I sit up straight as the thought hits me. Oh my God. Yes. I could do that.
I look over at Yellow. She’s slouched down in the seat and has her head resting on the seat back. Her eyes are closed. My teeth find my bottom lip, and I decide to let her be. I still need to think things through. My head isn’t exactly clear right now.
The bus stops in front of the old corner store a quarter mile from Peel’s campus. My heart is still bouncing around in my stomach as we walk through the woods.
“I’m nervous,” I say. “I’m trying to hide it from you, but my hands are trembling; and do you see that tree over there? That’s where Abe kissed me for the first time ever. I’m about to walk into a fountain of memories, then add my dead dad to the mix, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll blow the whole thing.”
Yellow squeezes my shoulder, which makes me jump. She pulls her hand away. “Sorry,” she mutters. “But you’re not going to blow this. I think you’re like physically incapable of blowing anything.”
“Oh, so should I not tell you about what happened at that tree over there?” I point.
Yellow looks at me with shock.
“That was a joke!”
But she’s already grinning so hard that she can’t contain it, and then she collapses into a fit of giggles. I tuck my head down and laugh, too. Just a little at first, but then so hard that it hurts to breathe. It hits me that I’ve forgotten how good it feels to laugh. To completely let go. I look at Yellow and see a similar realization on her weary face. She’s really come through for me. I misjudged her big-time.
Peel comes into view. There’s a guard at the gate, and I pull Yellow out of view.
“Can’t we just slip the guard a twenty to get us in?” she asks. “It will pretty much wipe out the rest of our funds, but if it’s going to get us in, I’ll part with it.”
“Only if you want to pay twenty bucks for the pleasure of getting arrested. Come on, there’s a way in around back.” Or, rather, a way for students to sneak out, frolic in the forest, and buy beer at the corner store. It’s supposedly been there for years. I’m pretty sure the administration knows about it, but no Peel kids have ever gotten into serious trouble on any excursions, so they allow it.
There’s an eight-foot evergreen hedge that runs the entire perimeter of the campus and an iron gate on the other side, but I know where to go. Right to where there’s a small hole in the hedge and the iron bars are bent enough that most kids can fit through them.
I go first, and Yellow follows behind me. We’re way back in the corner of campus. Right in front of us is where the maze was set up on Testing Day. Well, will be set up. Many years from now.
We stick to the perimeter rather than cut across the wide, open field. There’s no one around, so I guess classes must still be in session. I look down at my watch. Nearly eleven thirty. Assuming they haven’t changed the schedule, we have about twenty minutes to kill until the lunch bell rings and everyone fills the quad on the way to the dining hall. Headmaster Vaughn will be among them. He always eats with students, sitting up there on his dais looking down at us. I think it was supposed to make us feel nervous. It did.
We reach the quad, and my heart lifts for just a moment before crashing into my toes. Peel looks the same. The exact same. A wall of ivy snakes up Archer Hall, the dorm where I spent two years and a couple months of my life. The looming oak trees are bare now but come summer will provide a canopy of shade. Sidewalks crisscross in perfect order. It’s almost as if I never left. I half expect the bell to ring and Abe to trot down the steps. We’ll eat lunch together and swap physics homework.
Stop.
I force Abe out of my mind. This isn’t a homecoming, it’s a mission. Maybe the most important mission ever in the history of Annum Guard.
The bell rings and echoes across campus. I stand up straight and look all around as kids wearing the same Peel uniform as mine pour onto the quad. My eyes dart from the science building to the math building, over to the humanities building. I look for Vaughn. Not my dad. I really don’t even know what my dad looks like. My only memories come from the two pictures at home and the one in Alpha’s file. No, I train my eyes on the administration building. Any second now Vaughn will come waltzing down the steps and walk toward the dining hall.
A lock of hair falls in my face, and I flick my neck to bat it away. And then—shit. I see my dad.
He’s coming out of the government building. He’s holding hands with a girl who is very clearly not my mom, and he’s smiling and laughing. My heart stops. Stops beating in my chest. Because there he is, clear as day. He has the same crooked nose as in the picture in his file. The same floppy haircut. But mostly I know it’s him because of my heart. The heart knows.
“Have you seen Vaughn yet?” Yellow whispers beside me, then she turns. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her head whip from me to my dad. “Iris. Is that your dad?”
I choke out a breath and nod.
“Iris.” Her voice is soft, sad.
My legs start walking. I don’t mean for them to. They just do. “I just . . . I have to . . .” I don’t finish the thought. I don’t know what the end of the thought is.
Yellow doesn’t follow. At least I don’t hear her behind me. I’m looking straight ahead, watching my dad run two fingers under his collar, unbutton his top button, and loosen his tie. He drops the girl’s hand, and she plants a kiss on his cheek and takes off for the dining hall. My dad watches her go.
I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s so young. He looks like he belongs here. A student. My body doesn’t know how to feel. My stomach is nervous, but my heart is lifted. I’m light-headed, but I’m thinking clearly. My legs are tingly, but my feet are strong.
My dad is right there, two feet away from me. A real, living human being. I clear my throat, and he turns around. His eyes grow wide with surprise, as if he can’t believe a nonstudent managed to break into one of the country’s most secure government training schools.
“Who are you?” he asks.
His voice. It’s different than it was at the Kennedy assassination. The day he died. His voice isn’t rushed or frantic. It’s as smooth as silk, yet warm and inviting.
“My name is . . .” Amanda. My name is Amanda. I’m your daughter. “Iris.”
“How’d you get in here, Iris?” He looks beyond me, toward the dining hall. I turn my head and peer over my shoulder. Most of the kids are filing inside, but there are a few stragglers, mostly guys, standing around watching us.
“I know about the hole in the hedge and the bent bars,” I say.
My dad makes this face that I only assume is his stern face. The stern face I never got a chance to see. But I can change that. I can change that right now by telling my dad what I know. So why am I hesitating?
“It’s not important,” I say.
My dad’s eyes flick over to the dining hall, then back at me. “Look, do you need me for something?”
I take a breath, ready to open my mouth and spill out everything. How I know that he is going to leave Peel and someday join Annum Guard. How Headmaster Vaughn is going to pay him to go on certain missions. How he’s going to die on one of them. How it is absolutely critical that my dad plays it straight and clean.
And then my dad’s face changes. He looks right into my eyes—the same shape and color as his own—and recognition dawns on his face. I see him struggling to put two and two together.
“Do I know you?” he asks.
I’m going to lose it. I’m not this strong. I want to leap into my father’s arms and have him hold me, to make up for all those scraped knees and wounded souls he wasn’t there for.
Yes! my mind screams. Yes, you know me! You made me. You left me. Please don’t leave me. My mother is sick, and I can’t take care of her. You’re the only one who can. She needs you. I need you.
But the words stay
firmly entrenched in my mind, never making it to my lips. Because deep down, this is wrong. It feels all wrong. I can try to pass off my motives as being for the good of the world, but they’re not. They’re purely selfish. I’m doing this because I want my dad back. I want to grow up with a father. And a mother who’s not sick. I want a normal life.
But no matter how much I may want and wish for that, I can’t have it.
“There’s been a mistake.” It comes out barely louder than a whisper. “You’re not who I’m looking for.”
But my dad doesn’t turn away. “I’m sorry, but you look really familiar. You sure I don’t know you?”
I’m about ten seconds away from losing it. “I—” My voice cracks. “I don’t know you.” I whip around and fly down the stairs toward Yellow, and there is the absence of everything. No sound. The scene before me goes fuzzy. I can’t even remember why I’m here.
Then a door slams, and I’m brought back.
“Julian!” my dad calls in a loud, happy voice.
“Hey, Mitch, who was that?” another male voice says from behind me.
“I don’t know,” my dad says. “Some girl named Iris.”
Yellow’s eyes get big, and I look over my shoulder. She gasps. I gasp. Because my dad is standing there talking to a teenage Alpha. An Alpha who apparently went to Peel. And an Alpha whose memories now include a weird teenage girl named Iris showing up at school one day with something important to say to my dad.
“Iris!” Yellow yells, and my head snaps to her.
I race toward her. “Project!” I yell. “Now! This is going to be an ambush!”
We don’t even get the chance to pull out the watches.
POP!
POP!
POP!
“No!” Yellow screams. We bump into each other as we run. Run away from Orange and Green and Violet.
POP!
POP!
POP!
Three more forms appear in front of us. Blue. Indigo. And who’s that? A male form is crouched on the ground, his hands over his ears and his head ducked. It’s someone new? They added a new member? And then I stop running.
I know who it is. My heart leaps up into the clouds and dances on air because I didn’t destroy his future. He’s here. Alive. But then it falls crashing back to earth because now I know they’ve got him.
Before I can make a move, we’re surrounded.
Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!
Six gun barrels being locked. Not tasers. Not paintball guns. Real guns.
“Oh, what, you’re going to shoot us?” Yellow screams as she throws her hands in the air. “You’re all being lied to! Every one of you!”
I’m looking at Orange, but I pivot around on my heel to find Abe. His eyes are waiting for mine; and the moment they meet, he lowers his weapon, and my heart soars.
“Abe!” My feet leap forward, and before I know it, I’m running to him.
Abe raises the gun again. “Iris, stop!”
I skid to a halt. He called me Iris. And his eyes are distant. As if they see through me, not at me. Alpha’s got him. I blow out a breath, blow out my shock. Somehow Alpha got to Abe. Did he threaten him? With what?
“Abe, talk to me! Say something!”
He doesn’t look at me. He’s still looking through me.
“Abraham!” I yell. “I know you. I know about Ariel.”
I start toward him again, but he raises the gun higher with his right hand, so I stop.
“I didn’t,” he says in barely more than a whisper. There’s hurt and bitterness emanating from those two simple, hushed words, and my heart aches. I want to hold him, kiss him, tell him that we’ll figure it out together. But then Abe’s face changes. It contorts into anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know either!” I yell. “Abe, why are you here?” I hold up my hands and take short, easy steps toward him.
“Iris, what are you doing?” Yellow shouts. “You’re going to blow this.”
I turn around. Yellow’s panting and sweating and staring at me with big, scared eyes. She runs toward me, and then a million little things happen at once, and I don’t know how to process it all. Yellow opens her watch face as she runs. She turns the dials. Orange leaps at her. Everyone else runs. Green grabs my arm and yanks it back. But then.
But then.
A deafening blast fills the air. A gunshot. Just one.
And a scream.
“Yellow!” I shout. Green lets go of my arm and gasps. There’s chaos. Everywhere. I can disappear now. I can close the watch face lid and disappear.
Except Yellow is lying on the ground, bleeding from her abdomen, and my boyfriend is standing there watching it all.
I’m not going anywhere.
Indigo pushes past me. “Oh my God!” He drops to her side. “Elizabeth! Oh my God! No! Who did this?”
For a second we all forget that we’re no longer allies. We glance around. And all our eyes lock on Blue—on Tyler Fertig—who still has the gun raised and both hands gripping the handle.
But then he drops his hands. Only for a second. He lifts his right again and brings the gun to his temple.
“No!” I shout. I don’t think. I leap at him and pull the gun down and away before he can do it. But he squeezes the trigger as we fall, and another shot rings out over the trees.
Blue and I thud to the ground. He looks at me, and I look at him, and then his head ducks into his chin and rises and falls as he lets it out. All of it. His failed hopes of escaping his fate. His mother. I reach and touch his shoulder, but he bats my hand away and sinks lower into the ground as if he’s willing it to open up and swallow him whole.
“Elizabeth!” Indigo screams again. “We need to help her.”
No one moves. “The mission was to kill or capture,” Orange says. His voice is empty, methodical. What the hell did Alpha do to everyone?
“She’s my sister,” Indigo yells. “Our teammate. She needs help!”
Two shots have gone off on Peel’s campus now, and the doors to the dining hall swing open. Teachers run out first, but students are right behind. I don’t try to look for my dad.
Chaos erupts again. I jump up and back as Violet scrambles toward Blue and everyone else rushes to Yellow. Abe doesn’t move. His eyes lock on mine.
“Back to the present!” Orange yells. “Everyone!”
But I’ve already set my watch. And I have no intention of going back to the present. I know what I have to do. I doubt anyone is manning the trackers back at Annum Hall right now. I take a running start and slam my watch face shut. But as I do, I jump at Abe and grab his wrist.
And then the two of us are torn through space and time, and I’m taking the pain for both of us. High-pitched shrieking invades my ears and burns my head. I scream as I’m shot up. All of my weight pushes to my heart. The pressure. I can’t take the—
I land on the ground in a heap. I’m shaking and crying, and I think I might be dead.
“What the hell?” Abe yells. “How did I get here?”
I open my eyes and make myself breathe.
“You brought me here?” There’s astonished awe in his voice as he whips around, looking everywhere. “How did you do that?”
I push up and suck in my breath. This isn’t the present. This is the date I set on my watch. There’s a rickety wooden tower in the corner of campus, overlooking a plywood maze that was slapped together just last night. I can’t see it, but I know there’s a dropping device set up over the pool. And inside the government building there’s a fake detention room with a faulty sprinkler system.
“This is Testing Day,” Abe says. “You brought me to our Testing Day.”
“I know.” I stare at the gun still in his hand.
“My watch is set to present day.”
“Abe, I brought you with me for a reason.”
“My name isn’t Abe anymore, Iris.” He emphasizes the last word, making his point.
“My name is Amanda,” I spit. “Look around. My name is Amanda. Your name is Abe. Right now, you and I are lying with our arms wrapped around each other in a corner of the dining hall. I’m telling you that I have an awful, sinking feeling about tonight. You’re telling me not to sweat it. But I’m freaking out because deep down I know that this might be the last time I lie in your arms for a while. Maybe even forever. Because I know. I know. I’m being drafted tonight.”
Abe doesn’t say anything. He looks straight ahead, and in this moment he’s a stranger to me.
“Abe, talk to me. Tell me why you’re here.”
He keeps his head trained on the maze, but his mouth opens.
“To get you back.”
“Why? Why you? Why are you here, Abe? Why aren’t you—” I wave my hand in the direction of the dorms—“there? Sleeping. Right now in the present.”
“They took me.” He wrings his hands in front of his body. “They showed up at Peel and took me. They told me you were committing treason and were hatching a plan to bring down the entire government. They knocked me out, then told me a bunch of crap about how my grandfather—Ariel—could time travel, which meant my dad could do it, which means I can do it, too, and then they threw me back here and told me to go get you.”
I shake my head. No. There’s more. There has to be more. “Have you talked to Ariel?”
“I haven’t seen anyone! I haven’t talked to anyone! I just have to bring you back. I have to bring you back, Iris. I have to.”
I think Abe might cry. His voice is shaking, and his hands are trembling. What did they do to him?
“My name is Amanda,” I tell him. “Stop calling me Iris.”
“Please, it makes it easier.” He squeezes his eyes shut for one brief second, but it’s enough to tell me that he’s completely lost focus.
The Eighth Guardian (Annum Guard) Page 28