by Leigh Walker
Katie and I had always planned to live on the same street in Hanover, so our kids could ride their bikes and back forth between houses. We wanted to live near Mom and Dad, of course. I figured I could work from my sunny, cozy home office lined with bookshelves overflowing with books. I didn’t know what I’d do for a job since I hadn’t thought it all through. Katie was the planner, the one who’d had notebooks filled with what our lives would be like: our weddings, our careers, our husbands, our children. Our futures.
But then she was gone, and so were those dreams.
“Hey.” Finn ran up beside me, coming from the opposite direction.
“Trying to get a run in before it gets too hot?”
“Yup.” He nodded toward the fence. “Thinking of scaling it?”
“Maybe.”
He linked his fingers through the fence. “I get it. You’ve been through a lot. You’ve handled it well, for what it’s worth.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m not sure if punching another girl in the stomach and hog-tying her into submission translates into handling this well, but whatever.”
He sighed. “It’s not whatever. You didn’t have a choice about what you did to Maya. She would’ve done the same to you, if she’d had the chance.”
“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to make me feel better.”
“I don’t think I can make you feel better. In fact, I’m about to make you feel worse.”
Panic seized me as I regarded him. Dark circles bloomed like bruises underneath his eyes. He looked resigned and pale, as if he hadn’t slept.
“Why do you say that?”
“Cranston just sent me out here to get you. It’s time for your next test, and it’s worse than yesterday.”
My heart sank. “How’s that even possible?”
Finn shrugged his big shoulders, looking even sourer. “Come with me. You’re about to find out.”
In typical Finn style, he didn’t elaborate at all as we jogged back to the barracks.
We stopped in front of the building to catch our breath, and I remembered his speed from yesterday. “I forgot to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
I tried not to ogle his bulging thigh muscle as he stretched. “How did you get back to the barracks so fast yesterday?”
He didn’t blink. “I ran.”
“But you ran fast.”
A cocky smile lit up his face. “I’m a fast runner.”
“But you can’t be that fast. You got back here in five minutes. We were over three miles from the base. It’s not physically possible for you to run that fast.”
His smile widened. “Is it physically possible that you were wrong about where you left me and incorrectly calculated the distance?”
“No. Because I know where we left you, and I know it was three miles from here.”
“I think the more logical explanation here is that you’re remembering it wrong—not that I have superhuman speed.”
He sounded sure of himself, but there was something off about his face. “Finn Ryan, you are lying to me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“To borrow your phrase, it’s not whatever. Why don’t you just tell me the truth? It can’t be any crazier than all the other crap you’ve told me!”
“Fine.” He leaned closer to me, as if he were about to tell me a secret. “I ran all the way back here in five minutes. And you were wrong about the distance. It was three-point-five miles, not three.”
I sucked in a breath. “How did you—”
Finn stepped closer. “How did I do it? My superhuman speed, like you guessed.”
Before I even knew what I was doing, I reached out and pinched his arm, hard.
He yelped and jumped back. “What the hell?”
“Sorry. I wanted to see if you felt human.”
He laughed, but it sounded hollow. “I’m human. All too human, I’m afraid.”
“What does that mean?”
Finn’s face went sour again as he rubbed his arm. “It means it hurts when I get pinched. Now, enough is enough. Just stop with the questions. They won’t help you right now. We need to get inside for this test.”
He wouldn’t look at me as he headed to the door and held it open. “By the way, this is going to suck. Just so you know, I didn’t have any say in the matter.”
My stomach tied itself in a nervous knot. “Gee, great. I’m really looking forward to it.”
His gaze briefly met mine. “For the record, I forgive you—but I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
12
Meditate That
I forgive you. For the pinch? For tracking his running time? …but I don’t expect you to forgive me. I didn’t know what he meant, but Finn’s foreboding words rang in my ears as I headed to where Cranston stood, going over his notes. “Sir, Finn brought me back for the next test.”
“Okay. Good.” He flipped through his papers and scribbled.
“Can you tell me what we’re doing?” In addition to my nervous stomach, my palms had started to sweat. “Is it something like yesterday?”
“No, not at all.” He didn’t look up. “Why don’t you got get some water and get ready, huh? I’ll meet you at the mats in two minutes. Then we’ll get started.”
“Okay.” I shuffled off to fill my water bottle. It was dead quiet in the gym, which usually buzzed with activity at this hour of the morning. Finn had disappeared, leaving only Cranston and me in the large, empty space. Hoping we were going to be without an audience, I dutifully filled my bottle from the fountain. I headed to the mats and flopped down to stretch, my heart thudding in my chest.
Cranston came over after a minute. “Okay. Today’s test is different because it doesn’t involve a physical test. It’s a mental one.”
“Mental as in, you give me a piece of paper filled with multiple-choice questions, and I choose the correct answer?”
“Mental as in—no, that’s not what I meant by mental at all. You are going to sit here and close your eyes. And then we are going to test your brain.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it, feeling a bead of cold sweat run down my back. Why the word-that-starts-with-an-F and rhymes with “truck” would they want to test my brain?
“Be right back.” Cranston disappeared into the supply closet and came out a moment later, wheeling a cart with some sort of equipment on it. He pulled up next to me and selected several electrodes. “Can you stand up for a second? I need to put these on you.”
I stood up on wobbly legs, trying to be patient as Cranston attached a sticky, circular electrode to each of my temples and one low on my forehead, between my eyebrows. He carefully adjusted the wires leading to them, making sure everything connected to the machine.
“You can sit back down now, Riley. Just don’t jerk your head.”
“O-Okay.” The word came out jittery as my heart skidded in my chest.
“Hold on.” Cranston grabbed my wrist and checked my pulse, counting to himself while monitoring his watch. He released my wrist and peered at me. “You need to calm down. The last thing we need is your monitor going off again. This test won’t last long, and you won’t get hurt. I promise.”
“Then why did Finn say it was going to be terrible?” And Kyan. Kyan said it would be bad, too.
Cranston shook his head. “Finn shouldn’t have said that. The only thing that would be terrible is if we’re not prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“Enough, Riley. I don’t want to get you any more upset. Please do some yoga breathing and start to meditate. We’ll begin once you’ve calmed down.”
We’d started a daily yoga practice, which I found did calm me down and helped me center myself. We’d also begun working on meditation, which I found difficult. Trying to quiet my mind, which typically raced around at one thousand miles per hour, was not an easy task.
Still, I was eager to get started so I could put this test behind me. I sat cross-legged on th
e mat and focused on my breathing. It was too late to run away, and my inquisitiveness was getting the better of me again. I wanted to know how they planned to test my brain and why.
I also wanted to know what was so terrible about the test. Morbid curiosity burned inside me. I closed my eyes and tried to forget about it all. Cranston left me alone, but he wouldn’t be far. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I focused, and after a while, my breathing became even and regular. I tried to concentrate on my inner eye and ignore the electrode attached to my exterior one.
For me, meditating felt an awful lot like sitting still and pretending to meditate. So that’s what I did until Cranston came back.
“Riley? You ready?”
I opened my eyes and nodded. I’d managed to calm down.
“Good.” He favored me with one of his rare smiles. “I’m going to have the others come in. Ignore them unless I instruct you otherwise.”
I winced, remembering yesterday. “Do we really need an audience?” I didn’t want anyone else in the room.
“We do. You’ll see why in a couple of minutes. When this is done, you and I are going to have a meeting to discuss the results and what you want to do going forward. Sound good?”
“Absolutely.” I took a deep breath. I simply had to get through this test.
Cranston patted my shoulder. “Good. Okay, I’ll bring in the others.” He tapped out a text, and a minute later, Emma, Josh, Kyan, and the twins filed in…everyone except for Finn. And Rachel, I realized.
I watched as they took their seats in the bleachers. Emma nodded at me but then looked away. That probably meant this was about to get ugly. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, the way we’d learned in yoga. My heart still beat erratically as I wondered—what in the hell could be so terrible about a mental test?
“Are you ready to begin?” Cranston asked.
“I guess so.” My voice sounded hoarse.
He nodded at me, his silvery hair winking under the lights. “I want you to close your eyes, Riley. And I want you to visualize something happy. It can be a memory, a place, or something you enjoy, like ice cream.”
“Ice cream?”
He shrugged defensively. “It’s a suggestion. I’m going to monitor the output on the machine. Understand?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes, sir.” My gaze drifted nervously to the bleachers, but no one turned my way.
Why wouldn’t anyone look at me? All I had to do was visualize my happy place!
“Let’s begin.”
I closed my eyes and panicked for a moment, wondering what I could think of that would help me relax. But a vision came to me almost immediately, as if it had been waiting in the wings: my father, Katie, and me out in the backyard of our old house. The sun was setting, and we played cards at the table. It was the same game we’d played for years—Uno. Katie always won, which annoyed me, but we still had fun. My mom was inside doing the dishes and getting us cupcakes. The peepers, the tiny frogs that came out in the summer, called out to each other in the small pond. The last rays of the sunlight warmed my face.
It was the night before they died, the night before they went to Vermont and never came back.
Something beeped. “Riley,” Cranston whispered in my ear, “stay in the moment. Don’t think about anything other than the image in your mind.”
How did he know what I was thinking? But the beeping monitor must’ve tipped him off. I took another deep breath and went back to the memory, turning it over in my mind, remembering Katie’s green tank top and the way her hair frizzed out of her braids. I saw the shallow acne scars on my father’s cheeks, something he hated about his face but that I loved. Otherwise, he would’ve been too handsome, too perfect. My mother rattled dishes inside the kitchen. My mother, before she turned into… I cut off the thought.
“Good.” Cranston startled me, and I opened my eyes. He read the output from the monitor, seeming pleased. “I think we’re ready to move on.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to think about the day your father and sister died. I want you to go back to the moment it happened, and I want you to remember everything about it.”
Too stunned to respond, I opened my mouth but no words came out.
“Riley?”
“How—how did you know about that? About my sister and my dad?” I croaked.
“I know everything about you.” Cranston watched the monitor, not my face.
I swallowed hard. “I thought you didn’t want my monitor going off.”
“I want you to do what I asked. Now.”
My gaze flicked to the bleachers. Emma watched me, a scowl marring her pretty face. I closed my eyes. Afterward, I would wonder why I did it. Curiosity killed the cat…
I sat on my bed, reading Titus Andronicus for English class. It was gory. “It’s Shakespeare’s take on a horror film,” my English teacher explained—and the more I read, the more I agreed. The bodies were piling up fast. I grimaced and got up to stretch, wandering downstairs to grab a glass of water. I found my mom in the kitchen, staring at her phone.
“What’s up?”
She didn’t look at me. She just held the phone and shook it. Her face was pale, and her mouth hung open.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
Her face crumpled. “It’s Katie and your dad. There’s been an accident.” She turned toward me. “How do you call 9-1-1? HOW DO YOU CALL 9-1-1?”
“What—what are you talking about? Who called you?”
She didn’t answer so I grabbed the phone from her, panicked. My mother had never been good in a crisis. Katie broke her arm riding her bike when we were younger, and part of the bone poked through the skin. Mom passed out on the sidewalk as soon as she saw her, and then I’d had two people who needed medical attention.
I sat my mother down before she fell and called my dad’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. I quickly scrolled back through the call history. There was a listing for a Vermont number. I called, gently taking my mother by the hand while I did. She looked like she might pass out again. Her face hadn’t changed expression, and she was breathing funny and loud, like she was hyperventilating.
The operator picked up after one ring. “Randolph Dispatch. Is this an emergency?”
“I don’t know.” I licked my lips nervously. “We got a call from this number. My mother said something about an accident?”
“I’ll put you through to the officer on duty.” The woman immediately patched me through.
“Randolph PD. This is Tracy. This call is being recorded. How can I help you?”
“This is Riley Payne. My mother said she just got a call—something about an accident? I found the number in her call history, so I called right away.”
“Is your mother there?” Tracy asked.
My mother’s face had gone gray. “Yes, but I don’t think she can talk,” I said. “She looks like she might be in shock.”
“Okay. Where are you?” Every few moments, there was a beep on the line.
“We’re at home in Hanover—in New Hampshire.” I gave her the address.
“I’m going to call Hanover PD and have someone come over now. I’ll have them bring a paramedic.”
“Can you please tell me what happened? Is my dad okay? My sister?” I looked at the clock. They should be home soon. The meet was supposed to end by two. Katie and I planned to order a pizza and watch a movie, our Saturday-night ritual.
“There was an accident. I can’t release more information than that right now, but I promise the Hanover officer will. I’m going to put you on hold for a minute while I call them. Is your mom okay?”
I peered at my mother’s slack face. “I’m not sure.”
“Don’t hang up,” Tracy ordered. “I’ll put you on hold to make this call and be right back.” Tracy seemed orderly and efficient. Nothing bad could happen while she was in charge.
“Mom?” I asked, while I waited for Tracy to come back on the line. “Ca
n you hear me?”
Her eyes turned to me, but they didn’t seem to focus. “I knew this was going to happen.” She suddenly burst into tears. Deep, hysterical sobs wracked her chest.
“You knew what was going to happen?” I pulled her against my chest, trying to rub her back while holding onto the phone for dear life. I needed Tracy to come back, for her warm voice to explain that everything was going to be just fine, that I didn’t need to worry, that I never needed to worry and that this wasn’t really happening…
“I knew they’d do this,” my mom choked out the words in between sobs. “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.” She leaned over and vomited on the braided rug.
“Mom! You’re scaring me!”
She wiped her mouth and looked back at me. “You should be afraid, Riley. We both should be.” Her voice didn’t sound like hers. It was deep and strange, guttural.
“Riley?” Tracy’s chipper, efficient voice came back on the line, promising orderly safety. “Is everything going okay over there?”
“No. No! My mom’s really freaking me out.” I started sobbing and found my mom watching my face, as if she was trying to memorize something or piece something together. “She just threw up, and she’s hysterical—”
“Okay, okay, it’s going to be okay,” Tracy said soothingly. “The officer’s on his way with the paramedics. Are you in danger?”
I backed up from my mom, who was still crying and looking at me with a puzzled expression. “I don’t think so?”
“I’ll stay on the phone with you until the officer gets there. I’m not going anywhere. Now, get your mother a blanket. Can she talk?”
I held out the phone to my mother. She took it and listlessly held it up to her ear while I got a blanket from the closet and draped it over her. She listened to Tracy, but her gaze stayed on my face.
There was a knock on the door. “Hanover PD!”
I opened the door, and the officer came through with a paramedic. Everything was happening too fast and not fast enough. There was a lot of talking, a lot of questions, and my mother tossed down her cellphone at some point. No more Tracy. Tracy went home, probably to fold towels warm from the dryer and get her son a bowl of goldfish crackers. Her house was sunny and organized and everything was okay…
