The Awakening

by K. E. Ganshert

  Luka wipes his palms against his jeans then raps his knuckles against the steel for the third time.

  Knock, knock … knock, knock … knock, knock …

  One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds pass us by.

  I shift my weight, dread sinking into the very soles of my feet. “Luka.”

  But he holds up his finger.

  A loud click echoes into the hallway. It’s followed by a groan, like rusty metal hinges. And amazingly, miraculously, the door opens. A somber-faced man with impossibly broad shoulders stands on the other side. His wide nose, bald head, and dark eyes are vaguely familiar.

  Luka shifts so I am more decidedly behind him. “We’re here to see the captain.”

  If the request comes as a surprise, it doesn’t show on the man’s face. His lack of expression reminds me of the sentries that stand guard outside the Queen’s palace in London. It’s the kind of stillness that makes me want to poke him in the ribs, just to see if he’ll respond. “Who sent you?” he finally asks in a voice that is deeply baritone.

  “Dr. Carlyle.”

  He looks from Luka to me, tells us to wait here, then closes the door in our faces.

  I gape at the steel, unable to believe what just happened. I didn’t actually expect that we’d find life on the other side. Yet there it was, in the form of a formidable-looking man who I can’t seem to place, even though I’m positive I’ve seen him before. The rabbit hole just got deeper. What, exactly, have we found? Was that man one of the others Dr. Roth told us about? And if he—so foreboding in stature—isn’t the captain, then what can Luka and I expect when we meet the man presumably in charge?

  Seconds tick into eternity.

  So much time passes that I begin to think I imagined the entire thing. Perhaps I’m experiencing a long, drawn-out hallucination, and when it goes away, I’ll be in that white box of a room at the Edward Brooks Facility with that annoyingly sweet nurse smiling down at me, ready to feed me my medicine. How can I possibly trust a life that’s morphed into something so bizarre?

  The door groans open again.

  I expect a man larger, more intimidating than the one we met first. I look up and see nothing. Confused, my attention travels down, until it lands on a man sitting in a wheelchair. He has salt-and-pepper hair buzzed short like Luka’s and strange skin—leathery in texture, yet deathly pale in color, as though he hasn’t seen the sun in years. And his legs? The muscle has atrophied. He looks shrunken in his chair—a man with no strength at all. But his eyes tell a different story. They are every bit as captivating as Luka’s, only instead of grass green, they are a silvery blue.

  I’ve seen them before. In a picture I’ve been staring at on and off now for several days. I step around Luka, coming into full view. I can’t help myself. It’s not every day you encounter a ghost. “You’re Josiah Aaronson.”

  His steely eyes remain steady and unyielding. “Down here, people call me Cap.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Hub

  Josiah—or Cap—leads us inside a large common room with high ceilings. My shock gives way to wonder, because there’s electricity. And the vague impression of heat. And people. They stare at Luka and me with faces mirroring my own startled curiosity. Apparently, visitors are not a common occurrence here, wherever here is.

  Cap wheels further inside the room, then pivots his chair around and spreads his arms wide. “Welcome to the hub.”

  I take in the arrangement of shabby couches and beaten-up desks shoved against the walls, a foosball table off in the back and a sizeable television attached to more wires than any television ought to require near the front. I feel like a five-year-old in a gadget store. My fingers tingle with the need to touch and explore. “What do you do here?”

  “Among other things, we live.” Cap nods at the man who greeted us. He stands off to the side of the door with his feet shoulder-length apart, muscular arms crossed in front of his muscular chest. “That’s Gabe.”

  “Wait—Gabe? As in Gabriel Myers?”

  If my knowledge of his full name comes as a surprise, Gabe hides it well. His face doesn’t even twitch. Luka takes my hand and gives it a short squeeze, as if to silence my disbelief. But I can’t help myself. The discovery has my pulse racing. This is Josiah and Gabriel, two of the three we’ve been looking for. Two of the files marked with TG.

  I glance again at the others—their faces every bit as pale as the moon, wearing clothes every bit as worn as the furniture—each one still standing in place as though they froze as soon as they heard the knock on the door and have yet to thaw. Is the third file—a teenage girl named Claire with a mother all too desperate to find her—somewhere among them?

  “We seem to be at a disadvantage,” Cap says. “You know us. We don’t know you.”

  Luka steps forward and shakes the captain’s hand. “I’m Luka. This is Tess.”

  “We met your wife,” I say.

  Cap’s eyebrows creep up his forehead.

  “She thinks you’re dead.”

  “Tess,” Luka mutters.

  Josiah’s face tics—with regret, maybe? It comes and goes so quickly I can’t tell. All the questions that have been gathering over the past several days expand in my brain like soda in a shaken can. The growing pressure has busted apart my self-control, and my shyness too. “We went to your house.”

  Cap narrows his eyes. “Why?”

  “We’re looking for answers.”

  “And protection,” Luka adds.

  He scratches the whiskers beneath his chin, studying Luka first, then me. I catch myself pulling my shoulders back, as if to make my body taller, more impressive-looking. “I can sense the gifting strongly in you,” he says to Luka. “But I sense nothing in you.”

  The gifting.

  I mouth the two words in silent awe. It’s official. These are the others Dr. Roth was talking about. Against impossible odds, we found them. I feel like a kid who just reached base in a game of tag, temporarily safe from the chaser. Only multiply the relief by a thousand. I want to melt into a puddle of it at the captain’s wheels.

  “She’s taking medicine that masks it,” Luka says. “It was the only way I knew how to protect her.”

  Cap cocks his head. For some reason, he looks very intrigued by Luka’s confession.

  “We were clients of Dr. Roth.”

  Movement in the periphery of my vision has me looking away from the captain’s reaction. One of the onlookers slips closer, either braver or more curious than the others. A baby-faced girl with obsidian eyes and dusky skin and black, shiny hair cropped short to her chin, like mine. Besides Gabe, she’s the only other person in the room with some color.

  Cap spots the girl, too, and waves her closer. “Rosie, this is Luka and Tess. Luka and Tess, this is Rosie, in case you don’t already know her. She’s the hub’s youngest resident.”

  Rosie lifts her chin. “I’ll be twelve in five months.”

  Cap chuckles, then calls the others over to join us. There are three besides Rosie. Two of them—a man and a woman—are old enough to sport a fair share of gray in their hair, but don’t look quite as old as Cap. The man is NBA tall and gives new meaning to the phrase as skinny as a beanpole. The woman has a pointy head and bushy hair that seems to grow at a thirty-degree angle. The two features together give her a triangular silhouette. I recognize them. Not from any files of Dr. Roth’s, but from a news report from last night. According to the police, they are highly deranged and dangerous criminals at large in the city. If I hadn’t seen the news back in California, claiming me to be the very same thing, I might be afraid. The news reporter referred to them as Mr. and Mrs. Scott and Winona Jamison, but Cap introduces them as Sticks and Non. The third is a boy who looks to be a year or two older than me. The fluorescent lighting gives his shaggy hair a ginger-like hue. He looks at us with a healthy dose of amusement, like our unexpected drop-in has brightened his day.

  “And this is Link,” Cap says.
r />   “Link?”

  My reaction to the name makes the boy smile. Seriously though, the name’s are weird down here. Non, I get. It’s short for Winona. Sticks, I’m assuming, has something to do with the stork-like stickiness of his legs. Link, though, I can’t figure out, unless it’s the kid’s last name.

  Before I can ask, Luka quickly shifts his body so he’s standing between me and whatever is to the left. I peek around him and notice that someone else has entered the room—an impossibly familiar girl. “Claire?”

  She stops.

  Further proof that I am right. Our third file in the flesh, only six years older, with a white-blonde braid hanging loosely down her back. She is tall and thin with wiry muscles and heart-shaped lips. While the paleness of everyone else’s skin gives them a ghostly glow, this girl wears it like royalty. Even with zero makeup, she possesses a beauty I could never pull off. Her attention strays from me to Luka, and the open interest that settles in her eyes has me feeling possessive. I want to take his hand and claim him as mine. Too bad my bout of unfiltered boldness does not extend to the boy beside me.

  “Come on over,” Cap says to the girl. “You have some new friends.”

  Claire approaches warily. “I’ve never met them in my life.”

  “It is curious, isn’t it?” he asks, peering up at us from his chair.

  “Dr. Roth left us files,” I explain, eager to dispel the distrust growing in all of their expressions. “Three of them were yours.”

  “That’s what led us to Dr. Carlyle,” Luka says.

  “And then you,” I add.

  “Why would Dr. Roth give you files?” Cap asks.

  “He was murdered. We think he left the files behind for us to find.”

  Silence descends in the wake of Luka’s news. Dr. Roth’s three former clients—Cap and Gabe and Claire—all exchange narrow-eyed glances. I never would have guessed that when Dr. Carlyle handed over his directions, he was leading us to an underground headquarters for the dead, the missing, and the highly deranged. It’s all too much to process.

  “Rosie,” Cap finally says, “why don’t you give our new guests a tour?”

  *

  Rosie takes up her role with a sense of authority too big for her small body. I look back at the adults in the room—the captain, Gabe, Sticks, and Non—conferring near the door in hushed tones. As curious as I am to see the operation they have here, I don’t want a tour nearly as much as I want to stay behind and ask my questions. But Luka puts his warm hand on the small of my back and ushers me after our Arabian-looking tour guide.

  “This is the common area,” she says. “It’s where most of the students hang out after classes and training and stuff.”

  “Wait—most of the students? How many people are here?” And they go to school?

  “There’s sixteen of us altogether. Anyone under age goes to class in the morning.” Rosie rolls her eyes, as if she’d rather do anything but go to class, and heads down the dank corridor from where Claire came. It smells like must and cement.

  “What kind of classes?”

  “All the regular stuff—English, Math, Current Events. Non’s obsessed with history. Timelines make her giddy. Sticks, on the other hand, is a big fan of independent research projects.” Rosie scrunches her nose. “All I care about is The Gifting.”

  There. Those words again. It sounds so strange to hear them roll so easily off this stranger of a girl’s tongue. I want to ask about The Gifting. I’m still not sure what it even means, but I don’t know how or where to start. And I don’t want to sound dumb. I look at Luka. I can tell by the stiff set of his shoulders and the quick movement of his eyes that he doesn’t care much about Rosie’s commentary. Unlike me, he seems unconvinced that we have reached the safety of base. “How long have you guys been down here?”

  “A while.” Rosie stops in front of the first opened door. The room is filled with several laptops, a large supercomputer of sorts, a police scanner, and a host of other gadgets—all wired and blinking with life. “This is the computer lab. Everything is password protected. Anybody who wants to use a computer has to go through Link first. He’s the unofficial tech-head of the hub. He can hack into anything.”

  “What does he hack into?”

  “Lots of stuff.” Rosie continues down the hall, stopping at two school-like rooms as we go. There are no individual desks, but a few longer tables with old chairs and makeshift chalkboards. Maps and a globe. A collection of outdated books. There are, of course, no windows, seeing as we are so far underground.

  “Do you ever get to go outside?” I ask.

  “I do.”

  “Only you?”

  “Me and Bass. We’re the hubs’ official runners.”

  “What’s a runner?”

  “We get to go out into the world. Gather supplies and deliver messages. We always go alone, so we don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

  “You mean you wander around the streets of Detroit by yourself?” Surely the captain realizes how much danger he’s putting Rosie in by sending her out into the city without the protection of a stronger, older adult. It makes me question his judgment.

  “There are advantages to being small. And I’m tougher than I look.” She flashes an impish grin, then leads us into a smaller room filled with books—shelves and shelves of them, their spines worn and faded. I spot some of my favorites. They are like a bowlful of buttery mashed potatoes, the best kind of comfort food. The next room is filled with weight machines and several treadmills. Across the hall, there’s a mat room that smells like Clorox and sweaty feet. It reminds me of the dojo Mom and I went to in Thornsdale. One door down, Rosie shows us a room that is locked. Luka and I peer through the window. Except for a few chairs that resemble the chairs you would find in a dentist’s office, the space is mostly empty.

  “This is the training center. Nobody gets in without Cap’s permission.”

  Luka quirks his eyebrow.

  He seems to be as baffled as I am. I mean, if any room were to be a training room, you’d think it’d be the one with the weights or the mats. “Training for what?”

  “You’ll see.” Rosie’s impish smile turns more impish as she beckons us ahead and turns off the main corridor, into an antechamber of sorts. I hear murmuring—signs of life. She points out the restrooms—male and female, complete with showers. “This is the boy’s hall,” she says, nodding in the direction of the narrow hallway that leads left. “And that is the girl’s hall.” She points to the narrow hallway to the right. “Cap doesn’t like any purpling.”

  My brow furrows. “What is purpling?”

  “Boys are blue. Girls are red.” She threads her fingers together, so that her hands are linked as one and scrunches her nose again, like purpling is the last thing she’d ever want to do. “After lights-out, there’s no boy-girl mingling. Claire thinks Cap’s too old fashioned. She tried sneaking into Link’s room once, but she got into big trouble.”

  I glance at Luka. He’s turned into Gabe—expressionless yet attentive. Rosie said sixteen people live down here. Judging by the number of doors down each corridor, there is plenty of room to grow. She turns us around and points out yet another hallway. “This is where the adults stay, including the Cloaks. You know what a Cloak is, right?”

  Luka and I shake our heads.

  “They hide our location from the other side. We only have two of them and since the hub’s pretty big, it’s a lot of work. They keep to their rooms mostly.”

  My mind pops with questions. The other side? Does this mean Scarface can’t find me down here? Is Luka a Cloak? Am I? Pop, pop, pop, until I’m standing in front of another room, not quite as large as the common area and humming with life. We have found the rest of the hub’s population. Students mill about tables of varying shapes and sizes. The noise slowly fizzles into silence as one by one each person nudges the person beside them, nodding toward me and Luka and Rosie standing in the doorway.

  “This is where we eat,�
� Rosie says. “There’s a kitchen off to the side there. We take turns with meal prep and clean-up.” She points toward a makeshift counter in front of an opened door, which leads, I assume, into the kitchen. “Dinner’s in twenty. There’re some other rooms I haven’t shown you yet, but we should probably get back to Cap.”

  We make our way through the underground labyrinth until we’re back in the common area. Cap and Gabe are where we left them. Everyone else, however, has dispersed. There must be more than one way to the cafeteria, since we never passed Sticks or Non or Claire or Link.

  Cap wheels toward us. “What do you think of the place?”

  “I think we’d like to stay, if you have room for two more.” This is the first time Luka has spoken since our tour began. His voice rings with a certainty I rarely ever feel. It’s one of the things that makes him so appealing, I think. He possesses a confidence that can’t help but instill confidence in those around him.

  “Where were you staying before you came?” Cap asks.

  “Hotel Magnum, next to the Greyhound station.”

  “You need to go back. Clear out your stuff and check out. We can’t have the hotel manager reporting you missing. Don’t leave behind a trace that you were there.”

  My pulse quickens. I’ve never been in a hurry to leave base. As a kid, Pete and his buddies used to kick me out of the game for staying on too long. I’m no different now.

  “When you come back, make sure nobody follows you.”

  Luka nods grimly. Some strange look of understanding passes between him and the captain. For whatever reason, it makes me uneasy. Luka slips his arm around my waist and kisses my forehead. His touch has been so sparse that the generosity of it now chases away all my thoughts. I close my eyes and melt against him, relishing the firmness of his body, the softness of his lips, the strength of his broad palm against my waist. And then he whispers something in my ear so softly the words are barely more than a breath. “Don’t reveal too much.”