by Allen Zadoff
“You were masturbating with Faulkner?”
“I love the classics.”
I have to stifle a laugh.
“They went through the stacks after that. Most of the pages of the senior reading list were stuck together.”
“I’m surprised you’re still in school.”
“I got suspended. Psych eval and everything. The doctor said I was acting out my disdain for the educational system.”
“What do you say?”
“I say the seniors are assholes. Anyway, the administration let me come back with mandatory psychological monitoring. The paperwork said I had a mental breakdown because of bullying. You use the word bullying these days, you pretty much write your own ticket.”
“So you got to stay in school.”
“It was the biggest mistake I ever made,” he says, gesturing to the halls. “I thought people would forget eventually, but they didn’t.”
“Some mistakes are like that,” I say.
“Like what?” Howard says.
I think of my first day in the training house, Mother looking at me across her desk.
“Permanent,” I say.
Howard stops.
“Since we’re being honest with each other, can I tell you something?” he says.
I nod. He steps closer and his voice drops to a whisper.
“I know you’re not a student,” he says.
“I’m not?”
I study Howard’s face. He looks scared.
“Not like the rest of us,” he says.
I put a hand on his chest and push him through the men’s room door.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
THE BATHROOM IS EMPTY.
I keep pushing Howard until I back him up to the wall. I hold him there by the fabric of his shirt.
“What are you saying, Howard?”
“I don’t think you were at Choate,” he says. “Or if you were, it wasn’t to study.”
“What else would I be doing there?”
“Killing people.”
I can finish this in fifteen seconds. Pressure on Howard’s carotid artery, not enough to cause bruising.
“Why would I kill people?” I say.
“Because you’re a vampire,” Howard says.
I stop, let go of his shirt.
“A vampire?”
“I’ve been watching you,” Howard says. “You’re quiet. You have strange energy. You sort of disappear sometimes. And you’re stronger than everyone else. You kicked those guys’ asses like it was nothing.”
I knew that was a mistake.
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” I say.
“It’s okay with me if you are. Just please make me one, too, Ben. I’ll be a weak vampire. That’s okay with me. As long as I’m stronger than those guys so I can defend myself.”
“This conversation is over,” I say.
I head for the bathroom door.
“Don’t leave me in this school!” he says.
I stop and rub my forehead, frustrated.
He says, “You know what’s going to happen. Those guys are going to wait for you to leave school, and then they’ll kill me as payback. You won’t be here to protect me.”
“There’s nothing I can do about that,” I say.
“You can take me with you.”
This is why I don’t connect with people. They are complicated. They want things from me, things I can’t give.
“I hate it here,” Howard says. “I have no life.”
“It gets better,” I say. “Haven’t you seen those videos?”
Does it get better? For Howard? For me?
I can’t be sure.
“I can be useful to you,” Howard says. “Do you need money?”
“I’ve got plenty of money.”
“I can make sure you get straight A’s.”
“I don’t need A’s. Howard, how can you do all this stuff?”
“I told you, I’m good with computers.”
I think of Howard in front of the computer yesterday, his fingers moving at blazing speed. I thought he was just a lonely kid with computer chops. But he’s more than that.
“You really are a hacker.”
He nods. “I can get into sites. I can erase your identity and create a new one.”
That troubles me. I’m not sure how elaborate my cover is online. For normal searches it’s fine, but could it withstand serious scrutiny from an obsessive kid with upper-level hacking skills?
Howard is dangerous to me.
Or useful.
I think about last night, my inaction around the mayor, my wondering about guilt and innocence.
What if I could prove that the mayor is guilty?
Then I would understand why I was sent here, and whatever is happening with Sam wouldn’t matter so much. My hesitation would disappear.
The problem: It’s forbidden to ask why I was sent.
I cannot reach out to The Program for information of this sort. The only option is to go rogue, to find the information I want on my own.
But that would betray every principle of my training.
I will not do it.
My phone vibrates with a secure text notification from Father. Three numeric signs:
###
It looks like someone slipped and pressed a key too many times, but in fact it’s code. An order for an immediate and mandatory check-in.
I didn’t call him back last night, because I was stalling for time. I thought I’d be done by now, and I’d have good news to report.
Unfortunately that’s not the case.
“We have to talk about this another time,” I tell Howard.
I move him toward the door.
“So you’re going to think about taking me with you?” he says.
“I’ll think about it.”
Anything to get him out the door.
“I owe you one, Ben. I won’t forget that.”
I get him outside and lock the door behind him.
Then I call Father and I wait for the line to go live.
“You didn’t return my calls last night,” he says.
“I’ve been busy, Dad. Sorry.”
“Good busy or bad busy?”
“I’m at school, so I can’t get into it.”
“I know where you are,” he says.
How does he know?
I glance at the stall doors. There’s nobody in here. I look at the ceiling and along the molding, searching for drill markings or camera pinholes.
Father says, “I know where you are now, and I know where you were last night. You were having a good time when you should have been doing your homework.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then tell me what’s preventing you from handing in your assignment.”
“Complications.”
Sam is a complication.
No, my reaction to Sam is the complication. And my reaction to her father.
“I need a little more time,” I say.
“About that. There’s been a change. Your assignment has to be turned in by tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
That’s four days instead of five.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Father says. “I got the message, and I’m passing it along to you. Do we understand each other?”
“Completely.”
“Should I expect more complications?”
Silence hangs in the digital space between us.
I make my voice cold, professional.
“No complications,” I say.
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he says, and he ends the call.
Tomorrow.
That means I have only one more day to get to the mayor and finish my assignment.
That’s a disturbing thought, but it’s followed by an even more disturbing one:
One last day to finish means I have only one more day with Sam.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
<
br /> I AM RUNNING FAST.
It’s the track-and-field rotation in phys ed, and a few students have persuaded the teacher to let us run outside. Sam and Erica are up ahead of me, leading the class. Erica is in first position, her legs short and powerful like a gymnast’s. Sam is a couple of paces back, her strides longer, her build narrow and beautiful. I watch her hair bouncing in a ponytail across her shoulders as she runs.
One more day with Sam.
She glances back at me, but I avoid meeting her eye.
We haven’t spoken since I ran from the mayor’s penthouse last night. I noticed myself shying from her in class, my body turning away as hers turned toward. Even now, I look down rather than meet her eye.
I don’t know this person, the one who avoids a girl because he doesn’t know what to say to her. I don’t know the guy who is distracted, who worries, who takes chances that are not strictly necessary.
Sam glances back again from the front of the pack.
She has questions. It’s obvious.
I have questions, too. Different questions.
For now, I run through Central Park, grateful to be in motion. I would run harder if I could, run past all these people, run until the doubts disappeared and I felt like myself again.
“You think you’ll win the Asshole 10K again this year?”
It’s Darius. He plods up beside me, sneakers slapping on pavement.
“Give it a rest,” I say.
“No, I’m not going to give it a rest. You think you can give me a drink at a party, and that’s a free pass to chase after our women?”
He looks at Sam and Erica up ahead.
“What’s with you, Darius? You’ve been on my back since day one.”
“Do you know how many guys I’ve watched take a shot at Sam?”
“Why don’t you take a shot and join the club? You’ll feel better about yourself.”
His face goes red.
He says, “If you cared about her, you’d leave her alone.”
I look at him. He’s serious.
“Why does she need to be left alone?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Tell me something. Help me understand.”
I play like I’m on his side in this thing, like we can find a way to deal together.
“You’re making her life more complicated than it already is.”
“Why is it complicated?”
“Because of that Israeli asshole.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Sam says.
She’s dropped back to our position.
I glance at Darius. He warns me off with a subtle head shake.
“What guys always talk about,” I say.
“You mean sports,” she says. “And your crotches.”
“Two for two,” I say.
Erica notices us behind her and drops back, too. “Did you guys get interrogated by the administration yet?” she says.
“What for?” I say.
“Didn’t you hear? Justin and his boy got into it in the hall today and messed each other up. They’re asking if anyone saw anything.”
“I saw the whole thing,” I say.
“Really?” Erica says.
“More than saw. I’m the guy who kicked both their asses.”
The girls burst out laughing.
“Like hell,” Darius says.
He side-checks me, shifting in midstride and slamming me with his hip. Nothing too hard. Just enough to make his point.
I stumble like he knocked me off balance.
“Yeah, you’re a real badass,” he says.
He laughs and runs ahead. Erica looks from Sam to me.
“Wait up, Darius,” she says, and she runs up to join him.
Now it’s Sam and me, running together near the back of the pack.
“Am I allowed to run next to you, or am I still getting the silent treatment?” Sam says.
“Can you run quietly?” I say.
She smiles.
“What happened to you last night, Ben?”
“I felt sick. I think it was something I ate.”
I hope to get a laugh and distract her, but it doesn’t work.
“I don’t believe that,” she says. “I think you ran away.”
“Why would I run?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
The phys ed teacher passes us. She says, “Stay together, okay? I don’t want to lose anyone in the park.”
We wave to her, and she runs on.
“I’m getting tired,” Sam says.
I look at her legs, toned from regular exercise. There’s no way she’s tired from this little run. She slows, and I slow to keep pace with her. Now we’re dead last in the pack.
“I’ve got a cramp or something—” Sam says.
She limps for a few steps, then stops. The rest of the class continues on.
“Anything I can do?” I say.
“You can try to keep up,” she says, and she darts down a side path and disappears from sight.
So much for the cramp.
I take off after her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE TREES ARE A BLUR ON EITHER SIDE OF US.
Sam is quick, much quicker than I expected. She cuts from the side path to a dirt path and then into the woods, all without telegraphing a move. I can barely keep up with her.
It’s not that she’s faster than me. She simply knows this place better. Home-court advantage, so to speak. She moves in directions I don’t expect, down paths that I can’t see until I’m nearly past them. I catch brief glimpses of her running between trees.
Brief glimpses, and then nothing.
Because she has disappeared.
I stop and listen to her footfalls receding in the forest, trying to determine which way to go. I hear something off to my left where the trees are so dense that the sunlight is blocked out.
I hesitate for a moment, and then I step off the path.
I wind my way through the trees, pausing to listen for Sam every few steps.
There is no sound but distant traffic outside the park.
I stop and look around.
I’m lost.
I consider turning back, but instead I stay where I am. I project my energy outward.
I sense her off to my left.
I move in that direction and pop through a thicket of trees into a clearing. There’s a statue in front of me, a giant stone obelisk that comes to a point at the top.
Sam waits by it, smiling and breathless.
“You found me,” she says. “I’m impressed.”
“What was that all about?”
“You’ve been running away from me all day,” she says. “I wanted to reverse the direction.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Come on, Ben. What really happened last night?”
“I was confused.”
“About what?”
I think of Sam and me in the bathroom last night, her lips inches from mine.
“My feelings,” I say.
She smiles.
“You do have feelings for me.”
I turn away from her. I walk around the deserted plaza, examining the statue, giving myself some breathing room.
“What is this place?” I say.
“It’s called Cleopatra’s Needle,” she says.
I look at the statue behind her, the green-black stone rising into the sky.
“It’s the oldest statue in the park,” she says. “The oldest in New York, I think.”
“What’s written on it?”
“Egyptian hieroglyphs. It’s called Cleopatra’s Needle, but it has nothing to do with Cleopatra. It was created a thousand years before her reign. I come here sometimes when I need to think. It’s my private place.”
“Now I know about it.”
“You know all my private places,” she says with a grin.
“Not yet I don’t.”
I walk around the obelisk. The st
one is crumbling, the glyphs fading from exposure to the elements.
Sam says, “I have dual citizenship, did you know that? Maybe that’s why I like the statue. Something so foreign plopped down in the middle of the city. Kind of like me.”
The sky has darkened, and a wind is starting to blow. She comes and stands beside me.
“Do you ever wonder where you belong?” she says. “Like maybe life made a mistake and put you someplace you weren’t supposed to be?”
I think of my real parents. My first life.
“Sometimes I think about that,” I say.
Between assignments. Never during.
Never before now.
She stares at the statue, lost in thought.
“For a while I was scared that you and Erica were a match, but the more I get to know you, the more I don’t think so.”
I want to ask her more, but I stop myself. I have only one day, and I keep getting distracted by these conversations.
I need to surprise Sam right now, change the focus of the conversation. Back to her father. To the future.
There’s something big brewing, and I need to know what it is.
“Your father told me everything,” I say.
Sam stops walking and looks back at me.
I’m bluffing, but she doesn’t know that.
“Why would he tell you?” she says.
“Because he’s worried about you.”
That part is true. I don’t know why he’s worried, but I’m guessing Sam does.
“They asked him to be Special Envoy for Middle East Peace,” she says.
She slumps down at the base of the statue.
I think about the Presence, the Arabic spoken by his man. Is it possible the mayor is working with them in some way? Is this why they’re after me?
“Did he say yes?” I ask.
“Not yet. He’s weighing options. I told him he should just go back to his company, but he says he’s made enough money for ten lifetimes. He wants to stay in public service.”
“It sounds like the envoy position will let him do that.”
“And ruin my life at the same time.”
“How will it ruin your life?”
“Bad things happened in Israel, Ben. I don’t want to go back there.”
A drop of rain hits my forehead.
“It’s starting to rain,” she says. “We should get back to school.”
She looks at the sky. It’s overcast now, and the wind is gusting.
