Phantom Wheel

by Tracy Deebs

  I want to call him on it—the difference between perception and reality, including his own—but something warns me against it. Maybe it’s because we’ve had enough tonight. Maybe it’s because I’m not ready for that heavy of a discussion. Or maybe it’s because I’m scared of digging too deeply. Whatever it is keeps me silent long past when I should have refuted what he said.

  Finally, when my hand and arms are bandaged and as fixed as they’re going to get, at least for now, he steps back and lowers his hands. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or grateful, but I do know that I can think more clearly when Ezra isn’t touching me. And since I need to think clearly tonight, I guess I’ll go with grateful.

  I step around him and out of the bathroom, then freeze—terrified—when a knock sounds at the door.

  “It’s probably just the towels,” Ezra tells me, but I notice he’s wary too when he walks toward the door. And he makes sure to check the peephole before finally opening the door—with the chain still on.

  Turns out he’s right, and seconds later he’s carrying a stack of towels into the suite’s main bedroom and bathroom, where the others are currently working on patching Owen back together.

  I can’t believe he was shot. Can’t believe how close the rest of us came to being shot. To dying. I think about Chloe, and instinct makes me reach for my phone to check on her.

  But even before my bandaged hand makes the reach difficult, I remember. I don’t have my phone. Don’t have my laptop or my backpack or my wallet or my clothes. I don’t have anything of mine but the torn, bloodied clothes on my back. Worse, my family has no way of reaching me.

  I have to fix that, as soon as possible. The idea of spending money on a new phone and laptop hurts, but not as much as being without them.

  An agonized groan sounds from the other room, and I can’t help staring at the empty doorway. So far, I haven’t gone back there because I figure the last thing they need is another body getting in the way. But I’m worried about Owen, worried about how pale and shaky he was on the way up here. Worried more about the fact that he’s been shot and we can’t even take him to a hospital.

  A minute or so passes and Ezra comes back out, looking a little shaky himself. “Is he okay?” I cry, jumping to my feet.

  “He’s fine. They’re stitching him up—the bullet passed right through his biceps and left a big hole.” His smile looks a little sickly. “Guess it’s a good thing he’s got a big biceps.”

  He crosses to the wet bar in the corner, pulls out a bottle of water and brings it to me. “Alika bought some Advil. I brought you two, thought it might help dull the pain a little.”

  “Thanks.” I start to take them, struggling to hold the water bottle and the pills with my one good hand.

  Ezra realizes my dilemma and sort of whispers, “Open your mouth.”

  I do, and he puts the two pills on my tongue, then holds the water bottle to my mouth as I swallow them down. My one hand still works just fine, but I let him do it. It’s not that uncommon of a gesture—something mothers do with children, nurses do with patients—and yet when Ezra does it for me, it feels more intimate than that kiss we shared earlier.

  Like almost everything else that’s happened in the last few hours, I don’t know what it means. But I’m smart enough to know that I’m not going to touch it either. Not now, when so many other things need to be dealt with.

  By the time room service arrives, the others have all staggered into the sitting room to join Ezra and me. Even Owen makes an appearance, in a white terry cloth bathrobe that is almost as pale as his complexion.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” I ask as he half sits, half collapses onto the couch next to me.

  He just looks at me. “Shouldn’t you?”

  “Touché.”

  He tries to smile but it comes out more like a grimace. “Exactly.”

  Ezra waves at the covered plates resting on the room-service carts against the wall. “I didn’t know what anybody was in the mood for at this point, so I got a little bit of everything. If there’s something you want that isn’t there, let me know, and I’ll order it. Otherwise, dig in.”

  It takes a few minutes—I think we’re all kind of shell-shocked now that the immediate danger has passed—but eventually Seth gets up and starts making himself a plate. Harper and Alika follow suit, though Alika brings the plate she made over to Owen.

  I’m starving, but my hand and arms have finally stopped hurting. Just the idea of changing that by trying to pick up food or serving utensils or whatever is enough to make me decide I’m not that hungry after all.

  It turns out I don’t have to do anything, though, because suddenly Ezra is sitting on the ottoman in front of me, a plate of finger foods on his lap. It takes a second for it to sink in that he made the plate for me, and it takes even longer to sink in that he’s planning on feeding me himself. Eventually I get it, though, obediently opening my mouth as he forks up a blackberry or a French fry or a piece of cheese and holds it to my lips.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I tell him after a few bites. “My one hand is okay.”

  He just shakes his head at me and mutters, “Shut up,” before shoving more food in my mouth.

  When we’ve all eaten our fill and the dishes and carts have been moved into the hallway, Seth clears his throat and asks, “So are we going to talk about this or what?”

  Before he can answer, though, there’s another knock on the door. It has me tensing up, has every single one of us freezing as we look toward the door. And when Ezra finally pulls open the door to reveal a waiter carrying a giant pastry basket, “courtesy of the employees,” I feel something inside me break. Feel the feelings that I’ve been carrying around all day coalescing into one loud, resounding “No.”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I tell the suddenly silent room. “I just can’t. I’m out, and I’m going home the first chance I get.”

  29

  Owen

  (1nf1n173 5h4d3)

  It’s been hours since Issa’s proclamation, and we still haven’t talked to her about it, still haven’t tried to suss out how serious she is about leaving. Instead we all just kind of wander around the suite staring at one another and deliberately not looking at her.

  After all, it’s easy to get what she’s saying. It’s even easier to get what she’s thinking—God knows there’s a part of me that just spent the last couple of hours thinking the very same thing. Especially when Seth was sewing up the bullet hole in my arm and I thought I was going to pass out from the pain.

  But getting where she’s coming from is one thing. Actually quitting before we see this through is something else altogether. Which is why I wait all night for somebody else to say that, wait for anybody else to say anything at all. But it’s like we’re right back in that office building in L.A., when they were all too busy looking at their shoes to actually get something meaningful out of their mouths. When they were too busy staring at what was right in front of them to see the big picture.

  And that scares me in a way nothing else that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours—including getting shot—ever could. Because it means they haven’t learned a damn thing in the last few weeks, the last few days. It means they don’t get it, and maybe they never will. I don’t expect much from Ezra, because… come on. He’s Ezra. But Alika? Harper? Seth, who always seems to know the right thing to do and always wants to do it?

  I thought for sure they’d have something to say. Instead it’s like crickets in here. And I’m not okay with that. Which is why I do the only thing I can do in this situation. I open my mouth somewhere around seven in the morning and let the chips fall where they may.

  “You know, of anyone in this room, I thought you’d be the one to get this the most. After all, you’ve gone on and on about how you have to protect your brothers and sisters. And yet, you just want to give up? You just want to let them grow up in this screwed-up world that Jacento is trying so hard to be in control of?
I mean, seriously, if today’s taught you anything, it should be that they can’t be trusted to be in control of anything, let alone the world that we’re going to have to live in.”

  Issa stiffens like I slapped her. “Don’t you dare use my family against me. You don’t know what it’s like to be the only one they depend on. To be the one who has to take care of everything.”

  “And you don’t know what I have to deal with! You don’t know what my family is like—and you don’t even care enough to ask. Instead, you sit there like this perfect little martyr and say you have to quit for them, when the truth is you’re quitting for you. You’re quitting because you’re afraid.”

  “Hey!” Suddenly Alika’s there between us, eyes fierce and narrowed. “Cool it!”

  “That seems to be your job!” I tell her. “It seems to be all of your jobs right now. You’re so busy enabling her, so busy being caught up in what might happen that you don’t see what is happening. And what is going to happen if you don’t stand up and do something to stop it.

  “Do you think I want to be here?” I gesture to my bandaged arm. “I’m the only one who wanted no part of this from the very beginning. But sometimes what you want doesn’t matter. Sometimes life is just about doing the right thing.

  “And yes, that means making sacrifices. And doing things that scare you and might not work out in the end. But what’s the alternative? Sitting back and letting a corporation like Jacento take over everything?

  “You guys created Phantom Wheel, and then you gave it to them on a silver freaking platter. And now they’re going to use it to record every keystroke you and everyone else on the planet makes—on your phone, on your laptop, on your tablet, in your gaming systems. Every single thing you buy or search, every person you text, every Tumblr you follow, every Instagram you like. And for what? To sell that info to the highest bidder so they can figure out what you’ll buy or who you’ll vote for? Or worse, how they can take that information and get you to do what they want you to do? Is that really the kind of world you want to live in?”

  I look from one face to another, searching for something. Some evidence that my words are getting through to them, some sign that they’re listening to what I’m saying instead of what their fear is telling them. I find it in Harper, who is suddenly the only one willing to meet my eyes.

  So I look straight at Harper as I continue. “And believe me, I get it. This isn’t what you signed up for when you went to that fake CIA audition. But at some point, we have to take responsibility for fixing what we did, even if that means taking Jacento on. Even if it means getting hurt in the process.”

  “That’s so easy for you to say,” Issa says as she wraps her heavily bandaged arms around her knees like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. “If something happens to you, it’ll suck for your family. But no one depends on you. No one needs you to stay alive—”

  “You know what, screw you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says with a shrug. “But it’s true. I can’t afford to think of the world. I have to think of my family—”

  “You’re such a damn coward I can’t even believe it.” I look from her to the rest of them. “All of you, sitting here so afraid of what will happen to you that you don’t care who suffers. You think this is easy for me? Just uprooting my life to take on Jacento? Because it’s not.

  “We’re pretty damn sure my dad has CTE. Do you know what that is? Do you even freaking have a clue what that is?”

  Issa shakes her head, a little wide eyed now that I’m yelling. I tell myself to calm down, to stop yelling, but I can’t. Not now that I’ve finally said those words out loud.

  “It stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And what it means is that he’s spent so many years getting hit in the head on the football field that his brain is Swiss cheese. It means that my dad—the man I used to look up to, the man who used to do anything for his family—barely remembers us most days. And those are the good days.

  “The not-so-good days are when he flies into a rage for no apparent reason. When he throws shit and breaks shit. When he hits me or—when I’m not around to stop him—my mom. When he drives the car into the side of the house. That’s what CTE is.

  “And it’s loving him anyway, even when I’m so angry I can barely breathe. Because the man who does those things isn’t my father. He doesn’t do them because he has anger issues or because he’s violent or because he wants to hurt us. He does them because he’s sick, and there’s not a damn thing I or my mother or any doctor on the freaking planet can do about it.

  “Every minute that I’m at school, I worry about my mother being in the house with him. Every second that I’m here I’m terrified he’s going to snap and hurt her, or my brother, who came home from college for Christmas break and said he’d take care of them but can’t deal with my father’s episodes or the fact that my mother and I still love him.

  “But how can we not? He has a disease that’s literally breaking his brain to pieces and killing him right in front of us. And if you think I don’t want to be home right now, trying to protect my mom, trying to keep my dad from driving his truck into a telephone pole, then you’re nuts.

  “Because hard as that is, I’d rather be there. At least I’d know what was going on. At least I’d have some kind of control. I wouldn’t be worried sick every minute of every day. Because I’d be there. No matter what happens, I would freaking be there to do whatever I could. Whatever I had to do.

  “And instead I’m here, beating my head against a wall because it’s the right thing to do. Because Jacento can’t be allowed to just get away with destroying any semblance of privacy we have left and doing whatever the hell they want to do to manipulate us. Because what the hell kind of world is that to live in? What kind of world is that for your brothers and sisters to grow up in?”

  I push off the sofa because I can’t sit still any longer. Any more than I can stand the pitying looks in all their eyes. Including Alika’s. Especially Alika’s.

  I walk over to the glass doorway that leads to the balcony that overlooks San Francisco and stare out the window as I try to get myself back under control. As I try to figure out how to face the others now that they know. As I try to figure out what to say to convince her—to convince all of them—that this is a fight we can’t give up.

  A fight we have to win.

  But the truth is, I’ve got nothing. Nothing but what I’ve already said.

  “But if we do this, if we go after Jacento again, what’s to keep them from going after our families this time?” I hear Issa ask. “What’s to keep them from sending someone to my door in San Antonio and killing my dad, my brothers and sisters? We don’t have security or any money to pay for protection. There’s nothing, Owen, and I can’t live with that.”

  I nod, because that I do get. The fiery throbbing in my arm is a reminder every second of just how much is at risk here. Just how much we all have to lose.

  Leaning forward, I rest my head against the cool glass and close my eyes. Count to ten. Try to figure out how to deal with failing. Again.

  “We all have families we’re worried about,” Seth starts, but Harper cuts him off.

  “I don’t.”

  “Okay, but you have a foster family, right?”

  “No. I haven’t had anybody since I was fourteen years old and hacked into social services to change my records to read that I’d been adopted.”

  “Wait. You’ve been alone since you were fourteen?” Alika repeats. “Like totally, completely alone in the world?”

  “Yep, totally, completely alone. It beats being in foster care with jerks who thought the money the state gave them to take care of me meant they could do whatever they wanted to me.” She stands up, walks over next to me, and stares at the city too. “It’s why I started hacking, to get myself out of that situation. I keep hacking now because it’s how I support myself while I finish high school, but that’s how it started.”

  She takes
a deep breath. “I’m with you, Owen. Whatever you think we should do, I’m in.”

  I shudder a little at the support, then wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her in for an awkward, one-armed hug that she only half returns. Because she’s come a long way in a few days, but she’s still Harper.

  “I’m in too,” Seth says, springing up from his spot on the floor. “I mean, I need to call my parents and tell them to be careful, but I’m in.” He walks over to where Harper and I are standing.

  But when I nod my thanks at him, he gives me the most ridiculous puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen. “Hey, don’t I get a hug too?”

  Harper cracks up and so do I, then we’re both pulling him in for a bear hug while the other three just kind of watch.

  “You get more than a hug,” she says, walking to the pastry basket that’s still sitting on the table near the door. “You get the only blueberry scone in the place, since I know how much you like them.”

  As she holds out the pastry, Seth’s face lights up almost as much as it did when she hugged him.

  We all watch as he devours the thing in three seconds flat. But once he’s done, the silence gets heavy again, until Ezra finally stretches his legs out in front of him and says, “My parents are on their way here to deal with the whole penthouse mess. They’ll be here tomorrow night, and I’ve been told very explicitly not to move from this spot under threat of losing everything I love about my life. But, hey, I haven’t done what they’ve wanted since I was fourteen. Why change now?”

  He stands up and walks toward us. “I’m in, but if you hug me, Seth—or get crumbs from that damn blueberry scone on me—I swear to God, I’m throwing you off the balcony.”

  Then he looks at Issa, like he’s just waiting for her to make the right choice. And I get it, because I’m standing here waiting for Alika to do the same thing.

  “I promise I’ll take care of your family, Issa,” Ezra says after several long seconds of the two of them just staring at each other, waiting. “Whether you do this with us or not, I’ll call up my dad’s security team right now, get someone over to your apartment in San Antonio within the hour to watch out for your baby sister and the rest of your family.” He glances from one of us to the next. “I can do that for all of you, if you’ll let me. It’s not much, but it’s one less thing for us to worry about if we’re going to do this.”