by Jeff Hirsch
“Hello?” he called. “Anybody here?”
There was something off about his voice. It wasn’t the growl I remembered. It was lighter, softer, less certain. For a second I thought maybe it wasn’t Greer Larson at all, just someone who looked liked him, but then he came closer, and there was no question. Before I could decide what to do, the first two kids appeared behind him. Ren and Makela. They were a mess. Blank-eyed, in dirty clothes. Carrie came next. Then Isaac and Tomiko. They all huddled around Greer. He made a joke I didn’t hear, and they laughed nervously. I came out of the shed slowly and stood between the cabins, my hand resting on the hilt of the knife.
“Hi there!” Greer chirped when he saw me. “Few quick questions.”
“Uh . . . okay.”
He waved his arms around the campsite and the surrounding woods. “All this—it’s not a mirage, right?”
“No. It’s real.”
“Perfect!” Greer clapped his hands in front of him and looked back at the kids. “It’s cool, guys. It’s not a mirage.” Back to me. “And are these cabins yours or are they for, you know, whoever?”
“No, they’re not mine.”
“Great. Awesome. Last question. You ready?”
I nodded.
“You don’t by any chance know who the hell I am, do you?”
He gave me that grin of his, the one that would soon become a daily part of my life, but that I’d never seen the slightest hint of up until that point. I hadn’t even been sure he could smile. And all at once, I understood. Greer Larson was gone. This person had his face and his voice but he was someone else entirely. My hand fell away from the knife.
“No,” I said. “Never seen you before in my life.”
I don’t know how many times I’d told myself what a good thing I’d done for him in that moment, what a friend I’d been. I’d never considered until right then, sitting there against that steel wall in the dark, that maybe I had it backwards. Maybe I hadn’t been a friend to him at all.
The next morning, Hannah and Greer found me lying against the wall of the ellipse and said they were heading back to camp. I nodded and let them pass, listening to their footsteps as they left the Serra room and climbed to the lobby. Once they were gone, I went inside and began gathering up the comics, but stopped the second my hand touched Behold, Abaddon. I stared at that cover for a long time before opening it and slowly turning to those pages.
I thought maybe seeing them again after all that time would feel different. Maybe the horror wouldn’t be as sharp, maybe that sick feeling in my gut would be gone. But I was wrong. It was as if no time had passed at all. I felt exactly the same as I did the very first time I saw them.
Sally Sparrow on her knees, beaten bloody, her armor torn, the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her head as she cried.
Cardinal, wings flailing as he screams across the Liberty City skyline, desperate to warn the others about his discovery of secret protocols the Volanti buried deep in the Brotherhood armor that, when activated, would render them utterly helpless.
An explosion of glass as Cardinal smashes through the window, and then—
Sally Sparrow lying crumpled on her side, her hands tied behind her back, her lifeless body framed in the same pool of blood that surrounds the rest of the Brotherhood. Black Eagle. Kestrel Kain. Rex Raven. Goldfinch. Lord Starling. Blue Jay.
Cardinal sees that he’s too late. They’re all gone. He’s the only one left.
I dropped my face into my hands and cried until my throat burned. When I was done, I closed the book and looked up at the walls of the ellipse. What was it, really? A carousel? A ship? A rose? A prison? Right then it didn’t feel like any of those things. It felt like an empty room in a house where no one had lived in a long time.
I stepped outside the museum. The rising sun was painting the sky above Lucy’s Promise pink and gold. I tightened the straps on my mask and started the long walk back. I left Dad’s comics behind.
19
A COUPLE OF DAYS later I was sitting by my tent when Gonzalez emerged from the woods.
“Love the new digs, Cassidy! Very Yoda in Dagobah. Luckily, Mr. Larson’s quite the spymaster, or I never would have found you.”
For the first time since I’d known him, Gonzalez wasn’t wearing his Guard uniform, just camo shorts and a Green Lantern T-shirt. I was about to ask him if it was casual Friday, but then I saw the backpack he had over his shoulder and it hit me how much time had passed.
This is it. He’s leaving.
He dug a slip of paper out of his pocket and dropped it in front of me as he sat on a nearby tree stump.
“What’s this?” I picked it up and turned it over. A picture of Mr. Tommasulo. Two of them, actually—a front and a side view.
“That the guy who went after Hannah?” Gonzalez asked, then pointed to the bruises on my face. “Guy who gave you that beating?”
“How’d you—”
“Chitchatting with the guys who answered the call that night,” he said. “I thought the kid sounded like you, but then I thought that would be impossible because A, Card said he was keeping his ass up on the mountain where it belonged, and B, if something like that happened, Card definitely would have told me.”
“Listen, Gonzalez—”
“Damn it, Card! This animal messes with you again, and this is how I hear about it?”
“Well, it’s over now, right? They got him.”
“That’s not the point!” he shouted.
I started to argue, but then I dropped my head into my hands. “Yeah. I know. Sorry, Hec. Look, things have been kind of . . .”
What? Things have been kind of what? I didn’t even know how to start.
“You all right?”
I looked up. Gonzalez has that type of face that always looks like he’s smiling even when he isn’t. I nodded. “So, they going to put him away?”
“Oh, hell yes. They found a ton of seriously creepy stuff in the dude’s house when they went to talk to him. He and a few of his buddies are going to be spending the rest of their natural lives in a detention center. Thank God for Freeman Wayne, right?”
“What? Why Freeman?”
“He’s the guy that tipped them off,” Gonzalez said. “Waltzed right into their HQ and ratted the guy out for what he did to you and for an attempted robbery and assault one of his buddies committed earlier that same night. Crazy, huh?”
I picked up the mug shot of Tommasulo again. First Freeman saved me in the park, and then this. Why would a guy spend a year playing hermit in that library and then out of nowhere decide to become my own personal Superman? It didn’t make any sense.
“Hey,” Gonzalez said, “did I tell you? Word is they’re going to be screening footage from that new Cloak and Dagger movie at the Con. Supposed to be hot.”
I dropped the picture, then looked from Gonzalez to the backpack next to him. “So you’re really heading out, huh?”
He snapped a twig in half and tossed it into the woods. “Day after tomorrow. Rest of the Guard will be pulling out pretty soon after that.”
“Hear anything new about the Marvins’ plans for us?”
He shook his head. “They’re buttoned up tight. All I know about is that carnival Raney is throwing next week.”
“Carnival?”
“Yeah, turns out he wasn’t kidding about doing something fun for you guys. It’s going to be down in the park. Rides and food and stuff. Hear they’re even carting in a Ferris wheel. Jerks are waiting until after we pull out. Guess they don’t feel like springing for a little cotton candy for their brothers in the Guard. Greer and Hannah are taking the kids to it. You didn’t know?”
“Guess I’ve been a little out of touch lately.”
“Yeah, look, about that—”
Before he could finish, I turned and grabbed his portfolio out of my tent. “I got a chance to look at your stuff,” I said. “The drawings are solid. Really good. Like I said, I’m not an expert or anything, but
if I were you, I might ditch the Wolverine and do another woman or two. Batgirl maybe? Or Ms. Marvel. Supergirl could be good. Maybe even—”
He snatched the portfolio out of my hands and threw it on the ground.
“Gonzalez, what are you—”
“Come with me.”
“What?”
He leaned forward on the stump. “I can get you out of here today, man. They’ll put you in isolation for twenty-four hours to confirm you’re not infected, and then we’re out of here.”
“But everything’s fine now,” I said. “Tommasulo’s in—”
“This isn’t about him,” Gonzalez interrupted. “And everything’s not fine. Listen, me and you, we go to Comic Con, and then after that . . . you don’t want to go stay with whatever family you’ve got on the outside, that’s fine, my folks are in the Bronx. I’ve already talked to them. You can stay with them while you finish high school, and then you start looking at colleges. You can—”
“No.”
“Why not? What the hell are you doing here, man? There’s a whole world out there!”
“There’s a whole world here, too.”
Gonzalez looked around at the sagging trees and the vines and the twilight gloom. He shook his head.
“Yeah,” he said. “Hell of a world you got yourself here.”
He kept his eyes locked on me, but I didn’t waver. Didn’t look away. Finally he shook his head and pulled something out of his pocket. It hit the ground in front of me. A cell phone.
“My number’s programmed in,” he said. “It’s got a full battery, and there’s a tower just over on the next mountain, so you’ll always have a good signal. If you change your mind—shut up, let me talk—if you change your mind, call me. Even if I’m already gone. You want out of here, you call me and I’ll make it happen double quick. Got it?”
I picked up the phone and turned it over in my hand. I nodded.
“Now get up,” Gonzalez said.
“What?”
“Dude, just do it. Stand up.”
As soon as I did, his hands clasped my back and he pulled me into a hug. I could hear his heart beating alongside my ear. How long had it been since someone hugged me? As hard as I tried to remember, I couldn’t.
“You take care of yourself,” he said in a choked-up whisper. “You need anything, you send up the bat signal.”
I said I would. Gonzalez pulled me in tighter, then let me go. His eyes were shining. He wiped them with the back of his hand and then tucked his portfolio under his arm.
“So I guess . . . I guess I’ll see ya around.”
My throat ached, like I hadn’t had a drink of water in days. I flashed back to that first time he’d come up the mountain. It seemed like the second someone walked in the door, they were on their way out again.
“Yeah,” I said. “See ya around, Hec.”
He took his backpack and started off through the brush. After a few steps, he turned back.
“How about Storm?” he said. “For the portfolio.”
I thought for a second. “Yeah, but it’s gotta be mohawk-and-leather-jacket Storm,” I said. “That’s the only good Storm.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Definitely. Take it easy, kid.”
Gonzalez turned away again. Leaves and branches crunched under his feet as he walked away. The sounds grew fainter and fainter, as if the silence was rushing back in to cover his tracks. Just before he disappeared from view, he turned back one more time and waved. I waved too. A few seconds later he was a smudge in the trees, and then it was like he’d never been there at all.
Greer’s camp looked deserted when I came down the trail.
Were they at the supply drop? I tried to count back to the day I went to town with him and the kids, but it felt like that was a million years ago. I tightened the straps of my mask, then walked through the cabins, gathering up a few of the things that were scattered around—our football, the croquet set, some board games. I put everything back in the supply shed and was about to leave when I had an idea. I pushed some old camping gear out of the way and rummaged through the dusty shelves. When I found what I was looking for, I filled my arms and went back outside.
A door slammed shut. Hannah came out of the dining hall with Snow Cone and Hershey Bar trotting along behind. She didn’t see me. They went inside Astrid’s cabin and closed the door. Nerves twisted my stomach in knots.
I checked my mask and gloves again and then, since my hands were full, I kicked at the base of the cabin door. It opened a crack and Snow Cone shot out, bowling me over onto my butt. She forced herself into my lap, tongue lolling, her stubby tail wagging a hundred times a minute. I rubbed at her side, shying away from her rash until I saw that it was nearly gone.
“Looks like somebody’s been taking her medicine, huh, girl?”
“Kids take turns giving it to her.”
Hannah was standing just inside the door, her hand resting on the knob.
“You looking for Greer?”
I shook my head. She gazed out over the empty camp. I thought she was going to tell me to leave, but she backed into the dimness of the cabin, leaving the door open. I gathered the things I’d taken from the supply shed and followed her inside.
She was set up in the back corner. She didn’t have much, just a cot and a few stacks of clothes. Some of the kids’ drawings were pinned to the wall around her bed. A psychedelic landscape that was clearly Astrid’s hung next to a blueprint-like sketch of the bridge over Black River Falls that could only have been done by Makela.
Hannah sat on the edge of her cot and patted the space beside her. Hershey Bar jumped up and lay his head in her lap. I found a spot on a bunk across the room and tried to figure out what to say.
“Oh, hey. I talked to Gonzalez. The Guard arrested those guys who tried to grab you when you were first infected. So no need to go around in disguise anymore, I guess.”
“Good,” she said without really looking at me. “That’s good.”
Everything went quiet again. I could feel the seconds ticking by.
“So how’s the life of a camp counselor?”
She tried to smile, but it looked forced, tense. She pinched the key around her neck with two fingers and slid it back and forth on its band.
“They need a lot,” I said. “Don’t they?”
Hannah nodded. “Did you know Crystal wets her bed sometimes?”
I shook my head.
“She didn’t want anybody to know. Not even the other girls. I caught her cleaning up one night, and now it’s our little secret. And then Astrid and Makela are fighting half the time and Tomiko has nightmares. Oh, and Greer found out who Cash and Shan are. Ricky and Margo Westlake.”
“They’re brother and sister.”
Hannah nodded. “Their folks are here, but infected. We tried to get them together but it didn’t really work. So we’ve been dealing with that.”
We were quiet a moment. Snow Cone came in panting and lay down at my feet.
Hannah nodded toward the stack in my arms. “What’ve you got there?”
Oh. Right. “The camp has a few shelves of books in the back of the supply shed. It’s not much, mostly kids’ stuff, but I thought . . . well, I thought maybe one of the good things about losing your memory is that you get to read all your favorite books again for the first time. Bits and pieces might seem familiar but, you know. I made some guesses about what you’d like.”
I handed over the stack, and she went through them. “Pride and Prejudice. Great Expectations. The Dark is Rising. Harry Potter. Bridge to Terabithia.”
“I liked that last one a lot when I was a kid,” I said. “It’s kind of sad, but good.”
She thanked me, then set them on the nightstand next to her cot. Snow Cone nudged my calf with her nose. I reached down and scratched her ears.
“Gonzalez said you guys were going to some kind of carnival.”
“Next week,” Hannah said. “Whole town will be there. They’re trucking in rides
and games and stuff for the kids.”
“I heard a Ferris wheel.”
“Yeah, can you believe that? Raney said there’s going to be some kind of big announcement too.”
“About what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Greer says he thinks it has something to do with the multimillion-dollar skate park and arcade they’re building us.” She paused and shifted gears. “Card, we’ve already decided that we’re going to go, so—”
“I’m not here to stop you.”
“Then why are you here?”
I couldn’t seem to look at her. It felt like the walls of the cabin had lurched closer, shutting us up in this airless little box.
“Card?”
“I wasn’t down there looking for a fight,” I said.
There was a flicker of recognition that I’d been listening to her and Greer talking that night in the museum, but she let it pass. “So why were you?”
The bruises along my ribs ached as I took a deep breath.
“My mom was infected on the sixteenth. She lives in town, and I thought she might have been . . . I thought somebody like Tommasulo might have gotten to her.”
“Did they?”
I shook my head.
“Is she all right?”
A pressure was building behind my eyes. I closed them to block it off and found myself standing in the dark outside that window, looking up at Mom as she embraced Mr. Addad.
“She’s living with someone now, and she seems . . . I don’t know. She seems happy.”
Neither of us said anything for some time after that. I felt hollowed out, as if I’d just run a dozen miles.
“Anyway. I just wanted you to know that. And to tell you that all those things I said to you the morning I left—about things being your fault—I was just . . . I didn’t mean it.”
“For all we know, you were right.”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t.”
Snow Cone stirred at a flurry of voices outside and ran or the door. Greer appeared at the top of the trail with Cash and Shan and Isaac dancing around him, vying for his attention.