigorated about the idea of going to the talent show and hearing Hal play.

  And getting to see West again.

  CHAPTER 29

  As we rode to the talent show, one of the clues we’d discussed kept nagging at me, pestering me, as if there were something we weren’t quite seeing. The hospital bracelet. What were we overlooking about it?

  “Take this left,” Zoe called out, still helping to navigate our way back to the school from her perch on Callie’s handlebars.

  We turned the corner as she suggested, and I vaguely remembered Amanda once reminiscing about a friend of hers from childhood, from a town where she used to live. Could that have been Zoe?

  “We used to have so much fun together,” Amanda said, after a poetry reading at the town library (the topic was journeys). “We’d make up our faces and put on old theater costumes. We’d take each other’s pictures, and then go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, even when it wasn’t Halloween.”

  “That’s certifiable, obviously,” I told her, checking out some of the poetry selections on display.

  “Maybe certifiable, but it still worked. We still collected candy, not to mention a lot of senior citizens’ smiles. I really miss living in that town.” Her face grew suddenly pensive, but she tried to cover it up by pointing to one of the poem’s messages: “But I suppose the only journey worthwhile is the one that moves forward, right?” she asked.

  “We’re here,” Hal called with relief, a good fifteen minutes later, bringing me back to the present.

  Still on our own journey, we rode around to the back parking lot. Meanwhile, the hospital bracelet clue plagued me, and it refused to let me go.

  “I’m going to run ahead,” Hal panted, leaping off the bike. “I asked my mom to bring my guitar over with some clothes early. Maybe I will have time to grab a shower in the gym and not have the lingering smell of moldy basement all over me. Wish me luck!” He ran ahead. We picked up his bike and walked with it through the parking lot.

  Zoe also announced she was running ahead. “I’m helping the musicians with some of the warm-up—if that’s okay with you guys.”

  “Go, go,” I said, waving her off. “We have this covered.”

  “Well, look who’s here.” Callie pointed to West’s Alfa Romeo. It was parked five cars in. “I say we check it out; there might be a clue hidden somewhere—under a headlight, or by the door handle maybe?”

  It was definitely worth a look. And so we circled the perimeter of the car a couple times before Callie finally spotted the message.

  “Here,” she said, pointing to the back bumper. It was a sticker that read IF YOU’RE FOLLOWING ME, YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. In the bottom corner was a comic book–style drawing of a coyote, Amanda’s totem.

  That bumper was pristine when I saw the car the last time. Callie gave me a little fist bump, which I tentatively returned.

  It felt almost exhilarating. Because we were on the right track. And I felt like we were closer than ever.

  We were heading to the school when I took a step back. “I can’t,” I told her.

  “What’s wrong?” Callie asked, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

  I drew a deep breath, knowing that no matter how hard I tried to squelch it, I couldn’t ignore my gut: “I have to go check on something,” I told her. “And I have to do it now. Go on in. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “What do you have to check? And it has to be this minute?” Callie asked.

  “If I go now, I’ll be back soon and won’t miss anything. There isn’t time to explain.”

  “Go,” Callie said. Her mouth formed a straight tense line, as if she completely understood that sometimes these things are bigger than we are.

  “I’ll only be a half hour behind you guys,” I insisted. “Five minutes to get home; five minutes to get back. I won’t miss Hal’s act.” I glanced down at my watch. There was still a half hour left before the show even started.

  Callie gave me a hug and wished me luck, then took the remaining bikes to lock them up.

  I got back on my bike, raced home, and bolted up the stairs two at a time. The smell of cinnamon churros was thick in the air, but my mother was already gone. No doubt she’d left for church shortly after my phone
call. My father wasn’t home either (likely working late), and I knew that Cisco was already at the talent show. He’d been keeping his participation a secret for fear that our dad would’ve tried to talk him out of it, reminding him of his priorities; i.e, to try to keep his energy focused on his “soccer stardom.”

  Cisco had prepared a monologue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dressed as Puck in a long tank and a crown of leaves, he’d practiced his act in front of me a couple of times, and I had to admit, it was breathtaking.

  In my room, I pulled Amanda’s box from the back of my closet and took out the hospital bracelet. I looked at the date, February 13, knowing that Amanda and I had been together that day.

  * * *

  It was a Sunday night, and we were sitting at the sushi bar of Asahi, the Japanese restaurant down the street from Endeavor.

  “I adore this place,” Amanda said, watching the sushi chefs roll maki behind the glass.

  It was a little odd being there, just the two of us, mostly because it was the eve of Valentine’s Day, and the place was filled with happy couples looking to celebrate before the work week started up. Normally, we’d have headed to Taco King or Pizza Luigi’s, but Amanda thought it would be a celebration to reward ourselves.

  “Just think about the money we saved today,” she said, reminding me that the admission to the literature fest we’d just attended was $25 a ticket. But she’d won free passes at a library raffle. “We deserve a little maki indulgence, don’t you think?”

  It sounded like a good enough idea, but that was before I noticed all the lovestruck couples and the heart-shaped votive candle on the bar in front of us.

  “You know what I think?” Amanda said, ordering us a couple cups of green tea. “This is the perfect day for a celebration.”

  “Well, it is practically Valentine’s Day.” I nodded toward an overly cozy couple just behind us.

  “That’s not what I mean.” She looked deliberately at me, not at them. “Don’t let some incidental date on the calendar dictate our celebration. Why can’t we just relish the day, the fact that we’re alive, enjoying each other’s company, and trying new food?”