He tugs me down the block and we turn the corner onto Church Street.
“So, where are we going?” The wind blows hard enough, and cold enough, to numb my lips and cheeks, but it can’t stop me from smiling. It’s not just because of Jude. It’s the freedom, however brief. However imagined.
“You know how the government took my dad away because he refused to stop looking into Darley Hall?” He glances at me, and I nod. “Well, government agents confiscated a bunch of files—everything at the house—but they’ve been back three times looking for more stuff. Questioning me about where he might have hidden research. Which makes me think they think they’re missing something.”
“You think they’re looking for specific information they don’t want in unauthorized hands?” I purse my lips, my heart speeding up a bit. “What do you think it is?”
I’m wondering if maybe it has something to do with the Cavy program, who’s behind it or how it was initiated. The more I think about the mysterious benefactor behind Saint Stephen’s, the more I want to know the names and faces and motivations of anyone and everyone who has ever been invested in us.
“I don’t know. But I figure if I found it, maybe they would trade him.” He shrugs. “Or it could help you and your friends.”
“Help us what?”
“I don’t know, Norah. What do you want? To come back to Charleston? To live a life without interference? To know where you come from, to understand what was done to you?”
Tears sting my eyes. It’s crazy how he can guess how being a Cavy makes me feel. How he understands what questions need to be answered, and how my life will never really move forward until they are. “All of the above.”
“I know where to find at least a few of my dad’s hiding places in the city. I’ve checked a couple on my own, and I was out today to ferret out a few more when I found myself at your door.” He shakes his head, bangs flopping down over his forehead. “I didn’t even know you’d be there. I just wanted to see you.”
“I’m glad you came.” I squeeze his hand. “So, where are we going?”
“This way.” We take a right on Queen Street and then a left into Philadelphia Alley.
It’s quiet right now, in the middle of the day, except for the sound of singing and tap shoes on a stage trickling out from behind the back door to a local theater. At night, the tight alley fills up with ghost tour after ghost tour, but at the moment it’s peaceful and pretty.
There are stories about the place, from murdered slaves to a particularly depressing tale about a doctor who was shot during a duel with a man who turned out to not be a very good friend.
I follow Jude toward the far end, where the alley spills out near Cumberland. He crouches beside the wall separating the alley from a courtyard and tugs loose a brick that juts up against a small tree. There’s a hole underneath, but as I lean over his shoulder, I see that it’s empty.
“This is crazy. He has these hiding places all over town?”
Jude stands up, brushing the debris and dirt from his gloves. “Yeah. At least half a dozen that I know about and I’m sure there are plenty he never thought to show me. Or didn’t want to show me.”
“Where to next?”
He bites his lip, glancing up the alley and then back down. The sounds from the theater get louder, someone banging on a piano with all their might. It sounds like they’re rehearsing Brigadoon. I kind of wish we were going to be around long enough to see it, based on the rehearsal gusto.
“I think we should try the Rainbow Market.”
“Where the tours meet?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
We step out of the alley, then make a couple of turns until we’re on East Bay, which leads all the way down to Market Street. We pass popular seafood restaurants that are crowded for happy hour and early-bird dinners, and the sound of people talking and laughing—leading normal lives—is a comfort. The world is still turning even though mine is upside down. People are still happy and oblivious even if this virus is on its way.
“What do you miss the most since you left?”
I startle at being jerked out of my own thoughts and look up to find Jude’s light eyes fastened to my face. My heart stutters, then races, pushing heat into my cheeks. You, is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back, not wanting to sound like a freak show. “Definitely the food.”
He chuckles, then takes a deep breath. “Oysters. Though December’s the best time of year.”
“And my friends.”
He seems surprised at this response. “But you have the Darley kids back.”
“I know, but they’re more like family. And there was something nice about spending time with people who were around because they enjoyed my company and not because we all lived together.” My face is burning. “I mean, not that you guys ever thought we were really good friends or anything. I know you’ve known each other forever and I was new, but—”
Jude catches my fingers again, squeezing hard. “Norah, shut up. We all like you. I’ve spent some of these past two weeks being mad at you, blaming you for not trusting me before, for what happened to my father, but I still like you. A lot.”
The air might be fresh and crisp but it’s hard to breathe. There’s no way to avoid looking his direction, no way to prepare myself for the affection in his gaze that feels as if it’s melting my skin. The truth of his declaration pours into the air around us, into the space between us. It warms me…and chills me, in light of what I know about the future.
“I like you, too, Jude. A lot.” I clear my throat and look away. “But if I learned anything last month, it’s that these attachments to you guys, to this normal world, hurt when they’re ripped away.”
“So don’t rip them away. Just because you don’t think we can understand what you’re facing doesn’t mean we can’t. Or even that we have to. Let me like you for you, Norah Crespo. Because you’re funny and pretty and strong. Not because you have some kind of bizarro genes.”
That makes me laugh. “It’s so sweet when you call my genetic makeup bizarro.”
“In the best way.” The earnestness in his eyes jams my heart into my throat. “It makes you you, so I wouldn’t want to change a single chromosome.”
Tears spill out and over, down my cheeks. To hear Jude tell me that I’m perfect the way I am—not worthless, not a freak, just right—is more than I’m prepared to deal with in the middle of this debacle with Flicker and deadly viruses and having to decide which life I want to lead.
Then his arms are around me and my face is pressed against his thick coat. I breathe in the scent of him—as fresh as the air around us but musky underneath. Heady. And I cling to him for as long as my brain allows.
My tears and emotions are under control by the time I pull away, wiping self-consciously at my cheeks. “Thanks. Sometimes I’m lame enough to need to hear that.”
“We all need to hear we’re okay the way we are, Norah. We’re all lame.”
Jude starts toward the market again as though I didn’t just have a breakdown in the middle of the street, and his ability to remain normal in the face of all this makes me fall a little bit further toward love.
It also spikes my curiosity—my suspicion—once again, because as nice as it is, it’s not normal. Not a regular response to finding out that there are people wandering around with government-engineered superpowers, not to mention that the knowledge got your father locked up.
He should be freaking out. He should be curious about my abilities. But he’s not.
We duck inside the Rainbow Market, and Jude sneaks into the changing room for one of the tour companies, where he spins the lock on one of the storage lockers. This one isn’t empty, but the random, leather-bound book full of his father’s chicken scratch will take him more than a few days to make sense of, and I can read the disappointment in the crinkles around his eyes.
The sun has dipped below the horizon, and it’s time for me to get back to the house to prepare for
our meeting with the CIA. As Jude leads me back down East Bay and I request that we take the scenic route along the waterfront, I deliberately push my concerns over his non-reaction to the back of my mind. These might be the last few minutes I get to spend with him, and wasting them on fruitless worry seems pointless.
Instead, I snuggle into his side. Let the weight of his arm on my shoulder warm me all the way to the tip of my toes, and let him press a lingering kiss to my cheek on my father’s side porch, pulling away just as the scene of his death starts to solidify around me.
Except those words, the ones he started to speak in the vision the other night, are still haunting me. I don’t want to hear them, don’t want to see him die again, but I need to.
I turn my face up to his and put my arms around his neck, pulling his mouth to mine before I can freak out about being so forward or about the fact that I have never initiated a kiss with a boy before. His lips are soft but not hesitant as they capture mine, moving until we fit together like the perfect edges of a puzzle.
His arms tighten around my waist, pulling our bodies flush together—as close as possible through two coats and scarves—as the image of him on the ground, bloodied in a bush full of broken, purple hydrangeas, explodes in my mind. The hot press of the feelings his kiss elicits tries to block the vision, tries to force me to enjoy the moment, but it loses out.
Part of me can still feel him, continues to thrill at the new sensation of his tongue slipping along my bottom lip, parting them for him, but in my mind, Jude is dying.
His hand is slick with blood as it reaches for mine. I stare at the gun in my hand and then drop it. It thuds against the wet grass and I drop to my knees, dew soaking through my pants as I grab his hand.
His mouth opens and he tries to speak, but no words come out.
He tries again, pain clouding his eyes and acceptance spreading across his face in an odd sort of desperate peace.
“I forgive you, Norah. I forgive you.”
The addition sends me reeling away from him, breaking the kiss before he realizes what’s happened or why I’m panting like a frightened animal with my back against the house.
Confusion and embarrassment color his cheeks. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I just got carried away.”
I shake my head, wishing with all my might that the action could dispel the images. His words. Proof that I am the cause of what happens to him after all.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not you. It’s not this.” I touch my lips, still tingly and warm from his kiss. “I like kissing you, Jude Greene. It’s just… It’s not easy for me.”
He pauses, seeming to process my words, then gives me a small smile. “Well, that’s a relief. That you like it, I mean. I’d like to do it again someday, though, so maybe we can figure out how to fix the second part.”
Emotions close my throat. “I don’t know if we can.”
“Hey.” He steps forward. “Talk to me, Norah.”
“I’ll see you later,” I choke out, turning and escaping into the laundry room, slamming the door shut behind me. By the time I get the courage to peer through the peephole, the porch is deserted.
Chapter Thirteen
It’s dark and quiet by the time we hit the uneven sidewalks that lead to the Unitarian Church. Charleston attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year but is, and always has been, a sleepy Southern town at heart. People get home after dinner, content to have a few nightcaps on their porches with family or perhaps a few neighbors, leaving the streets lonely until morning. This is especially true in colder months, when locals enjoy their city with a smaller audience.
The lack of a moon makes the hike even creepier than it might be otherwise; the lunar cycle is brand-new, and there are dark, thick clouds rolling in as well, obscuring any stars that might light our way.
I’m comfortable on these streets, and especially all the paths that lead to the Unitarian Church, but the rest of the Cavies seem more than a little bit jumpy. They huddle behind me, footsteps shuffling across the cobblestones and jagged pavement, every once in a while grunting when a toe catches a crack.
The sounds make me smile. I may have only lived here for a few short weeks, but this is where my father was born, and my mother, and my grandparents before that. Charleston and all its beauty and quirks feel more like home, more a part of my blood than Darley Hall ever did. Ever could.
The graveyard gates are tall, standing a good four or five feet above my head, and as Dane mentioned, are locked every day at sundown. I take stock of our talents—teleporting, disappearing, fire-starting, super speed, super hearing, stupid death-seeing, and the ability to affect people’s feelings. None of those are going to help us get inside, unless Haint can all of a sudden figure out how to walk us all through solid objects with her. The way one of the Olders brought us to Saint Stephen’s using a teleporting mutation.
“Too bad we haven’t figured out how to project our abilities,” I murmur to no one in particular.
They look startled, as though there’s no talking allowed on deserted King Street, then shrug one at a time once the comment sinks in.
“We’re not going to figure it out now,” Haint comments. “But I agree it would be a pretty awesome thing to explore when we have time.”
When we have time. Ha.
“Yeah, and maybe then we can learn how to do cute manicure designs,” Mole exclaims, looking healthier than he has since the episode at dinner the other night. The GRH-18 steadied him right away.
“There are bad things in there,” Athena says, his gaze locked on the shadows that deepen as the graveyard stretches further from the street. It makes me wonder if he can hear ghosts.
I frown at him. “It’s a graveyard. There are a bunch of dead people in there, and maybe some ghosts if you believe in that kind of thing, but nothing that can hurt us.”
“It’s spooky as hell,” he responds, backing up.
“All right, enough whining. I’m going to melt the lock,” Mole says, fumbling until his strong hands close around the iron.
“Wait,” I hiss. “We can’t just…destroy property. That’s probably been there for centuries.”
“Gypsy, I appreciate your love for all things old and creepy, but we’re about to be late for this meeting,” Goose points out.
“And the longer we stand out here debating the moral implications of busting a lock, the more likely we’re going to be spotted,” Pollyanna grumps, gaze sweeping the road. “I mean, we’re not committing murder here. Or art theft.”
“Art theft? You think that’s the same thing as murder?” Haint’s eyes are wide, reflective in the streetlamps.
“I didn’t say the same, I was just listing bad things.”
Haint shakes her head. “There’s really something wrong with you.”
“Okay, shut up.” A throbbing begins at the base of my neck. “Mole, melt the lock.”
He takes care of it without much fanfare, wrapping his hands around the metal until it drops in glowing blobs on the concrete at his feet. The Philosopher and the others at Darley spent the most time training him and Reaper since they’re Lethals, and the GRH-18 affected him more strongly than most of us. This level of control is impressive, though, and the looks on the others’ faces say they agree.
“After you lovely people,” Mole says, grinning as the gate squeaks inward.
Polly picks a twig from her hair and bows, tossing it to the ground. “I hope you don’t expect me to curtsey.”
All of our spirits are good, considering what we’re facing—except Athena, who is still staring into the darkness of the graveyard, trepidation painted on his pale face.
I punch his arm. “Never would have picked you for a guy who’s afraid of the dark.”
He glares at me when Polly overhears and snorts, but chooses not to reply.
“Lead the way, Gypsy.” Mole’s features are grim in the darkness, shadows playing off his strong nose and prominent cheekbones.
In spite of my
best efforts, Athena’s fear winds up fueling my own anxiety over being in this creepiest of creepy places after dark, but someone’s got to keep their head. And I’m the person who knows where we’re going.
Nerves feed off nerves until we’re walking in more of a blob than a line. We make it to the back of the graveyard, which appears as empty as the street, but then Dane steps out from behind a moss-draped oak.
He’s not alone. Three men and one woman, all in black suits and skinny black ties, ease from the shadows and into the clearing peppered with headstones, their hands clasped in front of them.
I don’t see Agent Marlow, the head of the warehouse operation weeks ago and someone who definitely doesn’t have any sympathy or patience for any of us. Instead, the agents defer to Dane, who beckons us closer.
We comply until we’re in a tight circle, shoulders touching, with the agents interspersed. It’s impossible to tell in this light whether any of the people here were present in the warehouse, but none of them seem familiar.
“We all know why we’re here,” Dane begins, squinting at each of our faces in turn.
“Yeah, we do. So say what you came here to say.” It’s Mole that speaks up, and the distaste he’s had for Dane Lee since the moment they met oozes from the contempt in his voice.
Dane swallows again but doesn’t make eye contact with any of the other agents. He’s in charge here and asking for advice wouldn’t inspire the most confidence, I suppose. “Fine. Let’s get to the point, then, although I’m only able to give out sparse details outside of an authorized safe area. If any or all of you decide you’d like to assist in the upcoming operation, you’ll have to agree to meet in a secure CIA house going forward.”
He can’t be that worried that anyone’s out here to overhear. The only people in this graveyard are dead, and even if they’re into haunting, I doubt they’d be interested in selling secrets to the Russians.
Even so, the warning makes us Cavies stand up a little straighter.
I sneak a look at my friends and find the fear and confusion from earlier replaced by thrumming anticipation. As a group, we’re excited at the prospect of something new. Of a meaningful direction.
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