My voice is splintered with anger, and I know I’m teetering at the edge of what will be tolerated. I shuffle my feet and drop my gaze to the floor.
“Do not take that tone with your mother. She is not the one outside her bounds here,” Father cuts in. “We all have your best interests at heart. You have a long and promising future ahead of you. We don’t want your rash actions now to follow you for the next hundred years.”
A hundred plus. One hundred and twenty-seven, to be exact. That is too many years of this Directorate bullshit. I shake my head – this isn’t me, that’s Evie again. But even Evie wouldn’t dare say these things out loud like I did today. Her memory is melding and reshaping in my mind, becoming the things I wish I could be, and suddenly it feels like the real Evie is slipping away from me. The unanchored fear digs deeper into my core.
“Nobody wants that,” Mother agrees. “But you’ve got to work with us, Gracelyn.”
I slouch lower into my chair with a huff.
“What exactly do you want from me?” I snap. It’s like no matter what I do or where I go, I am trapped in a too-tight box I cannot break free of. It is heavy, and it is exhausting me.
“That’s enough!” Mother shoots to her feet, her face riddled with anger and her eyes sharp. It’s satisfying, to see real emotion from her for once. Comforting. “You are acting just like your sis – ”
The word hangs there, half-finished, as Mother tries to choke it back down.
“What’s that?” I demand, rising to meet her. “Like my sister? I’m acting like Evie? Come on, you still remember how to say her name, don’t you?” I pause. Instinctively I feel that this is the moment for the final blow, and I’m so angry and afraid at how far away Evie feels that I can find no reason to hold back. “Please tell me you weren’t about to say I’m acting like my dead sister to get me back in line?”
“That is enough!” Father shouts, jumping to his feet.
“Which part is upsetting you?” I realize tears are dropping over my cheeks. “The part where I won’t be manipulated, or the part where I mentioned your dead daughter? Do you remember her? Do you even care? What is wrong with you people?” I shriek.
I want to hurl the tablet across the room. I want to shatter the windows. Kick through the wall.
“Yes,” Mother whimpers. “That.”
Her eyes brim with tears. Good. I don’t want to be alone in this horrible pain.
Father places a hand on her shoulder.
“Get it under control, Gracelyn,” he barks. “Think of all those years of potential ahead of you. Don’t throw them away.”
“Yeah. All those precious years.” And with that I’m out of things to say. I whip around and race upstairs to my room.
I slam the door behind me and the tears come immediately, hard and fierce, like I’ve never cried before. I can hardly believe what I’ve done. I feel as though I have been cut loose, untethered and teetering, at the edge of a cliff. Would I survive the fall?
If this is what it’s like to let emotion in, I’m beginning to understand why so many don’t mind opting out from it.
Chapter Thirty
Gracelyn
The next morning I am back in the MHM office, the plush cushions of the chair crowding around me.
“Well, Gracelyn? Anything to add since our last visit?”
Joyce presses her lips together, and it is clear she will not speak again until I do.
I am ready this time. I know what she wants, and I am prepared to deliver it. I nod slowly, looking down at my hands – a gesture I rehearsed in the mirror last night.
“I started feeling what you were talking about. Maybe I was already feeling it, and I was too afraid to admit it, even to myself.”
Joyce leans forward. “And what is it you are feeling?”
“S-sadness.”
“Mhm,” she prompts.
“It’s like…” my heart thumps in my throat. I try to swallow it down. “Part of me is missing. Like a puzzle. Like someone stole some of the pieces.”
Uneasiness quivers through me – confessing these feelings out loud, it is putting me off-kilter in a way I didn’t expect. I am already telling her more than I planned. Shut up, shut up. I can’t afford to stray from what I rehearsed.
Joyce looks me over coolly, leaving it to me to fill the quiet.
To my dismay, I do.
“I feel so empty.” Panic needles at me behind my ears. The words tumble out of me. “I can’t sleep. I can’t focus. I…”
My voice, thankfully, trails off in quivering stammers. I shake my head.
“I understand you had a tough time in lecture yesterday,” she prompts.
There it is. The bomb I knew was coming. Her eyes are wide, as if hungry for me to have another outburst. A watchlizard skitters up the wall behind her, its bulbous lens head stretching out and peering around the room.
I panic, my mind racing with memories of Evie and flashes of LQM files and Quinn, and a surge of relief swells in anticipation of unloading it all.
Then my digipad beeps, and everything lurches to a halt.
Quinn invited you to a meeting at 11:30am.
Accept / Decline
A wave of excitement pulls me back to myself. Did Quinn find something? My mind rushes with the possibilities, and the pressure leaves my chest. I hastily accept without bothering to check my calendar for other appointments.
Joyce raps her knuckles sharply on the desk. “Your alerts should be silenced during appointments, Gracelyn. You know that.”
What am I doing? I know better than this. I’m getting sloppy again, letting my emotions get in the way of my thinking.
“I’m sorry. I forgot.” I hold the small button on the side to put my digipad into quiet mode.
I forgot. I never forget, not anything. And I have already said too much. I have been so consumed, and the weight of it all is clouding my thinking. I have to be more careful. Much more.
Joyce smiles. “Mistakes happen when emotions set in. That is why we are here. You were about to tell me more.”
Her hands resettle on the table.
I let out a slow breath to calm myself and rest my hands in my lap. It’s not too late to regain control.
“Actually, no, I don’t think so,” I reply. “It feels so good to tell all this to someone – someone I can trust – but I don’t have anything more to say.”
I smile what I hope is a sweet, sad, relieved smile, and press my lips together tight.
Joyce smiles back at me, and for a pause, the mellow, meditative sounds of the room build between us.
She breaks the wall first.
“Very well then. I am prescribing Amizol, to be taken with breakfast daily. This is a common aid for post-departure treatment to reduce inflated emotive responses. You will start seeing them dispensed with your food tomorrow, and these feelings should begin to dissolve within a few days.”
She smiles again, like she is giving me a gift.
I know these pills. Mother’s manic eyes widen at me inside my mind.
“We will have a follow-up in two weeks to see how that is doing for you.”
Relief mingles with dread. I’ve managed to get myself out of trouble for now, but it’s not over yet. Now I have to figure out a way to get rid of these pills, and how to act like they are working. If I don’t start complying, or at least appear to, I will not be so lucky next time. Then who knows what will happen – maybe next time they will lock me in that tiny room for good.
And then I’ll never find Evie.
Chapter Thirty-One
Evie
It’s raining again. A cold rain that bites my skin with each drop and send shivers down my back with each roll of thunder. Even so, I can’t make myself go inside.
I stand outside the Med cabin, staring at the doorknob, not ready to go in, but unwilling to let myself retreat. My pulse rises, and I catch myself wishing I could check my heart rate on my digipad. At least I’ve stopped trying to check my wrist
from habit by now.
I don’t understand what, exactly, I’m afraid of. Sue’s tough, but she’s hardly scary. And as for the tests themselves…well, she’s right. And so are Kinlee and Connor. Knowing what’s wrong with me can only help. This should be the opposite of scary. I should be afraid of not knowing.
Trying to rationalize with myself isn’t helping, so I take a breath and force myself into the cabin before I can think myself out of it completely. I burst through the door, creating an instant puddle around me as my clothes drip onto the wooden panels.
“I’m ready now,” I announce.
A chair scrapes on the floor as Sue turns and stares at me. She and Noah are hovering over the back desk – probably planning out tomorrow’s schedule.
Sue lifts an eyebrow.
“To do your departure tests,” I say, fumbling over the words to explain myself. “To find out what’s wrong with me. I’ll do it. I’m ready.”
She and Noah exchange a look, and Sue comes to me at the front.
“Have a seat, Evie.”
We both sit, facing each other, the desk between us.
“If you’re ready, that’s great. But I know you’re used to being told what to do, and that’s not how it is out here. I regret how forceful I was with you when we talked about this before. That wasn’t fair to you. But going through these tests is going to take time. It’s a commitment. What you learn could have major consequences for how you live and what comes next for you. If we’re going to do this, you need to be sure it’s what you want. Not what you think you have to do. Or what you think anyone else wants you to do.” She pauses and gives me a pointed look. “I heard about the other night at dinner. Kinlee can be pushy, but that doesn’t mean you should do what she says.”
“Thank you.” Sue is always looking out, always five steps ahead, always sharp. No one has ever looked out for me before – not like this, separating what they think I should do and what I want for myself. “But I do. I want this. I wasn’t ready yet when you brought it up before. But I’m ready now. Or at least, I want to be ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever really be ready. But I’m done with going through life without questioning. I want to understand. I want to fight back.”
Sue studies me for a moment. Then she smiles.
“Okay then. I’m proud of you. For whatever that’s worth.”
I’m surprised to find I actually think it’s worth quite a lot.
Then, Sue is straight down to business, pulling out her clipboard.
“This would have been a little simpler to do while you were working here, but we’ll make do. You’re on farm duty, right?”
“Actually, I’m about to start in Intel & Recon.”
“Oho, hot shot,” she says. “Well, we’ll have to squeeze this in between your shifts.” She flips to her appointment log. “Come by around… three tomorrow. That works?”
I nod.
She scribbles on her pad.
“After that I’ll need you here three or four more times. We got a lot of tests to run. Diagnosing a problem without symptoms is complicated, especially when it might be something no one but the Directorate considers a problem. We’ll start with the tests we’ll have to send out to a real lab, to get those going, and then move on to the stuff we can diagnose here. It’s going to be a long few weeks. But, then we’ll know a lot more.”
“Thank you.” It’s all I can say.
Major things have shifted inside me these last few weeks. I’ve struggled with more things, been more uncomfortable, more scared, more uncertain, than the Directorate would ever have allowed me to feel in a lifetime. And happier, too.
And I’m better for it. These new challenges are stretching me in new directions, and I can feel myself reaching out to meet them like branches growing out from a tree.
Before, change was always scary, something to avoid. It was always bad. But now? I don’t know. I think I might even kind of like it. Finding out what’s wrong with me still scares me, but it also feels like a challenge. One I’m ready to face, finally.
I step back out into the rain, and this time, it actually feels good. Like the fear is dissolving and washing away.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Evie
When I get to the bunker for my new work assignment in Intel & Recon, Raina insists on pairing me with Kinlee. Kinlee hasn’t talked to me since our shouting match at dinner last week.
I wanted to make up with her, but she’s been impossible to catch up with, even in the cabin. I know the entire camp is doubling their efforts since Tad went missing – in Intel & Recon it might be tripling – but every day that passes that I don’t see her, the more it feels like she’s avoiding me.
I miss her. I know I’ve only known her about a month, but she’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and fighting with her has my stomach in constant knots.
The only thing worse, it turns out, is forcing her to be around me when she so obviously doesn’t want to be. Raina made her give me a tour of the bunker. But all I’ve seen so far is the back of her messy hair and the hallway.
“That’s classified,” she says, pointing to a closed door as we pass. “That’s classified,” she says, pointing to the next door. Kinlee’s usual energy is restrained, and she skulks through the hall with her shoulders hunched. She won’t look me in the eye.
If this is what my next few weeks working in Intel is like, I’d have had a better chance of finding a way to reach Gracelyn by joining the detonation crews on the Directorate’s border. And without Kinlee to talk to, I’m missing Gracelyn more than ever right now.
“That’s classified – ”
“I get it. Spy stuff: classified. Kin, stop.”
She turns around and faces me, staring down at my shoes.
“Kinlee,” I plead. “Come on.”
She folds her arms and looks at me. Her glare could turn a person to stone, but I’ll take it.
I try to gather up something to say. Neither of us is exactly a glowing model of emotional intelligence, but one of us has to get this started. I swallow my nerves and give it a shot.
“You’ve got to understand, in the Quads, we hardly even say the word departure. Not even when we’re preparing for one. It freaks people out. Including me.”
Her gaze starts to drift away towards the wall. Not working…
“But that’s not the point. The point is, you’re right, okay? It’s stupid not to diagnose my departure. I went to Sue. I start testing today.”
She shifts her weight and cocks her head to the side. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
The tension in her shoulders starts to ease.
I push it another step. “And… maybe you’re sorry you exploded all over me instead of just talking to me?”
For a pause she stares at me, a crease forming in her forehead. The knots in my stomach double – ugh, I’m terrible at this. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I made it worse.
But then the edge of her mouth curls up in a smile.
“Yeah. Maybe I am.” She shifts again, her arms relaxing. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I’ve just been so exhausted lately from all these shifts. I guess I freaked out a little.”
A laugh escapes me. “A little?” She does look tired, even more than before. Her eyes are rimmed with dark circles, and her hair is even messier than normal – not just tousled, but unkempt.
“Well…” She shrugs.
“Do me and the entire world a favor. Never freak out a lot.”
She shoves me, but she’s grinning, and the light is back in her eyes. A weight dissolves from my shoulders – I have Kinlee back.
“Hey,” she says, brightening. “You wanna see something cool?”
“Depends. Is it classified?”
She sighs, ignoring my jab. “Over here.”
Then she turns around with a jump and leads me across the bunker’s main open room, stopping in front of an elaborate machine.
“What is that?” I ask.
&
nbsp; “It’s an inking computer. You just enter in the image or letters you want, and it’ll tattoo it onto your skin. It’s what we use to falsify departure dates to agents going undercover in the Directorate.
“Whoa.” I hadn’t thought about it before. But of course they’d need to add departure dates before going in.
“This one affixes digipads,” Kinlee says, moving on to the next table.
I look up, and I can hardly believe what I see. Past the machine, past Kinlee, amid the wall of screens in a darkened room behind them, is the view of a park. But it isn’t just any park; it’s my Quad’s park, right down to the particular twists of the tree branches. I would know, I traced sketches of them on my syncscreen dozens and dozens of times.
I drift into the surveillance room. Each screen projects a different feed. And they’re all familiar. My neighborhood, my school, my city center.
“It’s my Quad,” I say.
Something in my chest pinches.
“Oh – yeah,” Kinlee says. “With the Tad situation playing out right now, most of the feeds are on Quad 34.”
I stare up at the wall, my heart pounding. From inside the boxes of the screens, the Quad looks so small and far away. Is Gracelyn really in there? I step closer, squinting, as if she might pass on the screen. But the odds of that are too small to count. I shake my head and step away.
“Sorry – what else you were you going to show me?”
Kinlee shrugs. “Not much. Most of it really is classified. If you stick around and pass your training tests, they’ll pull you in for more of it. I’d show you the tunnels, but you’ve already seen them.”
She gestures to the corner, and I notice a large metal panel embedded into the floor.
“That’s not – ” I look closer. “That’s how you got me here?”
Kinlee nods.
Departures Page 18
