Anathema
Page 27
“Trust me,” I say sharply, not liking his interest in her, “you’re not her type.”
Liam just laughs and shakes his head as he turns away from me. “Lying minx.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Amanda drives me to the security guard’s address in Shelter Valley after school.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Amanda says, distaste in her voice as she surveys the ramshackle street around us. It’s a step down from Cordoba Bay, solidly working class. This is the town being blamed for our massacre, the town that gets our excess crime, our toxic waste, even.
“Thanks,” I tell her.
She waits in the car, radio on, while I approach the door. I’m about to knock when I see a girl’s silhouette rippling beyond the curtains of a basement window. So I head down the creaky stairs, kneel next to the glass and tap on the window. The curtain jerks aside. Noelle’s eyes widen at the sight of me.
She holds up a finger, and then the front door pops open on its rusty hinges. “Come in!” she whispers, waving me in hastily.
I shuffle inside the dim house she and Alexander are obviously staying in. Their stuff is packed up in a pair of duffel bags. It doesn’t look like they plan to stay long.
“How’d you find us?” Noelle wonders.
“Liam gave me the address.”
She blows out a breath. “I knew the Wasters would track us down. I didn’t think it would happen so fast.”
“They’re not planning to hurt you guys.”
“Not until it’s convenient for them to get rid of us.” She folds her slim arms, her dark eyes wary. “We won’t hang around until they change their minds. We’re leaving town later tonight. You can come join if you want, but I don’t know why you would, Ms. Fantastic House, Fantastic Family and Fantastic Hazard Index.”
I smile. “Yeah, that’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?”
Her face softens. “You should wait around until Alexander gets back. He’ll want to say goodbye to you.”
I shift awkwardly. “If you think that’s okay.”
“He’ll want to.” She gestures me down into an overstuffed chair. I settle there, drawing my knees up to my chest, watching her rearrange their meager possessions in their bags.
“So are you guys going to Mexico?” I ask her.
“No. That’s what Alexander wants to do, but not me.” She surveys me under her fringe of dark hair. “I know if we leave the country, Alexander will never appeal his case and he’ll die an anathema. If we stay here, he might do it one day.” She swallows hard. “After I’m… If I die before him.”
I say nothing. From what I’ve gathered, Alexander won’t even think about getting citizenship back while his sister’s an anathema. But if she dies, he probably won’t contemplate it then, either. He’ll still blame himself. A lump rises in my throat.
There is no freeing him of the burden of guilt he feels over what’s happened to her. Even though he was a child when it happened, as innocent as she was, she’s his twin. His sister. He truly believes he should have known. He should have helped. Just as I told my mother there’s no saving me from myself, there’s no saving Alexander from himself, either.
Unless…
That’s when the idea occurs to me. I pull out the yellow envelope Liam gave me. A solution— and not just to my problems. For some reason, I find myself thinking of Liam’s strange words. His talk about these extreme circumstances being ennobling. I’m not like him. I don’t thirst for a fight, and I don’t want to scorch the world with my existence. But something he said calls to something within me nevertheless. I don’t want to move through this world sedately without leaving a mark, my eyes blinded to the wrongs and injustices around me.
Here is something I could do. Something truly, unquestionably right.
Maybe the something I was meant to do all along.
“Noelle.” I raise my eyes to hers, the realization of what lies ahead blooming over me. This. This is my choice. It is the only one I can make. “I want to give you something.”
It’s not until the following night that I see Alexander again. He appears outside my window late at the night, mostly because I left the ladder outside for him. Happiness washes over me at the sight of him. I shove the window open for him to climb inside.
“You shouldn’t leave a ladder—”
“Outside my room. I know. It’s like asking someone to kill me. Your sister pointed that out, too. I won’t do it again.”
Alexander closes the window behind him. He folds his arms, surveying me like he’s trying to figure me out. His gaze sweeps my room. It’s so strange seeing the anathema who’s ushered me through the most perilous phase of my life surrounded by the relics of my childhood.
“My sister’s gone. She left a note saying I should ask you about it.” His slanted black eyebrows give him a severe, searching look. Strange how I once associated him with danger when he’s become the greatest source of safety in my new world. “Where is she, Kat?”
“Well, if I’ve got the time right,” I glance at my nearby digital clock, “Noelle’s plane is just over the Atlantic now.”
He stares at me for a long moment, flabbergasted. Then, “What?”
I bite my lip, trying to think of how to explain this. “Alexander, I was given an exit visa. A passport. And I gave them to her. We cut her hair so she looks like me, and no one consults facial recognition programs in the international terminal. She’ll touch down in Heathrow soon. She’s going to be fine.”
He kneels down in front of me where I’ve settled on my bed, his eyes intent. “I don’t understand. How…?”
“Oh, I didn’t pay for it myself or anything. Mayor Alton gave it to me. She tried to bribe me. I guess she thought if she got me out of town, no one would be around to hold it over her head that she’s the leader of a huge group of anathemas.”
Alexander rocks back on his heels, raking a hand through his dark hair. “Wait, what? She’s the boss? How did you know this? How did this happen?”
I smile. “I’m actually pretty clever sometimes. I connected some pieces, then I talked to her and basically confirmed it.”
He opens and closes his mouth. “I don’t understand,” he says finally. “You had a way out, the mayor gave you a way out, and you gave it to my sister?”
“I gave it to both of you.” I grab his hand where it’s curled up on the edge of my bed. “She’s safe. You have to appeal your case now. You don’t have Noelle around as your excuse not to do it anymore.”
“Kat,” he says, gripping my hand so tightly between both of his, my fingers throb, “you can’t do this. I can’t let you throw away your own escape route.”
“It’s already done.”
“And what about you?” he demands.
“I can still get an Asylum Scholarship. And until then, I have something else planned.” I rise from my bed and step over towards my laptop.
I hit play on the video I just uploaded online. Alexander steps up behind me to gaze over my shoulder. It’s my face on the screen: “My name is Kathryn Grant and I’m an anathema. I’m going to tell you all about what it’s like… being me.”
“This is dangerous,” Alexander warns me.
But I just gaze up at my Susan B. Anthony poster, hanging above the laptop. The words stand out to me, stark white against the black.
“Careful, cautious people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to… avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”
They speak to me more than ever before. I am done being a careful, cautious person. I was done with that the day I stepped forward to help Noelle. Strange as it may seem, Wolfman Savage’s downfall gave me a voice, gave me a platform to be heard. Once upon a time, I began to change my view of anathemas because I met a girl who shattered my stereotypes of them.
Maybe I could do the same thing for other people.
“How many people really get a chance to help change the world?” I ask Alexander, turning to him. Our eyes are inches apart. “Maybe I don’t want safety. I don’t want to go to Europe. I don’t want to be a happy, carefree person with nothing to worry about. I’ve known for a while that I want my life to count for something. I didn’t ever plan for it to happen this way, but this is the way it is. I’m going to be a public voice for anathemas.”
He cups my cheek. “Even if it kills you?”
“Even then.”
“No. I won’t let you do this. Delete that video. Don’t post it.” He moves towards my computer.
I twine my fingers in the collar of his jacket and yank him back. “In case you haven’t noticed,” I say sharply, “it’s not your choice. The video’s already out there. It’s done.”
“Kathryn…” There’s exasperation in his voice. Worry. Tenderness.
And my new visibility will lend me more than just the means to be heard. If Mayor Alton tries to menace Alexander, I’ll be heard when I speak against her. If Alexander needs his case to draw attention, people will listen when I tell them about it. Notoriety is power. Wolfman Savage knew that. It was his undoing. It will be my strength.
Alexander reaches up to sweep my hair back from my face, his startling blue eyes holding mine. “If you’re going to do this, then I’m staying right by your side to protect you.”
I withdraw a step. “Only if you do it as a citizen. That’s my requirement.”
His eyes search mine. “I don’t understand you. I don’t know why you’ve risked yourself like this for my sister. For me.”
For a moment, my heart stings. He can’t imagine anything between us. He doesn’t even understand I might feel something for him.
“Why?” he says.
“Figure it out, Alexander.”
I turn away from him, but suddenly he catches me and pulls me back to him. For a moment we stand there, our eyes locked. And then the distance closes between us like the air has disappeared into a void, and the world becomes the warmth of his lips dipping down to touch mine.
Static leaps between us as his mouth moves over my own, the taste of his breath sweet. He cups the back of my neck, possessively, without gentleness, like I’m a tonic of life and he needs to drink me in to survive. Excitement crackles like electricity down my spine as his hot lips scorch mine. It’s never been like this with Conrad before, the world exploding in forked lighting, my nerve endings singing at his touch. A small sound of surprise escapes my lips and he smiles against my lips, kissing me leisurely, as though the entire night stretches before us without ending.
And perhaps it does.
Because this is the moment Alexander and I step together towards our uncertain, shared future. Perils await us tomorrow and the danger may never recede, but I am prepared for that and I know he is, too. On the glowing screen below us, the hit count on my video rises, a message flying out for the whole world to see.
I, Kathryn Grant, choose not to hide.
I will stand before the world and avow my sympathies to despised ideas and their advocates.
And I will bear the consequences.