by May, W. J.
“What about me?” Molly asked excitedly, eager to find out where she stood.
Devon grinned. “Actually, Molls, you’re a Class Four. Your tatù can only be used offensively.”
“I knew it! I’ve been offending people with my tatù since I got it!” she said proudly. Then her face fell as she re-registered the number. “Wait…only a Class Four? Not a—”
“Trust me, you don’t want to be a—” Devon stopped suddenly and glanced with a rather guilty expression at Camille, and then Rae. “Sorry…no offense.”
Camille held up her hands and laughed. “Some of us gotta shake what our mommas gave us. Literally, in my case.”
Rae was still confused. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard of these categories before. “I don’t get it though, Dev; why wouldn’t you want to be a Class Five?”
This time, it was Mrs. Lachaise who answered. “Class Fives are considered too dangerous to be out and about in society. When they’re just young to their ability, they’re closely monitored, and, more often than not, by the time they reach adulthood, they’ve mysteriously ‘disappeared’ into the black hole of the tatù system. At least in America anyways.”
Disappeared?! Did that mean—
“They’re not murdered,” Devon said quickly, reading Rae’s horrified expression. “They’re just…” he shifted uncomfortably, “put into holding.”
“Holding?” Rae repeated, dumbfounded. “You mean, like, jail?”
Again, he fidgeted uneasily, looking at his shoes. “Of sorts…”
“It’s what they would’ve done to Camille,” Mr. Lachaise said suddenly. “My little girl would have grown up in some cell. Been experimented on like a lab rat. Matilde and I would have been disciplined just for having her.” He whirled around on the four of them in abrupt anger. “That’s what your precious Privy Council does. Its long arm reaches across the ocean and snaps the innocent up.” He glared at them. “And yes—don’t think for a minute I don’t recognize the soldiers, the training.” His eyes swept them up and down before resting on his daughter with a helpless sort of rage. “It tears apart families. It ruins lives.”
Mrs. Lachaise walked over silently and slipped her hand onto his shoulder. “That’s why we had to run.” She glanced around the tiny two-bedroom house sadly. “Texas isn’t ideal…but we wanted to find a place where Camille could still ride horses like she used to do in Rennes.”
“Rennes?” Julian asked in surprise. “You lived in France?”
“We left on my sixteenth birthday,” Camille replied. “The day I got my ink.”
Everyone was quiet for a while until Molly said tentatively, “Well, have you ever considered going to the Privy Council and trying to explain—”
Mrs. Lachaise held up her hand, and Molly fell silent. “We did nothing wrong. You can’t help who you fall in love with. The Privy Council has no jurisdiction over the heart. I’m not apologizing for my marriage. Or my family.”
Rae couldn’t agree more.
“We’re not here on behalf of the Privy Council,” she said slowly, weighing her words with great care. “To be honest, if they knew where we were, I’m sure they’d drag us back to London in chains. We’re here for a different reason entirely. A different kind of danger now lurks. One that has to do with your daughter…”
* * *
By now, telling the Cromfield story only took a brief amount of time. The four friends had perfected it; keeping it clear and concise, one person handling the narration before another seamlessly stepped in to take the reins. It was a testament to how much the Lachaises feared the Privy Council, that they would rather take their chances on their own than go to them for help. In fact, every hybrid family Rae and her friends had come across had felt the exact same way. And after hearing the Lachaises’ story, Rae couldn’t blame them.
“Hey.”
She turned around to see Devon walking slowly towards her through the trees. After dinner, she’d gone out for a walk in the orchard behind Camille’s house. Julian and Molly were inside helping the Lachaises start to pack, while Mrs. Lachaise had been patching up Devon’s head.
“You survived,” Rae said with a small smile.
He brought his hand up to his bandaged forehead with a grimace. “Just barely. Remind me not to volunteer to buy our mark drinks again. We’ll send Julian.”
Rae chuckled. “That’s what you get for hitting on a cowgirl.”
“Aw,” his arms circled around her and she leaned back into him, “was somebody jealous?”
“No.” Rae sniffed. “But somebody did feel a lot better when she threw said cowgirl thirty feet into the air.”
Devon laughed and spun her around for a kiss. “What am I going to do with you?”
She leaned in again, kissing him more slowly this time, savoring every second, but then pulling away suddenly. Her eyes flicked up to his and she asked almost nervously, “Devon…what class am I?”
“You?” The corner of his mouth turned up in a quirky grin. “You’d be, like, a Class Ten. I don’t think they have a class for you.”
She sighed and turned back out to the trees. “That’s what I thought.”
“Hey,” he squeezed her hand, “nobody’s coming for you. Nobody’s after you. You’re working for the good guys, remember?”
“The good guys…” Her eyes grew hard. “Right.”
She felt him stiffen behind her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dev,” she turned around to face him, “don’t you find it at all suspicious that when we tell all these families a psychopath is after their children, instead of running to the greatest convergence of tatùs in the world, an organization sworn to protect, they’re all running the other direction? On that note, don’t you find it a little bit strange that all these people are in hiding to begin with?”
Devon shifted uncomfortably, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “The Council thinks it’s doing what’s right, Rae. I mean—you saw what Camille can do. They make these laws for a reason.”
“I thought they made Guilder for that reason.” Rae pressed her lips tight before saying in a soft voice, “What about me? What about what I can do? You said it yourself, I’d be a Class Five. And all these laws you’re praising, they’re set in place to keep people like me from ever being born. The PC want me locked up and put in a safe place.”
He glanced at the ground, avoiding her eyes. “I’m not praising their laws, I’m—”
“You’re upholding them.”
His eyes flashed up to meet hers. “I’m breaking them. Every day, I’m breaking them, Rae.”
“But we’re working for the company that put them in place. That forced this family,” she gestured in the house, “to flee France and move to freaking Texas. That’s who we work for, Dev.”
“Well, what’s the alternative?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
Rae turned back to the trees, locking her eyes on the horizon. What about Simon Kerrigan? She wished she had more of her father’s journals. He had felt he didn’t fit in to Guilder or the Privy Council. Did he have solid reasons for that? Or was he a lunatic like Cromfield? Rae sighed. “I don’t know, Devon. I don’t know…”
Chapter 7
Early the next morning, Rae, Devon, Molly, and Julian piled into the Escalade and headed out of town. They followed behind the Lachaises as far as the city limits before splitting off in opposite directions. While Camille and her family were heading to New York, Rae and her friends were off to the chilly beaches of San Francisco. The Lachaises were positive, and not afraid of moving on. It impressed Rae and gave her hope for the future—the near future, not the one where she was never going to die and Devon would grow old without her ever aging.
They didn’t have a strict reason to go to San Fran. After Julian’s ‘episode’ at the airport food court, he had yet to get another big-picture kind of vision. He could still see the things, the day to day results of his friends’ decisions, but when i
t came to Cromfield, it was like he had hit a wall. The future was blocked. Hence, San Francisco. While it might not be the next place Cromfield was heading, it was the closest location on the list to where they were, and they could get there the fastest. Hopefully along the way, Julian’s visions would kick back into gear in time for the next hybrid.
They made it as far as Yuma, Arizona before deciding to turn in for the night. Unfortunately, there had to be some kind of huge sports event or national disaster or something, because every hotel they passed was fully booked. Rae was finally able to secure them a single room in the shabbiest-looking motel any of them had ever seen by promising, through batted eyelashes, that they would pay double and be out first thing in the morning.
That still left the four of them utterly exhausted in a roach-filled hovel with a single bed.
There wasn’t a sound as their eyes locked on the solitary mattress. A silent competition was formed in an instant, and each of them cast each other appraising looks as they inched closer.
“Well, I think it’s clear that Rae and I should get the bed,” Devon said shortly. “That way, at least two of us can use it. Instead of just one. Besides, I’m still recovering from a really bad head wound,” he added unconvincingly.
“Oh, well that seems fair,” Molly bristled. “That’s the way the game is played? Just because you two happen to be screwing, you get the bed? In that case, I have an announcement to make. Julian and I have been secretly hooking up for the last few years, so I think we should get the bed.”
“Speak for yourself,” Julian muttered, eyeing the stains on mattress doubtfully. “I don’t think I want to go anywhere near that thing.”
“Can’t you just conjure two other beds?” Devon asked Rae hopefully.
She shook her head. “Sure I could conjure them, but I couldn’t un-conjure them when we were done. How would we explain that to the manager?”
“To be honest, I don’t think the guy would notice,” Molly said truthfully. “He seemed pretty concerned with his video games, and your money. That was about it.”
“How about this,” Devon said peaceably, “Rae and I can have the bed, but she can conjure you guys some awesome sleeping bags and some of that Tempur-pedic foam. We can just toss it in the dumpster before we leave.” Molly raised an angry finger, and he hastened to add, “And, in return, Jules and Molly can have the first two showers. I’m sure there’s not going to be any hot water for more than that anyway.”
Molly paused mid-breath, obviously torn between the prospect of a mattress and a hot shower, before finally rolling her eyes with a huff. “Fine. You guys can have the bed. But if I see a roach down there, I’m blasting it, no questions asked. And I get the first shower. Sorry, Jules,” she added, casting him a sideways glance.
“No problem,” he said good-naturedly. Then he tossed her a wink, “Hey, if we’ve really been sleeping together for the last few years, maybe I could just join you. Share the hot water, wash each other’s backs…”
The laughter that followed this statement eased a good deal of the tension in the room as Molly skipped off to the bathroom and Rae got to work conjuring the fluffiest, most comfortable sleeping bags she could imagine. It actually turned out a lot better than she would have thought. In fact, one could argue the little foam nests she created were a lot better than the mattress. She conjured a thick cover for the bed itself, anything to shield her and Devon from whatever ominous diseases lay beneath, and ended by installing an air freshener by the front door.
When Molly finally got out of the shower, she looked around curiously as she climbed into her bed. “Why does it smell like vanilla cookies?”
“Because of your handy best friend,” Rae answered with a grin. “Why? Do you want a cookie?” She opened her palm and one appeared. “I’m getting really good at this!”
Molly took a bite and spat it right back out into the trash can. “Yeah…really good.”
“Molls,” Julian called from the bathroom, turning on the water for his own shower, “do you really have to leave your bra hanging up like this over the mirror? It’s…kinda distracting.”
“Yes I do—it cost eighty quid. That’s a $150 American dollar bra!” she fired back. “It simply doesn’t do to fold it up; it’ll get weird creases.”
“…are those rhinestones?”
“Stop looking at my bra, Julian.”
“Sorry.”
Less than a minute later, Julian also emerged from the bathroom, looking rather cross. Apparently, there had only been enough hot water for one shower. He settled onto his bed in a huff, shaking out his wet hair and shivering.
“What do you think, Rae?” Devon muttered with a tired yawn. “You want to try for one?”
“A shower?” she asked.
Julian shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”
Rae and Devon shared a quick look before she shook her head with a shrug and settled down on the bed. Despite the brilliant foam she’d created, the hard springs of the mattress still managed to cut through, and she couldn’t for the life of her seem to fall asleep.
Devon, on the other hand, was out like a light the second his head touched the pillow. She watched him sleeping for what seemed like hours, trying to match his slow, calming breaths with her own. He looked so peaceful this way. So calm and undamaged. She realized with a dull ache that it was the only time he did anymore. Her eyes drifted around the room to where Molly was twitching sparks in her sleep, and Julian…? Well, it looked like Julian was having some kind of nightmare.
His entire face was tense and grimacing, and he kept jerking his head like he was trying to get away from something, but something wasn’t letting him go. When the telltale stream of blood started trickling down his face, Rae leapt to her feet in alarm.
Taking care to not wake the others, she tiptoed past them and knelt beside Julian’s makeshift bed. He looked different in his sleep, too—older, more guarded. The exact opposite of Devon.
“Jules,” she shook him softly, “Julian, wake up.”
He flinched away from her touch, but his eyes remained closed. She tried again, shaking him a little harder this time.
“Julian! You’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”
With a start, his eyes shot open and he pulled himself up. His lean, muscular arms were shaking as they held him up, and his face was about as pale as Rae had ever seen it.
She put a calming hand on his back as he tried to gather his wits. “Were you dreaming?” she asked quietly. “Or were you having a vision? It looked like you were having a nightmare…”
He gasped softly, trying to steady himself as she rubbed calming circles on his back.
“A nightmare…right.”
They sat there for a while, neither speaking, neither knowing quite what to do. This was unfamiliar ground for the two of them. Rae considered Julian to be one of her closest friends. The fact was that he was hiding something—whatever it was she had seen in his thoughts—and now he was avoiding her so as not to talk about it. She didn’t know what to do with that.
“Do you think you can fall back to sleep?” she finally asked. He glanced at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Come on,” she said, helping him up. “Let’s go for a walk.”
It was a concert, Rae discovered, that’s was filling up the town. She and Julian walked slowly down the street, hands buried in the pockets of two jackets she’d just conjured, listening to the roar of the crowd from a nearby stadium. It had to be some kind of country star, a type of music she truthfully couldn’t abide, and, after sharing a quick glance with Julian, they started walking the other way.
They must have gone a good two miles before she finally tried to start up a conversation. “So…got any big plans for the summer?”
He stared at her incredulously for a second before bursting into laughter. She took one look at his shining, handsome face before laughing herself.
This was the Julian she knew and loved. This was the Julian she could talk to.
“I’m thinking I might learn Flemish,” he said casually.
“Flemish, really?” She slipped into Sarah’s tatù, finding she already knew how to speak it perfectly. “Well, I could give you some lessons if you like.”
“That’d be great. You know, I may also take up chess. Or knitting.”
She snorted with laughter and laced her arm through his. “I could see you as a knitter.”
He nodded gravely. “I’d take it very seriously. And I’d only do it for the money. I hear there’s big money in those little cardigan creations. I was thinking a whole tiny-dog line. Maybe open the line up to hamsters, gerbils, snakes.”
“Jules…” She pulled him to a stop. There was a smile still lingering on her face, but she sobered up the longer she looked at him. “What exactly did I see inside your head? What’re you not telling me?”
At once, he went pale as a sheet, shifting away from her and shivering in the cold. “I’m not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Julian,” she leaned forward persistently, “it’s me.”
His eyes tightened but he shook his head. “It’s not important, Rae. It’s not your problem.”
She put her hands on her hips. “It’s important enough that you’re hiding it from—”
“I’m not hiding anything, I just…” He shivered again. “I just don’t know what’s going on.”
They sat down on the curb and she took his hand, eyes silently encouraging him to continue.
“It’s like Devon said. There’s no way Cromfield can be aware of my presence. That’s not how the gift works. It’s impossible. Like, here—” he held his hands behind his back, “use my tatù, tell me which hand I’m going to open.”
Rae’s eyes screwed up as she concentrated. Aside from her father’s and Ellie’s, Julian’s tatù was hands-down the most difficult she’d ever encountered. She was ashamed to say that most of the time she completely ignored it. It was hard to figure out, let alone progress with, and he was years ahead of her on its use. Plus, he was always around anyway.
