“When you do that, and I’ve got about as much chance of staying upright as a shoelace,” I tell him.
“Feels good, doesn’t it,” his voice is so husky and intimate that my stomach trembles. All my senses seem to raise up and angle toward him, like how plants reach toward windows. And the way my senses stretch, but remain totally unsatisfied, is excruciating. Garrett is a sunlight I can’t quite touch. The pane of glass between us is that we aren’t Bound yet. He exhales fiercely as he lets go of me, running his hand through his hair. He feels it too. My body is suddenly trembling like I’m a frackin’ drug addict.
“That,” he says with a weak smile, “is why Deeta’s right. We need to go back and talk to the Addo about Binding. We can’t be worried about the weaknesses that might come. And I don’t know how long I can handle not being…married.”
My body—and I mean, all the senses that are screaming for him, my muscles that go to caramel beneath his touch, and the way my bones feel as hollow and flimsy as paper straws when he moves away from me—that is what powers the little nod I give him when he mentions Binding. But my brain. My brain is blabbing something else.
My brain goes totally monkey-mode, swinging from one worry to the next. Binding. Sex. Being tied together. For months. His black eye.
I know he’s the one, I know it, but what if these feelings go away? I’m the weak one. What if I get sucked into some emotional vortex that I can’t even see coming?
And being pummeled by vortexes leads me to worse thoughts: what if the world changes him? We’re in the middle of a Cusp. What if it’s not my feelings that change, but his? He hit me first and Addo said that triggered it. But what if it’s not even just feelings that is our weakness? What if it’s something more that we can’t even control? My brain jumps to all the possibilities and lands on the most frightening one.
Worst of all thought: Death. It’s a very real thing, and a very possible thing, for two Contego warriors that are in the storm’s eye of a Cusp. The world is changing and people are getting caught in the crossfire all around us. What if Garrett is injured? What if I am? What if it’s so bad that one of us doesn’t want the other anymore? Could we just abandon the other? Or worse, what if I lose Garrett by either his death or mine? I know that we’re all connected, I know it from going through the circle in the Memory ceremony that no one ever really leaves us, but I don’t think I’m connected enough or strong enough or faithful enough to handle losing him.
Garrett’s hand moves across my cheek and my body cuts off the thoughts from my brain stem completely. His touch washes over me, like a wave erasing a sad message written on the beach.
I blink, embarrassed. I’m frozen a few feet from Zane and Robin’s door and I’m standing here like a total cucumber. I swallow and Garrett smiles at me, like he understands. My body instantly prickles from one end to the other as it reaches for his sunlight again.
Ugh. I’m a mess.
“You two coming, or what?” Milo says from the door.
“No, they’re not,” a voice says from behind us. I turn to see Sean and his two-girl chain gang. Teagan’s clasping Gra…McKenzie…no. MacIntyre? I can’t even remember Grace’s other name. Ugh.
“We’ve been looking for you two,” Sean says. “Brandon’s awake.”
***
Brandon’s propped up on the couch when we come in, but he looks beyond miserable. Even the draft from opening the door makes him wince. Mrs. Reese murmurs to Sean that Brandon wants to speak to Garrett and I alone. Teagan frowns as they’re turned away and Sean frowns too.
“You know, she is my wife now, Mom,” Sean says and Mrs. Reese gives him an assuring and patient nod.
“I know, I know,” she says gently, and then to Teagan, “This is just a private moment. I hope you can understand.”
“Of course,” Teagan says stiffly. “We’ll just go feed the baby, okay Sean?”
But feeding the baby seems code for by the way, I’ll be holding your granddaughter hostage from now on. I can’t really blame Teagan, but I also know where Mrs. Reese is coming from. Teagan is not only new to the family, she’s Simple too. There’s nothing she can do for Brandon and whatever he has to say probably wouldn’t mean anything to her anyway. Mrs. Reese still smiles kindly at Teagan as she closes the door on her. Brandon groans from the couch.
“I gotta tell you what happened, but my knee feels like it’s going to explode,” he says, gritting his teeth. He tries to scoot up a little higher on the cushion, but sputters from the pain. Garrett jumps forward and helps his brother, which just makes Brandon groan again. Garrett drops onto his knees.
“You talk, I’ll heal,” he says and Brandon nods through squinted eyes. With just one pass over his brother’s knee, Brandon relaxes a little.
“Me and Mark were down in the tunnels,” he starts. I step closer to Garrett, hoping the hum doesn’t come, but feeling a little guilty that I don’t want it to. Garrett rubs his hands together and then re-positions his palms an inch or two over Brandon’s knee, slowly combing down the injured leg. In a few seconds, Brandon exhales and when he speaks again, he’s not so strained.
“We were in the tunnels and we knew Nali was probably going to have to blow ‘em up, because The Fury were popping up all over the place. We stuck close to the kitchen sink entrance, to keep any of them from getting into the core and that was pretty easy. Most of ‘em didn’t have a clue. They were just running around, scaring each other and screaming, as if the tunnels were a big Halloween corn maze.
“Mark realized there were entrances to the apartment through the bedrooms, so we decided to split up and keep The Fury from getting in those too. Mark took the bedrooms, and I stayed watching the kitchen and bathroom entrances. We could see each other, if we stepped around a corner and waved, so we kept track of each other like that for a few minutes.
“Whenever we saw somebody coming, me and Mark just acted like we were as nuts as any of ‘em. But two guys came along and they grabbed Mark and put him up against the wall and started yelling at him. They said they were going to get the Key first. One of the guys kept saying he was going to jam any Veritas he found. I don’t know what he meant, but I knew it wasn’t good, so I jumped him from the back and took him out.
“But the other one still had a hold of Mark and kept yelling that he got a Veritas, so Mark started yelling that he was strawberry jelly. That stuff usually confuses them enough to get away, but no matter how nuts Mark got, the guy wouldn’t drop him. A whole bunch more of The Fury came running because of all the yelling. The guy kept hollering that Mark was a Veritas and people started grabbing at him, trying to peel off his face and his skin. They thought he was wearing a disguise! Mark was screaming and I couldn’t knock enough of The Fury off to get to him. He still got free somehow and he took off running, down one of the tunnels we never went down before.
The crowd turned on me. I was trying to get away from them when the tunnels exploded. There was dust and rocks everywhere and I don’t remember anything else until I woke up.
“My Connection got me out. I knew I was all messed up, but my Connection got me out. She kept saying that the part of the tunnel I was in was mostly collapsed, but to keep looking for the light. I saw hands and feet from under the rocks, but none of them looked like Mark. I finally found the light and I squeezed out, but I never found him.”
Mrs. Reese’s head is dipped, her mouth pressed to the back of her hand, to hide the crying.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Brandon says, his expression crumbling. “I didn’t get him. I left him there…because I’m a coward.”
Mrs. Reese draws in a sharp breath and moves to the edge of the couch. “You are not a coward,” she says between the tears. “You are not a coward.”
The tears run down Garrett’s face and mine too. I’m crying, not just because I’m devastated for Mark, but because Brandon feels like a coward and I know what that does inside. It’s a machine with razor sharp teeth that spins against your guts until you
feel hollow. Then it fills you with a sadness so thick and black that you can’t even lift a foot to run away. It’s the most awful feeling in the world to be haunted by the thought that you could have done something, even when you really couldn’t.
“Relax for a while, buddy,” Garrett says and he dips his middle finger, swirling down over Brandon’s forehead. I watch Brandon’s whole body surrender to unconsciousness, from his head to his feet. Garrett, still squatting beside the couch with his forearms on his knees, drops his head.
“What do you think, Mom?” he says, his head still down.
“I think the only way to stop the fear is to start doing something about it,” she sighs and when she inhales, the climate in the room changes. The air suddenly feels charged and crisp.
“The Emen and the FIXI people are working together to sift through the rubble,” she says. FIXI Inc. is a company, run by the Ianua, that also employ some of the Simple. FIXI is about as secretive and elite as an FBI protection program, preparing homes and distributing necessities when Ianua members change locations. While the FIXI might have cleanup crews for clearing away rubble, the Emen are another elite group in the Ianua that take care of the deceased. “What we need to do is to stop focusing on our defense and start working on our offense.”
“It’s hard to do when they keep taking out our family and friends,” Garrett says. “Dad, Evangeline, maybe Mark, Van and Trig…”
“We need to be fearless now,” Mrs. Reese lays a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got to remember that every single person who has been involved in this has done so willingly and in support of mankind. We would be letting them all down to remain paralyzed by our grief, so it’s time to get moving again. We need to send out a search, to find out where the Fury are and who exactly this Mastermind is.”
Paralyzed by our grief. It’s not lost on either Garrett or me what Mrs. Reese is really saying. She’s assuming the worst.
“Do you think Mark is really gone, Mom?” Garrett asks.
“Well,” her eyes well up again. “None of the Alo have reported writing his Memory, but there is a huge bottleneck right now. He could still be waiting to be written. But his body hasn’t been recovered either. I hope, Garrett…I hope, but I’m preparing myself too.”
CHAPTER
I step out of Mrs. Reese’s suite and run right into a tall, lanky kid who would need to eat about a hundred cheese burgers just to be as skinny as Zane. The boy sways backward and I sway too, thinking I’m going to topple over and crush him beneath me. I grab his arm and Garrett grabs me and we both say, “Whoa!”
Once righted, the boy takes a shaky step back. I didn’t run into him that hard, but he wobbles like he might pass out.
“Sorry,” he says and he hangs his head a little, embarrassed. He scratches behind his ear and doesn’t stop.
“That’s alright,” I say. “It was my fault. Should’ve looked both ways before barreling into traffic.”
“Okay,” he mumbles and then he waves a hand and walks off. Stick thin and gangly, I feel bad as he totters away, still off balance. Zaneen, walking straight for Garrett and I, gives the wobbly kid a little wave and a tight grin as she passes.
“That was the itchy kid!” she whispers once she gets close enough.
“He is pretty itchy,” Garrett says, as we watch the kid scratch and stumble his way across the courtyard. “I’m kind of surprised how many Curas brought in their Simple.”
Zaneen shakes her head. “He’s not Simple. He said he’s Contego. From…I think he said Angus was his Procella.”
“He doesn’t really look like he’s Contego,” I say. Garrett nods.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on him. Maybe I’ll ask him to train with us, so we can check him out.”
“You don’t think he a spy, do you?” Zaneen glances back over her shoulder at the Itchy Kid, who is leaning on the wall near the elevators. He’s scratching his elbow as he waits for a ride to his floor.
“I don’t think he’s Contego. But he might’ve said it just to show off for you.”
“What if he didn’t? Shouldn’t we let everybody know?” Zaneen goes wide-eyed and with her pink-tipped blond hair and tiny nose and mouth, she looks like the world’s prettiest stuffed animal.
“Definitely all the Contego in our Cura. I’ll let Freddie and my mom know,” Garrett says, turning to open the door we just closed. “I’ll be right back.”
He slips inside and shuts the door, leaving Zaneen and I together. I start walking toward my suite and Zaneen drifts along beside me.
“So much for the rest of the party,” Zaneen says. “I was coming to tell you guys. The pancake thing didn’t work out. Robin’s making Zane clean the floor.”
“What about Milo?”
“What about him?”
“I just thought you’d be…you know,” I falter. The look on her face is like she might not know what I’m talking about. I back pedal like a cat with my head caught in a box. “Keeping an eye on Deeta…so he’s not, I mean…so she’s not…”
“Why would I do that?” she asks, tipping her head to one side. Holy crap, she’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me and I can’t stop the truth from popping out of my mouth.
“Because he likes you and maybe you like him back?” I ask, the end turning up in a weak little question mark. She stares at me for a long and totally uncomfortable moment, while I squeeze my toes together inside my shoes. Then she flips her hair and shoots me a shy little smile.
“You think he likes me?” she asks.
“Don’t you?” I don’t want to tell her another word and, at the same time, I want to know what she thinks. I want to know what the odds are of Milo bugging out on the Ianua and what odds she’s giving that might make screwing the rest of us totally worth it to him.
“I think he’s cute,” she says, eyeing me carefully. “Did he say something to you?”
“He said he’s Ianua and you’re Simple.”
“I know,” she frowns. It’s a weird conversation and I think Zaneen feels it as much as I do. A week ago, she was still dealing with the childhood crush she had on Garrett. What has happened with Addo Chad has changed things and sewn a thin bond of sudden trust between us, but trusting someone with your life and trusting someone with boyfriend confessions is two completely different kinds of trust.
“Milo’s considering leaving the Ianua so he can be with you,” I splurt. I don’t know if it’s that I want her boyfriend trust too, or if I can blame it on wanting to prepare my community for Milo’s next move, or if it is just the good, old fashioned curiosity and gossip that does it to me, but there it is. The truth. Out on the table. So we can both stare at it.
“What is he? Stupid?” she says. My heart kind of sinks for Milo.
But to make sure Zaneen understands what’s really at stake, I throw in, “I think he’s in love with you. He was talking about leaving the Ianua to be with you.”
“No he’s not,” she says. “We made out a couple times, that’s it. It wasn’t anything and he knows it. He just wants to get away from Deeta and he’s using me as an excuse. What a tube.”
Garrett walks up behind us, as I reach my door.
“Who’s a tube?” he asks. Zaneen puffs a thatch of hair off her forehead.
“Milo,” she snorts. “He wants to leave the Ianua and turn Simple. For me. Because I’ve given him every indication that I’m in love with him. Yeah right. Like telling him he needs to learn how to kiss instead of licking my face. It’s gross. And making out isn’t the same as being in love!”
“You made out with Milo?” Garrett laughs. “Seriously?”
“I told him he’d blow a hole in the Ianua if he backs out,” Zaneen rages on. “Doesn’t he get that? Ugh. Of course he doesn’t. And I told him, I don’t like him like that. Deeta does. He needs to just suck it up, settle down with Deeta, and populate his dang Cura. He’s got a great girl waiting for him to get his wild out, but he’s going to blow it all if he goes around shooti
ng off his mouth like this.” She turns on a heel, pointed in the direction of Milo’s suite. “I’m going to go over there and let him know exactly what kind of meathead he is, right now.”
“No!” I grab her arm. Even though her eyes travel down to my grip and then back up with a raised eyebrow, I don’t let go. “He’s overwhelmed, Zaneen. Everybody hates him and now it’s completely on his shoulders to keep his entire Cura going. He’s just stressed out. He likes you. Who wouldn’t? But I think he’s also freaked out and you blasting him right now, would crush him. You know what I mean?”
I’m shocked when her eyes soften.
“Yeah. I do,” she says. “But he’s still a total meathead.”
“Of course he is, but I think he could really use a pass right now.”
Garrett opens the door to my suite.
“I can’t believe you’re defending Milo,” he says to me and then to Zaneen, “or that you made out with him.”
“I told him,” Zaneen says, twirling a lock of her hair as her gaze shoots across the courtyard to Milo’s door. “I told him it didn’t mean anything. I figured it’d be easy, since it couldn’t go anywhere. He’s cute, but he is what he is and I am what I am. I wasn’t looking for anything. He’s Deeta’s and he knows it.”
“He could find another Alo girl,” I say, my own eyes traveling up the rings of balconies. “I’m sure he could find somebody else if he wanted to.”
“He knows better than that,” Zaneen snorts again. “Deeta’s the perfect match for him and he knows it. Or if he doesn’t, I’ll make sure he does.”
She stalks off with a hair flip and her hips swinging. She’s locked and loaded for all kinds of battle.
“You forgot to mention all the drama, Rebel.” Garrett laughs. “That’s what Milo wanted to talk to you about? Going Simple for Neeny?”
“I was going to tell you about the ‘going Simple’ part, but I thought he was just stressed out. I didn’t think he’d even talked to Zaneen, let alone that they’ve actually been swapping spit.”
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