My skin grew cold. I shivered as another possibility began to take shape in my mind. “Mom,” I began, bracing myself for the words I was about to speak. “Could it be . . . do you think . . . is it possible that a virus might have caused these deaths?”
She looked at me, startled. “I’m not sure. I hadn’t even thought of that.” She went on to say something else that sent more chills across my skin. “But whatever it is, Skylar, it’s coming from the App World.”
8
Skylar
breaking and entering
I TOOK THE car without telling Rain, but driving wasn’t enough to distract me from everything going through my mind. This morning was becoming more and more demoralizing by the minute. It was even clearer now that we needed to go back to the App World to find out what was happening there, and whether it would ever be safe for the refugees who wanted to plug back in. The blood raced in my veins as urgently as the situation, my foot pressing harder on the gas. My mother and Rain kept claiming they did what they did to protect me, yet all that so-called protection only made me feel more alone.
But maybe I didn’t have to be alone in this.
I turned the wheel on the long, winding road that circled the remotest parts of the island, then headed over the bridge. The breeze from the open window washed over my face. The waves were rough on my left, sending spray high into the air when they crashed onto the rocks. My skin was salty with it. Clouds covered the sun by the time I was close to my destination.
The cottage appeared on the horizon.
I saw the familiar tree on the hill in front of it. The roof, weathered from the salt in the air. The shingles, faded and graying. The last time I was here, snow covered every surface and it was winter. Today the grass was lush and tall and speckled with flowers, that single tree bursting with bright-green leaves. A wall of cattails swayed in the wind as it got stronger. My eyes scanned everything but didn’t find what they were seeking.
Kit’s bike wasn’t anywhere.
My heart sank.
I drove up the hill regardless, parked the car, and got out, searching for the spare key. Kit kept it in a tiny tin, hidden against the house at the base of the staircase. For a moment I worried it was gone, but eventually my fingers hit the thin metal side of the container in the dirt. I pulled it out and found the jagged key wedged inside. I fitted it into the lock and turned it. The bolt clicked. My hand grasped the knob, ready, but then stopped.
A sharp pain sliced through my chest.
Maybe this was a terrible idea. Kit wanted me to forgive him. But could I ever really trust him again? I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t know until I tried. I took a deep breath and opened the door.
There came a surprised yelp. A startled girl sat on the battered old couch where I’d spent so much of my time. The two of us stared at each other. I took in her long blond hair and pretty face.
“Maggie?” I said, right at the same time she spoke.
“Skylar?”
Finding Maggie was not what I was expecting, but for some reason it made me feel encouraged. I had questions about her brother. Maybe she could answer some of them. “You know who I am.”
She got up from the couch. We were nearly the same height. Aside from her eyes, she looked nothing like Kit. “Of course I know who you are. I’ve known about you for ages. I was kidnapped by your horrible witch of a sister, for one, and then my brother is in love with you and won’t forgive me for coming between you—his words, not mine,” she added, blinking quickly.
My heart tumbled against the inside of my rib cage. “Kit will forgive you eventually. He loves you too much not to.”
Maggie laughed. “So here we are, each informing the other about my brother’s love?” She opened the door wider. “He’s not here, obviously. But why don’t you stop standing on the steps and come inside. I’ll make us something to eat.” She turned on her heel and crossed the room into the kitchen.
And I allowed myself to enter the familiar space.
The faucet ran with water and a pot thumped onto the counter as Maggie began to cook. I kept my back to Kit’s room. It was odd to be in this place without him, to see someone else moving around the kitchen. My eyes landed on the wood stove, the spot that drew Kit and me together, that sparked the conversations and all the drinking and huddling together for warmth that changed everything about our relationship, that allowed us to somehow move beyond what began as a kidnapping and turned into something very, very different. Flashes of memory lit up my mind, one after the other. The wound on Kit’s shoulder. Kit filling my glass with whiskey. Refilling it and then refilling his own. Inked stars on skin and birds in flight. A shared blanket. A promise. More talk and then more talk. The stove was empty and cold now. It sat there heavy and silent and neglected. I was grateful I’d chosen a time to visit when the weather was still warm. I don’t think I could have handled staying in this cottage a single minute had that stove been burning hot when I walked through the door.
“Skylar, come eat.” Maggie waved me toward the table where lunch had magically appeared.
I pulled out a chair, the same one where I’d sat dozens of times, and joined her. She piled pasta into a bowl and slid it toward me, then grated cheese over everything. “My brother taught me to make this dish.”
“He made it for me, too,” I said quietly.
“He’s so predictable.”
My eyebrows arched. “Is he?”
She banged the hunk of cheese against the grater until the last of it fell into the dish, then went to work grating some over her own bowl. “Yes. A creature of habit. Except lately.”
“What sorts of habits?” I asked.
“What he eats. What he drinks.” Maggie popped up from her chair and darted into Kit’s room, coming back with one of the bottles from under his bed. She set it onto the table and grinned. “Want some?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, thank you. Too early.”
Too many memories.
She shrugged and poured some for herself. “Let’s see,” she went on. “My brother’s habits include riding that godforsaken bike, even in winter. I already mentioned what he drinks.” She paused a moment, to take a sip from her own glass, her face twisting as she swallowed it. “But I didn’t yet mention his propensity to drink too much.”
I picked up my fork and dug around in the bowl, listening as she continued down the list of ways Kit was predictable.
“My brother is a loner, he’s a neat freak, and he always gets his work done so he can earn his money.” Maggie let this last statement hang in the air.
I shoveled some pasta in my mouth and focused on chewing.
Maggie stared at her lunch. “The one thing that I never would have guessed he’d do”—her eyes flickered upward then and settled on me—“is fall for someone he met on the job. My brother has made it a habit to never fall in love. Until you.” Her eyes returned to the contents of her bowl. She began to eat in huge gulps of pasta.
I put my fork down. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned your brother’s love for me.”
She kept on eating. “You don’t believe that it’s true,” she said between bites.
I kept my gaze steady. “He betrayed me.”
Maggie shook her head. “He never meant to, or at least, never wanted to. He was in an impossible position and knew I was the more vulnerable person. He couldn’t allow me to die and he had faith that you’d be able to take care of yourself.” She paused a moment. “My brother thinks the world of you. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. You’re going to have to forgive him eventually. He’s a rather morose character in general, but lately he’s worse. You can’t allow him to mope forever. And if you forgive him maybe he’ll finally get over my part in everything.”
I swallowed a bite of pasta. It felt thick going down my throat. “Did Kit tell you he was in love with me? Did he just come out and say it?” The hope I heard in my own voice made my cheeks flush red.
“No,” she repli
ed slowly.
“Then why are you so sure?”
“Because of the tattoo.”
This didn’t make any sense to me. “Which tattoo? The stars or the birds?”
Maggie leaned forward in her chair. “Skylar, not those tattoos. Kit got a new tattoo. I inked it for him, just like the others. The new tattoo is about you. The moment he described what he wanted I knew my brother loved you.”
“So what was it then?” I asked.
Maggie shook her head. “That’s not for me to say. It’s for Kit to show you.”
My fork clattered against the bowl. “You’re really not going to tell me?”
“No,” she said.
My lips pressed together in a tight line. Then I sighed. “All right. I’ll wait for Kit to show me.”
She smiled with satisfaction.
I pushed the pasta around in my bowl, any hunger I’d felt evaporating. “But I have a question for you. About your captivity with . . . my sister,” I added, a bit hesitant. I took Maggie’s silence as permission to continue. “Did she . . . do anything to you? I mean, did she hurt you?”
Maggie shook her head, her mouth still full. She swallowed. “Luckily no, but she told me plenty.”
“About me?”
She cocked her head. “A little. But mainly she had opinions about me. How I’d betrayed my brother just like she’d betrayed you. And you’d betrayed her.” Her eyes widened.
I laughed hard, nearly spitting food from my mouth. “I betrayed her?”
“Well, you did poke out her eye. With a knife.” Maggie’s tone was almost admiring. “I’m not judging. She deserved it.” Her stare became imploring. “But even the worst things a sibling can do deserve forgiveness, don’t they? We all can’t hate each other forever.”
“We’re talking about Kit again,” I said.
She nodded. “I didn’t take out one of his eyes, but what I did was far worse.”
“What did you do, exactly?” I asked.
“I broke his heart by plugging in and leaving him here. Alone.”
“Oh, that,” I said, since I’d already known this.
Her cheeks flushed red, so red the color nearly blended with her freckles. “You don’t sound surprised. He told you?”
“He told me something like it, yes,” I admitted.
“And then you came along and fixed up his heart. Until he went and screwed everything up because of me again.” She sounded anguished.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “The divide in our worlds hurts families and breaks hearts. It’s a cruel situation and we’re all caught in the middle of it.”
“Then why is it so difficult for us to forgive each other’s mistakes?” Maggie’s earnest eyes blinked wide.
I played with my fork. Pressed my fingers against the edges of the tines. “That’s a good question.”
“I’ve been trying to convince my brother that he should forgive me, pleading with him. But he never will. Not until you forgive him,” she added in a whisper.
Thunder rumbled outside. The more we talked about Kit, the more I wanted to see him. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No,” she said. “He hasn’t been here in days.”
This information was like a punch in my gut. “Where is he then?”
Maggie gave her shoulders one long shrug. “Honestly, Skylar, I have no idea.”
My entire body slumped. Maybe I would have to face everything ahead of me alone after all. Even without Kit. “You mean, you haven’t seen him?”
She got up and took her empty bowl to the sink. With her back still toward me, she spoke. “He doesn’t like staying in this house anymore. He said the memories are too painful.”
Tears sprung to my eyes. I blinked them back. “Okay. I guess I should go then,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I’m glad we met,” I added.
“Me, too.” She turned around. Leaned against the counter behind her. “You don’t have to go yet, you know. And you’re welcome anytime. Regardless of where Kit is.”
I looked away. Got up and crossed the room quickly, unable to get out of the cottage fast enough. She followed me to the door. “Thank you for lunch,” I told her, opening it.
Lightning flashed over the ocean, bright and jagged.
“You should stay longer, Skylar,” Maggie urged.
I looked left, my eyes landing on that lone majestic tree in the yard. “It’s going to storm.” The sky rumbled again right then, long and low. A fat drop of rain splatted against the ground.
Maggie took a few more steps toward me, ignoring that it was about to pour. “If I see him, should I tell him you stopped by?”
My heart pounded so hard it made me dizzy. “Yes. Tell him . . . tell him I really need him right now,” I said, then I crossed the rest of the distance to the car and got inside right as the skies opened up.
The rain running down the windshield blurred the figure of Maggie, standing in the yard, still waiting for me to change my mind and decide to stay.
By the time I arrived at Briarwood it was pouring.
And Rain was looking for me.
Everyone I met in the hall told me this as I passed, but I had no desire to see him after this morning. Instead, I went straight to Zeera’s. She shared a small apartment with Sylvia, and it looked out onto the beach like mine. She didn’t spend much time in the weapons room anymore because she hadn’t needed to. She joked lately about how she was on vacation.
And I was about to ask her if she’d consider going back to work.
My knocks on their door were loud in the quiet.
Sylvia opened it. “Hi, Skylar,” she said and smiled.
I still hadn’t gotten used to having her at the mansion, safe and real. “Hi,” I said, and the two of us hugged. Sylvia was tiny, spritely, even, as though she’d permanently downloaded the Tinkerbell App and was only missing the transparent fluttering wings and a sparkly wand. She was small but strong, her muscles compact to fit her body. Her hair was black and thick with tight curls. “Where’s Zeera? Is she here?”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Yes, but of course she’s playing on her tablet. She’s out on the terrace under the awning. She likes the sound of the rain. Let’s go disrupt whatever she’s doing.” She grinned. “Maybe she’ll actually look up from that thing now that we have a guest.”
I followed Sylvia through their room. It was strewn with clothes on every surface. The bed was unmade, one of the sheets tugged to one side and two pillows sitting on the floor.
Sylvia glanced at me before opening the screen door. “You know Rain—”
“—is looking for me, yes.”
She studied me. “Okay, I won’t ask what that’s about.”
“And I appreciate that,” I said.
We went outside on the deck. The rain came down hard, but the awning from the house protected us. Sylvia and I went and stood next to Zeera, but she didn’t seem to realize we were there. A tablet the size of a razor-thin notebook was in her lap and she cupped her hands around the screen to block the light, even though the sky was dark from the storm. Zeera wasn’t the only person at Briarwood who’d become obsessed with her tablet. Plenty of others were glued to theirs constantly. I tried not to let it bother me, or let it remind me that this sort of behavior was one of the main reasons our worlds split in the first place.
Sylvia nudged Zeera with her foot.
She still didn’t look up.
Sylvia pulled her own tiny tablet from her pocket and looked at me. “Maybe if I message her she’ll respond?” Then she seemed to change her mind and put the tablet away. Bent down and took Zeera’s face into her hands to give her a kiss.
Zeera smiled up at her, as though she’d just awoken from a trance. “Hi,” she said. She looked at me. “Skylar,” she said with surprise. She really hadn’t noticed the two of us had been standing there.
I went to the small wicker couch next to Zeera’s chair and sat, and Sylvia plopped down next to me. Zeera’s eyes ha
d already wandered back to her tablet.
“Don’t be rude,” Sylvia said.
She didn’t even look up. “Skylar knows me and she knows I’m not being rude.”
Sylvia gestured at Zeera. “Well, I think you’re being rude.”
Zeera set the tablet on a small table next to her chair and crossed her arms. “Fine. I am now giving you my full attention.” Zeera looked at me expectantly. “What’s up?”
Lightning flashed, lighting up everything on the terrace. “I need your help.” I hesitated. “The kind that requires you to go back into the weapons room.”
But Zeera was nodding. “I’m already aware of the situation.”
“What?” I said, startled.
She leaned forward in her chair. “Rain was here earlier. He told me everything. I’m going to see what information I can get about who’s watching the border, if there’s a safe place to cross over into the App World. What’s going on with Jude. All of it. I know you don’t want Rain stepping into danger unprepared.”
“It won’t only be Rain,” I said forcefully. “I’m planning on plugging in, too.”
She shook her head. “Rain says you’re absolutely not to do that.”
I stood. “Rain’s not in charge of me.”
Sylvia reached up to put her hand on my arm. “Skylar—”
I stepped away, no longer protected by the awning, still staring Zeera. Water began to slide across my skin. “Do you agree with him?” I asked her.
Zeera pursed her lips. Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flashed in the sky. The pounding of the rain picked up and it slapped the deck hard and loud and incessantly. Little droplets leapt into the air, wetting our feet. The left side of my body was getting soaked.
I looked from Zeera to Sylvia to Zeera again. The answer was plain in their eyes, and I hated it. “I thought you were my friends, too.”
The Mind Virus Page 7
