Freddie winces. “How are we going to isolate them when we don’t know which Contego are the Procella and which are the regular warriors? We haven’t recovered any thumb drives from any of the Indiciums.”
“It sounds like you’re saying we should take prisoners?” Mr. Middleditch says. “This is nuts. And I don’t see how imprisoning each Cura’s top Contego will convince the Outer Curas that we’re on the straight and narrow.”
“I’m not sure we have a lot of other options,” Mrs. Reese says. “It’s a risk, but I think that if we have the opportunity to give proof to the Procella that the Addo is still functioning, they will come to their senses and spread the word. All we need is for the Addo to be able to recall the names of some of the Procella.”
“It’s too risky,” Garrett says suddenly, his eyes on his mother. “You said you haven’t found any of the Indicium drives. The only other option is to go completely off the Addo’s memory. It’s too big a risk. I mean, we’re relying on his memory. The Addo can’t even remember how many cookies he’s eaten five minutes ago. What if he mistakes Sue Jones for Sam Jones? It’s Russian Roulette.”
“While playing musical chairs with land mines,” Zane agrees.
Mrs. Reese waits until her son and Zane drop into silence. And then, her voice comes like a soft mallet. Even Shred, still on the front seat of the van, jumps a little.
“Fear,” Mrs. Reese says with a frown. Then, so soft it’s nearly a whisper, “You know better, Garrett.”
But Garrett answers with his own mallet. “It’s not fear at all, Mom. I’m thinking it through and I’m not going to risk my entire family on a plan that relies on faulty information.”
“Which is what I thought you would say,” Mrs. Reese puts on a smile with her chin up, but the edges of her lips twitch. “That’s why I’m the only one going. You are staying back to guard our Addo, and Mark and Brandon will be on perimeter watch.”
Garrett pulls away from her.
“No,” he says, glancing at Freddie and then Mr. Middleditch and last, at Principal VanWeider. But none of the men return his gaze. “You’re not going without me.”
“I’m sorry, Garrett,” his mother says. “But as the Lead Procella of this Cura, it’s my duty to go and it’s my duty to decide where to position the rest of my Cura. We need all of our numbers to face the Curas. Your place is to stay here and guard the Addo along with the rest of our family.”
“Because the Addo is our family,” Garrett whispers, and I see the faint nod Mrs. Reese gives him. Garrett shrugs. “You could give up Procella and stay here instead. You don’t need to be the leader. We can double up the protection here.”
“Fear,” Mrs. Reese says softly.
“You got me on that one,” he says and his mother laughs.
“Besides, you do have double protection,” Mrs. Reese nods in my direction. I almost drop to my knees with the weight of what she’s saying. She can’t really believe that I’m even ready to protect a plate of the Addo’s cookies. I forget to move my Cavises. I only trained a couple times. There’s an encyclopedia more to learn and I’ve only got the index. There’s no way I’m ready for the real thing. But Garrett says, “Alright, Mom, tell me what you need us to do.”
Mrs. Reese lowers her voice so that only Freddie, Garrett and I can hear her.
“Only Freddie, Van, the Middleditch’s, Deeta and our family know where the Addo is hidden,” she says. “The hotel will be on lockdown once our van leaves.”
“We’ll lock it up, but if you have to seal up the hotel core,” Freddie adds, “just remember that once it’s sealed no one is getting in or out without the code. The roof is a separate seal. Make sure Brandon and Mark aren’t up there if you seal it off. That one should be last and only if necessary.”
“I want you guarding Addo, Nok, Sean, Iris and Zaneen. Your main concern is protecting those five. But, of course, our Veritas and Addo are our main priority.”
Her eyes well up as she says it. She’s telling us that her own daughter has to come last in the line of who gets our protection.
Watching everyone pile into the van, my body feels like it’s made of lead, all the way from my lungs to my stomach. Every casual wave and good-bye has an entire, silent conversation buried inside it. Even Robin taps me on the shoulder and gives me a grin before scooting into the back seat beside her father-in-law.
“Hey buddy,” Zane whacks knuckles with Garrett. “Keep an eye on everything, brother.”
“Have a good time and take care of yourself,” Garrett says. His words are so heavy that they make impressions in my memory that I’ll never be able to erase. This could be the last time we see each other if things don’t go right. But Garrett says, “Can’t wait for you to get back here and tell me all about it.”
Zane just shakes his head with a loaded grin. “I’m just going to try not to be target practice. You’re the one doing the important work, back here.”
Garrett kind of laughs. It hardly seems like a big job to protect the Addo in the most locked-down hotel in the world. Even if The Fury manage to get past all the security features and alarms and us, Nok would have the Addo out through a Veritas tunnel before The Fury ever find the hidden bunker.
I don’t know how the outer Curas will meet with what’s left of ours, but all the ideas I have play out in my head in the worst ways. I try assuring myself that they’ll know how to handle it, but when Mrs. Reese hugs Garrett extra long, I look at my shoes.
And then her arms fold around me and I have to catch my breath and stuff down the knots climbing the drainpipe in my throat.
“If anything happens,” she whispers in my ear. “Stay hidden. Like Basil taught us.”
“Okay,” I squeak, but I don’t even know how to do that yet. Something stirs inside me, just hearing her say it. It takes me a second to put my finger on why her words make me so queasy and then it comes to me. She’s afraid for me. For us. I take her hand and squeeze it as I whisper to her, “But I can’t do that if there’s a fight.”
She smiles and squeezes back.
“You got me,” she says as she gets into the front seat. “Go. Stay with the Addo and keep an eye on the rest of our family.”
Milo, Garrett and I walk back, through the narrow back corridors toward the elevators.
“It’s a ghost town,” I say.
“Creepy,” Milo adds. Garrett only dodges a sideways glance at Milo and his words are directed at me.
“Freddie’s closed up everything,” Garrett says, but his tone and his gaze are loaded guns. “Inside the Celare is as safe as it gets. But keep your guard up, Nalena. The Fury’s playing a whole new game and anyone could be a traitor.”
“Like me, for instance,” Milo says with an irritated grin.
“Like anyone,” Garrett says.
“Anyone…like me.”
Garrett comes to a halt and turns on Milo.
“Don’t push it,” he says. “You know I don’t trust you. But you’re here and you’re Alo and that means you’re under my protection. It doesn’t mean you’re in on everything.”
“When did I ask to be in on anything?” Milo asks. “And you can stuff your trust. Van dumped me here. I didn’t ask to crash your party. And as far as Nalena goes…”
“As far as I go?” I say. It sounds like there’s a fight brewing with me in the center and that’s just not going to happen.
“Your boyfriend,” Milo grits between his teeth, “is jealous that you’ve been talking to me. Even though I’m just an Alo.”
“Not at all,” Garrett says smoothly, but his words come from behind his teeth too. I see the switchblade-flash of change in Garrett’s face, the sudden ripple in his jaw, the darkened shade in his eyes and the way his body goes so fluid, even though every muscle is ready to react. He looks like someone else entirely.
This is Garrett’s warrior mode- and I’ve seen before exactly what happens when he does that. Last time, when Kris Lukevitch insulted me in the school parking lot, Ga
rrett flipped Kris so hard, Kris’s body left dents in the hood of Garrett’s car.
Garrett takes a menacing step around me, toward Milo. Milo takes a step backward, toward the elevators.
“Nalena can talk to whoever she likes,” Garrett says. “But I’m not sure you are exactly what you say you are, so you can bet I’ll be around whenever you are, to make sure she’s fine.”
“Or just making sure she doesn’t have the chance to choose a different Vieo,” Milo sneers.
“Wait a minute,” I say, turning on Milo too. “I’m Contego. You’re Alo. And we are just friends. And as far as Vieos go, that’s none of your business.”
“We are just friends,” Milo agrees. “And I’m not looking to date you, Nalena. I’m just trying to let you know that you don’t have to date somebody who’s so…suspicious.”
“You got it right,” Garrett smiles. “I’m totally suspicious of you.”
“And controlling, and overbearing…” Milo drawls.
“Maybe you should just go upstairs,” I say, punching the button for the elevator.
“All I’m saying, Nalena, is this—how are you going to stand on your own two feet with him always hovering over you? As a Contego, you’re going to have to fight your own battles at some point.”
Milo puts his hands in his pockets, puffs a breath out and shrugs at me before he walks off down the hall. I feel Garrett staring at me and I’m sure that if I looked in his eyes I would be able to believe that nothing Milo said is true. But watching Milo walk away, every word he left behind sticks in my gut like a sliver of glass. I know there’s too much truth to just ignore it.
“Milo,” I call after him. He swings around, his hands still in his pockets. His tongue pushes out his cheek like it’s the only thing that’s holding him back from laughing in my face. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop my elbow from pulling back and my fist sailing in a perfect right hook across his jaw. Milo drops like a detached punching bag in front of the elevator door.
“Whoa, Rebel,” Garrett says, coming to stand over the now-unconscious Milo. “I wish he could’ve seen that hook. I think he’d totally change his mind about how capable you are of fighting your own battles.”
“Milo…” I’m going to say Milo hit a nerve, that he said what I was thinking, that I’m scared that he’s right, but Garrett cuts me off.
“Don’t agree with what he said. What he thinks isn’t real. It’s what you think and what you tell yourself…that’s what’s real. “ His voice is so deep, it’s a rumble in my chest, as if I’m the one that is actually talking.
“Let’s give Milo some time to think about that.” Garrett says. He hefts Milo into the elevator, reaches inside and presses the red, emergency button on the control panel. Then he grips the door and pulls it shut. Garrett turns back and smiles at me.
I reach out and take his hand before he can back away. The second our fingers touch, the energy crashes through me. It’s a freight train on a greased track. My heartbeat speeds to catch up and my nerves are all humming like a fuse box that’s about to explode. My jaw clamps shut. I’m overflowing with indigo, feeling Garrett, through his skin all the way to his soul, all of him, bursting through my fingertips. We let go at the same time, as if blown apart. Our eyes are wide as we stare at each other.
“What was that?” I whisper. Garrett shakes his head, looking his hand over.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you feel it?”
“I felt…you,” he says.
“I felt you too.”
“You feel…incredible.”
I try to separate myself from the tingling that’s only starting to fade. I think I could pick up a house. Run the length of the world. I laugh. “You do too,” I say.
“That shouldn’t happen,” Garrett says, but he laughs too. It seems like one of those blown-away laughs more than one of the uncomfortable-worried ones and I’m relieved. “I mean, I’m glad it did, but it shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why not?”
“You’re my Vieo. The opposite should happen. Any touch should drain us.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re not my Vieo,” I say, and instantly, the words suffocate my laugh and I feel hollow. There’s a tug inside me that drags open my mouth to say I want to be his Vieo, but the words don’t fall out. I can’t. Not now, with the whole world falling down all around us.
“I think it’s more than a choice of Vieos.” He drops his examined hand to his side and says, “This is incredible. It shouldn’t happen this way, but we’re stronger when we’re together and we drain when we’re apart.”
“What does it mean?” I ask him. Without looking away, somehow he looks even deeper in my eyes, like he has a secret that he wants to tell me. But all he does is give me a tiny shrug, like I’ve got to figure this out on my own.
I don’t know why it shouldn’t happen, but I know it’s true. I feel the rush when he’s near me and I feel the lethargy when he’s not. But I don’t know why it happens. I mean, I’ve only known Garrett a few months. Even though it seems like my whole life blooms out of everything that Garrett and I are when we’re together, it still seems a little overwhelming.
Without my mom here, I’ve got to figure out which way is up for myself and I don’t want to be known as the girl that isn’t anything besides the boy she’s with. But it has to mean something that our tealeaves make one design, split in half, in the bottom of our two different cups. And I can tell Garrett anything and he gets it. His touch is a pure hit of adrenaline roaring through me. I want a Vieo to be half of something that is even bigger than me alone, but even with his touch still crackling on my fingertips, it’s still not enough to know it and feel it like this. It’s got to happen at the right time too. When the world’s not falling on its head.
I wish my mom was here to tell me how I’ll know when it is the right time.
But I look up at Garrett and his grin lights up mine. None of what’s going on in my head or showing on my face or in what I said seems to bother him at all.
We walk back down the hall toward the gym, but my insides are doing gymnastics. The energy is like a wind, tearing and twisting through me, catching me up in it. All the way to the secret door in the back of the gym, we don’t speak and we don’t really need to. Garrett’s face and body are like some crystal clear satellite station. The faintest lift of his lips or the smallest twinge of the crease near his eyes, even the way his hand pushes back his hair, says a hundred things in a hundred languages, and I am fluent in every single one. I know he wants me to go through the door first, he knows when I step aside that it is so he can lock the door.
We make our way down to the Addo’s underground apartment, without once thinking about anything that could be going on right over our heads.
Chapter 18
GARRETT KNOCKS, BUT THE ADDO doesn’t answer. The gears inside me spin as Garrett lifts his head, craning one ear toward the door to listen. I do too. Every part of me reaches toward the door, my nerves stretching like wavy fingers of an anemone. I comb the air for sound, but all I hear is some shuffling around on the other side. Staring at the door, I send a thought through it, to the Addo, You okay? Did you hear us knock?
Garrett’s back relaxes to a dangerous softness as we both hear Sean murmur. There is some more shuffling and I think Sean’s going to pop open the door, but then the Addo sends back, Just come on in. I reach past Garrett and try the knob. The door is open.
“Hey kids,” Addo says from the table. He and Sean are sitting there with their tea mugs and a plate of cookies that actually still has a couple left on it.
“Don’t bother getting up,” Garrett says with a chuckle. Garrett sounds all light and carefree, but he’s scanning the room just like I am. Something isn’t right, but I can’t tell what’s wrong either. “Well, except that you have to. You’re needed upstairs.”
It’s a security breach to have the door unlocked, especially now, but then again, this is the Addo. When he lived in h
is mobile home, he never locked the door either and he ended up looking like a bludgeoned jack-o-lantern in an arm sling.
I’m waiting for Garrett to launch into a security speech when he catches my eye with a squint. Garrett tilts his head, just slightly, toward the staircase and my field opens up. He wants everyone out.
“C’mon,” I keep my voice casual too, as I take hold of Sean’s arm. “Everybody’s waiting. You don’t want them all coming down here after us.”
“And where’s Trouble?” Garrett asks. Sean’s eyes rove stiffly to Iris’s bedroom door before shooting back to us.
“Didn’t you see her? She’s hanging out with Mark and Brandon, upstairs,” Sean says. He passes by us and climbs up the first couple of steps. I move forward, angling so my back is to Garrett and the stairs, as I face the kitchen. I need to see as much of the room as I can, because I don’t know where the attack will come from, but now I know it will come.
Addo gets up from his seat, but he’s got to walk around the edge of the table to get to the stairs. Garrett steps toward him, as if he’s just making fun of Addo and going to do a gesture of escorting Addo upstairs, but I know what he’s doing. He’s putting himself in line to be a shield. And I won’t let it come to that. The Addo walks toward us as I focus hard, searching for sound and movement—anything. And I’m focused so hard that the twist of the bathroom doorknob nearly blows my eardrums.
Nok stumbles in, held across the neck by a wiry forearm. The man holding him is as tall and thin as a science lab skeleton. His bony shoulders brush the Manga leaves that frame the door.
The Addo freezes, only a few feet from the edge of the staircase.
“Chad?” The Addo peeks over Garrett’s shoulder, squinting at the man holding Nok. The man’s smile makes him look even more skeletal and Addo gasps, “Oh, now it’s a party.”
“Shut up,” The man pulls Nok closer, constricting the tiny Veritas’ neck. The weird thing is that Nok’s expression is almost one of perfect boredom, as if being taken hostage happens to him all the time.
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