by Tahereh Mafi
I’m suddenly petrified. I’m worried for this scrappy creature, this weak, frozen little animal probably seeking out small bits of food, something to keep it from starving for the next few hours. My heart starts racing in my chest, the blood pumping too fast and too hard and I don’t know why I feel like something terrible is about to happen.
The dog bolts right into the backs of Warner’s legs, as if it’s half blind and can’t see where it’s going. It’s panting hard, tongue lolling to the side like it doesn’t know how to get it back in. It whines and whimpers a little, slobbering all over Warner’s very exquisite pants and I’m holding my breath as the golden boy turns around. I half expect him to take out his gun and shoot the dog right in the head.
I’ve already seen him do it to a human being.
But Warner’s face breaks apart at the sight of the small dog, cracks forming in the perfect cast of his features, surprise lifting his eyebrows and widening his gaze for just a moment. Long enough for me to notice.
He looks around, his eyes swift as they survey his surroundings before he scoops the animal into his arms and disappears around a low fence—one of the short, squat fences that are used to section off squares of land for each compound. I’m suddenly desperate to see what he’s going to do and I’m feeling anxious, so anxious, still unable to breathe.
I’ve seen what Warner can do to a person. I’ve seen his callous heart and his unfeeling eyes and his complete indifference, his cool, collected demeanor unshaken after killing a man in cold blood. I can only imagine what he has planned for an innocent dog.
I have to see it for myself.
I have to get his face out of my head and this is exactly what I need. It’s proof that he’s sick, twisted, that he’s wrong, and will always be wrong.
If only I could stand up, I could see him. I could see what he’s doing to that poor animal and maybe I could find a way to stop him before it’s too late but I hear Castle’s voice, a loud whisper calling us. Telling us the coast is clear to move forward now that Warner is out of sight. “We all move, and we move separately,” he says. “Stick to the plan! No one trails anyone else. We all meet at the drop-off. If you don’t make it, we will leave you behind. You have thirty minutes.”
Kenji is tugging on my arm, telling me to get to my feet, to focus, to look in the right direction. I look up long enough to see that the rest of the group has already dispersed; Kenji, however, refuses to budge. He curses under his breath until finally I stand up. I nod. I tell him I understand the plan and motion for him to move on without me. I remind him that we can’t be seen together. That we cannot walk in groups or pairs. We cannot be conspicuous.
Finally, finally, he turns to go.
I watch Kenji leave. Then I take a few steps forward only to spin around and dart back to the corner of the compound, sliding my back up against the wall, hidden from view.
My eyes scan the area until I spot the fence where I last saw Warner; I tip up on my toes to peer over.
I have to cover my mouth to keep from gasping out loud.
Warner is crouched on the ground, feeding something to the dog with his good hand. The animal’s quivering, bony body is huddled inside of Warner’s open coat, shivering as its stubby limbs try to find warmth after being frozen for so long. The dog wags its tail hard, pulling back to look Warner in the eye only to plow into the warmth of his jacket again. I hear Warner laugh.
I see him smile.
It’s the kind of smile that transforms him into someone else entirely, the kind of smile that puts stars in his eyes and a dazzle on his lips and I realize I’ve never seen him like this before. I’ve never even seen his teeth—so straight, so white, nothing less than perfect. A flawless, flawless exterior for a boy with a black, black heart. It’s hard to believe there’s blood on the hands of the person I’m staring at. He looks soft and vulnerable—so human. His eyes are squinting from all his grinning and his cheeks are pink from the cold.
He has dimples.
He’s easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
And I wish I’d never seen it.
Because something inside of my heart is ripping apart and it feels like fear, it tastes like panic and anxiety and desperation and I don’t know how to understand the image in front of me. I don’t want to see Warner like this. I don’t want to think of him as anything other than a monster.
This isn’t right.
I shift too fast and too far in the wrong direction, suddenly too stupid to find my footing and hating myself for wasting time I could’ve used to escape. I know Castle and Kenji would be ready to kill me for taking such a risk but they don’t understand what it’s like in my head right now, they don’t understand what I’m—
“Hey!” he barks. “You there—”
I look up without intending to, without realizing that I’ve responded to Warner’s voice until it’s too late. He’s up, frozen in place, staring straight into my eyes, his good hand paused midmovement until it falls limp at his side, his jaw slack; stunned, temporarily stupefied.
I watch as the words die in his throat.
I’m paralyzed, caught in his gaze as he stands there, his chest heaving so hard and his lips ready to form the words that will surely sentence me to my death, all because of my stupid, senseless, idiotic—
“Whatever you do, don’t scream.”
Someone closes a hand over my mouth.
TWENTY-ONE
I don’t move.
“I’m going to let go of you, okay? I want you to take my hand.”
I reach out without looking down and feel our gloved hands fit together. Kenji lets go of my face.
“You are such an idiot,” he says to me, but I’m still staring at Warner. Warner who’s now looking around like he’s just seen a ghost, blinking and rubbing his eyes like he’s confused, glancing at the dog like maybe the little animal managed to bewitch him. He grabs a tight hold of his blond hair, mussing it out of its perfect state, and stalks off so fast my eyes don’t know how to follow him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kenji is saying to me. “Are you even listening to me? Are you insane?”
“What did you just do? Why didn’t he—oh my God,” I gasp, sparing a look at my own body.
I’m completely invisible.
“You’re welcome,” Kenji snaps, dragging me away from the compound. “And keep your voice down. Being invisible doesn’t mean the world can’t hear you.”
“You can do that?” I try to find his face but I might as well be speaking to the air.
“Yeah—it’s called projecting, remember? Didn’t Castle explain this to you already?” he asks, eager to rush through the explanation so he can get back to yelling at me. “Not everyone can do it—not all abilities are the same—but maybe if you manage to stop being a dumbass long enough not to die, I might be able to teach you one day.”
“You came back for me,” I say to him, struggling to keep up with his brisk pace and not at all offended by his anger. “Why’d you come back for me?”
“Because you’re a dumbass,” he says again.
“I know. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
“Well, help it,” he says, his voice gruff as he yanks me by the arm. “We’re going to have to run to recover all the time you just wasted.”
“Why’d you come back, Kenji?” I ask again, undeterred. “How’d you know I was still here?”
“I was watching you,” he says.
“What? What do you—”
“I watch you,” he says, his words rushing out again, impatient. “It’s part of what I do. It’s what I’ve been doing since day one. I enlisted in Warner’s army for you and only you. It’s what Castle sent me for. You were my job.” His voice is clipped, fast, unfeeling. “I already told you this.”
“Wait, what do you mean, you watch me?” I hesitate, tugging on his invisible arm to slow him down a little. “You follow me around everywhere? Even now? Even at Omega Point?”
He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his words are reluctant. “Sort of.”
“But why? I’m here. Your job is done, isn’t it?”
“We’ve already had this conversation,” he says. “Remember? Castle wanted me to make sure you were okay. He told me to keep an eye on you—nothing serious—just, you know, make sure you weren’t having any psychotic breakdowns or anything.” I hear him sigh. “You’ve been through a lot. He’s a little worried about you. Especially now—after what just happened? You don’t look okay. You look like you want to throw yourself in front of a tank.”
“I would never do something like that,” I say to him.
“Yeah,” he says. “Fine. Whatever. I’m just pointing out the obvious. You only function on two settings: you’re either moping or you’re making out with Adam—and I have to say, I kind of prefer the moping—”
“Kenji!” I nearly yank my hand out of his. His grip tightens around my fingers.
“Don’t let go,” he snaps at me again. “You can’t let go or it breaks the connection.” Kenji is dragging me through the middle of a clearing. We’re far enough from the compounds now that we won’t be overheard, but we’re still too far from the drop-off to be considered safe just yet. Luckily the snow isn’t sticking enough for us to leave tracks.
“I can’t believe you spied on us!”
“I was not spying on you, okay? Damn. Calm down. Hell, both of you need to calm down. Adam was already all up in my face about it—”
“What?” I feel the pieces of this puzzle finally beginning to fit together. “Is that why he was being mean to you at breakfast last week?”
Kenji slows our pace a little. He takes a deep, long breath. “He thought I was, like, taking advantage of the situation.” He says advantage like it’s a strange, dirty word. “He thinks I get invisible just to see you naked or something. Listen—I don’t even know, okay? He was being an idiot about it. I’m just doing my job.”
“But—you’re not, right? You’re not trying to see me naked or anything?”
Kenji snorts, chokes on his laughter. “Listen, Juliette,” he says through another laugh, “I’m not blind, okay? On a purely physical level? Yeah, you’re pretty sexy—and that suit you have to wear all the time doesn’t hurt. But even if you didn’t have that whole ‘I kill you if I touch you’ thing going on, you are definitely not my type. And more importantly, I’m not some perverted asshole,” he says. “I take my job seriously. I get real shit done in this world, and I like to think people respect me for it. But your boy Adam is a little too blinded by his pants to think straight. Maybe you should do something about that.”
I drop my eyes. Say nothing for a moment. Then: “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that anymore.”
“Ah, shit.” Kenji sighs, like he can’t believe he got stuck listening to problems about my love life. “I just walked right into that, didn’t I?”
“We can go, Kenji. We don’t have to talk about this.”
An irritated breath. “It’s not that I don’t care about what you’re going through,” he says. “It’s not like I want to see you all depressed or whatever. It’s just that this life is messed up enough as it is,” he says. “And I’m sick of you being so caught up in your own little world all the time. You act like this whole thing—everything we do—is a joke. You don’t take any of it seriously—”
“What?” I cut him off. “That’s not true—I do take this seriously—”
“Bullshit.” He laughs a short, sharp, angry laugh. “All you do is sit around and think about your feelings. You’ve got problems. Boo-freaking-hoo,” he says. “Your parents hate you and it’s so hard but you have to wear gloves for the rest of your life because you kill people when you touch them. Who gives a shit?” He’s breathing hard enough for me to hear him. “As far as I can tell, you’ve got food in your mouth and clothes on your back and a place to pee in peace whenever you feel like it. Those aren’t problems. That’s called living like a king. And I’d really appreciate it if you’d grow the hell up and stop walking around like the world crapped on your only roll of toilet paper. Because it’s stupid,” he says, barely reining in his temper. “It’s stupid, and it’s ungrateful. You don’t have a clue what everyone else in the world is going through right now. You don’t have a clue, Juliette. And you don’t seem to give a damn, either.”
I swallow, so hard.
“Now I am trying,” he says, “to give you a chance to fix things. I keep giving you opportunities to do things differently. To see past the sad little girl you used to be—the sad little girl you keep clinging to—and stand up for yourself. Stop crying. Stop sitting in the dark counting out all your individual feelings about how sad and lonely you are. Wake up,” he says. “You’re not the only person in this world who doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You’re not the only one with daddy issues and severely screwed-up DNA. You can be whoever the hell you want to be now. You’re not with your shitty parents anymore. You’re not in that shitty asylum, and you’re no longer stuck being Warner’s shitty little experiment. So make a choice,” he says. “Make a choice and stop wasting everyone’s time. Stop wasting your own time. Okay?”
Shame is pooling in every inch of my body.
Heat has flamed its way up my core, singeing me from the inside out. I’m so horrified, so terrified to hear the truth in his words.
“Let’s go,” he says, but his voice is just a tiny bit gentler. “We have to run.”
And I nod even though he can’t see me.
I nod and nod and nod and I’m so happy no one can see my face right now.
TWENTY-TWO
“Stop throwing boxes at me, jackass. That’s my job.” Winston laughs and grabs a package heavily bandaged in cellophane only to chuck it at another guy’s head. The guy standing right next to me.
I duck.
The other guy grunts as he catches the package, and then grins as he offers Winston an excellent view of his middle finger.
“Keep it classy, Sanchez,” Winston says as he tosses him another package.
Sanchez. His name is Ian Sanchez. I just learned this a few minutes ago when he and I and a few others were grouped together to form an assembly line.
We are currently standing in one of the official storage compounds of The Reestablishment.
Kenji and I managed to catch up to everyone else just in time. We all congregated at the drop-off (which turned out to be little more than a glorified ditch), and then Kenji gave me a sharp look, pointed at me, grinned, and left me with the rest of the group while he and Castle communicated about the next part of our mission.
Which was getting into the storage compound.
The irony, however, is that we traveled aboveground for supplies only to have to go back underground to get them. The storage compounds are, for all intents and purposes, invisible.
They’re underground cellars filled with just about everything imaginable: food, medicine, weapons. All the things needed to survive. Castle explained everything in our orientation this morning. He said that while having supplies buried underground is a clever method of concealment against the civilians, it actually worked out in his favor. Castle said he can sense—and move—objects from a great distance, even if that distance is 25 feet belowground. He said that when he approaches one of the storage facilities he can feel the difference immediately, because he can recognize the energy in each object. This, he explained, is what allows him to move things with his mind: he’s able to touch the inherent energy in everything. Castle and Kenji have managed to track down 5 compounds within 20 miles of Omega Point just by walking around; Castle sensing, Kenji projecting to keep them invisible. They’ve located 5 more within 50 miles.
The storage compounds they access are on a rotation. They never take the same things and never in the same quantity, and they take from as many different facilities as possible. The farther the compound, the more intricate the mission becomes. This particular compound i
s closest, and therefore the mission is, relatively speaking, the easiest. That explains why I was allowed to come along.
All the legwork has already been done.
Brendan already knows how to confuse the electrical system in order to deactivate all the sensors and security cameras; Kenji acquired the pass code simply by shadowing a soldier who punched in the right numbers. All of this gives us a 30-minute window of time to work as quickly as possible to get everything we need into the drop-off, where we’ll spend most of the day waiting to load our stolen supplies into vehicles that will carry the items away.
The system they use is fascinating.
There are 6 vans altogether, each slightly different in appearance, and all scheduled to arrive at different times. This way there are fewer chances of everyone being caught, and there’s a higher probability that at least 1 of the vans will get back to Omega Point without a problem. Castle outlined what seemed like 100 different contingency plans in case of danger.
I’m the only one here, however, who appears even remotely nervous about what we’re doing. In fact, with the exception of me and 3 others, everyone here has visited this particular compound several times, so they’re walking around like it’s familiar territory. Everyone is careful and efficient, but they feel comfortable enough to laugh and joke around, too. They know exactly what they’re doing. The moment we got inside, they split themselves into 2 groups: 1 team formed the assembly line, and the other collected the things we need.
Others have more important tasks.
Lily has a photographic memory that puts photographs to shame. She walked in before the rest of us and immediately scanned the room, collecting and cataloging every minute detail. She’s the one who will make sure that we leave nothing behind when we exit, and that, aside from the things we take, nothing else is missing or out of place. Brendan is our backup generator. He’s managed to shut off power to the security system while still lighting the dark dimensions of this room. Winston is overseeing our 2 groups, mediating between the givers and the takers, making sure we’re securing the right items and the right quantities. His arms and legs have the elastic ability to stretch at will, which enables him to reach both sides of the room quickly and easily.