by W. J. May
“In that case,” Beth patted the girl encouragingly on the back, “let’s get started.”
Watching Ellie work was like watching a brain trust in action. She flipped through the pages only once, and never touched them again having already memorized every word and its location. After that, she leaned back in her chair and stared out the window while her tatù took effect. Her tiny brow crinkled in concentration as her fingers started drumming rhythmically on the desk.
“It’s written in Phoenician…” she murmured appreciatively. “An old sea-faring culture that flourished about twenty-five hundred BC.” She glanced up at Beth curiously. “You did this?”
Rae and Devon whirled around, but Beth was blushing furiously at the ground. “Jenn and I stumbled across them in an old book. Figured it was a dead language and it would be safe…”
Ellie nodded as her eyes glazed over once more. “But the other girl twisted it…” All at once, she slammed her hand down on the desk, making the other three jump. “Of course! She’s using a running key cipher!”
Her revelation was met with three blank stares and it was her turn to blush.
“Ellie,” Rae began gently, “remember what we said about things like dead languages and ancient cryptography not being common knowledge…?”
Ellie hung her head. “I know, I know.” She popped back up with a grin. “A running key cipher is a simple code based on a book. A phrase from the book helps decode a phrase from the page. It’s all right here in her notes. The only problem is, we don’t know what book she used.”
Rae’s heart fell. That was it, wasn’t it? Jennifer could have used any book to set the cipher. There was no way of knowing which—
“Slaughterhouse Five. By Kurt Vonnegut.”
All heads turned to Beth.
Her mouth had thinned into a hard line, but she twisted it up into a smile. “Simon gave that book to Jennifer for Christmas the year before the fire. She loved it. Never put it down.”
Devon leaned over to Rae. “Remind me never to get you books for Christmas. Nothing good can come from them.”
Rae poked him in the ribs and turned back to her mom. “Well…that’s kind of perfect. There has to be a copy in the library. Devon and I can run over and—”
“Don’t worry,” Ellie was scribbling on a piece of computer paper, “I already read it.”
They watched her work for a moment, hand flying across the page, before she abruptly threw down the pencil. Without even glancing down to see what she’d done, she proudly handed it over.
“There you are!” she declared. “All finished.” She hopped up from the desk and skipped across the room to the door. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a chemistry test to study for.” She reached for the door and quickly spun around. “Wait!” She bounded back to the table and grabbed Rae’s hand. “Why don’t you try and see if you can figure it out?” She let out a silly laugh and jogged back to the half-open door and left.
Beth, Rae, and Devon watched her little ponytail bouncing away until it disappeared down over the path hill. When it had, Beth turned back to them with a slow smile.
“You guys are going to have your hands full with that one! I don’t think she has any idea yet of what she’s capable of.”
Rae stared at her hand and wiggled her fingers as the new tatù flowed through her body. “It’s tingling,” she mumbled. “I’ve had Kraigan’s ability. It was a cross tatù, like mine, but this… this is different.”
“Good or bad?” Devon asked, the concern on his face clearly apparent.
“Not sure yet.” Rae took the page and scanned on through. “Okay, it’s not helping me here. There’s just a lot of…um, gibberish?”
“You’re okay? Not mangled from tatù overload?”
She shook her head and laughed. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Really? ‘Cause I have no idea.”
“I’m fine. It’s just unique. Apparently, I need some time to try and figure it out. It’s a lot more complex than most tatùs.”
“Gotchya.” Devon grabbed the written book and took over. “It’s not gibberish, just…pretty generic stuff. Genealogies of people in the area where Beth’s missions took place. Family trees and blood lines. Why would Jennifer need this stuff?”
“Not Jennifer—Cromfield,” Beth corrected, taking the page. “There’s also what looks like a list of ingredients.” She scanned down the paper. “Ethanol, midazolam, sodium pentothal…all to be mixed with a compound X. What the hell is this stuff? It looks like some sort of serum?”
“There’s something else here, look.” Rae pointed down at the page. “Meet SSC.” She looked up at the other two. “Who is SSC?”
Devon shook his head blankly while Beth frowned at the page. “I have no idea…”
“Rae!” A sudden voice in her head made her jump. The other two stared at her in surprise.
“Everything okay?” Devon asked, a single eyebrow raised.
Rae slapped her forehead in frustration. Coming Maria! “I totally forgot,” she hissed. “Study group.”
Beth looked at her like she was crazy. Devon scratched at the scruff growing along his jawline. “Maria?”
She nodded.
“Is she here?” Beth stuffed the page quickly into her jacket. “Don’t worry about this right now, honey. Focus on your finals—we need you to graduate. Devon and I can handle this.”
Rae chuckled. “Maria’s in my head. She can talk by brain messaging basically.”
“Oh!” her mom replied.
Devon offered Beth his arm. “How about we let Rae go and study, then you and I can hit the library?” He winked at Rae and pretended to blow kisses her way.
Beth accepted Devon’s arm with a smile. “Lead the way.”
Rae opened her mouth to protest, but knew she couldn’t. She switched to Devon’s tatù and raced out the door, past them, to her room in Aumbry. She ran past a group of students heading in the same direction and then caught up with Maria just as she was about to knock on Rae’s door.
Rae quickly unlocked the door and just as she went to close it behind Maria, seven teenagers burst into her room and instantly made themselves at home, spreading out a small sea of study notes and books.
Great, she thought as she settled down beside them. Just great.
* * *
What had been weeks before finals turned into mere days, and the study sessions grew more frequent and longer. Even with MacGyver’s notes on the previous tests, there was still an incomprehensible amount of work to do, and the study group soon moved to the library so they could spread out.
Rae desperately wished she could figure out Ellie’s tatù and save herself all the trouble, but as it turned out, the hybrid ink was much more convoluted and complex than a single ability. Ellie had a month’s head-start practice, but Rae figured she needed some time if she wanted to figure it out. So, in the meanwhile, she studied. And studied and studied. During the increasingly sparse breaks she allowed herself to take, she would have training sessions with Ellie (where she consistently coaxed her to tell her parents) or help her mom and Devon try to track down SSC. But for the most part, she lived chained to the library.
It was almost midnight and she was coming back from one of these study sessions, when she heard the muffled shouts of angry voices followed by the hard slamming of a door. She didn’t have time to switch tatùs to try and listen. A chill ran up her spine and she froze in place, hovering tentatively in the shadows. Since she’d been at Guilder she knew better than to ignore these kinds of things.
Don’t worry Rae, she told herself. Whatever it is—you’ll handle it.
A pair of footsteps thundered towards her and she raised her hands, bracing herself for whatever new trouble was brewing. She managed to suck in her breath and stay silent when Devon stormed past her in a rage, heading out to the parking lot to his car.
“Devon?” She stepped out of the shadows, surprised that he hadn’t noticed her hiding. He wasn’t the
kind of agent that missed things like that. Unless he was too angry to focus around him.
He whirled around. “What?!”
“What on earth are you…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the look on his face. Over the past years she’d seen Devon tortured, beaten, betrayed, exsanguinated… You name it—she’d seen it. But this…this was unlike anything before.
He looked completely gutted, staring at her with lost, haunted eyes.
Her face paled and she raced to him. “What the hell happened?!”
He visibly fought to contain himself, and tried to play it off with a casual shrug. “Oh, you know… Just having a little talk with my dad.” His face hardened and became unreadable.
Rae glared in the direction of the headmaster’s office. Of course! She should have known better. “Come on,” she wound a protective hand through his and pulled him behind her, “let’s get you inside.”
Ten minutes later, Devon had yet to crack. Rae had tried every way she knew how to get him to tell her what had happened, but in addition to being a highly trained operative, he was also one of the most stubborn people she’d ever met. Fortunately for her, he was dating the only person more tenacious than himself. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on,” she said as she huffed in exasperation, “I’ll use Carter’s power on you. And then we’ll have this big fight about boundary issues, and even though I was technically in the wrong, I’ll start to cry, and then you’ll feel really, really bad about upsetting me.” She’d rather go to his stupid-ass father and get the truth from him. Maybe toss in a Molly electric-shock by mistake too.
Devon looked up with a start, and for the first time all night, a faint smile played around his lips. Then the smile disappeared and he straightened up with a sigh. “He says that he knows all about our relationship, and not only does he not condone it, but he’ll do everything in his power to shut it down. No matter how strongly I feel about you.” Devon’s voice had gone supernaturally soft and he kept his eyes fixed on the carpet as he continued on in a dull monotone.
“He wouldn’t!” Rae couldn’t believe it. “Can’t he see that you’re happy? Like really, truly happy?”
“He says despite everything I’ve done in school and for the PC, he’s not remotely proud anymore. He says I’ve disgraced the family.” He gave a brittle laugh. “In fact, he wants to flat-out disown me. Only the dickhead can’t come up with a plausible reason since my mother doesn’t know anything about tatùs or the rules that govern us.”
Rae felt like her heart was breaking. As much as she loved Devon, this was never what she wanted, to put him at odds with his family, to turn his entire life upside-down. She would move heaven and earth to be with him, but not if that came at the price of his well-being. More than anything, his happiness was the thing she wanted most in this world.
“Devon,” she cleared her throat softly as her voice broke, “maybe we should—”
“No,” he cut her off firmly. “I know exactly what you’re going to say, and it’s never going to happen. I’m committed to this. To you.”
“But if it’s going to tear apart—”
“You know I’m off probation?” he asked suddenly.
“What?” Rae frowned in shock, thrown off her game. “You, but not me?”
Devon shook his head with a flat grin. “They probably just don’t want you to fail your finals. But yeah, as of last week, they said I was ready to go back into the field.”
A sudden weight in Rae’s stomach seemed to anchor her to the bed. Of course he was. It was going to be exactly like last time. Him always gone, her never knowing where he was, if he was even all right. “So,” she tried not to sound as glum as she felt, “when’re you leaving?”
“I’m not.”
“What?” Rae shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I told them no,” he said simply. “I refuse to go into the field without you.”
“But you can work with Julian! He’s fully capable—”
“We both know he’s not right now,” he cut her off. “But that’s not the point. I’m taking a leave of absence until you’re ready to go back out with me.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “Don’t you see, Rae? I’m making this my top priority, what we’re doing right here. I never want you to doubt my priorities again. I want to have a life with you. Not a long distance relationship. A life.”
Her eyes welled up with tears and he pulled her against his chest, chuckling. “See, I’ve made you cry anyway. I should just stop trying to avoid it.”
She giggled and looked up at him with a watery smile. “I want to have a life with you too. I keep thinking about how much easier everything’s going to be once I graduate. When we’re both living in the city.”
Devon’s dimples flashed with his smile. “No more sneaking around. No more curfews. I can stay the night without having to worry someone will see…”
Rae’s eyebrows shot up and she leaned back suggestively atop her bed. “Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, Devon. If you don’t mind sneaking out…you can always stay over tonight…”
“Is that so?”
He leaned over her and lowered his lips down to her neck. “Why Miss Kerrigan, are you trying to seduce me?”
She shrugged coyly. “Actually, no. Sometimes it just seems to happen on its own.”
He chuckled and began trailing feather light kisses up and down her jaw. “Can’t argue with that. You sure you don’t need to study?”
She laughed breathlessly. “Are you serious right now? It’s after midnight!”
He smiled against her skin. “What can I say? I want you to be responsible.” He slipped off his shirt and began fiddling with the fabric on hers, inching it higher and higher. “I don’t want to distract you…” he teased.
Her eyes closed and she pressed her head back into the pillow. “Devon?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Stop talking.”
Before sunrise Devon snuck out her window, waving at her as he dropped soundlessly to the ground below. She watched him race across the grass and wondered why his father hated her so much. Had she not proven to him time and time again that she was not her father?
Unable to sleep, Rae dressed and made her regular trek to the library. She pushed open the heavy double doors, expecting to find everyone crunching for finals, which were just two days away, but instead, everyone was gathered around the main table, staring down at something in the center.
“What’s going on?” Rae asked, worming her way to the front.
Rob flashed her a grin. “Just a little well-deserved R&R.”
She gazed down at the table only to see a hundred pictures of her and her friends staring back up at her. It was an extensive collection of their time at Guilder; from photographs, to movie stubs, even to a few wrinkled first-year predictions as to what their tatùs would be.
“Whoa Maria,” Andy said with a grin, “you look so much younger!”
Maria set down a crumbled diner receipt and grinned. “I do? Look at you! You’re like a little baby! Look at those curls!”
Molly turned to Rae with a bright smile. “Do you remember when this was taken?” She held up a picture of her and Rae standing next to Riley’s car. He had just gotten it and was being rather insufferable about the whole thing. While Molly was smiling politely, Rae looked like she’d been dragged into the picture by her fingernails.
“Oh wow!” She laughed. “Yeah I do!” She shook her head with a grin. “I was so happy when he graduated.”
“I wasn’t,” Haley said suddenly.
The people around the table looked up with a start and Molly’s jaw dropped. “You mean, you actually liked…”
Haley shrugged with an uncharacteristically playful grin. “He was hot. So, kill me.”
The group erupted in laughter, and for the next couple hours, the textbooks were put away and they spent the time happily reminiscing about the last few years. When they finished discussing the past, the
y turned their talks to the future. Rae was right. Most all of them had gotten some sort of ‘tatù government’ job and were staying in the area. Actually, most all of them were living within a ten-minute radius of her and Molly’s new apartment.
After, Rae and Molly walked slowly back across the grass, reveling in the nostalgia. Despite whatever madness Guilder had thrown their way, it had still been home for the last few years. No matter which way you looked at it, no matter the sometimes-questionable cost, their lives had most definitely changed for the better.
There was one thing that bothered Rae. Nothing horrible, just a weird little feeling that started tugging away at her stomach. Everyone in the pictures looked so much younger than they did now—Molly, Haley, Andy, Nic… None of them looked at all like how they did today.
None of them except Rae.
She’d looked at a dozen pictures. Held them up for comparison a dozen times. There was no denying it. She looked exactly the same now as when she started at Guilder. A little tougher, perhaps. A little more confident and mature. But physically…exactly the same.
She broke off from Molly with a wave and decided to head to Devon’s room at Joist Hall to ask him if he’d ever noticed it as well. But her thoughts were instantly derailed the second she got upstairs. There was a huge wooden X where Devon’s door was supposed to be. And when she peered inside, the room was completely empty.
“What the?” She turned in surprise as Devon and Julian joined her on the landing, both staring at the room in identical shock.
Devon’s mouth fell open in bewilderment and he took a step forward. “Did you…did you do this?” he asked Rae.
She shook her head.
“Is this a prank?” he asked Julian.
Rae swallowed, Ellie’s tatù giving her an indication of what had happened. She pushed the thought away, not believing it was right. She just had the thought, it wasn’t tatù driven. “I just got here a second ago from the library. I was about to call you—”
“Well, clearly there’s no need.”
The three teenagers looked up to see the Dean walking slowly towards them.