Inquest

by Gladden, DelSheree

  “No,” I say, “it’s not that. You just don’t seem like that kind of guy. You must have another reason for hanging out in places like this.”

  He harrumphs in answer. Not very enlightening. But maybe I’m prying too much into his personal life for having only met him this afternoon. Giving him some space, I quietly watch him gather up all our food wrappers and empty cups. He stuffs everything back into one bag and drops it into the trashcan next to the bed. At least he cleans up after himself. That’s one skill Lance never seemed to learn.

  Milo settles back onto the bed and breaks the silence. “Sometimes, when living with my parents gets too…unbearable and I need a break from them, I crash in some out of the way motel for a few days until I cool off. Until they cool off. I escape at least every two or three weeks.”

  “And your parents don’t care that you leave? Don’t they try to find you?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “No. They’re as happy as I am to see me go.”

  “I could lie and say I can’t believe they’d treat you that way,” I say, “but given my current situation, I can totally believe it. Parents aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, are they?”

  “Not in my experience.”

  Milo folds a pillow in half behind him and leans back on it. I feel like we’re simply hanging out in his room, shooting our mouths off about our parents while they putter around in another part of the house. It almost feels normal.

  “Your dad must have been okay, though,” Milo says. “At least you had one good parent.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know, just the way you reacted when I asked you about him earlier. You said he was dead, and nothing else. I guess I figured you either hated his guts, or you still miss him.” Milo turns to glance at me. “Maybe it’s just because I’m generally a pretty optimistic guy, but I chose to go with you missed him rather you hated him. Kids should at least get one parent who cares about them.”

  “Optimistic, huh? I never would have guessed,” I say.

  The corner of his mouth turns up. “If I weren’t optimistic, and believed I’d get out of this hell-hole one day, I would have gone nuts a while ago.”

  “Good point.”

  “So which is it?” Milo asks. “Was he a good dad, or not?”

  My chest constricts like it always does when I think about my dad. I force it down to a dull ache and make myself answer. “He was the best. I miss him a lot.”

  “When did he die?”

  I look over at Milo and crinkle my nose. “You’re not from Albuquerque originally, are you?”

  He shakes his head. “Moved here in May from Ohio. Why?”

  “Because if you grew up here you wouldn’t have to ask about my dad. He was training to be our next Inquisitor. He died when I was eleven. On my birthday, actually.”

  Letting out a low breath, Milo shakes his head. “Sorry, that sucks. How’d he die?”

  “Nobody knows.” Nobody but me. “It was very sudden. His heart stopped, and he was gone.”

  “Sorry,” Milo says.

  I shake myself visibly, willing the dark cloud settling over me to disperse. “It’s okay.”

  For a moment Milo closes his eyes and I’m afraid he’s going to fall asleep on my bed. He opens them again a few seconds later and turns to look at me, his eyes earnest. “Do you really think your Inquest was a mistake like you told the reporters?”

  More than anything I hope the people who heard me say that, reporters and viewers alike, believe me. Their belief might be the only thing that keeps me alive for the next two years. But I don’t believe it. I know better. I recognized, early in life, that I had the seven talents that would mark me. There was no mistaking it. There’s no way I can delude myself into believing what I said to them.

  Milo’s question makes it pretty obvious that he doesn’t really believe it either, and I find myself rather reluctant to lie to him. He knew who I was before we even met. He didn’t glare or ignore me. Whatever his reasons are, he seems to accept who I am. I have no idea what his motivations behind his attitude are, which scares me just a little, but I need that acceptance right now. I need one person in this world to look at me like I’m not a monster.

  Taking a deep breath, I say, “No. My Inquest wasn’t a mistake.”

  “But you’re planning on making everybody think it was,” Milo says.

  “Pretty much.”

  “You think it will work?”

  Now it’s my turn to shrug. “Probably not, but I don’t have a lot of options right now.”

  “No, I guess not,” he says.

  “President Howe told me to lay low or he’d kill me. That’s exactly what I plan on doing.”

  “President Howe?”

  “Yeah, he showed up at the Inquisitor’s house after my Inquest and laid out his whole plan.” When Milo raises a questioning eyebrow, I relive the whole conversation, complete with Lazaro’s threat.

  “So you’re just going to hang out until your eighteenth birthday when Howe is going to kill you?”

  “No. I’m hopefully going to figure out a plan before then.”

  “How’s that coming so far?” he asks.

  “Pretty sucky.”

  Shaking his head, Milo lets the topic die away. He seems content to sit with his thoughts now. I quickly get antsy. I’m not sure whether it’s more of an awkward silence kind of discomfort or my worrying about being alone with Milo, but I feel strange just sitting here with him all the same.

  “Do you want to watch something?” I ask. Milo sits up, surprised, and I backpedal immediately. “Unless you needed to go home. You, uh, don’t have to babysit me, or anything.”

  Milo’s expression morphs into a snarky smile, and he says, “Somehow, I doubt you need anyone to babysit you, Cassia the Destroyer. You’d probably be saving my butt if anything did happen.”

  I can’t explain why, but Milo calling me Cassia doesn’t make my skin crawl like it has every other time someone has called me that today. I actually kind of like it. Minus the “Destroyer” part, at least.

  Smiling, I say, “Yeah, you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw me in the gym today. I’m pretty sure the Guardians-in-training all thought I was mentally handicapped the way I kept tripping and bumping into things.”

  “As long as you can throw punches like you did this afternoon, I don’t think it will matter too much.” Having said that, Milo grabs the remote control off the nightstand and starts flipping through channels. He makes a quick tour of the twenty-something channels and holds the remote out to me. The motion pulls his sleeve back, revealing his diktats again.

  Without being too obvious about it, hopefully, I look down at his wrist as I reach for the remote. There are only three, the least amount a person can have. One talent, a common name, and named to the Mediator class. The wrongness I had glimpsed so quickly earlier today is plain, now. They aren’t identical little vertical stripes laid out in a perfect row. The spaces between each diktat are fractionally different. The raised flesh is slightly uneven, as if they had bubbled up rather than appeared instantly. And the left one has a sharp divot that lashes out and nearly touches the diktat next to it. I wrap my fingers around the remote in an effort to keep myself from running them over his skin.

  What happened to him?

  Never before have I seen someone with diktats like his. They’re always perfect, a reminder of how our society is meant to be. You can’t even screw them up later. Whatever makes the diktats appear in the first place changes the skin around them, too. It’s impenetrable. You can no more mar your diktats to lie about your talents, class, or name, than sprout wings and fly to the moon. But something screwed up Milo’s diktats. And it had to have happened during the Inquest. Whatever happened, the Inquisitor who performed his Inquest caused it.

  As I flip through the channels without really seeing them I can’t shake the feeling that there is something dangerous lurking behind Milo’s diktats.

  Chapter 9
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  Jealousy

  As promised, Milo is waiting for me outside my room at seven-thirty on the dot. I doubted his ability to get up early and show up on time when he made the promise last night, but I am pleasantly surprised to find out how wrong I was to question him. Today is already starting off a million times better than yesterday. I smile as I climb into his Corolla.

  “Ready?” Milo asks groggily.

  “Yep.”

  He jams the gear shift in reverse. The car jerks back and then out of the parking lot. His hair hides most of his face, and his sunglasses hide the rest. Milo’s hunched shoulders and drooping head, plus his utter lack of conversational ability, make me smile.

  “Not much of a morning person, huh?” Normally I’m not either. I rarely get through a night without terrible nightmares, which means little sleep and grumpy mornings. Nightmares still gave me an awful night’s sleep, but actually having a ride to school this morning has put my usual unpleasantness on hold. I was sure I’d be calling a taxi after yesterday.

  Milo merely grunts in response to my question.

  “Well, thanks for picking me up.”

  “No problem,” he growls.

  A chuckle slips out before I can stop it. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  I smile even wider. He doesn’t seem to notice. He does however speed up, ten, fifteen miles over the speed limit. He darts in and out of traffic so effortlessly that I doubt the likelihood of his one talent being Perception. He fits right in with the rest of the Guardians the way he’s driving. The rest of the trip passes in silence, with me holding onto the door handle very tightly. We make very good time. We have a full twenty minutes before the bell is due to ring.

  “Well,” I say when we’re safely stopped and my fingers are unclenched from the handle, “that was interesting. If you wanted to get away from me that badly you could have just said so.”

  Milo finally looks over at me. “What?”

  “You were speeding like a maniac. Were you trying to get rid of me as soon as possible?”

  “Oh. No, I just wanted you to have enough time,” he says.

  “For what?”

  He unbuckles his belt and leans toward me. I almost start to say something, a mixture of fear and curiosity at what he might do springing up instantly, when he twists and reaches for a container I hadn’t noticed, peeking out from under his backpack. He tugs it out and hands it to me.

  “I brought you some breakfast. Wake me before the bell rings, okay?” Then, casual as you please, he lays his seat back and closes his eyes. Within seconds his chest is rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep. Amazing.

  I turn back to my container with an amused shake of my head and work on prying the lid off. The bagel, or buttered toast, I’m expecting isn’t there. Lying in the blue plastic container are scrambled eggs, bacon, and a sliver of cantaloupe. The eggs and bacon are still hot, the melon protected from the heat by a couple of folded paper napkins. A plastic fork is wedged between the edge of the container and the melon. For several long seconds all I can do is gape at the food. The last time anyone made me breakfast was five years ago. The morning my dad died. My eyes still water every time I see blueberry pancakes.

  My fingers are actually shaking when I pick up my fork and take a bite. It’s positively silly that I should be getting so worked up over eggs, but I can’t help it. The homemade breakfast warms me completely. As long as it takes me to finish relishing the treat, there are still ten minutes before the first bell when I’m done. I close the dish back up and set it in the back seat. Before I can settle into my seat to wait, my gaze lands on Milo.

  His eyes dart around under his eyelids as he sleeps. I wonder what he’s dreaming about. I wonder if it’s me. Shaking my head, I push that thought out of my mind completely. Any dream about me would quickly turn into a nightmare. He’s probably dreaming about getting to sleep in. Lying back in his seat, his hair has fallen away from his face. I can actually see his face clearly without his hair there to get in the way. Hidden behind his scraggly locks is a strong jaw line and defined cheekbones. They go perfectly with his aquiline nose and full, soft lips.

  My thoughts freeze. His soft lips? Where on earth did that come from? And why am I still staring at his lips? Are they really soft? I bite the inside of my cheek, but it doesn’t really help. I struggle to get my thoughts back in order. I don’t need this right now. I have an entire planet’s worth of people to convince I’m not going to kill them all. Milo doesn’t seem to be one of those people, but I’m not totally sure that makes him any less dangerous. He would apparently be pleased as punch to see me shatter the world. I have enough problems already without letting my hormones cloud things for me. Distractions are the last thing I need. I have to stay focused or I’m going to end up very dead.

  Still, I can’t help noticing there is a stray hair lying across his cheek, the tip touching his upper lip. Telling myself that it probably tickles being there, I reach up to gently brush it away. My finger touches his skin and his lips briefly curl into a smile before settling back into a sleepy frown. My own mouth turns up in delight despite what I just told myself. Trailing my finger along his skin not only rids him of the bothersome strand of hair, but elicits a few more tiny smiles from his lips as well. I smother a laugh with my other hand, tempted to repeat the motion a few more times.

  But when a car pulls into the space next to us I suddenly remember my job and glance at the clock. I flinch at the time, three minutes until the first bell. My fingers drift down to Milo’s shoulder reluctantly. I shake him gently, and say his name barely louder than a whisper.

  His arms fly out from his body as he springs up, one of them smacking me neatly on the side of the face. I fall back into my seat with a groan. “Ouch! Dang it, Milo, that hurt.”

  He blinks several times before his eye widen. “Oh, crap. Did I hit you, Libby? I’m sorry. My parents usually just yell at me from a distance. It’s safer that way. I should have warned you, I guess.”

  “You think?”

  With my eyes closed, and my senses a bit scrambled, I don’t notice he has come closer to me until he presses his hand against the side of my face. My breath stutters under his touch. His pressing lightly on my cheek stings, but I’m only vaguely aware of it. I’m not really capable of noticing anything except for how close he is to me until he pulls his hand back, though not completely.

  “It’s all red. I’m really sorry, Libby. I didn’t mean to smack you…again,” he says. Concern and regret play together in his slate grey eyes. I can’t make myself look away from them.

  “It’s okay,” I manage to mutter.

  He leans forward again, staring at my throbbing cheek. Tension bunches up his shoulders. “You might want to keep your hair down for a while until you’re sure it won’t bruise. I’m sorry, Libby. If a teacher sees that they’re going to think someone hit you on purpose.”

  “Like they’ll even care. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” I say, making Milo frown. I sigh. “I’ll keep my hair down if it makes you feel better, though.”

  “It will,” he says. Evidently he doesn’t trust me. His fingers slide behind my ear and free my hair to fall forward, pausing on my now covered cheek. I lean into his touch without thinking.

  My skin prickles a split second before Milo pulls away from me. The sensation passes too quickly for me to get anything from it.

  “I think the warning bell already rang. We’d better go,” he says flatly. Something about his voice sounds off, rougher than usual. I shouldn’t have let myself slip like that. It’s just that Lance used to do the same thing. For a moment the sensation was too familiar not to get lost in it. I have to be smarter. Milo is my friend, the only one I have. I don’t want to lose that now by scaring him off.

  Stuffing away my emotions, I grab my backpack and follow Milo out of the car. We rush across the parking lot and push through the double doors a few seconds later. The hallway is packed with students rushing t
o get what they need out of their lockers and race to class before the final bell rings. Nobody even notices us. Thank goodness. For whatever reason, Milo follows me to my locker and plants himself next to me as I yank it open and start loading up my books. I’m done ten seconds later, shoving the stubborn door closed and spinning around to find myself face to face with Jen.

  She looks like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.

  “Jen,” I say in surprise. “There you are. I couldn’t find you anywhere yesterday.”

  “L-Libby…I.” Her eyes dart around nervously. “I’m sorry, Libby, but I’m late for class.”

  She drops her eyes, practically running away from me. Her panicked flight catches some of the other students’ attention. As she disappears into her classroom, they all swivel back to me, staring, glaring at me like I have just done something terrible. I just tried to say hi to my friend. Someone I thought was my friend, anyway. What’s so bad about that?

  The familiar brush of Lance’s emotions slices through me as he walks by. Seeing his expression is just as painful. I take a step back under the assault, bumping into Milo, who leans against a locker and simply watches with mild interest. He’s not about to step in and save me, but it’s clear he isn’t going anywhere.

  Something flashes in Lance’s eyes. It’s there and gone so fast I barely even notice it, but the seething flow of jealousy rippling out from him is telling enough. A very tiny part of me relishes the idea of him caring. The rest of me has a different response. Irrational fury boils under my skin. Jealousy? How dare he? He tried to kill me, for crying out loud! He doesn’t get to be jealous anymore. Stupid, hateful jerk. Only the rapt attention of everyone still in the hallway keeps me from slapping Lance across the face.

  The final bell rings, breaking Lance out of his frozen stance and carrying him down the hall to his class. Despite my anger at Lance, when he disappears my whole body sags with relief. I have to lean against the locker next to Milo to keep from dropping.

  “You okay?” Milo asks.

  “Yeah, never better,” I say. I just wish my hands would stop shaking. Milo’s hands are rock steady as he pushes me away from the lockers.