by Ivy Baum
I thought he would drag me away, but instead, he pushed me into the room.
Piercings and Muscles immediately focused on me. Sol’s head turned toward the door.
The look on his face told me everything.
I was in deep trouble.
The man’s grip tightened. “What do you think? One more for target practice?”
Chapter 6
Piercings looked me up and down. “Nah. She’s too pretty for that. I say we gift-wrap her and bring her to the Boss.”
I struggled to break free, but it was no use. My captor had me pressed against the length of his body, which limited my range of motion.
As I glanced down at the arm around my waist, I saw a bright yellow and orange tattoo—some sort of weird flame and triangle.
I wondered if they were members of a gang. Or fresh out of prison.
Sol said, “If you hurt her, you’re going to regret it.”
The man laughed in my ear. “Strong words for someone with a reputation as a Null.”
Sol actually smiled. “You should know better than to listen to unsubstantiated rumors.”
“Oh? And why shouldn’t we believe this one?”
“Because I’m the one who made it up.”
Piercings laughed. “If that’s true, then why haven’t you kicked our asses already?”
“Because I’m a pacifist, asshole.”
Someone snickered.
“No, scratch that. I’m just a person who doesn’t give a shit about your little operation.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop about twenty degrees. No one was smiling now.
Sol said, “I don’t care if you go to war with the Capitol. It’s not the first time a bunch of idiots have tried. It never works.”
Piercings glanced at the muscle-bound guy next to him. “He’s full of shit. Go get Leonard so we can drop the girl. Then give Mr. Pacifist to the Strikers.”
I only understood about half those words, but none of them sounded good.
Sol met my eyes, and something flashed there. Regret?
Before I could figure it out, there was a noise behind me. I wrenched around and saw a slight, pale figure in the doorway. A girl?
Then my captor turned to dead weight, and I had to duck out from under his arm to avoid ending up on the floor with him.
When I looked up, the other men were on the floor, unconscious—or dead. They’d dropped like marionettes with their strings cut.
Sol was looking at the girl in the door. “I had it under control. Besides, wasn’t I supposed to be rescuing you?”
I turned to get a better look at her. She had wide, dark eyes, and looked even more out of place than I did.
Sol’s sister, I realized with a start.
She surveyed the scene dispassionately, then turned to Sol with a wry smile. “I have a feeling that your way would have been less…subtle.”
“Since when do we care about subtle?” Sol was moving freely now—apparently unfrozen.
“Do you really want to wave a red flag right under the noses of the purebloods?”
Sol didn’t answer.
Was I going crazy? Or had this girl really made four grown men drop to the floor?
Sol stepped deftly around them and joined us at the door.
He gave me a hard look. “I told you to stay in the car.”
Before I could answer, the girl shooed him toward the door.
“We can talk about it later.” She offered me a hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Nev.”
Looking at her, I had a strange sense of double vision. On the surface, she looked like a teenage girl.
But those eyes were ageless, inscrutable.
My gaze went back to the men lying on the floor. They were breathing, I saw. I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or disappointed.
“What—what did you do to them?”
Sol said, “Oh, them? They’re just tuckered out from all the partying.”
Nev gave him a reproachful look, then turned to me. “What did you see?”
“I…” Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. I’d been distracted when the man behind me had fallen. I hadn’t actually seen how the other three ended up on the floor.
“I don’t know,” I said at last. “I don’t know what I saw.”
Something flickered in those dark eyes. I had the strangest feeling that the question had been a test. And that I’d failed, somehow.
But all she said was, “Come on. We can talk about it later.”
Sol grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the door. “Nev’s right. We can process our feelings later.”
His voice had an edge to it, now. I realized that he was angry—with me.
We moved through the party quietly, efficiently. I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time—waiting for someone to come chasing after us.
But we glided through the crowd unnoticed.
I don’t think I took a real breath until we were back in the car, pulling away from the curb.
Sol caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Why did you get out of the car?”
I thought about trying to explain. The hallucination, the strange certainty that I should go inside…But none of it made any sense.
Besides, I didn’t owe him anything. Least of all an explanation.
I said, “Why should I listen to you?”
“Because, presumably, you don’t want to die in an untimely and highly unpleasant fashion.”
I turned to Nev, who sat in the passenger seat next to Sol. “Who were those guys? What did they want?”
Sol muttered, “We mistakenly thought that the enemy of our enemy was our friend.”
Nev smiled patiently. “We have enemies, Kes. Sometimes we don’t recognize them until it’s too late.”
Strange words echoed in my head. Purebloods. The Capitol.
Looking back on what had happened in the apartment, everything seemed as strange as a dream—or nightmare.
“Why wouldn’t you just call the police? Those guys were—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Dangerous. Scary.
They exchanged a long look.
Finally, Nev said, “Tell me what else you saw at the party.”
Another test, I thought.
Before I could answer, Sol said, “Not tonight, Nev. She’s not ready.”
I frowned. “Ready for what?”
Sol turned to Nev as though I hadn’t spoken. “Look, up until tonight, she still thought she was going to Homecoming with Rain Williams. She needs more time.”
Nev sighed—but she didn’t contradict him.
Meanwhile, I felt my annoyance grow.
I snapped, “You know what? On second thought, I don’t care. I don’t want to know about any of this. Just take me home.”
But as I looked out the window, I realized that Sol had done exactly that. We were already pulling up to the garish sign for Ionian Gardens.
I grabbed my purse and scooted over to open the door.
But Sol was already there, and had pulled it open for me. I couldn’t decide if the gesture irritated me or not.
“Be careful, Kes.” He smiled—a strange, restrained smile. “See you at school.”
The Out of Order sign was still hanging on the elevator, so I began the long climb up to our fifth-floor apartment.
With each step, the pent-up adrenaline of the night seemed to bleed away. By the time I got to our floor, I felt deflated and bitter.
Which made no sense. All night long, I’d only wanted to get home, to climb into the safety and comfort of my own bed.
Only now that prospect filled me with dread.
For the short time I’d been with Sol, I’d forgotten about my problems. I’d been terrified, and uncertain, and confused…but also strangely unburdened.
Now I’d crashed back to Earth, and the weight of my life felt unbearable.
I slipped into the empty apartment, then spent several minutes locking the deadbolt and se
curing the chain that my mother insisted upon.
What did you see?
Nev’s question echoed, unanswered.
I undressed and pulled on an old t-shirt, then slipped under the heavy comforter.
By the time I fell asleep—nearly an hour later—I still had no answer.
Chapter 7
I should have known there was no going back, but I tried anyway.
And so, on Monday, I pretended everything was normal.
It was easy, like my life was a well-worn path that my feet could not help but follow.
I’d spent most of Saturday lounging in bed, and when Mom got up in the afternoon, we made a giant meal of pancakes—her breakfast, my dinner. I was relieved when she kissed me and headed out the door for work without asking how the party had gone.
At the bus stop, I smiled at Clover, just like I always did. She was the only other kid from school who lived in Ionian Gardens.
She ignored me. As usual.
Clover wasn’t friends with Sydney. She hung out with the weird-on-purpose girls, the ones who never said “Oh my God,” but “Gods.”
Sydney refused to make fun of them, but only on principle. It’s like shooting blindfolded puppies in a barrel.
As we waited, our breath steaming in the morning cold, I thought longingly of the warm leather seats in Sol’s Range Rover.
No. I didn’t want to see Sol or his sister. They weren’t part of my old life, my normal life. I didn’t need them.
But my normal life, as it turned out, did not want me back.
First period was AP U.S. History with Erin. Usually, we met outside my locker and walked to class, complaining the entire time about the ridiculously long reading our teacher had assigned.
I lingered until the warning bell rang, but she never came.
By the time I got to class, nearly all the seats were taken, including the one next to Erin. Which was where I had always sat.
And so I shuffled with my textbooks to the front row, where no one except the overachievers sat.
On the way out of class, I tried to catch her eye. But it was as though I was invisible.
As I started toward my next class, I found myself thinking of the strange conversation I’d had the night before.
I had just pulled out my Spanish textbook and was carefully stacking a pile of flash-cards when Mom sat across from me, dressed for work.
In our old house, I did my homework in the dining room, where the long, formal table could accommodate not only that week’s homework, but all my big, long-term projects, too.
Now I did my homework at a small, round table—the same one where Mom and I ate our infrequent meals together. Mom called it the “dining room table,” which annoyed me. It was just a cheap second-hand table that sat in the no-man’s-land between the kitchen and living room, only feet away from the front door.
Mom’s eyes went to the textbook, and I thought she’d make some comment about how good it was to see me studying. Instead, she gave me a strange, wistful smile.
“Do you remember, Kes, when you were in eighth grade and they had that speaker at your school who’d visited all seven continents before she was thirty?”
Caught off-guard, I nodded.
“You told me you wanted to take a year off before college to travel around the world. Do you remember that?”
Actually, Sydney was the one who’d convinced me it was a good idea. She’d made me swear to do it with her when we graduated. But all I said was, “I guess.”
“You said you’d lived in White Falls your whole life and you didn’t want to go off to college without seeing more of the world.”
I had a bad feeling in my stomach. “Mom, what’s this about?”
“I was just thinking…” She smiled. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
“You always said that college was important. You told me I could travel over the summer.”
To be fair, it might have been Dad who’d said those exact words. But I remembered Mom nodding along right next to him.
Or was this her way of telling me we didn’t have the money for college?
I didn’t know much about the details of Mom and Dad’s separation. But I did know that we never seemed to have enough money any more—even though we were living in the cheapest part of town.
Which was weird, because Mom took home a decent paycheck and picked up extra shifts all the time.
But the money seemed to evaporate before I ever saw it.
Mom smiled patiently. “I know I said that. But haven’t you ever thought about leaving White Falls?”
My exasperation bubbled over. “I love White Falls! And you love it, too! You always said we’d never leave.”
“Things change, Kes. People change. This place used to be good for us. But maybe it isn’t any more.”
Was she talking about school? Had she somehow heard about Sydney’s party? About what happened with Rain?
“So, what? You think I should just go off by myself for a year?”
“Of course not. I’d come with you.” She looked away, her focus somewhere beyond the apartment walls. “We don’t have to wait until the year is over. We could go now.”
She’s gone crazy. It was the only explanation. This kind of thing happened when there was some sort of major trauma like divorce, right? I was sure I’d read that somewhere.
We never finished the conversation. The coffee machine beeped, and Mom filled up her giant travel mug for work. She kissed the top of my head before she left.
As always, she reminded me to lock the door behind her. I knew she would wait in the hall outside our apartment until she heard the deadbolt slide into place.
It was Mile Day in gym class, a once-yearly timed run that everyone hated except the obnoxious track team guys.
As I changed into the horrible green shorts and white t-shirt everyone could see your bra through, my stomach tightened.
Sol was in my gym class.
I started out at a modest jog, letting the real runners shoot past me.
Sol ran ahead of me. If he noticed me, he didn’t show it.
I’d gone out too fast, and soon I was breathing hard. I was about to slow down when I heard the steady beat of shoes behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and cringed.
Gareth and two other guys trailed me. I slowed, hoping they’d pass me. They didn’t.
One said, “Got a date for Homecoming, Kes?”
I felt the tips of my ears grow hot. I wanted to speed ahead, to leave them behind, but I was already out of breath.
“Kes, have you met my friend Jake? He said he’d be happy to keep you company Friday night.”
There was some laughter and an exchange of words.
“No, wait, sorry. Jake says his girlfriend will kill him if he ditches her. But Liam over here is single and looking.”
Through the burning humiliation, I felt something else—anger. These guys never would have dared talk to me like this before.
Now it was open season.
Gareth trotted up next to me. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Hey, where’d you go last Friday? I didn’t see you all night.”
One of the guys said, from just over my shoulder, “I heard she was busy.”
“Oh, that’s right. She left with Sol. Was he keeping you busy, Kes?”
Liam and Jake laughed uproariously, then feinted around me to join Gareth. I truly thought it could not get any worse. Then I saw Sol, lapping me for what felt like the millionth time.
“Hey, Sol!”
I prayed that Sol would simply whiz past us. But he actually slowed and threw a wide grin over his shoulder.
Gareth said, “I heard you were keeping Kes busy on Friday. Is it true that her Mom’s never home at night?”
I waited for Sol to deny it. Instead, he laughed. “I never kiss and tell, gentlemen.”
As he passed Liam and Jake, he said something in a low voice that made them whoop with laughter.
As I furiously scrubbed myse
lf in the lukewarm school shower, I thought ahead to next period—lunch.
Everyone would be talking about Homecoming.
I didn’t care how desperate I looked. I would beg Sydney to fix me up with some guy—any guy.
And then I could finally start the slow, painful process of getting back to normal.
I spotted Sydney’s table in the Cafeteria and relaxed for the first time that day.
Ever since the beginning of junior year, Sydney had claimed the same long table by the big window at the back of the Cafeteria. There, she would hold court with whoever was lucky enough to occupy her inner circle. I’d always sat right next to her.
Now she’d be letting me sit there out of pity.
I didn’t care. At least Gareth and his friends wouldn’t bother me. And I could sit quietly among the ruins of my old life.
I got within ten feet and stopped. Junie was sitting in my spot.
I forced my feet to move again, though they were less certain this time.
Sydney looked up at me with a cold, indifferent stare.
I drew close enough to rest my lunch tray against the table.
She frowned. “We need to talk, Kes.”
I looked down the long table, searching for an empty spot near Syd. Every seat was taken.
“Don’t worry about finding a seat. You won’t be staying long.”
“What’s going on, Syd?”
Her nostrils flared. “Don’t give me that sweet-and-innocent act, Kes. You knew I liked him.”
“Liked who?”
“Everyone’s talking about it. You and Sol.” Her eyes narrowed. “What, you were mad about what happened with Rain, so you decided to take away something I wanted?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “He gave me a ride home, that’s all.”
“Spare me. Everyone knows what you did. Why would Sol lie about hooking up with a nobody like you?”
Her words sliced through me, leaving me stunned and breathless. “I swear, Syd. Nothing happened.”
Her gaze cut away. “Stop calling me that. Syd is what my friends call me.”
“We are friends. It’s just—I needed a ride home. I didn’t think about how it would look.”
