Alliance

by Leigh, Trisha

  Thunderclouds form on his cheeks, roll through his eyes. It’s not lost on him, that my first concern is about me, about the Cavies, and not about his father or the way his life has been turned upside down. Lightning flashes and his lips press together, but Jude doesn’t unleash on me. For now.

  “Lee,” he mutters through clenched teeth, the ire in his normally soft gaze taking my breath away.

  Or is it the confirmation that Dane walked away from the warehouse with his life, and that he’s at least part of the reason Jude’s still playing basketball and hanging out at Kaminsky’s and not behind bars or in a padded room somewhere like his father.

  “I’m so sorry that happened to your dad, Jude, and that you had to find out everything about me the way you did, but there’s a lot going on that has higher stakes than you and me or our lives in general.” I steel myself, build walls around my sensitive heart. “I need to get in contact with Dane. Can you tell me how?”

  My chest is tight, aching, and puzzle pieces are struggling to line up in my mind. Jude’s father is in prison, but Jude is right here—going to school, playing basketball. Knowing about the Cavies and heaven knows what else.

  Why?

  “I have his phone number, yeah.” Despite Jude’s hostility, he’s not pulling away. He’s not yelling at me to get the hell off his porch and out of his life. “We’ve been in touch.”

  I swallow hard. “What happened after we left?”

  Jude has avoided looking at me this entire time, choosing instead to stare into the sky, as though the moon and the stars have as many secrets as I do. “The agents at the warehouse were pretty out of it after y’all disappeared. I used my shirt to try to stop Dane’s bleeding and called 9-1-1, even though I wasn’t sure that’s what he would have wanted. Or how in the world I was supposed to explain anything that had happened.”

  It’s not lost on me that Jude hasn’t asked me about my mutation—about what I can do. It could be he’s scared, or he doesn’t want to know, or he’s plain not interested in me anymore, but whatever the reason, I’m glad of it. I’d rather he look at me like this. Even angry, it’s preferable to pity or fear.

  “Why didn’t you just leave when you had the chance?” My mouth is dry, thinking about Jude there alone, trying to figure out the best thing to do. I would have run. I think.

  “I honestly didn’t think about it, not with Dane bleeding and in trouble. By the time the agents snapped out of their stupors, the ambulance sirens were right outside and then it was too late.”

  It’s amazing. Jude’s amazing. Neither his first nor second thought in that situation was for himself or his safety. I hate that there’s a suspicion brewing in my gut, but that’s my life now. His reaction is noble and brave, but it’s not normal for a high school kid who just saw some seriously weird crap. “Then what happened?”

  “They loaded Dane up and took him to the hospital. One of the agents, Marlow, started talking to the rest of the medics and the firemen that showed up afterward. No cops ever came. Marlow loaded me in an unmarked car and took me to some kind of questioning facility. A safe house of some sort, I think, because we didn’t go far enough to get to the city. Any city.”

  Instinct takes over, a natural urge that I’ve fought with every other person throughout my entire life, and my hand steals out to cover his. The vision comes to me in an instant—the same one I’ve had since the day we met, but more intense. It surrounds me, fills my nose and my eyes, and my ears ring with the sounds of the day Jude will die.

  He’s there, lying in the hydrangeas with a blood-soaked shirt. I can smell it—the sweetness of the flowers, the coppery scent of his life spilling onto the bright-green grass. The snub-nosed revolver is heavy in my hand and transfers an ice-cold chill halfway to my elbow. Jude is still. There’s nobody there but us, no one else to blame the horror on, no one else to beg for help.

  Then Jude’s eyes open. They’re mired in pain, slightly unfocused but swimming with tears that I somehow instinctively know have nothing to do with his wound. I drop to my knees and the grass is dewy, but I don’t feel the wetness that must stick to my bare skin. My hands go to his face and a slight stubble scratches my palms as he opens his mouth to speak.

  “Norah. Norah, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” It’s real-life Jude, still alive, unwounded. He’s pulled his hand from under mine at some point, maybe because he’s concerned or maybe before that, but either way it’s broken the spell cast by my genetics.

  It takes a few blinks to refocus, but in that brief moment, I glimpse the old Jude. The guy with a ready smile, whose concern for me and desire to make me feel better trumps everything else. Once he realizes I’m back, and I’m fine, he hides that boy away again.

  Knowing he’s still in there somewhere lifts a tangible weight off my shoulders.

  “I’m fine.” I give him a small smile that he returns, the first one we’ve shared tonight. “Keep going.”

  I want to hear how Dane got involved.

  “There’s honestly not much to tell. They kept me at the safe house for several days—I’m not sure how many since I couldn’t see the sun or anything. Then Dane showed up.” He swallows and glances heavenward again, but this time his gaze comes right back to mine. “I was glad he was okay, I guess, but pissed off and scared, too, after being holed up and barely having anyone talk to me at all.”

  There’s fear on his face now and his cheeks are whiter than they were a few minutes ago, but there’s something else. It’s smudging the edges, there and then gone, but it looks like guilt.

  My fingers tighten into a fist so I don’t reach out and touch him again. “They didn’t ask you anything?”

  “No. I think they figured they didn’t need to. They were aware of everything I saw and probably deduced, so no need to go over it.” He licks his lips, distracting me briefly. “Anyway, Dane showed up and unplugged the cameras in the room. I figured it was all for show, like on Homeland or something, but maybe he did it for real, I don’t know. He told me what he knew about you and your friends from Darley—pretty much confirmed most of what my dad had guessed—then he dropped the bomb that the CIA snatched up my dad and all of the research he’d managed to reassemble at the house.”

  “How can they just grab a citizen like that? Without any arrest or trial or…anything?”

  Jude shrugs. “Who’s going to ask questions other than me?”

  “Why did they let you go?” I’m glad they did, but it still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

  “Dane said he convinced them that there wouldn’t be any benefit to keeping me in custody. That I don’t know anything about Darley Hall or whatever they have going with you guys—which is true—at least, not the way my dad does. They also figured that them being able to do whatever they want to my dad, whenever they want, would be more than enough incentive for me to keep my mouth shut about the things I saw.”

  “And I guess it has.”

  A muscle clenches in Jude’s jaw and tells me something I might not have guessed before all of this happened. Jude’s not the type of guy who likes to be pushed around or strong-armed or told what to do.

  “I don’t have too much of a choice, do I?”

  I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling him we always have a choice. Every day, every relationship, every situation—there may only be a single option that appeals to us, but there’s always more than one.

  As good as it’s been to see him, as helpful as it is to know that he’s free and that Dane and the CIA are still in Charleston, the conversation leaves me on edge. The answers Jude gave only deposited more residual questions—like why would Dane tell Jude everything about Cavies and Darley Hall and all, and then let him go? Why tell him anything in the first place?

  “It’s good to see you,” I whisper, daring to take a peek.

  A smile softens the corners of his mouth, and for a moment, his blue eyes sparkle. “As mad as I want to be at you for not trusting me before all this happened, I’ve
been watching for you ever since the other night.”

  My cheeks go hot. “Maya told you she saw me.”

  “Yeah.” Jude nudges my hip with his, leaving me to wonder when we scooted closer together. “Stalker.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “I was worried about you, too.”

  A pause stutters, then lengthens between us. To my ears, it’s filled with all of the what-ifs and might-have-beens that wrap around our brief relationship, none of which will probably happen now because who wants to date a freak show that disappears into thin air without explanation?

  A freak show who has mutated genes that he’s too afraid to even ask about?

  Jude holds out a hand. “Give me your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can give you Dane’s cell number.”

  I hand it over, blinking back the emotion making me feel soggy from head to toe. He gives it back a minute later, his smooth fingertips grazing my palm. A shiver zips up my arm, then down my spine, the faint, stark outline of the number eighteen barely distracting me.

  “Thanks. I guess I’d better get going.” I slide my fingers back into my gloves.

  Jude nods and stands up, then reaches back to help me to my feet.

  He doesn’t ask me to stay, to let him help, the way he did just weeks ago when he sensed something amiss, something brewing. It’s not that I want him to, because having to walk away again is hard enough the way it is, but part of me wishes he still wanted to.

  “Take care of yourself, Norah.” He runs a hand through his sandy hair, leaving it mussed. “I put my number in there, too. Maybe you could trust me now. With the real you.”

  My heart swells, and something like trust—which is such a new and rare thing for me outside my Cavies—blooms in my blood.

  I should have trusted him. Maybe we could have avoided all of this heartache.

  A little voice in the back of my mind insists that, if he doesn’t know about what makes me a Cavy he doesn’t know the real me at all, but I silence it. The Norah that Jude met is the real Norah. My genetics don’t define me. It’s something I can do, not who I am.

  “It’s not as easy as you’d think, admitting you’re different. Trusting someone new with a secret you’ve been told over and over again will get you and all your friends killed.” I take a deep breath and push on, even though I’m shaking from top to bottom. “I can say I’m sorry and that I should have handled things differently, but the truth is, I’d do it all the same way. I’d have to.”

  As we part ways, a feeling tickles my palms and the tips of my ears. It whispers that I’m missing something, or maybe asking the wrong questions, and keeps fluttering in the corners of my mind as I start the twenty-minute hike back to the shelter.

  It has to do with why the government is letting Jude walk around knowing what he knows, and that Jude doesn’t seem upset or surprised or scared to learn that his father had been right about what happened at Darley Hall.

  Or maybe I feel this way because every time I replay the scene of his death—the new, enhanced version—I get more and more desperate to hear the words he was about to speak in the vision before he broke the connection in real life. I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m sure that he might have been about to hand over the key to saving his life.

  Chapter Eleven

  For some reason I wake up thinking about Star Wars.

  Last month, my dad had insisted we spend a whole weekend watching all six of those movies, and at the time, I’d thought they were fun, entertaining. Now, lying on a ratty cot under a threadbare blanket, the sounds of my friends’ breathing washing my skin with the chilling fear of loss, I wish the real world were a bit more like George Lucas imagined the future.

  Black versus white, good versus evil, the Empire versus the Rebels. Luke versus Darth.

  Hollywood has been wrong about just about everything, as far as I can tell, but there’s never something as simple as all that. Life isn’t black and white. No one is all good or all bad, and it’s up to each person to use the tools at their disposal to choose the least bad option on any given day.

  The Olders lied, are continuing to lie. They have a secret agenda, but there’s no way to say whether it’s in our best interest or not. The government wants to use us, and that isn’t exactly noble, but if they’re combatting things like this deadly computer virus, it doesn’t mean their cause isn’t worthwhile. Putting aside the unscrupulous way they brought us into existence, of course.

  My chest aches with the desire to call my dad. To ask him what he thinks we should do—trust the Olders or try to do the “right thing” working for the CIA. Or if we should strike out on our own, the seven of us. Eight, once Madeline gets Flicker up and running.

  Instead of phoning my father I stare at the entry for Dane Lee that Jude put into my burner cell.

  The others were asleep when I got back last night, but this isn’t a question that needs to be put to the group. We’ve agreed to contact Dane if we can, to try to barter what we found out about Hatfield, or maybe even offer our own services for information on the Olders. I’m the one who knows him, who had a relationship with the guy, so it should be me that calls.

  But actually doing it feels like a step down a path into the future. What if it’s not the right one?

  Just do it, Gypsy. You can always change paths, but you can’t find the one you want without stepping onto the road.

  It rings four times, then five, and I’m convinced he’s not going to pick up. Maybe he’s at work, or maybe he doesn’t answer calls from unknown numbers, and I’m breathing out a sigh of relief when the ringing stops. I’m greeted by static and a weird crackle.

  “Hello?” More crackling greets my question, and a shock of something other than expectation goes through me: fear. Then the noises cease, and I realize I’ve bitten my bottom lip. Maybe he just dropped the phone in his hurry to pick it up or something.

  “Dane?” I try again.

  “Norah Jane.” He sounds like himself, except tired. “I’m glad you called.”

  A couple of breaths later, I find my voice. “You are?”

  “Of course. I’ve been worried.”

  “From what I’ve heard, there’s no reason for that. You guys keep pretty close tabs.”

  “Hearing you’re fine and seeing it for myself are two different things.” He pauses and I can almost see him scratching the back of his neck like he does when he’s thinking.

  His concern tries to pump life back into our friendship but I lock down the feeling before it takes its first breath. Focus, Gyspy.

  “I want to talk to you about the Olders,” I blurt out.

  The ensuing silence goes on so long that I pull the phone away from my ear to check the connection.

  Then, finally, “I can’t talk on this line.”

  “Well, where do you want to talk? Would you like to have high tea at the Two Meeting Street Inn?” My attitude is probably uncalled for, but I need answers.

  “Lunchtime today. You know where.” Another pause. “And Norah?”

  “What?” I snap, tired of playing games.

  “Come alone.”

  The others aren’t too keen on letting me meet Dane solo, and to be honest, neither am I. As much as I want to believe Dane and I had cultivated an actual friendship in those short weeks when I thought he was another new kid with normal problems, he’s not that guy anymore.

  He’s a CIA agent who was undercover, with the objective of not only spying on me but trying to recruit me as an Asset. It’s hard to separate the two Danes in my mind—the encouraging understanding in his pitch-black eyes, and the guy who knew everything to start with and never thought of me as a real person.

  I shake off the morose feelings that accompany the thought and look around for Goose. The Cavies had two requirements for not accompanying me en masse today—that Goose come along and that we all meet for lunch at S.N.O.B right afterward.

  Goose is good company and I�
��ve been dying for shrimp and grits, cheddar jalapeño cornbread, and a bunch of other delicious items on S.N.O.B.’s lunch menu, so it wasn’t hard for me to agree.

  The speedy twin appears at my side in the space of two breaths, the only evidence that he came and went a slight disturbance of air that brushes a few bangs loose from my hairpin. He’s leaning against the wrought-iron fence that wraps around Saint Philip’s cemetery as though he’s been there the whole time. It’s our second stop of the day—Dane wasn’t at the Unitarian graveyard where we used to hang out, and this one is my only other guess at what he meant. It’s going to be a real shame if I don’t know where to find him after all.

  “How do you do that?” I stare at him, my mind boggled. And based on what little I understand of physics, not possible.

  “Do what?”

  “You’ve been gone maybe ten seconds. You can’t have been through the whole graveyard.”

  “It was only ten seconds? Huh.” He twists his lips, thinking. “It’s like…I go so fast now that the world kind of stops.”

  “What do you mean, stops?”

  “Well, maybe not one hundred percent stops, but like, people move in like super slow motion. I can see everything in the time it takes for them to take half a breath.”

  “And they don’t see you?” My brain hurts. “Even while they’re frozen?”

  “They’re not frozen, Gyp. They just look that way to me.” He shrugs, then pats my cheek. “Don’t hurt yourself. Dane’s in there. Back side of Calhoun’s grave.”

  Goose watches me as I press my lips together in an attempt to prepare for this conversation. Even though the market is a couple of blocks away I can almost hear the sounds of the old slave market opening up for the day, later and lazier than it will be during the height of tourist season. Can almost smell the sweetgrass being woven into baskets by Gullah descendants and the scent of the fried green tomatoes and rich, ham-and-cheese grits wafting from the patio at the Lowcountry Bistro, one of my father’s favorite restaurants.