Lies I Live By

by Lauren Sabel

  “Um, there he is,” I say, crouching beside him.

  “Michael?” The guard asks. “Is this your niece?”

  Michael looks puzzled, but he nods slowly. The guard leaves, and I sit down beside Michael.

  “Michael?” I whisper. “It’s Callie. I work with Indigo.”

  He nods again, his eyes still locked on the TV.

  “Indigo’s missing,” I continue. “He’s supposed to be here.”

  A high, wavering voice bursts into song behind us. “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly,” a woman in a wheelchair sings along with the television. I glance back at her, but she doesn’t see me. She sings louder and louder until a guard comes in and wheels her out of the room.

  “Indigo is missing,” I say to Michael again. “Do you know who could have taken him?”

  Michael taps his hands repeatedly on his laceless sneakers. “Is it his turn?” he asks.

  “His turn?”

  “To go to the place.” Michael beats his fingers more rapidly against his shoes, making a clicking sound with his chewed nails.

  “What place are you talking about?” I try to calm him down by taking one of his hands, but he just hits them even faster against his sneakers.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” Michael wails. I look nervously toward the door, hoping no one comes in to get him now.

  “Michael? What place?”

  “Get them out!” he shrieks, smacking his forehead with his open palm. “Get them out!”

  A guard appears in the doorway and starts moving toward us. Michael’s now rocking back and forth, his head in his hands.

  “What place?” I repeat.

  “Your uncle has had enough,” the guard says. He puts his hands on Michael’s shoulders and says his name gently. “Michael? Can you hear me?”

  “I need to know,” I whisper.

  “I said, he’s had enough!” The guard helps Michael to his feet, and he looks around unsteadily, like he’s not sure how he got here.

  “Michael. Please.”

  Michael drops his eyes to the floor, and then he whispers, “The place that smells like salt.”

  The place that smells like salt? My mind flashes through several images at once: the vision of Charlie trapped under the radiation in the shadow of a large building, the EarthScape warehouse by the salt flats, and my head bleeding inside of the building I had trouble seeing into, the one on the edge of a field of white snow. Or, if a flat is being dried for environmental purposes, white salt.

  “Are you talking about a warehouse near the salt flats?” I ask Michael. The guard is leading Michael away, glaring at me as if insanity must run in the family. “The EarthScape warehouse?” I continue, ignoring the guard.

  Under the guard’s large hands, Michael stops, and his body tremors as if a cold wind blew across him. “That’s where they do it,” he whispers, and looks up at me. One eye wanders to the right, while the other stares straight at me. “That’s where they break you.”

  I run out of the front doors onto the street, having already tried calling Charlie three times with no answer, to where Jasper is waiting for me. He’s acting macho on the back of his motorcycle, but I can tell that the bums glaring at him from under the glowing neon cross are making him nervous.

  “I have to warn Charlie,” I say, jumping on the back of the bike.

  “Your boyfriend?” Jasper asks.

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I say. “Thanks to you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jasper responds. He squeezes the gas, but then slams to a sudden stop as a car cuts him off, and the loud squeak of the bike’s wheels echo across the buildings around us. “Did Indigo tell you something about Charlie?” he asks.

  “He’s not there.”

  “What?” Jasper turns around and stares at me.

  “Indigo’s missing, but I might have an idea of where to find him.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I say. “But first, I need to talk to Charlie. I saw something bad happen to him, and I have to warn him.”

  “Do you know when or where it happens?”

  “I know where, but not when,” I say. “But it could happen at any time. The sooner he knows, the safer he’ll be.”

  “Fine,” Jasper mutters, turning back around. “Where is this ex-boyfriend of yours?”

  “Bleeding Heart Catholic School, four blocks northwest of the Panhandle.”

  “I’ll take you there,” Jasper says, maneuvering the bike into the street. “But I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s just . . . you’re unusual, Calliope,” Jasper says. “In a way no normal boy will ever know.”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  As we speed through town, I don’t notice the houses or buildings or streets. I just think about Charlie, and how he never asked for any of this, and how, even once he’s broken up with me, he’s still in danger. Now that I recognize the warehouse by the salt flats, I need to warn him to stay away from that warehouse at all costs, no matter what anyone says to him. I need to convince him to change his future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I get a sickening feeling of dread as Jasper drives up the hill toward my old high school. Bloody Hell is a redbrick building overlooking San Francisco Bay. I would consider it a beautiful building if I’d never seen the inside. Lined with ugly orange lockers and smelling of locker room sweat, it looked like how I imagine any other high school in the country would.

  “Stop here,” I instruct Jasper when we’re halfway up the hill.

  “Why? Embarrassed by me?”

  “Charlie won’t listen to me if he sees you,” I say.

  Jasper shrugs. “Okay. Want me to wait?”

  I shake my head, an idea so obvious occurring to me that I wonder why I didn’t think of it before. “No. Go back to the office and see if you can find the name or number of Indigo’s CIA contact anywhere. Indigo usually called the contact from his desk,” I add, “and I’ve seen him glance at some sort of card before he called.”

  “Right,” Jasper says. “Like they’re going to listen to us.”

  “They might,” I retort. “Indigo said the CIA had some intel under lock and key, so maybe his contact will know where he is, or at least who took him.”

  “Good idea,” Jasper says, and then lays his hand on my arm. “Be safe.”

  As his motorcycle shoots away, I start the short ascent up the hill toward the school, thinking about what I’m going to tell Charlie when I see him. For Charlie to believe that’s he’s in danger, I’ll have to explain what I’m warning him about, which means telling him the truth about me. The thought is terrifying, and I look down at the sidewalk beneath my feet. But if I’m honest with myself, not only am I afraid that Charlie’s going to get hurt, but I have the scary feeling that I’m next.

  “I’m not the first,” I remember Indigo saying, “and I won’t be the last.”

  Even if Charlie stays away from the warehouse and avoids his fate, what if something happens to me and I haven’t told him the whole truth? Charlie will try to find me, which could put him directly in the path of whoever took Indigo. Telling him the truth could save his life, in more ways than one.

  As I reach the front steps, the bell rings, a shrill sound that flashes me back to all those mind-numbing years of stuffing my brain with useless knowledge. I quickly duck behind the giant stone column to wait for Charlie. I don’t want to explain to any of my old classmates why I’m here.

  As the shrill sound fades, students flood out of the school for lunch, their identical maroon uniforms rubbing against one another. I only step out from behind the column when a group of boys comes tearing out the doors, with Charlie trailing behind. His khaki tie brings out his eyes, which are caramel colored today, with flecks of gold.

  “Callie.” Charlie stops in the doorway, and students continue to push out of the door around him. “What are you doing here?”

&nb
sp; “I have something I have to tell you,” I say. Around us, the students’ pace slows just slightly, but enough that I can tell I’ll be gossip for days to come.

  “Not sure I want to hear it,” he says.

  My heart is pounding, pounding, pounding. “It’ll just take a minute.” A minute to tell you the biggest secret of my life, a secret I’ve been keeping from you. But this time, instead of the truth hurting you, it can hopefully save your life.

  “Hey, Charlie, you coming?” A guy yells from behind me.

  Charlie stares at me for a moment before yelling back. “I’ll catch up with you guys,” he calls, and turns to walk back into the school, expecting me to follow. “C’mon,” he says. “We can talk at my locker.”

  I trail Charlie down the hall, my feet having memorized the way years ago. At locker number 153, he drops his backpack with a sigh and leans back against the orange metal, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “What?” he asks.

  Down the hall, people are banging their lockers closed, racing to get out of here for the day. Although it was only four months ago, that world already feels years behind me.

  “Um . . . I wanted to tell you . . .” I glance down the hall at my old locker, which has already been taken up by another student.

  “I’ve only got a minute,” Charlie says, and taking his hands out of his pocket, he raps his knuckles against his locker. On the back of his left hand is a temporary tattoo in the shape of a star.

  Charlie notices me staring at it. “What? Not like you care anymore about Colin’s birthday party.”

  I know I have to tell him now, because if Charlie’s wearing the star tattoo today, it means this happens to him soon. I suck the air through my nostrils, trying to gather up the courage to tell him the truth about me. “You know how I said that I saw you and Amber together at the lighthouse?” I ask.

  Charlie nods, and I notice that he’s standing a foot away from me, as if I’m contagious with some fatal disease.

  “I knew about Amber because . . .” I pause, and then force myself to continue talking. “Because I know things.”

  Charlie stops rapping on his locker. “You know things?” he repeats.

  I scratch my fingernail against the locker next to Charlie’s, and feel the paint peel off under my fingernail. “I mean, I’m . . . um . . .” The paint’s thick skin pries into my soft flesh. “I’m . . . um . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’m psychic,” I say. It sounds absurd as I’m saying it, and I know it sounds absurd to Charlie, too, because he looks at me like I’ve just told him the biggest lie in the world. “That’s how I knew,” I continue, babbling now, “about you and Amber. I wasn’t spying on you, not in the traditional way, at least.” Charlie is standing incredibly still, so I quickly wrap my arm around his waist and try to pull him closer. “Jasper is a psychic too, and we work together undercover, for the government.” Despite Charlie’s angry face, I force myself to keep talking. “I came to warn you to stay away from the redbrick warehouse near the salt flats. I saw something terrible happen to you there, sometime in your future. Sometime soon. Promise me you won’t go there, ever.”

  Charlie stares at me, his hair falling lightly across his face. “You expect me to believe that?” he says bitterly, taking my arm firmly off his waist. “You think I’m an idiot?”

  I fall back, my body detached from the floor without his waist to steady me. “No, I don’t think—”

  “I’m just some moron you can lie to?”

  This is spinning wildly out of control. He doesn’t believe me. This isn’t how I pictured this at all. I thought we’d bond over it, maybe share stories about what we thought psychics were, as opposed to what they really are—normal people, like me. And he’d stay away from the warehouse because he knows I’m not crazy, because he knows me well enough to believe what I say. But I forgot about one thing in my equation: reality. Of course Charlie doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t believe in ghosts or aliens or psychics. He’s a pragmatist—and I’m a fool.

  “How else would I know about Amber?” I protest, desperately trying to remember why I thought this was a good idea.

  “You’re expecting me to believe that you followed me with your mind?” He shakes his head. “That’s rich, Callie.”

  “But it’s true—”

  “We’ve been together for three years!” Charlie continues, as if I hadn’t said anything. “I’ve never given you a reason to distrust me—or to lie to me.”

  “Please believe me,” I beg him.

  “Fine,” he snaps. “Are you reading my thoughts right now?” Anger has filled his face, and it looks like it could burst. “What am I thinking?”

  “That’s not how it works,” I say softly. I reach for Charlie again, but he pulls away.

  “Then how does it work? Prove it to me!”

  “I’m not . . . I’m not sure how much I can tell you, for your own safety.”

  “That’s convenient,” he snaps. “And that guy, the one who kissed you, he’s a psychic too, right?”

  I nod frantically.

  “Good joke, Callie,” he says. “Good bloody joke.” He pushes off his locker, his face a mix of anger and hurt. I try to grab his shoulder, but he shakes me off and storms away. His shoes echo down the hallway. I know I could go after him, but what’s the point? I can’t think of anything I could say that would change his mind about me in this moment.

  The linoleum beneath my feet suddenly feels unsteady, and chills course through me. An overwhelming weariness comes over me, making me feel slightly numb. I still have to do something. If Charlie won’t believe me that he’s in danger, who will?

  I think of calling Grace, but she’s more of a pragmatist than Charlie. She wouldn’t understand why I’m begging her to keep Charlie away from the warehouse. “He would never go there anyway,” Grace would say, which I’d agree with if I hadn’t seen Charlie’s future, and if I wasn’t trying to prevent it from happening.

  My phone vibrates, and I dig it out of my pocket. The screen is lit up with Jasper’s text message: R U coming to the office?

  Yes. Have you found it? I type back.

  Not yet.

  Keep looking. I’ll be there soon. I stuff my phone back in my pocket, feeling relieved.

  Indigo’s CIA contact—that’s who will believe me. I know Indigo well enough to find where he’s hiding his information, and once I find it and reach the contact, he’ll have the power to help save both Indigo and Charlie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  There’s this strange sort of silence at the office that Indigo always covered up with his vibrant energy; it’s like the electricity has been shut off. No one is preparing the viewing room with paper and pens or lounging in the recovery room. There’s just Jasper sitting at the table in the staff room, picking from a bag of Doritos.

  It’s only been an hour since I left Bloody Hell, but I’m terrified that I’m going to be too late to help protect Charlie from his terrible fate. I know that I have to find the information about Indigo’s CIA contact, and soon. If I can’t find the contact, I’ll have to just call the CIA myself—even though I’m sure they’ll just think it’s a prank call, since according to Indigo, very few people in the government know about us anyway.

  Jasper holds the bag out to me when I rush into the staff room. “You look exhausted,” he says. I shake my head at the chips, and Jasper withdraws the Doritos bag. “Suit yourself.”

  “Did you find Indigo’s contact?”

  Jasper pops another chip into his mouth. “I looked everywhere. Practically tore apart his desk doing it.”

  I rush into Indigo’s office, dropping my backpack in the corner, and Jasper comes in behind me. Two of Indigo’s desk drawers are pulled open, and his bookshelves are slightly messed up, but besides that, the room’s in tip-top shape. “You call this torn apart?”

  “I put everything back,” Jasper says. “Maybe we can help Indigo another way?”

  “This isn’t just ab
out Indigo anymore.” I pull out a drawer and dump it on the ground. “Charlie’s going to get hurt too, in some sort of radioactive attack,” I continue. “I need to let Indigo’s contact know.” I pull out another drawer, and another. I know I’m destroying Indigo’s desk, but I don’t care.

  Jasper looks confused. “What are you talking about?”

  I’m done with Indigo’s desk now so I pick up a book off the bookshelf and start to riffle through it. “This is not the time—”

  “You keep saying that!” Jasper glowers down at me. “Tell me what happened at Shady Hills. You said Indigo wasn’t there? Did the guards take him to another facility?”

  “It wasn’t their van. We don’t know who took him.”

  Jasper freezes, his mouth slightly agape. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, okay?” It comes out harsher than I meant it to and Jasper spins around and starts pacing. Finally—maybe he’s starting to get how serious this is.

  I open every book, flip through it, and drop it on the ground, until there’s a pile of books at my feet. Then I search the rest of the office. Nothing. Pausing to look around again, I nervously pick at the cuticles of my left hand. Jasper’s watching me from the corner. He seems to have calmed down, which is good, because I’m getting more worked up by the minute.

  “I saw Michael when I was at Shady Hills,” I say.

  Jasper comes over and puts his hand over mine to stop my nervous picking. “The crazy guy?”

  “He’s not crazy. He’s—” I try to think of a word for it, and what Michael said about getting them out comes back to me. “Out of his mind. Literally.”

  I wiggle my hand free of Jasper’s and walk out of Indigo’s office, Jasper right behind me, and open the door to the staff room. I rifle through the staff room’s shelves, check behind the candy machine, and pull everything out of the drawers, but I don’t find any information about Indigo’s contact. It’s starting to sink in that we might not find a contact at all. I lean up against the candy machine to think a moment.