Alliance

by Leigh, Trisha

  “I don’t care, Dane. I know I’m useless as far as Cavy things go.” He doesn’t agree with me, or at least, he won’t say so out loud.

  “Will you ask the other Cavies to meet with us? Hear us out?”

  “Yes, I know they’ll want to, but expect us to have more than a few requests of our own before we agree to anything.” I catch his eye. “Like information. Lots of it.”

  Dane slips me a business card with a contact number on it.

  I raise my eyebrows. “I have your number.”

  “That’s the one on the front. There’s another one on the back. If you just want to talk.” He swallows, looking toward the graves pushed up against the fence, an area supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little girl who died mysteriously in the spot. Dane stares for a long time, as though watching her spirit skip among the stones. “If you all decide to stay in town, you should be fine to stay at your father’s house for another week. He’s out of town on business.”

  My blood turns to ice at the mention of my father. At the idea that the CIA knows he’s out of town on business and at why, after learning what happened to Mr. Greene, it never occurred to me they could have gotten to my father, too. The invisible threat drains all the blood out of my head.

  “How do you know that?” My dad’s face hovers in my mind, and my teeth find my bottom lip.

  “The CIA keeps tabs on their Assets, Norah. And the people who matter to them.”

  I lick the blood off my lip. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine.” He doesn’t deny having my father, or at least enjoying unrestricted access to him, and I wonder whether the whole business trip is a lie. Dane reads the fear on my face in an instant and reaches for me, making contact this time with no accompanying vision. “No one’s laid a hand on your father.”

  I hear a yet at the end of his statement, whether he meant to put it there or not.

  “Unless I don’t get my useful and talented friends to come talk to you about selling their souls?” I snap, fear and anger mixing in my gut.

  “You don’t believe in souls.”

  The faint smile, the friendship, in his response turns on the light behind my eyes. The others might think I’m crazy to believe that Dane could see me as more than a Cavy. More than an Asset, even if the CIA doesn’t.

  But my heart struggles to let go of the idea.

  “I know.” I close my eyes and sigh. “I’ll talk to them. When do you want to brief us?”

  “Soon. Tonight, if possible.”

  “Where? And don’t say your safe house or that forsaken warehouse on the waterfront. Somewhere neutral and public.”

  “We’re not going to be able to discuss this in public, Norah.”

  “Fine. How about the Unitarian graveyard, then? The western half.” It’s more deserted. Creepy as heck, too, as evidenced by the dryness of my mouth at the thought of hanging out there after dark, even with a group of people.

  Some of them probably have guns, but that won’t scare any respectable apparition.

  “They lock it at night,” Dane reminds me.

  “You’re the big bad government guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “Norah?”

  Goose and I have gone about two blocks in the direction of lunch when the high-pitched sound of my name halts our pace. It’s not as though I wasn’t friendly during my short stint at Charleston Academy, but other than Peter, Maya, and Jude, there are only a couple other girls who would stop me on the street.

  I turn slowly, hoping like heck that it’s Jude’s sister Holly, but find Savannah instead. The cold breeze toys with her high ponytail, whipping blond strands across her pink cheeks. She’s surprised to see me but not gleeful as Maya was, based on her expression.

  “Hi, Savannah.”

  Her gaze strays to Goose, then back to me without asking for an introduction. At least she’s not going to flirt with him the way she did with Mole. “What are you doing here? Are you back?”

  “No, I’m just in town for a few days.” I close my eyes when Goose clears his throat expectantly. “Oh. This is Hosea.”

  “What’s with your Darley friends and biblical names?” She smiles, but not the thousand-watt one she has in her arsenal. “Hi. I’m Savannah, one of Norah’s friends from C.A.”

  “So, how are you?” I ask when it’s clear that we’re not done catching up.

  “Good. I got into Auburn.”

  “That’s amazing news.” And I mean it. I envy her. Not for her perfect hair or her popularity or anything specific, just for all of it. Her whole life. “Well, we’re meeting some people for lunch so I guess we should go.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.” Savannah swallows, glancing down at the toes of her furry boots, then back at me. “It was good to see you. Everyone was worried when you just…disappeared. But I guess everything’s fine.”

  “Yep. Fine.”

  The dubious expression on her face seems to indicate that I can’t even make a girl who amounts to little more than an acquaintance believe my lies. I think Dane and the CIA should rethink my ability to make a living as a spy.

  “Well, okay,” she says. “I guess I’ll see you around, then.”

  Savannah reaches out before I can avoid it, her fingers wrapping around mine for less than three seconds, which would normally only be enough contact to give me the faintest outline of a death age in my mind.

  Instead, the scene explodes around me in full color. There’s no preamble, as though my ability senses there won’t be time to show me extraneous details.

  Savannah’s at a white-painted desk in a bedroom decorated in purples and whites. Pictures and invitations, cute notes and ticket stubs clutter a corkboard behind the computer. On the giant Mac desktop screen is a series of flashing numbers and pictures, graphs and geometric images, while an unsettling, high-pitched shriek emanates from the machine. She stares at it, transfixed, then starts to tremble.

  Then her eyes start to bleed. Dark, black blood drips from her nose. It’s followed by a greenish-yellow fluid that’s thick like jelly as it covers her mouth and cheeks, runs out of her ears until her blond hair mats against her skin.

  Savannah goes limp, her head dropping to the desk with a thud.

  The computer screen goes blank. A message pops up, white on a black background.

  Come and get us.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So, you’re basically saying that Dane didn’t tell us anything about the Olders that we haven’t figured out on our own in the two weeks we’ve been living with them.” Haint pops a piece of hot buttered cornbread between her lips, then chews and swallows. “Great.”

  S.N.O.B, short for Slightly North of Broad, is one of the more popular restaurants in downtown Charleston. It’s toward the end of the lunch rush so the hostess found us a table, even after giving a derisive sniff at the fact that we didn’t have reservations, and twenty minutes later, we’re staring at steaming plates of delicious lowcountry cuisine.

  The sweet and spicy scents swirling off the table do their best to offer comfort, but even the food can’t improve my appetite. I keep thinking about my dad and how, regardless of whether the CIA has him in custody now or not, there’s no way to stop them from using him against me in the future.

  Just like they’re using Jude’s dad against him.

  The scene of Savannah’s death at the age of seventeen, just mere months from now—weeks, maybe—burns in my memory and makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me think we can’t refuse the CIA no matter how crappy their tactics, because the virus isn’t going to stay in Russia. People are going to start to die in the US, and soon. People we know. Who’s to say our families—or one of us—might not be next?

  I need to tell the others, and I will, but describing how Savannah dies isn’t exactly lunch conversation.

  I push a bite of fried green tomato around my plate, my appetite nonexistent. “Yeah. They don’t know who’s funding the Olders, either, but I think they do know the Olders’ a
ngle in all of this. I mean, other than using us as guinea pigs.”

  “That’s not news,” Athena grumps. “They monitor us as close as the Philosopher ever did.”

  I nod. “Exactly.”

  “But he did say the CIA would be willing to let us lead somewhat normal lives between operations,” Goose adds. “If you believe that line of crap.”

  “I’m not sure it’s a line of crap,” I hedge, feeling like the biggest loser ever for wanting to believe it. “It wouldn’t be so bad, using our mutations to help our country, right? We need jobs someday, anyway.”

  “I’m not sure spies have normal lives, Gyp,” Mole replies softly, his gaze on his half-full plate.

  “Right, and I hate to point this out, Gyp, but I’m not sure what they’d ask you to do.” Haint’s words slam into my chest with a force I don’t expect. She’s always been my closest friend, besides Mole. “They’re going to be asking Mole to blow up people and cities or something, and Reaper to murder accused terrorists from six blocks away, and probably train me as some kind of invisible assassin.” Haint’s tirade might have begun with an apology, but her tone doesn’t match. “It’s going to require a lot of trust on our parts, belief that we’re on the right side. And seeing how they’ve lied to us our whole lives, I’m a little short in that department.”

  “Yeah, plus I was thinking of getting a job for a suicide-prevention hotline,” Pollyanna jokes. Her eyes go wide when we all stare at her in awe. “What? Are suicide jokes not funny?”

  As much as it stings to be reminded again that I’m worthless, Haint’s right. My vision of the future, my role in whatever they’ll want from us, will be minimal compared to theirs. But that doesn’t mean I can be normal. That I can walk away and never worry about them and pretend the first seventeen years of my life never happened.

  “I know that, Becca.” I use her birth name and glance around the dining room to make sure no one’s listening for the five hundredth time since we sat down. “I’m just saying that people are dying, that that’s something to consider. I think we should hear them out.”

  She opens her mouth to fire back, her eyes blazing with passion, but Mole cuts her off. “Of course we’re going to hear them out. That’s why we came here.”

  Athena swallows a giant bite of shrimp and grits, eyeing Haint. “What if they detain us somehow?”

  “We’re all back on the GRH-18, at least for now,” Mole says. The mention of the drug brings to mind him seizing on the floor, the fire inside him out of control, and my mouth goes dry. “If the Olders are telling the truth about it overriding their null abilities, the CIA won’t be able to force us to do anything.”

  We all fall silent, and even though the food here is amazing as always, only the twins clean their plates. It’s too bad, wasting our first decent meal in two weeks, but everything tastes like paste and sits in my belly like a ball of still-wet papier-mâché.

  My brain replays the conversations I’ve had over the past couple of days—the strange, angry version of Jude that doesn’t quite add up, and the disturbingly honest feeling of the chat in the graveyard with Dane.

  “Dane said my dad is going to be out of town for at least a week. Let’s go back to the shelter and pack up our stuff, then settle in at his house. We can do some more research and then meet with the CIA later tonight.” My voice is surprisingly steady.

  Just saying the word dad litters my mind with agony and guilt, piled high with promises I’ll never be able to make, so I focus on my friends. Haint is chewing, her jaw tight and determined. She doesn’t have to worry about being used against her will if they can’t see her. The twins are nudging each other, wanting us to believe they’re as carefree as ever, and Athena stabs Goose with a fork when he snatches the last bit of cornbread.

  But it’s half-hearted. They’re quiet, and pensive, and worst of all, unsure as we pay the check and get up to leave, passing by the half-full bar.

  Various sporting events play on the televisions around the bar. We’ve been ignoring them this whole time, but when the channels switch simultaneously to a breaking-news report, it catches my attention.

  “Whoa.”

  I’m not sure who says it because my eyes are glued to the screen. The anchor starts a piece about the computer virus before tossing the story to a correspondent somewhere in Russia.

  “We’re not sure how it started,” the female field reporter begins, “and the Russian government is denying any involvement, even though the best computer resources in the world have confirmed the signal is coming from a small town in Siberia. All international journalists have been ordered to leave the country within the next six hours. This will be my last on-location broadcast.”

  The screen splits, and the studio anchor frowns, furrowing a pair of impressive caterpillar eyebrows. “Is there anything you can tell us about this virus, like how we can avoid contracting it here in the States?”

  The reporter in Russia cuts a glance offscreen and goes pale. “Nothing. That’s all I have time for, Randall, I’m sorry.”

  Her half of the screen goes blank and it’s the weirdest thing, but I’m almost 100 percent sure no one will ever hear from that woman again.

  “It’s real, isn’t it?” Pollyanna whispers from behind me.

  When I turn, her face is ashen. The others’ are, too. We leave the restaurant in silence, the cold January air almost a relief, a reminder that we’re alive as we head out the door into the chilly afternoon.

  I don’t know what possesses me to gather my courage, to be brave, to not think about the damage seeing numbers and deaths does to my heart and my psyche, but on the way to the car, I brush against a dozen people, letting my fingers graze long enough to see their deaths.

  It’s happening so much easier now, and it’s so clear, even with the briefest of touches.

  And of the random people on this street in Charleston, half of them are going to die in front of flashing computers displaying the same mocking messages as the one that will kill Savannah.

  My hands shake as we pile into the car where it’s parked a couple of blocks away at a meter, still quiet, but no one notices. Anger at whoever is behind this, whoever is making every day into a living nightmare, quickens my breathing.

  I get behind the wheel and grip it tightly, my fury still building. I may not know how this virus is even possible, but I do know that if there’s anything that I can do to stop whoever’s behind this thing, I’m going to do it.

  We’ve only been back at my dad’s for ten minutes when the doorbell rings.

  The buzzer scares everyone silly since we’re all on the verge of jumping out of our skins, and we debate not going to see who it is. Chances are it’s a solicitor or someone else that doesn’t need to know we’re staying here in my father’s absence, but when it rings a second time, then a third, I slide off the stool in the kitchen and tiptoe over to peer outside.

  Seeing Jude on the steps, an expectant look on his face, floods me with memories. It reminds me of the first time he came over uninvited, just to check on me after we’d been injected by the Olders in broad daylight. I’d been walking home with Maya so there was no way to hide the incident, and even though we’d only known each other for a couple of days, they’d been worried.

  I mean, even seeing someone you barely know accosted on the street is bound to make an impression, but still, their concern had touched me.

  Now he’s here, even though he should hate me for lying to him and leaving him behind like I did.

  I pull open the door.

  “Hi.” Jude shuffles his feet, staring down at his toes for a moment before raising his hopeful gaze to my face.

  “Hey.” I glance behind me and see my friends huddled at the threshold to the kitchen, curiosity and worry mixed on their faces. The scrutiny moves my feet, pushing me outside, even though it’s freezing, until the door clicks shut behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you were m
ad at me.” I squint, trying to discern what’s behind his hope. It’s still hard, after years knowing only my Cavies and our caretakers, to read other people sometimes.

  He sighs. “I’m not mad at you, Norah. I think I’m…I think I’m just mad. In general.”

  “Well, you’re allowed. You lost your dad. You found out the world isn’t exactly what you thought.” I smile at him, hoping against hope that I might be able to make him smile back.

  One tries to catch but doesn’t quite make it. “I was wondering if you wanted to spend the afternoon with me.”

  The request takes me by surprise, which means I’m not sure exactly how to respond and it takes me too long. Jude starts to turn, maybe to hide the disappointment flooding his red cheeks. I reach out and grab his arm through his thick jacket. “Yes.”

  I don’t ask him what we’re going to do and he doesn’t offer. “Let me get a coat.”

  I slip back into the house, gathering a coat and hat and scarf from the hooks in the mudroom. The Cavies watch me, expectant, until I look up and face them.

  “I’m going for a walk with Jude.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Mole asks. “I mean, we should stick together, and you’ve already run into too many people.”

  “Too many people for what? My dad is going to know we were here, and it’s not like we’re hiding from the CIA at this point. What does it matter?” No one has an answer for that. “I won’t be gone long, I promise. I’ll be home before we need to leave to go meet Dane.”

  Then I’m outside again, basking in the warmth and light of Jude’s presence. Of the sizzling attraction to him that flutters in my heart and dampens my palms, and just won’t take the hint that we don’t have time—or that he’s going to die because of me.

  “Hey,” he says again, his smile brighter this time, and holds out a hand.

  I reach out my mittened hand and grasp his gloved fingers. “Hey.”