Harbinger

by Sara Etienne

  Kel started again in a low whisper. “Faye, what happened back there?”

  “Maybe it was just the adrenaline.” I shrugged, not meeting his eyes.

  “Yeah. Maybe.” But he didn’t believe it either. He reached out, and before he touched me, I knew exactly what his hand would feel like. The whorls of his fingerprints reeling across my skin. Elation edged with pain. His eyes pinning me down. Making me his own.

  But I didn’t want to be his. I wanted to run through the dark. I wanted the hot breath of night against my skin. I wanted to be touched, but not eclipsed.

  I tugged my sleeve out of his grip and pushed off the branch. Leaping the rest of the way to the ground.

  “Missed me, missed me,” I called in a singsong voice.

  Now you gotta kiss me.

  Kel looked down and I held his shadowed gaze. I loved being able to read the thoughts flickering across his face. A crease of frustration here, a lifted eyebrow of amusement there. Finally settling into that slow smile that tingled warm, up and down my body. His eyes glimmered with my challenge, then suddenly flared with danger.

  I swung around, looking for the threat. And there on the front porch of the Compass Rose was Freddy, with Dragon right on his heels.

  I froze in the shadow of the big tree, but Freddy had already spotted me.

  “You there. Stay put!”

  Before I could move, before Freddy was able to pound down the stairs or bark orders into his radio, Kel jumped down too. But unlike me, he stayed hidden, pulling me back behind the tree with him.

  Kel flashed me a smile. “Last one back’s a rotten egg.”

  Then with a battle cry, Kel bolted into the spotlights and across the lawn. Alarms shrieked as he sprinted off into the forest.

  Dragon and Freddy were after him before Kel made it to the trees. In the dark, they hadn’t realized there were two of us. Stunned, I wasted another second watching them all disappear into the woods.

  Then I took off too. Racing up the path to the dorms. I wish I had a river so long. I would teach my feet to fly.

  The other Takers were already running toward the Compass Rose’s wailing siren. I dodged through the trees, avoiding their streaking flashlights and thundering boots. Refusing to think about Kel getting caught. Or the drawer full of files detailing my dysfunctional childhood. Or Dr. Mordoch, itching to send me to Solitary again.

  I just pulled spruce-scented air in and out of my lungs. Listened to the drumbeat of my feet against the dirt. My heart singing with the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

  When I reached the courtyard, it was abandoned. I used a branch to pull down the bottom part of the ladder and started climbing, pulling the lower section up behind me. Then I hesitated. If Kel was being chased, would he have time to pull it down? Had he used this ladder too?

  Then I remembered what I’d seen out the window that morning. A blur of green streaking across the rooftop. It’d been Kel. It made sense that there’d be a ladder on the boys’ side too.

  Climbing higher, I looked for Kel. There was no sign of him yet, but I swore I felt him getting closer. I shimmied through my window and into bed. Lying there in the dark, I counted the seconds, wondering how much time Kel had to get to his room.

  He’ll make it. He has to.

  One hundred and ninety-three seconds later, the overhead lights snapped on. Was it enough?

  Maya groaned, “No fucking way it’s morning.”

  I remembered my boots and hurried to pull them off. Shoving them under the bed, I tried to sound sleepy. “Is that an alarm somewhere?”

  Footsteps clacked down the hallway, locks clicking one by one as Nurse did a bed check.

  “Sit up. I want to see faces and movement,” Nurse barked when it was our turn. We obeyed wordlessly and she was gone.

  Fifteen minutes later, the lights flicked off again. But I couldn’t sleep. His name looped over and over again in my head. Kel.

  Kel. Kel. Kel.

  Yesterday, I’d been overwhelmed by unexplained drawings and secret symbols and crazy visions. But now they were just clues pointing the way. And I didn’t have to find the path alone. Together, Kel and I would follow it to the end.

  Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. Even now, I could still hear his heartbeat. Somewhere out there in the night. Shunning sleep, I let it sing me through the dark hours of the morning.

  17

  I WAS STILL AWAKE when the lights came on. The speaker crackled into life. Nurse ordered us out of bed.

  And this morning, I was actually in bed. And so was Maya.

  No waking up on the floor. No red hands. No strange drawings.

  “Was it because of the alarm that went off?” Maya asked from the open bathroom. “Or do you think one of us managed to stay awake and stop whatever it was from happening?”

  I stayed awake. Me and Kel. It didn’t happen because of us.

  Last night came back in a rush. Standing in the dark with Kel. And I was on my feet, ready to get through the lines and the showers. Ready to get down to breakfast. Ready to see Kel again. My whole body buzzed with the question.

  Did he make it back?

  Maya’s question had been curious instead of suspicious. Her voice easy and relaxed. After all, I’d promised her the truth. But I had so few things that were private here at Holbrook. So few things that were mine. I didn’t know if Kel was in trouble. I had no idea how today would turn out. But what I did have was last night. And I wasn’t giving it up.

  So I aimed my smile at her and settled on a smaller truth. One that I hoped wouldn’t inspire any more questions. “I bet someone made it through the night.”

  Except for the lack of red hands and strange pictures, the morning was the same as the rest. People ran out of hot water in the showers. A shoving match started over underwear. The Takers insulted us as we marched down the path toward the Compass Rose.

  But I was different. Wide awake, like I’d been swigging espresso. The ocean shimmered in the humid morning, the rhythm of the waves calling to me. And today I wanted to answer them. Today I could handle whatever mystery was lurking under their glittering surface.

  The path curved, and the Compass Rose waited imperiously for me at the bottom of the hill. The question I hadn’t had a chance to ask the night before finally demanded my attention. Why have a hallway that doesn’t go anywhere?

  In my head, I laid out the floor plan of the Compass Rose, drawing the building from the outside in. I mentally sketched the hallways outside of Dr. Mordoch’s office and Rita’s path through the house. Yes. There should’ve been more building there. If I was right, and I was pretty sure I was, the turret on the corner was exactly where the hallway had dead-ended.

  Kel grinned at me from the breakfast table. A cocky smile that let me know he’d gotten back to his room undetected. I should’ve had a million questions about how and why and what-was-happening. I should’ve been freaked out. But my mind was too full of imagining us alone together again. The warmth of his hands brushing against my skin. His lips closing the distance between us. And I just grinned back.

  Damion and Zach must have thought we were just happy that our fingers weren’t stained red again. They both displayed their clean hands and the same question showed clearly in each of their eyes: “Is it over?”

  The question echoed in Kel’s eyes too. But while Damion’s tone was skeptical and Zach’s hopeful, Kel was disappointed.

  I answered him with a little head shake. After what I’d found in Dr. Mordoch’s files the night before, I knew that our red hands were just the tip of the iceberg. Thinking about my red crayon picture and the trail of arrows grouted into the sitting room floor, my heart pounded out an impatient beat.

  Kel nodded back to me, the green of his eyes catching my eagerness. As we sat down, Nami and Maya and I silently answered the guys’ question. Copying their gesture. Showing them our unstained hands. The tension at the table eased, and despite the bland, gluey texture, everyone ate their oatmeal with gusto.
r />   Dr. Mordoch still presided over us from the main table, but after the late-night disturbance, she and her kingdom looked diminished. Empty chairs were scattered throughout the room, and it was even quieter than usual, if that was possible. As if the students were waiting to see what would happen next. No one else knew who’d set off the alarm, but they knew that someone had sneaked out of the dorms. Someone had found a way.

  Across the table Kel, back in his gloves and hoodie, fiddled with his spoon. His whole body was tense with the same quiet expectation. But the whites of his eyes were tinged with red, his brown cheeks flushed. Exhaustion peeking through.

  What did it cost him to make it back before the room check?

  Kel rubbed at his spoon, and then, for some reason, stuck it on his nose. He looked up at me with a triumphant smile, totally incongruous in the grim setting, the plastic spoon dangling from his crooked nose. Then it slipped off, and he snatched it dramatically out of midair with his other hand. A muffled snort came from Maya. She shot a look at Damion, waiting to be reprimanded. But even he managed to smile this morning.

  Kel bowed as grandly as he could without drawing attention. I mimed a tiny round of applause.

  I’d been alone for so long, isolated and ignored, that it seemed impossible to be sitting here with Kel, playing around. How much could I tell him? How much would he accept before he turned away too?

  Can I tell him about the pictures on the floor? About my vision of Dr. Mordoch? The bonfire on the first night?

  I didn’t know. My eyes drifted around the table, taking in this new Family of mine.

  It all depends what you’re willing to risk, Faye.

  But even if I’d wanted to tell him, there was no time. We were shuttled straight to Socialization with dear, sadistic Auntie.

  “You are unbelievably lucky to be at Holbrook.” Aunt smiled condescendingly. “In the news this morning, every story was about this heat wave that’s hit the country. In New York City, the solar arrays have overheated, and without power, hundreds of people are dying from heatstroke. In California, fires have already wiped out twelve Cooperatives and one wind farm. In Indiana, millions of acres of crops have been lost. And you’re here, fed, clothed, and sheltered, given the time to concentrate on getting well. It’s more than you deserve, so let’s not waste another class.”

  I could think of a couple things she deserved, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Aunt tapped a manila envelope against her hand. “In the outside world, each of you wears a specially tailored costume. At Holbrook, we’ve stripped you of this crutch. But even in your uniforms, you’re still presenting a facade to the world, by the way you sit”—Aunt looked at Damion, who was stick-straight, chin up, eyes ahead—“the way you wear your hair”—she nodded at Nami’s narrow strip of blue hair sadly flopped to one side and Kel’s falling across his eyes—“or even by your lack of engagement with the world.” Aunt looked at me without ever meeting my eyes.

  “Today we’ll be verbally acknowledging these disguises. For this exercise, we’ll be working in pairs.”

  My eyes darted over to Kel. He was already looking at me and I was back in the office again. His hand in mine. You don’t have to do it alone.

  But Aunt cleared her throat and went on with a conniving smile. “I’ve already chosen your partners, so no need to worry about that. Simply concern yourself with making today’s lesson better than the last one. For your own sakes.”

  Kel and Damion were paired together. Nami was with Maya. And I was partnered with Zach. Aunt was smarter than she looked.

  “Take a look at these pictures.” Aunt pulled xeroxed pages out of the envelope. Each one had a badly printed black-and-white photograph on it. Like a Wanted poster.

  Aunt handed me a picture of Zach. He was wearing his backward-Superman shirt and frowning in the general direction of the camera.

  Zach’s paper had a picture of me. My face was expressionless and I was in the brown T-shirt I’d worn to Holbrook. I had a fork in my hand.

  Spiders creepy-crawled up my back. These were pictures from dinner the first night. Someone had been taking pictures of us.

  “Now,” Aunt instructed, “think about the person you see in this photograph. Do they look hostile? Closed off?”

  Aunt pulled out a copy of Nami’s picture. “Take this one, for instance.” Nami was standing in the courtyard. She had smears of mascara around her eyes from the pepper-spray incident and her Mohawk stood up at an awkward angle. But still she gave the camera an in-your-face grin. Her right hand was a blur in front of her chest, as if she’d flipped off the camera at the last second. I loved it.

  Aunt was not so fond. “This girl is clearly trying hard to look different. Special. She has to dye her hair, act sassy, flaunt her curves, because in the deepest pit of her stomach, she’s afraid that she’s forgettable. That no one will ever truly love her. That she will never do anything great.”

  Nami’s face went blank and I saw the fear mirrored in her eyes. Next to her, Maya must have seen it too. She shifted positions, her foot “accidentally” kicking Nami in the shin. Surprised, Nami looked up and Maya gave her the slightest smile. Nami blinked and shook herself, like a dog after a bath.

  All of this happened in seconds, and Aunt was too busy acting superior to notice. By the time she looked back, Nami’s screw-you smile was back in place. “Now you try it. Remember, you aren’t talking about your partner. You’re merely unraveling their costume.”

  Zach and I sat in silence, waiting for one of us to start. Aunt eyed us from across the room, and I broke the stalemate.

  “Well . . .” I studied the photo, trying to concentrate. Zach looked small and off-balance in the picture, like he was about to collapse in on himself. “. . . the person here seems—”

  I stopped. Zach didn’t deserve to be talked about in the third person. I tried again, dropping the game. “You look quiet here. Reserved. Like you’re holding yourself back.”

  He looked at me, surprised.

  I tapped the picture, pointing at Zach’s T-shirt. “And I’m guessing you like comic books.”

  Zach’s anxiety transformed into a sheepish grin, and his eyes came alive. It made him look like a totally different person from the guy in the photo.

  “It’s geeky, right?” Zach nodded to himself, still uncertain. “But I really wanna draw them someday. And write them.”

  Evidently, we were more alike than I thought. “Me too. I mean, not comic books. But art stuff.”

  The last trace of terror slipped off Zach’s face. “I liked your painting yesterday. Sorry he was such a dick about it. How . . .”

  Zach hesitated, checking that Aunt was out of earshot. “How did you do that? Without sketching it out first? Mine was an exercise in chaos.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me sound crazy or stuck-up. But it didn’t matter, because Zach rushed on.

  “Your picture, the way you painted those stars, they made me think of these dreams I’ve been having. They’re crazy intense, like the ones I get when I sneak my mom’s OxyContin. I’m walking outside and there’s this music playing in the background . . . and it’s pulling me toward it, like I’m a zombie or something.

  “But I don’t try and fight it, instead I keep looking up at those stars. And I can feel them, you know? It sounds crazy, but I can actually feel their radiation from all those light-years away and it makes me—” Zach’s voice cut off and he looked up and away, like he was hunting for just the right words. Then, in a hushed voice, he said, “Well, when I look up at them, I don’t feel too awake like I normally do. Or anesthetized like with the drugs. The only way I can describe it is, they make me feel solid.”

  I could see a new confidence in his face as he talked, and I wanted to ask him more about the strange music he’d mentioned. Maybe we’re all hearing it. Maybe I’m really not alone in this.

  As Zach waited for me to respond, his confidence slid away. He seemed unsure again, wanti
ng my approval. “She doesn’t really need them, you know. My mom, I mean. She doesn’t need the OxyContin and all that other crap. And sometimes the world just gets too noisy for me and I can’t filter it all out. But I wouldn’t take them if she was actually in pain. Nah . . . She’s just on another planet entirely.”

  Zach’s face twisted into a grimace as he blurted out the next part. “She just let them take me, you know . . . She just let the Cooperative send me off to Holbrook for ‘rehab.’ My druggie-of-a-mother signed the papers without even reading them. How fucked up is that?”

  An awkward pause sat between us while I tried to think of anything that might sound supportive. I was relieved when Aunt interrupted.

  “Time to switch!”

  Zach also looked happy to change the subject. He studied my picture, then looked up at me. Then at the paper again, looking a little unnerved. I braced myself for whatever was coming. “You kinda seem—”

  A loud siren cut Zach off. I clapped my hands to my ears. Aunt’s mouth moved but I couldn’t hear anything over the shrieking wail. She motioned toward the door and we all rushed for it, glad for any excuse to get out of there.

  I smelled smoke as soon as I hit the hallway, but I didn’t see any fire. Kids were streaming past, holding their sleeves over their mouths. I tried to keep an eye on Kel, but lost sight of him and the rest of the Family as I got sucked into the crush. The panicked mass funneled down the stairs and out onto the lawn.

  Chaos ensued. Takers shouted into earpieces and argued with the Aunts and Uncles about how to regain order. Kids were everywhere. Lounging on the grass. Heading off in pairs. Starting fights. It was like my high school parking lot.

  I spotted Maya standing by herself, her thin body looking stiff and breakable. Her reddish hair bright against her washed-out skin. Then I caught a glimpse of Nami leading Damion around the far corner of the building. I guess hormones trumped rules every time.

  I didn’t see Zach or Kel anywhere. But no one seemed to be hurt, so I wasn’t worried. Plus, I had a good guess where Kel was.