by Anne Riley
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Helping me, I mean. Why do you care?”
He shrugs. “It’s what we do.”
“But Isaac doesn’t even seem to like me.” For some reason, this really bothers me. I think it’s because I didn’t ask for any of this—feeling the Pull, getting attacked on the heath, finding myself in the middle of a mass killing. And I feel like Isaac silently accuses me of causing trouble every time he looks at me. Like I did all this on purpose.
Albert scuffs his bare foot on the floor. “It’s not that he doesn’t like you. He’s just protective. Very few people know what we can do, and that’s the way we prefer to keep it. Our methods are much more effective when nobody knows to expect us.” He looks down. “He’s convinced I told you too much.”
I gape at him. “Is he worried I’ll call the news or something? Because I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t believe me.”
“He’s just being cautious, that’s all. He’ll come around.”
“I hope so. He scares the bejeezus out of me.”
“That’s a very country thing to say for someone who hates country music,” he says with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah. Sometimes the Nashville in me bubbles over a little.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “I should get you home, but first…” He crosses the room to the door that leads back to the entryway. “There’s something I want you to see.”
I follow him through the door to a small closet set behind the coat rack. It’s tall, narrow, and painted the same color as the wall.
“I never would have seen it if you hadn’t shown it to me,” I say, waiting as he pushes his thumb against a pad above the doorknob. It’s the same kind of thing I saw out front. These people are serious about avoiding keys.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.” The lock buzzes open and he twists the knob, looking at me over his shoulder with one arched eyebrow. “Behold, the closet of secret spy equipment.”
White shelves fill the narrow space from top to bottom. Papers, flash drives, compact binoculars, and lots of other things I can’t identify sit clustered on each shelf. A plastic tub full of cell phones has been pushed against the back wall. The whole space is packed with boxes of things labeled CODES and COMS and BADGES (that last one has “alphabetical order, please” scribbled beneath it). I have a feeling I could dig through here and find a fake nose, or maybe a pen that doubles as a poison dart gun.
“Well?” Albert says, and even though I’m not looking at him, I can hear the smile in his voice. “Are you intrigued?”
It takes me a moment to form words. “And where do you keep the wigs and fake mustaches?”
He laughs and picks up a square of white cardstock from the box labeled COMS. Rows of small black dots arch from the surface of the paper. “These are coms. Short for communicators. We stick one on our clothes. I prefer shirt collar, but Casey puts them on her bra strap—” he rolls his eyes “—and then we put another one just inside an ear. They’re two-way, so it doesn’t matter which one you put where. You can talk into and hear out of all of them.”
I squint at the black dot, which is about the size of a pencil eraser. “Are they picking up our conversation right now?”
“No, no. You have to practically eat them before anything comes through.” He places his lips against one of them. “Like this.”
“So someone heard you say that?”
“Maybe. But I don’t have a com in my ear right now, so if anybody says anything back, I won’t know.”
“And what’s in here?” I point at the box labeled BADGES.
“Identification cards.” He slides the box off the shelf and hands it to me. “Isaac isn’t much fun at a party, but he makes a wicked fake ID. Though he is a bit of a prat about people putting them back in order.”
I thumb through the pile of cards: British Museum staff, Harrod’s salesman, HSBC employee—the fakes go on and on. Albert, Casey, Dan, and Isaac stare up at me from each one, their faces pinched into professional frowns.
“Why would you need all these?”
“In case we need to get into one of these places. We usually take a few with us if we know we’re going to be in the area. When someone’s just bombed a building and we’ve only got a few minutes to stop it from happening again, there’s no time to ask for a visitor’s pass.”
My eyes grow wide. “Has that happened?”
He fishes through the stack of cards, pulling one out from the center. Royal Observatory Staff stretches across the top in red, with Albert’s face underneath. He holds it up with a grim expression.
“Someone bombed the Observatory?”
“Yep. That was one of our biggest Pulls ever. Casey and I were in the park when it happened. Between the two of us, we managed to Pull back almost twenty minutes—adding more people to a Pull increases your time exponentially. It took us a while to find the bomber, but when we saw a man wearing a thick black coat in the middle of August, we figured he was the guy. Casey pointed him out to the security guards. They found explosives strapped to his chest.”
My mouth goes dry. “How did you stop him from setting them off?”
“We almost didn’t. One of the guards tackled him when he put his thumb on the button. Then another one knocked him out with a club. If either of them had waited half a second longer…”
I nod. “When did this happen?”
“About a year ago.”
I stare at the ID card without seeing it, imagining the horror of what could have been. The people who would have been killed. The panic that would have spread through the city. And they stopped it, but no one would ever know, and they would never be thanked for saving all those lives. “I had no idea you were so proactive about all this.”
“We try to be, although we don’t do as good a job as some of the others. And we’re still trying to perfect a Collective Pull.”
“You mean, like you and Casey Pulling together?”
He nods. “There are seven Servatores in Paris who claim to have Pulled back three hours by working together.” He returns the Observatory ID card to the stack and sets all of them back on their shelf. “But you know how Parisians are,” he says with a shrug. “Always trying to convince you their croissant is bigger than yours.”
I laugh, setting off another wave of pain and nausea. I press my fingers into my temples with a quick groan.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” Albert says. “Your fake movie should be getting out about now.”
“No, hang on.” I reach for a remote-type thing. “I’m not done snooping around.”
“I’ll let you snoop later.” He guides me toward the front door. “If you stay out with James any longer, your parents might not let you see him again.”
“And wouldn’t that be tragic.”
“It would be if it meant you couldn’t come ’round anymore.”
The fluke warmth starts to bubble in my chest again, but I extinguish it before it can turn into heat. “Take me home, Batman,” I say.
SEVENTEEN
RAIN POUNDS THE WINDSHIELD OF ALBERT’S black Renault as he turns onto Camden Row. The wind flings water across the road in sheets—just a typical night in London, everyone doing their best not to get completely drenched after five minutes outside.
“Aren’t you glad you chose to spend your summer in sunny Britain?” he says over the squeak of the windshield wipers.
I laugh, but his joke reminds me that he has no idea why I’m here. In all the confusion, he hasn’t asked. “I would rather deal with rain any day than sweat in the Tennessee heat.”
“Ah, it can’t be that bad.”
“It is,” I say. “It’s like walking into a sauna that’s inside an oven. And the oven has caught fire.”
He turns to me with a grin. “And you’re saying that’s not better than English weather?”
“I’d take drizzle over solar flares any day.”
“Solar flares,” he repeats. “I had no idea you could get so dr
amatic about weather.”
I give him a wry look. “Says the guy with an unnatural aversion to rain.”
“Right,” he says. The humor leaves his eyes, and the retort I expected doesn’t come. What did I say? Did I misread some part of our banter?
“Don’t forget to tell me where to stop,” he says, drumming on the steering wheel.
“Here.”
He stops the car outside Nana’s house. I turn to him, planning to apologize for whatever I said to upset him, but he’s staring at something over my shoulder.
“What?” My head jerks around to the window. Someone must be after me again—but no, the street is empty. I look at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He clears his throat and meets my eyes. “Just a bit tired, I guess.”
A beat of silence passes between us. I know he’s not just tired, and I’m pretty sure he knows I’m on to him, but I don’t want to push the issue too far. That look on his face, though—he knows this house.
“You’ve been here before?” The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them.
His eyes are guarded. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re staring at my grandparents’ house like it’s a poisonous snake. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he says, but I don’t buy it.
“Is something wrong with the house?” I ask. “Should I not go inside?”
He shakes his head, looking almost hurt at my question. “If the house was dangerous, I would tell you.”
“Then why are you looking at it like that?”
He starts to speak again, but the words die on his lips as something else through my window catches his attention. Paul is leaning against the doorframe, clutching it to keep his balance. He grins at me and gives us an erratic wave.
I close my eyes. Surely this isn’t happening. “He’s been drinking again.”
“Is that your brother?” Albert asks.
“Yes. Hang on a sec.” I roll down the window just enough to shout through the crack. “Go back inside, Paul. I’ll be right there.”
“Hey, Ro-sie,” he calls, drawing out the “o” in my name. “Where have you—oh.” He shuffles through the rain to the car and peers through the opening at the top of the window. Water drips from his nose down the inside of the glass, and I lean away from him. “Is this the famous James? Did y’all have another—” he winks “—super-hot date?”
“Go back inside,” I say. “You’re getting soaked.”
“It is James. Wow, you were right. He’s a hottie.”
“Paul!” I unbuckle my seatbelt and throw the car door open. It hits him and almost knocks him to the ground. Guilt assaults the anger that had monopolized me only a second ago. I should have been more careful.
“Ow, Rosie, that hurt!” He glares at me and rubs his hip.
“Well, you should have moved when I said to.” I can’t keep the venomous words from slithering out of my mouth. I get out of the car and push him back toward the house, fuming as the rain pounds down on both of us. I’m angry at Paul for acting like an idiot again, but I’m mostly angry at myself for being a jerk.
“Sorry,” I call over my shoulder as the rain plasters my hair to my neck. “Let me just get him in the house. I’ll be right back.”
But Albert shakes his head, glancing at the clouds through his window. “No, just go inside. We’ll talk later.”
“What? No! I want to talk now!”
“Get out of the rain. We’ll talk soon, I promise. Just go inside!” He rolls up the window and lets up on the brake so that the car rolls forward. He’s waiting to make sure I get in the house before he leaves.
“There you go with the rain again,” I say under my breath. I spin around and tug Paul to the door by his elbow. “Why did you have to do that?”
“Do what?” He stumbles into the entryway.
I shut the door behind us and lock the deadbolt with more force than necessary. “I was in the middle of something important. And you interrupted it. Again.” He leans against the wall. “And I see you’ve also been getting into Nana’s liquor cabinet.”
“Shh! I think Mom’s still awake in their bedroom. And for your information, I didn’t steal Nana’s liquor. I’ve been at a pub in Lewisham. It’s called The Black Swan, and it’s friggin’ awesome.”
I push my wet hair back from my face and stare at him. His forehead is streaked with dirt. “You need a shower, first of all. And secondly, how did you get out of the house? Mom and Dad said you weren’t going anywhere unsupervised.”
He shrugs with a sly smile. An image of his bedroom window comes to me—the tree outside it would make a perfect ladder.
“You snuck out?” I say, and his smile widens in confirmation. “Paul, come on, you can’t do that! It’s dangerous! And how did you even get beer? You’re fifteen!”
“We’re in Britain, Rosie.” He’s speaking slowly, like I’m a child. “There’s not really a drinking age.”
“Actually, it’s eighteen.” My voice is so sharp it could cut glass.
He gives me an exasperated look. “Sure, but nobody cares as long as you’ve got money.”
“ I care,” I say. “I care about you, Paul, and I don’t want you sneaking off to shady pubs with—who were you with, anyway?”
“No one.” His gaze drops.
I take a deep breath, desperately hoping he won’t say what I fear. “Were you with them?”
“If by ‘them,’ you mean Max and Luther, then yes.” I open my mouth, but he keeps going before I can tell him off. “I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t care. I had a great time tonight.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Your breath smells like a frat party.”
He bursts out laughing and collapses against the wall, clutching his stomach.
“It’s not funny. Do Mom and Dad know you snuck out?”
His face turns serious. “No, and you better not tell them. They got home a couple hours ago and went to bed. Luckily, I got home first, so they thought I’d been asleep the whole time. I’m sure they’ll want to hear all about your second date with James in the morning.”
I arrange my face into a neutral expression. “Mom and Dad told you I was with James?”
“Of course they did,” he says with a smirk. “Because that’s what you told them. But it’s funny, because when you came home just now and I asked if the guy outside was James, you didn’t answer me.” He flings his hand in the direction of the street, and then lets it smack into the side of his leg. “So was it James? Or was it—” he lifts one eyebrow suggestively “—someone else?”
I cross my arms. “Why would that even occur to you?”
“Because Nana has been asking James’s mom to text her pictures of James so she can show him off to all of us. And that guy?” He flicks his head toward the front door. “Wasn’t him.”
I rub my eyes. Boy, it’d be nice if I could find my way out of this conversation.
“So,” he says. “Who was the guy in the car?”
“None of your business.”
Mom and Dad’s bedroom door opens slowly, and Mom peeks out. Her eyes droop with fatigue. How much time is she spending on this Traitor’s Gate essay? Between that, Papa’s funeral plans, and Paul’s shenanigans, it’s a wonder she’s still walking.
“Hey, Rosie,” she says with a tired smile. “Thought I heard you out here. Paul? What are you doing up?”
He flicks his head at me. “Just talking. I was getting a drink when she came in.”
Oh, I bet he was. Out of the liquor cabinet.
“I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Mom says. “Just wanted to make sure everybody was okay. Did you have a good time, Rosie?”
She’s looking at me with so much hope. “Yeah, it was great. James is awesome.”
“Good.” She glances back into the bedroom. “I’m going to hit the sack. Love you both.”
“Love you too,” I say, then shoot an expectant look at Paul. He gives Mom
the “bro nod,” a classic signal of camaraderie among high school guys who consider themselves too cool for handshakes. Mom rolls her eyes at him, but smiles before she closes the door.
As soon as we hear the bed creak beneath Mom’s weight, Paul’s eyes narrow like a cat about to pounce. “Has Dad met him? Because if he hasn’t—”
“Yeah, I know. Trust me. I am very well acquainted with Dad’s dating rules.” Three years of nine o’clock curfews and weekly discussions about physical boundaries have pretty much worked their way into my body’s cellular structure at this point.
He shifts his weight. “So you’re going to introduce him to Dad?”
“No!” Oops—probably shouldn’t have said that so quickly. “I mean, there’s no reason to, because we’re not dating. He’s just a friend.”
“A friend,” he echoes witheringly. “Yeah. Mom and Dad aren’t going to buy that.”
“Which is why I’m not telling them.”
He arches an eyebrow. “So I guess you don’t want me to tell them, either.”
“No, I don’t.” I let my chin drop to my chest. “Which means I won’t be telling them about The Black Swan.”
“Exactly.” He rubs his hands together, then turns around and eases up the stairs. “Nice doing business with you.”
I shoot a dark look at the back of his head. What a slimy little punk. I wish I could hate him properly, because that way, I wouldn’t be so worried about him. “If you sneak out again, I’m telling Mom and Dad. I don’t care if you tell them I lied about James. You have one more chance to stay away from Max and Luther before I do something drastic.”
How many times have I made this threat? It sounds empty even to me, now.
“Oh, you will not.” His voice is melodic with victory as he lugs himself up the rest of the stairs, gripping the banister like it’s the only thing anchoring him to Earth. “Night, Rosie-posey.”
After making myself a cup of Earl Grey in the kitchen, I curl up on the sofa in the front sitting room. Nana’s house has two sitting rooms—one down the hall next to the kitchen that also houses the dining table, and this one on the front of the house. It’s my favorite room, probably because of the book-clogged shelves that cover an entire wall. A large window stretches in front of me, showcasing a spectacular view of somebody else’s back door.
