But why? Because we were born at the winter solstice? What did Newgrange have to do with it? We hadn’t been born at Newgrange during the sunrise. In fact, my birth took place in the middle of the night—3:50 a.m. With the five-hour time difference between here and Scotland, Zachary would’ve been born at . . .
Oh my God.
8:49 a.m.
My finger trembled as it slid down the article, confirming what I already knew as well as my own name: the time of the Newgrange solstice sunrise.
8:50 a.m.
And the year Zachary and I were born, the solstice took place at 8:50 a.m., too.
I did a quick calculation in my notebook. The winter solstice usually took place within a twenty-four-hour period between December 21 and December 22. “Twenty-four hours times sixty minutes an hour is . . . whoa.” In any given year there was only a 1-in-1,440 chance of the winter solstice taking place exactly at sunrise.
Was this why my mingling with Zachary had such weird results? Because our births were on a double borderland of night-and-day, autumn-and-winter?
Dizzy with discovery, out of habit I reached for my phone. Wait’ll I tell Zachary.
My hand halted halfway, then curled into a limp fist. There would be no calling Zachary. Not today.
“Hello there.”
I jumped at the interruption. Simon strode toward my table in a casual manner, as if we’d had a study date. He wore a pale-blue Hopkins Lacrosse hoodie, with a backpack slung loosely over his shoulder. Now he could definitely pass for eighteen.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” I whispered, glancing at the door. “Why didn’t you call first?”
“Spies don’t call first.” He sat down, letting his backpack slide to the floor. “Any news for me?”
I told Simon what Nicola had said about the ARGs being shipped up to Area 3A. He scribbled in his Johns Hopkins notebook, and I was relieved to see him using some kind of shorthand or code. If anyone found those notes, hopefully they wouldn’t lead to me or Nicola.
“Also,” I said, “the company that makes BlackBox—”
He looked up quickly. “SecuriLab?”
“Right. A bunch of them came to visit DMP headquarters that morning after the crash.”
Simon slid the tip of his pen back and forth over the notebook’s spiral spine. “Fascinating.”
I told him about Nicola’s bag. “SecuriLab seems really buddy-buddy with DMP. Is that normal?”
“Unfortunately, yes, and not only in America. Corporations everywhere buy as much power as they can. But since the DMP is of interest to us, anyone with influence on them is obviously a target for further investigation.”
He went back to scribbling in his notebook. I tapped my heel against the floor impatiently.
When his pen stopped, I asked, “Are you any closer to getting Zachary out?”
“I swear to you, MI-X is doing everything it can. But I’m told there are . . . other interests involved.”
“What other interests?”
“Dunno. I’m only a field officer, I haven’t got the full picture.”
I frowned. Who would want to hurt Zachary, besides the DMP? Not MI-X, I assumed, since his father was still connected to them. Someone from a third country altogether?
Or maybe someone who thought Zachary and I were getting too close to the big truths.
“Simon, you said I was more useful to the DMP alive than dead for now. Would they study me, like they’re doing to Zachary?” I hoped that was all they were doing to him.
“Perhaps, but if they were determined to do that, they would’ve taken you against your will, like they did him. Unlike Zachary, you’re American. You can work for them.”
“No way. Never.”
“I didn’t say it would be voluntary.”
I glanced past him at the door. “You mean a DMP draft? It’s never come close to passing.”
“It could be very popular with pre-Shifters, the only Americans at the moment who can vote.”
“But it’s wrong. That’s why they got rid of the military draft, like, a million years ago.”
“Dealing with ghosts isn’t like going to war. No lives would be in danger. And given the right circumstances, wouldn’t your country be eager—nay, desperate—to do something about the influence of ghosts?”
“First of all, never use the word ‘nay’ at high school, or you’ll get beaten up. Second, what do you mean by ‘right circumstances’?”
“Such as the Flight 346 disaster. Its timing was convenient, no?”
A sour taste formed at the back of my throat. “You think the DMP caused the crash? I’m not a big fan, but I don’t think they’d kill two hundred and fifteen innocent people.”
“There were supposed to be two hundred eighteen people on that flight. Maybe not all of them innocent in certain eyes.”
“The Moores,” I whispered. “Someone wanted them dead?”
“The DMP was not pleased with Ian Moore’s performance as MI-X liaison.” Simon’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “American agencies think their British counterparts should be at their beck and call. But Ian Moore was no servant boy. When the DMP asked him to jump, he didn’t say, ‘How high?’ He said, ‘No, I think I’ll punch you in the throat, thanks very much.’ ”
“But he was already leaving. He was sick.”
“And he’d handpicked his successor—my boss. The DMP might have wanted to send her a signal.” He folded his arms. “Play by our rules, or you and your family will end up dead.”
Chapter Fourteen
On July third, I gave Nicola a handwritten message for Zachary. It was a simple note that wouldn’t raise suspicions: I love you. Be strong. I hoped he would receive it, and that the DMP would find it so boring that they wouldn’t suspect any subsequent messages. Messages that might help set him free.
On July fourth, I set out to rescue my boyfriend.
Dylan and I sat in the middle seat of the Keeleys’ black Escalade, reviewing the map I’d made from memory. Based on the direction Zachary and I had fled from the DMP and the location of the gas station where Becca had picked us up, I was able to figure out within a hundred square miles where Area 3A might be.
Megan rode up front next to her boyfriend, Mickey, while Mickey’s twin sister, Siobhan, and her boyfriend, Connor, sat behind us. No one seemed bummed about going to the mountains instead of the beach. In fact, they were all pretty psyched to be part of what Dylan had dubbed Operation Scot Free.
Dylan fell asleep an hour into the four-hour drive, so I practiced playing memory trainer games on my phone. If I wanted to gather dirt on the DMP, I had to be able to recall small details. Having a better grip on my surroundings would also help me know whether I was being followed.
Ironically, I was so busy learning to be observant that I didn’t notice the rising tension a few feet away.
“I don’t get why I can’t come with you,” Megan whined to Mickey. “I wanna see what your college town looks like, and your new apartment.”
“You’ll see the place once it’s set up,” he replied with an edge. “I’ll only be gone for a weekend. Relax.”
Mickey, the other brother in the Keeley Brothers Irish-flavored punk band, had been Logan’s dark, scowling antithesis. Onstage, their contrast had created an irresistible dynamic, but in real life, it had meant a constant, exhausting tug-of-war. Logan’s happy-go-lucky, über-ambitious nature had clashed with Mickey and his desire to keep the music pure and serious.
But when Logan had died, Mickey had blamed himself and sank into despair. His demeanor and outlook had improved when he saw Logan one last time at the concert, but his happiness hadn’t lasted. Megan’s attempts to “fix” him only made him more miserable.
Connor and Siobhan continued their quiet conversation over a bag of corn chips. “So you’re just gonna be undeclared?” he asked.
“I have no idea what I want to major in,” she replied, crunching. “I’ll try a little of everything, like a buf
fet.”
“Cool. I wish I could do that.”
“You can,” she said. “Just don’t be an engineer.”
“But I want to be an engineer. A really relaxed engineer.”
Witnessing the agonizing college choices by Siobhan and Connor had made me dread facing the same decision myself that year. Mickey’s choice, on the other hand, had been easy. He’d only ever wanted to study music, so he was going to Shenandoah Conservatory in Virginia.
“Oh, guess what, you guys?” Siobhan finished chewing, then swallowed. “Connor and I have an announcement.”
Megan whipped around in her seat. “Oh my God. You’re getting engaged.”
The two of them laughed. “No,” Connor said.
She gasped. “You’re pregnant?”
“God, no.” Siobhan took Connor’s hand and smiled at him. “We’re breaking up.”
What? The car fell into a stunned silence. Only the sleeping Dylan hadn’t reacted.
Connor gazed at Siobhan so serenely, I wondered if we’d heard wrong.
“You’re breaking up?” Mickey exclaimed. “As in, the two of you, not going out anymore?”
Connor nodded. “Yeah, but not until we start school next month.”
“This way we can enjoy the time we have,” Siobhan said, “without angsting over whether it’s going to end.”
“We’ll still be friends,” Connor added.
“Totally. The alternative was trying to do that whole long-distance thing two hundred miles apart.” She unwrapped the plastic from the sandwich she’d packed. “We’ve seen too many friends go through that, and someone always ends up crushed.”
“Usually by the end of September,” Connor said. “It’s inevitable.”
Megan looked mortified. “It is?”
“Not for everyone,” Siobhan blurted. “I’m sure you and Mickey will be fine.”
Dylan gave a quiet snort, his eyes still closed. “Nice save, Siobhan.” Apparently he wasn’t asleep after all.
“You guys are equally cool with this?” I asked Connor and Siobhan.
“Uh-huh.” She studied her bread crust. “I hate flaxseeds. They look like deer ticks.”
Connor reached for her sandwich. “Let me exterminate them for you.”
“No, I’ll deal.” She went to bite the sandwich, then handed it to him. “On second thought, thanks.”
I watched their familiar, easy exchange. They were the best-matched couple I’d ever known, and now they were throwing it all away.
Meanwhile, up front, Mickey gripped the steering wheel, and Megan sat with her arms crossed over her chest, her face turned away from him. Siobhan and Connor’s discussion had thrown gasoline onto the flames of Mickey and Megan’s own long-distance-relationship tension.
Though my stomach was knotting up from nerves, the smell of Siobhan’s ham sandwich made me hungry. I opened a bag of cheese puffs, the crackle of plastic sounding as loud as a shotgun in the strained silence.
“We shouldn’t have said anything,” Connor murmured to Siobhan behind me. “It was stupid timing.”
“You’re saying I’m stupid?” Siobhan snapped.
“We both are. We should’ve thought how they’d react, is all. Now we’re stuck with them all weekend.”
Dylan and I exchanged a worried look. If this operation failed because of relationship drama, I was going to scream.
In the front seat Megan wheedled, “I just don’t see why I can’t come with you next weekend.”
“I don’t see why you’d want to.” Mickey dragged a tense, freckled hand through his wavy brown hair. “I’ll be sitting around waiting for furniture to be delivered. There won’t even be electricity yet.”
The heat of embarrassment crept over my cheeks. I hated when they fought in front of us.
“It’ll be romantic,” Megan said to Mickey.
“It’ll be hot as hell without air-conditioning. You’d complain the whole time.”
“No, I wouldn’t!” Her whine gained an edge of rage, then softened. “I swear I won’t.”
“See what I mean?” Connor said to Siobhan.
“Okay, fine. It was stupid to tell them at the beginning of the trip. Happy?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Connor kiss the top ridge of Siobhan’s multi-pierced ear. “I got you to admit you were wrong. I rock.”
She laughed, leaning into him and wrapping her hand around his thigh. “Shut up.”
“It’s not worth you getting in trouble,” Mickey told Megan. “Your mom would kill us if she caught you going away overnight with me.”
“I’m going away with you now.”
“As part of a group. Your mom can tell herself you’ll be sleeping in Aura’s room.”
“Maybe I will.” Megan clicked her seat-belt latch and snapped the strap away from her shoulder.
“What are you doing? Watch it!” Mickey said as she clambered over the center console.
“I’m taking a break.” Megan plopped into the seat between me and Dylan. Her tone was angry, but there were tears behind it, and her ruddy skin was even more flushed than usual. She needed a distraction.
I took out the small green memo pad I’d started carrying since Simon told me to get information from Nicola. I wrote, I want to try to change a shade to a ghost on the fall equinox. I wiped off the cheese puffs’ orange powder and passed the pad and pen to Megan, pointing at Dylan so she’d show him, too.
Megan read the note, then shoved the pad into Dylan’s chest. “Are you crazy?” she whispered, though Mickey had cranked the music back up.
Dylan wrote on the paper. You’ll be a total puke machine.
Me: If I could do it for Logan, maybe I can do it for anyone. SHOULD do it for anyone.
“Why?” Megan asked out loud.
Dylan proceeded to scribble on the pad without taking it off her leg. She tensed at his almost-touch, but didn’t brush him off.
Dylan: Because being a shade sucks. Logan said so.
Me: Will you guys come with me in case I pass out?
They nodded without hesitation.
Megan: How will you find a shade?
Me: The DMP started a list on their website last week. It was like the FBI’s Most Wanted list, except these poor souls usually hadn’t committed any crimes. I’ll call their names and tell them to fly through me like Logan did. If it works, they’ll be ghosts again.
Megan flipped the page and wrote, THIS IS CRAZY!
I gestured to the SUV around us, as if to say, We’re heading into Nowheresville, Pennsylvania, to find the hidden laboratory of a government agency, so we can rescue my boyfriend and send him on the first plane back to Scotland.
She snatched the bag of cheese puffs from my lap. “Good point.”
Around two o’clock we reached the area in the mountain forest where the DMP had taken me and Zachary. Connor was driving now, since he was the least likely to be recognized if we were stopped.
“You’d think there’d be a sign.” I twisted the end of my ponytail around my fingertip as I scanned the endless, thick forest. “Even the National Security Agency has a sign at the start of the highway exit.”
“And armed guards at the end of it,” Mickey grumbled behind us.
“That’s the thing.” Dylan peered through the windshield between Connor and Siobhan. “No DMP sign, probably not much security. If we do find it, maybe it’ll be easy to get in.”
“Or out,” Megan added, now in a better mood. Mickey’s doubts aside, the atmosphere in the car buzzed with anticipation.
Little by little, that anticipation turned to frustration, as we proceeded to find, as Dylan put it, “precisely dick.” Siobhan marked off each part as we explored it thoroughly, but three hours later, we’d covered only a small portion of the county’s pothole-punched roads.
“We’re destroying the shocks on this thing,” Mickey murmured to Megan. “And for what?”
“It’s an SUV. Yeah, a froufrou one, but it’s still built for this. And h
ow can you ask, ‘for what?’ ”
“I don’t even know this Zachary guy. Logan hated him.”
“No, he didn’t.” Dylan glared at his brother. “Not at the end.”
Mickey gave a sullen sigh. My shoulders tingled with tension at his hostility. Also, I wondered what Dylan knew about Logan and Zachary that I didn’t.
I was about to ask when Siobhan shouted, “Is that it?”
Connor hit the brakes, jolting us against our seat belts. Behind us, someone honked.
Ahead on our right, a heavy-duty, pale-green steel box sat next to a narrow driveway. It showed no name or number.
“Let me get closer.” Connor steered the SUV toward the shoulder.
“Watch it!” Mickey said. “Don’t put us in the ditch.”
“Calm down.” Connor glanced in the side-view mirror. “I’m gonna let this jerkwad behind me pass. He’s been riding our bumper for miles.”
A big white box van zoomed by. The logo on the back tossed my heart into my throat.
SECURILAB.
Chapter Fifteen
Follow him!” I pointed at the truck. “He’s going where we’re going.”
Connor jerked the steering wheel to the left to put the Escalade back on the road.
I explained. “SecuriLab is the company that makes BlackBox. They’re tied up tight with the DMP. If they’re out here in the middle of nowhere, they’re going to 3A.”
“Good eye, Aura!” Megan leaned forward for a high five.
We followed the SecuriLab van down ten miles of winding, nauseating highway, until it pulled onto a rough-paved, heavily wooded road to our left.
“Follow from farther back,” Dylan said, then noticed I’d twisted the seat belt strap around my wrist in my anxiety.
“Hey.” He unwrapped my hand. “We got it, okay?”
I stretched my fingers, which tingled with the return of blood. Our lucky streak would have to continue for me to share Dylan’s confidence.
We rounded a curve in time to see the SecuriLab van turn into a driveway, passing under an unmanned security gate.
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