Icons

by Margaret Stohl

  This is what the Padre told me.

  I think about it, as I scrub the dirt from my arms and legs, in the dripping faucet in the barn. I grab another handful of straw, and smile as I remember the hot showers and pristine plumbing of the Embassy. My stomach roils, though, at the thought of the Ambassador, and I close my eyes, willing the memories away.

  Lucas has been gone for a full day now, nearly twenty-four hours. He’s gone to see about his mother, if there’s anything or anyone left to see. When I’m honest with myself—really honest—I don’t know if he’s ever coming back.

  I force myself to think about the birds again.

  Birds.

  I wonder if my father heard many birds. I spent an hour, this morning, rummaging through the Padre’s desk, learning what I could about my family, from the old photographs the Padre kept for me. Old photographs and older papers. My father worked for the Forest Service of the Californias. Apparently he would sit for long hours in the middle of the Grasslands, holding binoculars to his eyes, hoping to keep the trees and the animals safe from forest fires. My mother sketched him that way, sitting in a tree.

  My own father was waiting for disaster but looking in the wrong place. He wasn’t looking at the skies. He was looking at the trees.

  I turn off the dripping faucet.

  I wonder, as I pull on my clothes and wring the water out of my hair, what pulled my father to the wilds?

  Perhaps it was the same thing that drew him to my mother. I imagine many sunsets and sunrises between them, between all of us, in the life I lost, unlived.

  She would have taught me how to draw. He would have taught me how to use the binoculars. I would have listened to the sounds of many thousands of birds.

  I wonder what it is I’ll miss, when all this is gone. Like the birds. If things don’t work out for us, or the city, or the Rebellion.

  Ro, and Lucas. When they aren’t attacking each other.

  Tima’s hands.

  Fortis and his magical jacket.

  Doc and his jokes.

  I think of everything we have lost, and everything the Lords have left us.

  Somehow there is still so much more to lose.

  I am listening for the birds in the silence, when I hear the sound of footsteps behind me. I feel the familiar warmth, spreading from the outside in, and then from my inside out.

  I can’t believe it, but there’s no other feeling exactly like his. It has to be true.

  I say it before I see him.

  “Lucas?” I fling myself toward him, hurtling myself into him. “I was starting to think you were dead.” The words don’t carry enough weight. They can’t. They’re only words. They don’t hurt the way the not-knowing did.

  He smiles. “I’m not. I’m here.”

  The flush creeps from my heart to my cheeks. “What happened?” I look up at him, reaching my arms more tightly around his neck.

  “I found my way to Santa Catalina, but I couldn’t cross. They say the Embassy is empty. I didn’t stay long, and it took me a while to get out. They’ve closed the Tracks for good now, Dol. The day after the blast.”

  “And your mother?” I hold my breath.

  “She’s gone. GAP Miyazawa recalled her to the Pentagon. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.” His words are grim, but not unexpected.

  Casualties of war, Fortis would say. I know it means something different to Lucas, whatever she was or wasn’t to him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I put my hand on his cheek. His mouth twists into a smile. The barest part of one.

  “I like you,” he says. “How long am I going to have to keep acting like I don’t?”

  “You’re not doing a very good job.” I smile back at him.

  “I’m not?” He looks surprised, and I laugh.

  I pull my head back to where we can lock our eyes together. “I like you too, Lucas.” I smile.

  We kiss.

  We really kiss.

  Kissing Lucas is like kissing a kiss itself. There’s no way to explain it any better than that. And I don’t even want to try.

  All I want to do is kiss him.

  This is more than a kiss, I think. It is real and it is happening to me.

  It has fallen on me, as sudden as ships out of the blue sky. Like monsters. Like angels.

  I feel his hand as it loosens my binding, unwrapping the long, thin strip of muslin from my wrist.

  I let him do it. I want him to do it. I take my other hand and fumble at it, helping him pull it free.

  Then his hand covers my smaller one, and he stops me before my binding drops to the floor.

  “Doloria.”

  I look up at him and take him in, the dark blond hair that falls long into his face. The various cuts and bruises he earned in the blast. The worry in his eyes and the care in his smile. He’s as beautiful to me as the Observatory, as the Cathedral, as the Hole itself. And he’s here in my Mission barn, which means he’s not in Santa Catalina.

  “Everyone thinks you’re dead, you know.”

  I smile up at him, sadly.

  “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve become someone else.” Like a butterfly and a cocoon. Like the water cycle. Like the Chumash, I think.

  Lucas nods. There is always a part of him that seems to understand the words I cannot say.

  Then my smile fades, because in the distance, out of the corner of my eye, I see Ro watching us. He’s alone in the meadow, and we’re alone in the barn.

  Still, I see the emotion in his face, naked and unabashed.

  He wants to kill Lucas.

  And as much as my heart aches, I know some things will never change.

  EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL VIRTUAL AUTOPSY: UPDATE

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

  Assembled by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD

  Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare

  Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B

  Deceased has been positively identified as Doloria Maria de la Cruz, an adolescent girl from the outlying Grasslands community of La Purísima.

  Identity has been confirmed by Dr. Huxley-Clarke and verified by the Embassy Labs.

  Further information has been sealed as Classified.

  This case has been closed.

  Remaining inquiries can be directed to Dr. Huxley-Clarke, VPHD.

  Thank you.

  EPILOGUE

  THE GRASSLANDS

  Feelings are memories. Memories are also feelings. I know now that what we feel is all we have. It’s the only thing we have that the House of Lords never will.

  I want to remember everything, as we follow the old Route 66 east through the dark heat of the Mojave Desert in the evening. The desert hides the last remaining Rebellion Choppers; Fortis says we’ll ride all the way to Nellis, to meet the one waiting for us. Our donkeys are slow and tired, but we don’t stop moving, and I don’t stop remembering, and feeling.

  Clouds settle and sit on the tops of the mountains like hats, like curls. They hang low over the sandy scrub, shadows unfolding on the rolling hills beneath them. There is gray and green and silver in the brush, earth appearing only beneath and between the growth. In front of me, a red-brown dirt road leads to red-brown dirt hills in the distance.

  As we ride it grows darker. Everything divides and aligns into neat lines, same as the headless mountains. Snow falls on the dirt hillsides in white stripes. Across the valley, on the other side of highway lines and power lines, white snow and red dirt line the sides of the plateau mountain. Bits of white fluff appear on cactus tops, on brush.

  We reach the sign for Death Valley. The hand-cut sign is old, a lone piece of debris from a less complicated age, before The Day.

  Then I think of the book in my satchel, the one that Sympas have killed for and Grass have died for. The one Fortis gave back to me, only days ago. The one I’ll carry with me, wherever this road takes me.

  The others are waiting for us on horses of their own, the D
esert Grass. As we take the turnoff to their camp, Furnace Creek, I think again of the sign, how old it looks. Like an important memory I don’t have, from a family trip I never took. A place I might have visited along with my brothers, had things been different.

  It doesn’t matter anymore, whether it happened to me or not. It happened to some of us, so it happened to me. I know that now. I accept it.

  It’s who I am.

  I remember it, the same way I remember Chumash Rancheros Spaniards Californians Americans Grass The Lords The Hole.

  Maybe Tima is right to have that tattoo. Maybe there is such a thing as a world soul, after all.

  I remember it all.

  I remember my parents, my brothers, the ache of the not-knowing. The Padre and the Mission and Ramona Jamona. Bigger and Biggest at La Purísima. Doc. Fortis. Silver-haired Tima at the lunchroom table. Ro falling asleep next to me, warm as sunshine. Lucas with a smile on his lips and clouds in his eyes.

  More than anything, I remember this feeling.

  I want to remember this feeling.

  I remember hope.

  EMBASSY TELEGRAM

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

  From: GAP Miyazawa

  To: All Icon Ambassadors

  Notice of Promotion

  Colonel Virgil William Catallus has been assigned the position of Acting Ambassador, Los Angeles Projects.

  Military presence will be increased until the Rebellion can be put down, and the Projects are complete.

  We will not be stopped short of our Unification goal.

  Ambassador Leta Amare has been found guilty of Treason and sentenced to Death, by order of the House of Lords, Origin Office, Commanding Lord Null. Acting Ambassador Catallus will execute the sentence at his discretion.

  May Silence Bring Her Peace.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SPECIAL THANKS TO MY OWN PERSONAL ICONS

  Icons was represented by the always wise Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company, who was in turn helped by the ever clever Logan Garrison. Internationally represented by the inexhaustible Rebecca Gardner and Will Roberts. Represented for film by the steady-handed Sally Willcox, CAA.

  Edited by the incomparable Julie Scheina, as assisted by the tireless Pam Garfinkel. Editorially directed by the generous Alvina Ling. Art directed by the talented Dave Caplan. (That cover! That cover!) Cover font designed by the innovative Sean Freeman. Guided through copyediting and proofreading by the (oh so!) patient Barbara Bakowski. Publicized by the fearless Hallie Patterson, overseen by the savvy Melanie Chang. Marketed by the always original Jennifer LaBracio. Supported for libraries and schools by the one-of-a-kind (two-of-a-kind?) Victoria Stapleton and Zoe Luderitz. Published by Megan Tingley and VP Andrew Smith, each iconic in their own ways.

  Adopted and adapted for film by my genius friends at Alcon Entertainment, Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove; and at 3 Arts, Erwin Stoff; and at Belle Pictures, Molly Smith, who were happily willing to continue the partnership we began with the Beautiful Creatures movie.

  Read and reconsidered in all its draft-y infancy by–chronologically, FYI–Kami Garcia, Melissa Marr, Raphael Simon, Ally Condie, Carrie Ryan, and Diane Peterfreund. Thank you all!

  Promoted online by Victoria Hill, Giant Squid Media (“Get Kracken!”). Photographed for the Web by Ashly Stohl.

  Cajoled into being by Dave Stohl, Burton Stohl, and Marilyn Stohl, Virginia Stock, Jean Kaplan, the Cabo Collective and all the rock star readers, librarians, teachers, students, journalists, and bloggers who have supported me ever since the Beautiful Creatures novels.

  Ensured production continuity via the Linda Vista Local 134: Melissa de la Cruz, Pseudonymous Bosch, and Deb Harkness, with help from P, N, and I. Via the NY chapter: Hilary Reyl, Gayle Forman, Lev Grossman, and the (even honorary) Punks. Via the SC/GA chapter: Jonathan Sanchez, Vania Stoyanova, and everyone at YALLFest.

  Special thanks to Dr. Sara Lindheim for her Latin translation expertise.

  And, of course, special thanks to my brilliant family, Lewis, Emma, May, and Kate Peterson, and my Motel Stohl honorary family–you know who you are–who always have been and always will be the whole point.

  Contents

  WELCOME

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  PROLOGUE: THE DAY

  CHAPTER 1: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

  CHAPTER 2: PRESENTS

  CHAPTER 3: THE PIETÀ OF LA PURÍSIMA

  CHAPTER 4: TRACKS

  CHAPTER 5: DIVERSIONS

  CHAPTER 6: FOUR DOTS

  CHAPTER 7: A DECISION

  CHAPTER 8: DOC

  CHAPTER 9: THE AMBASSADOR

  CHAPTER 10: THE TRIGGER

  CHAPTER 11: TOGETHER AGAIN

  CHAPTER 12: LONG WAY HOME

  CHAPTER 13: COLONEL CATALLUS

  CHAPTER 14: DECISIONS

  CHAPTER 15: BRUTUS

  CHAPTER 16: HALL OF RECORDS

  CHAPTER 17: DISAPPEARING

  CHAPTER 18: THE PORTHOLE

  CHAPTER 19: THE HOLE

  CHAPTER 20: OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS

  CHAPTER 21: HUX

  CHAPTER 22: THE PARK

  CHAPTER 23: THE OBSERVATORY

  CHAPTER 24: RO

  CHAPTER 25: TIMA

  CHAPTER 26: LUCAS

  CHAPTER 27: FORTIS

  CHAPTER 28: ALL FALL DOWN

  CHAPTER 29: THE VIRUS

  CHAPTER 30: BIRDS

  EPILOGUE: THE GRASSLANDS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2013 by Margaret Stohl, Inc.

  Design by Andrea Vandergrift

  Cover design by David Caplan

  Cover art © 2013 by Sean Freeman

  Cover © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc

  Copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com.

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  www.lb-teens.com

  First e-book edition: May 2013

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-23199-2