by Trisha Leigh
“Dude, what’s the matter? Did Coach Patton catch you jerking off in the shower? I know it sucks when you have to stop in the middle. Happened to me when my mom walked in and caught me a couple of weeks ago.” He shovels in a mouthful of meat, cheese, and lettuce, some of it plopping back onto his plate. “Brutal.”
In spite of his mouth and manners, I don’t mind Peter. He makes me laugh, and he never hides anything, even when he probably should. Every thought he has marches straight across his face, and the majority of them pop out of his mouth. It’s equal parts gross and endearing, but spending time with him makes me miss Mole and the twins a little less.
“Peter, you’re disgusting, and I’ve heard that story about you and your mom three times now. Once was more than enough, but as ever, I thank you for the cautionary tale.” Jude sighs.
“Then what’s wrong? Someone piss in your Apple Jacks?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’m just tired.”
Our eyes meet, mostly on accident, and he looks away quickly. Not before I see the truth—that whatever is bothering him has to do with me.
Then the sight of Reaper across the cafeteria, not eating alone for once, distracts me. Dane Kim sits across from her, an easy smile on his face, the two of them involved in what looks to be an animated conversation. She doesn’t look as relaxed as he does, but then again, she hasn’t since we left Darley.
The spike of jealousy is wrong and stupid, but there all the same.
If I’m being honest, even after finding out Dane’s a liar and that he never cared about being my friend, I miss having him to lean on—maybe just having someone to lean on who doesn’t expect me to be problem solving twenty-four hours a day.
I spend the remainder of lunch pretending to eat, my mind past its limit. Jude’s acting weird. Now Reaper’s spending time with Dane in spite of what we know, what we suspect.
Maybe she’s trying to get more information, or maybe she likes that she doesn’t have to worry about killing him, now that we know our gifts don’t work on him.
The lights on the wall blink, and I shoot out of my chair, anxious to get the hell out of here, but stop short when Jude puts a hand on my arm. “Can I walk you to your next class?”
“Of course.”
Maya’s bright eyes sparkle, and she gives me a none-too-subtle wink, apparently deciding Jude’s mood must be of little consequence to our nonexistent romantic life. Savannah’s dark gaze, impenetrable and indecipherable, bores into my back as I turn around.
I don’t have to guess what Peter’s thinking, because he shouts, “Yeah, get it, man!” as Jude and I exit the cafeteria and step into the busy hallway.
He gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry about him.”
“You don’t have to apologize. He amuses me.”
His fingers grip my elbow, pulling me the opposite direction of my next class. We exit the school, bursting into the courtyard before my lips can form a protest.
The brisk December wind smacks me in the face like a cold fish, pressing a gasp from my lips. Jude pulls me around the side of the building and out of sight. We’re alone here, against the fake bricks, but it never crosses my mind that what he’s about to say is personal.
His maple eyes shimmer with fear when I find the courage to face him.
“Jude, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Norah. It’s just… I think you’re in trouble.”
No shit. Except he can’t know what kind of trouble and how deep. “What are you talking about?”
“The police called me into the office before lunch. Apparently—according to my dad—a bunch of guys in suits and ties showed up at the house about an hour after we left, held him at gunpoint, and cleaned out everything. All of his books, and papers, and computers.” His gaze darts around the parking lot, toward the cemetery across the street. “They specifically asked for all of his files relating to Darley Hall, but when he told them to go piss up a rope, they took it all.”
Shock hums through me, an electrical current that makes my skin hyperaware of the slightest breeze as it tumbles through the courtyard. “Who were they?” I croak.
“Never said. My dad thinks they’re government goons, of course, but the cops aren’t buying into the conspiracy. The government doesn’t hold guns on private citizens or steal their property without a warrant.”
I’m not so sure about that, but I don’t argue. “Is he okay? Your dad?”
“They said he’s fine, just wanted to let me know and see what information I could provide regarding the documents in the house.” He pauses, then pins me down with an intense gaze. It says he wants to take care of me, to protect me, even though he can’t know a tenth of what he’s offering. “Whoever took those files seems pretty intent on not letting any additional information about Darley get out. I don’t know what exactly was going on out there, and if you don’t want to tell me or Maya, or anyone who didn’t go through it with you, I understand. But Norah… those of you who got out are just more loose ends. What makes you think, if even a smidgen of what my father believes is true, that they won’t come for you next?”
He’s so serious, so incredibly sweet to be worried about a girl he only just met, that I can’t help but reach up and touch his face through my sleeve. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”
He should be playing basketball, talking dirty with Peter, maybe thinking about getting back together with Savannah. There isn’t much time left, the evil corner of my brain reminds me. Believing his dad’s not-so-wild theories, spending too much time worrying about me… It could be what kills him.
“I do worry about you, Norah. After spending years at Darley, you shouldn’t have to live this way.”
“There’s a lot going on that you don’t know about, Jude. If we get closer, all it’s going to do is put you and your father at risk for more morning visits from guys in dark suits. I’m not going to do that to you.”
He leans in, nuzzling his cheek into my hand, and locks eyes with me. The hard, cold wall behind me turns into a warm cloud, somehow sturdy enough to hold me up, but not actually there. The asphalt under my feet, the tall brick wall at Jude’s back, the parking lot across the street—all wrapped in clouds, until there’s nothing but him, me, and a blue, blue sky. His mouth closes in on mine, full lips inviting even though they’re chapped, and I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to know what they would feel like on mine.
Except I have no idea what will happen. What I’ll see. But I’m pretty sure anything that has to do with him lying in a pool of blood in a garden of hydrangeas is going to kill the mood.
His lips flutter but not in a kiss. “You can trust me,” he murmurs, fingers reaching out to tangle in my wind-blown hair. “I’m not my dad. I won’t think you’re a mutant.”
The whispered words disappoint me. Relieve me. Crush me.
Heal me.
My heart aches, because this is the moment. It would be so easy to look him in the eye and say, But I am. I am what your father thinks and that’s why they’re after me. After all of us.
There are a million reasons I can’t say that aloud. The fact that his knowing would make me feel better isn’t a good enough argument for betraying the Cavies.
“I know you’re trustworthy, Jude. It has nothing to do with that. It has to be this way because I worry about you, too.” I blink, forcing the world to come back, for the spell of his nearness to dissolve into reality. “Let this go. Tell your dad to let it go, and we might all be just fine.”
He doesn’t believe it’s true. Which makes sense, because I don’t believe it, either.
Everything about the day’s conversations with the Greene men haunts me until school lets out. The revelation that his father had information that could have helped us find out who’s stalking us, injecting us. The fact that said information was stolen. Jude’s concern, and that it had taken my guts hours to sort themselves out after he almost kissed me.
In so many ways, Jude fe
els so right. He’s sweet. We have chemistry that blends better, sparks brighter, with each and every conversation. It floods me with hot anger that my “gift” has turned something that should have been exciting, new, and adventurous into an impossibility.
But it could have been worse: to get involved with him, maybe fall in love with him, only to have him unexpectedly stolen from me next year. That’s how it’s meant to be. I know that. We’re not supposed to be aware of the moments that will be our last, the people who will break our hearts, but that’s not my reality. I do know, and that’s the end of it.
The Unitarian cemetery beckons when I step into the cool sunshine, crooked fingers of the past calling my name, and without thinking, my feet find the gate. While the rest of the world grows unfamiliar, this place—the stones and trees and people who are already dead—never changes. The cold bench under my butt anchors me, but now more than ever I crave the company of the Cavies. In the empty graveyard, I close my eyes and go find them.
The Clubhouse is full, everyone but Reaper beating me there. If she’s going all the way home before checking in, it might be a few more minutes. Of course there’s no Prism, and I look around in the vain hope of glimpsing Flicker, to no avail.
Everyone stops talking when they see me, waiting with wide eyes while I settle onto the floor next to Mole’s recliner. It occurs to me for the very first time why I didn’t insist on any one piece of the Clubhouse furniture, why I don’t have a special seat that everyone leaves as mine. As much as I love them, need them, I’ve never felt good enough to be one of them.
Now, they’re looking to me. I’m the one who has the information, who managed to make friends with people who might be able to help us, and it feels strange. Good, I suppose, except for the situation. But out here, in this world, I am good enough just by being me.
Not the time, I tell myself with a deep breath. Figure out what’s going on, help Flicker, then worry about which world feels more like home. “I talked to Jude’s dad this morning. He claims Darley has been in operation for over sixty years. There are more Cavies. More kids raised where we were.”
The news sinks in, forming their pale masks of shock, disbelief, and a healthy dose of denial. It’s convincing them we were never special, never what the Philosopher or the Professor or anyone else told us we are, not completely anyway.
“They could be the ones who injected us. Or at least some of them,” Haint stutters.
Goose piggybacks off her thought. “They might have continued to research or experiment once they left Darley. If the Philosopher just kicked them out at some point—”
“No way he kicked them out,” Athena interrupts. “I think it’s pretty clear now that we were being groomed for something. We were brought to Darley for a reason; the experiments and tests were all supposed to lead to a specific end… and if we aren’t the first, then the kids before us must know what that reason is.”
“How do we find them, Norah? Did the reporter say?” Mole gazes into space, not bothering to give the appearance of attention like usual.
“He thought he might be able to find some names, maybe some addresses, in the files he stole, but that was before a bunch of guys in suits with guns showed up and confiscated them.”
They listen, rapt, but the atmosphere in the room grows tighter, fuller with discomfort, as I recount the rest of what Mr. Greene claims happened after Jude and I left this morning.
This time, it’s Pollyanna who recovers first. “So, this reporter says the guys who showed up said they were government. What kind?”
“They didn’t say, or he didn’t say.”
We’re all quiet for a long time, nothing but the click and whirr of our minds to fill the silence. The government is, at the very least, aware that there was more going on at Darley than they discovered when they found us. I think—we all think—that needs to be conceded. Why they haven’t snatched us up remains a mystery, along with what happened to all of these others who left Darley before we were born. We need to find them, but with the research gone, there’s only one way to possibly learn more.
The realization must hit the others as it does me because the twins and Pollyanna start talking at the same time. She wins, as usual, quieting them with a look. “We need to go to the home where we were born. Saint Catherine’s. The others—the olders—were born there, too.”
“It seems like the government has been involved in our lives since before Darley, which means there might be a lot more we can learn at that home,” Mole agrees.
“If they’re government, they’re not going to tell us anything.” My mind grapples with a million possibilities, but keeps stumbling over the idea that Saint Catherine’s is the source of everything. All our mothers, who are now all dead, gave birth there. We came from there and ended up at the same place, all sporting shiny genetic mutations.
The chance of that being a coincidence has to be close to nothing. We’re not flukes. Not accidents. Neither were the Darley kids before us. I know it in my bones.
I press that revelation into a compartment and shut the lid, leaving it until we have proof. It continues to taunt me with the desire to scream that my entire life has been a lie—that someone saw fit to make me this way. Wrong, and useless to boot.
Instead, I dig my fingernails into the image of Flicker, forcing it to stay in the forefront. We all want to learn the truth, but finding her is our priority.
“You’re right,” Mole agrees. “We’re going to have to keep them distracted while Haint and Goose break into their records.”
“What, are we criminals now? Is that where this is going?” My knee-jerk response is that we’re giving them—whoever they are—ammunition when the whole truth about us comes to light. “Maybe everything the Philosopher told us was a lie, but I believe two things he said are true: that people aren’t ready for the reality of what we can do, and that certain organizations will use us if they can. If we start breaking the law, aren’t we just playing into their hands? Giving them the excuse they need to get custody of us?”
“Relax, Queen Paranoia. They’re not going to know. Haint’s invisible, remember? And Goose moves so fast he’s as good as. No one will know. They’re not going to steal anything, just read. Take pictures if they need to.” Mole runs a hand through his blond hair, leaving mussed spikes in its wake. “We have to do something. Flicker’s running out of time, and we’re perpetually one step behind.”
Everyone else agrees, and in the end, it’s not my place to argue. Saint Catherine’s is the only link we have right now.
Chapter Nineteen
There’s a slip of paper on my desk when I get home from school, my grandparent’s phone number and address scrawled across it in my father’s handwriting.
My body’s numb from the day’s massive upheaval, but we need information on Saint Catherine’s House too badly for me to curl up and sleep now. Anything that helps us not go in there blind. It doesn’t stop me from procrastinating, texting Haint first instead of calling my grandparents.
What are you doing?
Nothing much. Reading. You?
Getting ready to call my grandparents for info. Want to come over later?
I hope she realizes we shouldn’t talk too explicitly about anything on our phones—especially now that we’re pretty sure some part of the government is watching—but it’s silly of me to worry. None of us are stupid, and we’ve spent forever being careful.
I can after dinner. Rules about eating meals together.
Got it. Time?
I can be at your place by 630.
K.
My father and I don’t eat until later but I doubt he’ll mind if Haint joins us. He’s offered several times to host Jude or Maya or any of my friends from school if they ever want to come by. Still, I’m not comfortable enough yet to invite her without asking, and shoot him a text message asking permission before dialing my grandparents.
Robert gives me an affirmative and I’m out of stalling options. All it ta
kes to knock my hesitation loose is another conjured image of Flicker on that table, her lips mouthing a silent, broken help.
Shame, heavy and hot, rolls through me. My friend is in trouble. Hell, all of the Cavies are in trouble, and I’m avoiding calling people who might be able to help, not to mention that I spent at least as much time worrying about Jude today as I have Flicker. And if I’m using higher brain function—the part without the emotional response—I’d accept that concern for Jude is pointless. His fate is written.
I pick up my phone and punch in the number my father left. It crosses my mind to go to their house instead because it’s easier to demand answers in person. And harder to slam the door in your granddaughter’s face than ignore her phone call. In theory. But I’m a chicken.
The phone only rings once before an accented voice answers. Maybe Russian. “Hello, Boone residence.”
They have someone to answer the phone?
“Um, hi, I’m calling for Mrs. Boone.”
“May I say who’s calling?”
“Norah Jane Crespo.” I pause. “Her granddaughter.”
“One moment,” she replies, like a call from the Maytag repairman would be as interesting.
I don’t know why I asked for my grandmother and not my grandfather. Some weird instinct, I guess, even though men mostly raised me and my father has been fine. Good, even.
“Yes?” The cold, detached voice smashes any hope, however small, that my grandmother might regret her actions seventeen years ago.
“Um, Mrs. Boone? I’m Norah Jane—”
“Yes, Agnieska told me who’s calling. My help is quite competent.”
Christ on a cracker.
“I’m calling because I have some questions about my mother. I thought you might—”
“Thought I might what? Want to visit with a girl whose existence stole my daughter from me? See the face of a child who was never supposed to know where she came from? Want to spend hours reminiscing about the girl I lost with the one we never wanted? No, thank you, young lady, and you’ll not call here again. Good day.” She hung up, the sound ringing in my ear for a good minute.