I push away from the wall. “But you could do it. You could bless them all and no one would know.”
“Oh, they would know. I can’t let any of my energies show. It would draw the Contego to this room like sugar ants and it wouldn’t take long for anybody to figure out what’s going on.”
“I hate this.” I kick the wall. All of a sudden, I feel so hopeless and helpless and lost. I just want a clear idea—the dang cliff notes for my life. I want all the highlights and the detailed ending, so I know how it all turns out. I can make it through all of this, if I just know it’ll end up okay. I kick the wall again. “I hate everything about this. I’m sick of feeling trapped. I’m sick of this whole thing. What are we even doing here? We need to be out looking for Trig and Van and Nok…”
Milo pulls me into his arms, jamming my face against his chest. I know he wants me to shut up, to be quiet, but then I start to sob into his shirt and I doubt anyone could understand me anyway. He pats my back and says, “Shhh…”
“We need to find a car and drive it through that garage wall. All we’ve done is sit around here and burn popcorn and watch my frickin’ Vieo make out with another girl. This place is making me crazy!”
I’m just venting. I’m not hysterical, but I’m totally shocked silent when Milo tips up my chin and kisses me. My body goes rigid, starting at my lips, and the rigor mortis speeds down to my feet in less than a second.
“It’s going to be fine,” Milo says when he pulls his face away.
“I know it will,” I say, but I’m planking, in a vertical position. And then his face is close to my cheek again. Like whoa kind of close. I hope he’s just going to whisper something to me like he has before, some secret that he doesn’t want a microphone to hear, but instead, his cinnamon breath heats my cheek and kind of burns in my nose. He slides a hand down my bicep—a caress. His thumb tickles my inner arm.
“I just want you to know that I’m here for you. You can trust me, Nalena, I swear it.”
“Good.” It comes out of me more like a hesitant question than a statement. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, but if he wants me to trust him, his thumb is way too close to my boob for that.
“I didn’t want to say anything…I’ve seen what you and Garrett have. I see how you two are in perfect sync with each other.”
“We are.” I don’t remind Milo how in sync we were an hour ago, when I had to watch Garrett pawing all over Teagan. Or how I only kissed Milo to sync up a little vengeance. Or how we’ve already talked about this and decided that it is all just for show. “We’ve just got to remember what we’re doing here, right?”
“Right.” Milo says. He lets go of me and steps away, embarrassed. He folds his arms over his chest, one hand rubbing his own arm now, as he stares at the floor. “All I meant…what I wanted to say, was that I’ve seen what the two of you have and I want that for myself. With someone else, I mean. I’m not trying to…you know. Get in you and Garrett’s way. But, well, if things don’t work out for the two of you, or if you ever needed somebody, or decided that you wanted somebody else…”
“Thank you, Milo.”
His eyes jump up from the floor. “I’m not trying to get between you, I swear it.”
“I believe you.” I smile at him. “That was a really nice thing to say.”
His smile is awkward, relieved, sad.
“Let’s just figure out what we’re going to do next, okay?” I say. It’s not the smoothest way to change the subject, but it works.
“Sure,” he smiles again. “Let’s figure out the wall on your map.”
He holds the map between up, so we’re each standing at an end of the paper instead of together, in the middle. It only takes a moment before I’m absorbed in staring at the wall again.
“Ok, this totally looks like something I’ve seen before. I just can’t think of what it is.”
But as I trace it with my nail, it comes to me. I pull in a breath.
“You figured it out?”
“Yeah,” I say, dragging Milo closer to me. My voice is so low, I have to whisper it into Milo’s ear. “This wall…that weird arrow shape…it’s a Hydrohome. Zane bought one for his Free Ball, from the junkyard, right before we were ambushed.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a homing devise that brings the Free Ball back to a control base.”
“Free Ball?”
“It’s a cross between a rocket and a hot air balloon. You ride on it, in a harness attached to the outside. It gets launched into the sky and when it reaches a certain altitude, it hovers there and floats along. When The Fury were coming at us over at Zane’s grandfather’s farm, we didn’t have a choice but to bust up the control panel. We wanted to make sure The Fury couldn’t bring us right back down. But smashing the control panel, immediately launches the Ball. Like immediate. We plowed right through the roof of Zane’s barn.”
“That’s pretty powerful.”
“You should’ve been riding it,” I say.
“So you used this Hydro thing to get back down?”
“The Hydrohome would’ve helped, if one of Zane’s other relatives with a Free Ball got the signal. They could’ve brought us down. But we didn’t get that far. The Ball runs on internal gases and there was a leak. We crashed in some trees.”
“You think Mark drew this because the Ball is here?”
“When we landed, it was speared on a tree. We figured The Fury would destroy it, but they must’ve brought it back.”
“But why would Mark draw the homing devise instead of the ball?”
“Robin shoved the Hydrohome into the rubber, so they could locate the Ball if it ever did go up again. Freddie’s been monitoring a control panel for it, on top of the Celare.”
“So we’ve found a ride home.” Milo gives me a happy squeeze around the shoulders. “Are you up for a field trip down to the garage?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We’re about to go when there’s a knock at the door. Milo stands off to one side and I’m on the other when he asks, “Who is it?”
“Teagan and Garrett.” He says her name first.
Milo lifts a brow at me and I roll my eyes, moving away from the door. I’ve got to get better at handling it. This is a job. Getting my Connection ripped out, is a job. Fighting to keep from being fondled by some weirdo who sleeps outside our door, is a job. Losing my boyfriend to his brother’s baby mama, is a job. Sitting in this stinking room, with a guy who thinks being in sync isn’t ripping my heart out, is a job.
I grab Milo’s abandoned spoon and jar of peanut butter. I scoop out a glob as Milo opens the door, bracketing it with his foot so it can’t open more than a few inches. Milo’s on the job.
“You’re not going to let us in?” Teagan whines. From the back, I see Milo shakes his head.
“You don’t need to come in.”
“You can forget it then,” Garrett says. “I’m not doing a trade in the hallway.”
Milo pauses before opening the door only enough to let them in. Garrett walks in first. His body is heartbreaking as he glides across the floor, smooth and controlled. He’s wearing a different shirt, one that’s rolled up over his tattooed bicep, so I can see the design. It spills down his skin, a handful of sharp-petaled flower-gears, like the ones that always take shape in the bottoms of our tea cups. But Garrett’s tattooed gears are whole and perfectly meshed together. Garrett has our relationship tattooed on his arm.
This is a job. And Garrett’s got the ink to prove that’s all it is.
I follow the gears down toward his elbow. At the bottom, there are letters in a tiny banner. Grace. Not Miki. Not Teagan’s name. But Grace. I continue on, tracing his arm to his fingertips, searching for more.
Teagan’s fingers are laced in his.
It’s not impossible, but it’s a little harder to be so upset about it now.
Garrett catches sight of me the second his foot is in the room. And I’m standing here with a spoonful of pean
ut butter stuffed in my mouth. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t let anything show, except that he positions himself slightly in front of Teagan. Maybe it’s so I don’t have to look at her. Or maybe it’s because he wants me to look at him. Teagan laughs behind him. She’s clutching the stuffed bear.
“We’re interrupting somebody’s binge.” She shoots me a faux frown. I return a dry smile from around the spoon. Then I take the spoon out of my mouth and put it on the lid.
“It’s fine. You totally made me lose my appetite.” I give her another smile before I move my gaze to Garrett. “I can’t eat with that awful smell you brought in.”
Garrett tightens his hold on Teagan as she growls at me. He hangs on to her as she twirls in his grip like an angry cat. I smile even wider at him, ignoring her completely.
“You can let her go. I’ll give you whatever’s left in a carryout box, when you leave.”
I swear there is the faintest smirk on Garrett’s face right before Teagan howls. Garrett gives her a hard tug.
“The longer this takes, the longer we’re away from Miki.”
Teagan stops struggling, even though she does it with a sour glare aimed straight at me. I put my spoon of peanut butter right back in my mouth and smile at her again, from around the handle. Garrett grabs the bear from her.
“Let’s get this over with. Where’s the lipstick?” he asks.
“Here,” Milo takes the tube from his pocket and holds it out to Garrett.
“Do you have any Vanilla Almond gloss to go with it?” Teagan asks. “Babe says it drives him crazy.” Garrett’s eyes flash at me. That’s the kind I usually wear. Milo shakes his head.
“Not at the moment.”
Garrett takes the lipstick and looks down into the tube. “Well, if you get some, I want to know.” He hands Teagan the lipstick. “It’s the perfect shade for you, babe.”
“Thank you, babe.” She smiles, her top and bottom teeth perfectly aligned. She takes the cap off the tube immediately, twisting up the color that comes out a little smashed and crooked. Teagan frowns. “It’s a mess.”
“Try not to get any on you,” I say, my eyes on Garrett as I lean forward and snatch the bear from him. Our fingertips barely touch, but it’s like stuffing a metal key into an electrical outlet. My whole body gets a lightening-bolt charge and I wobble backward. Milo snakes an arm around my waist to steady me.
“Happy with the bear, sweety?” he says.
“Love it,” I say. I don’t know if it is the lipstick that makes me think of Tommy and Annabelle or if it is the bear that reminds me of Iris and Grace, but I tell Teagan, “If Gra…Miki, really likes the bear, I’ll give it back to her when I’m done with it.”
Teagan pauses from slathering her mouth in crushed purple tube goop. She’s got a smudge on her tooth and a glob on the corner of her lip. And she shocks me with what she says.
“You’d do that?”
I shrug. “Sure, if she’d like it.”
“She would,” she says in a whisper, her eyes fixed on me as if I’m going to pull the rug out or something. I just grin at her.
“Then I’ll do that,” I say and Teagan nods slowly, before sheathing her lipstick as best she can.
“I want to go,” she mumbles to Garrett. The edges of her purpled mouth twitch downward. “I miss my baby.”
And they leave, without a fight.
***
I squeeze the bear’s legs and the arms and head, but when I squeeze super hard, I finally find the Cornerstone buried deep in the torso. Addo did a good job of insulating it and when I look at the back of the bear, there aren’t any obvious signs that someone’s already ripped it open before. Milo brings me the tiny nail scissors for the surgery.
Once I’ve cut the bear open, Milo removes his thin sock.
“Let me take it out.” He puts the sock over his hand and extracts the stone. When he’s done, the stone hangs in the toe.
“What’s with you guys and the socks? Addo used to keep it in a sock too. Lemme guess, it’s something to do with symbolism for our souls, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Milo says. “You’re not supposed to touch it unless you’re Impressioning. And socks are a lot easier to hide than boxes. But I like the soles/souls idea. I’m going to have to use that.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Never said I wasn’t.” He grins as he slips the sock down the front of his pants and secures the top with a stretched knot, around one of his belt loops.
“Are you seriously going to hide the stone…by your junk?” I raise the corner of my lip. He glances down at the front of his jeans.
“Makes me look more manly,” he says.
I can’t help but laugh and tug him close to whisper, “You’re getting Addo humor.”
“Maybe this is the secret,” he laughs too, tapping the stone through his pants. He pulls his shirt down to conceal everything. “Are you really going to give the bear back to Teagan?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Do you think she’ll notice it’s a little lighter?” He drops onto his knees, feeling around on the carpet. After a second, he stands up with a thin piece of wire pinched between his fingers. It looks like it came off one of the shoddy wire-jobs that someone didn’t exactly try to finish in our room. He bends it into a needle and takes out a long piece of dental floss for thread.
“Look at you,” I say. “Crafty.”
“I know things.” His pout is teasing. “You know, we could always trade the bear back for something else they have.”
“We could. Maybe I’ll trade Willow for Garrett.”
“The bear has a name? Did Garrett give it to you?”
I lean close while he stitches, smelling his patchouli and watching his lack of sewing skills. He sews x’s on the back, like kisses.
“Willow is the bear’s name. And I want Grace to have her, because I know Grace. She was my first Connection.”
“Ahhh, that makes sense and it’s very sweet,” he says with a smile and a wink. “You know, you really are incredible, Nalena.”
“Quit trying to wear me down,” I tell him as he finishes the last of his crappy stitches. “You said you’d take me on a field trip.”
***
We take Willow with us. I feel like I’m four, clutching her to my chest, but I can’t just carry her along dangling at my side. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t want anything to happen to Grace’s favorite, and only, toy.
“I don’t know if we’ll even be able to get in,” Milo murmurs to me. “If that thing is in there, it might be closed off. Let’s hope the guards are typical.”
“Typical?”
“Easily distracted. Usually, they wander off when they get bored of guard duty.”
“Let’s hope for that then.”
We walk down a million hallways. Some look like hospital halls, tiled and sterile, some look like school hallways with short nubby carpet and beige walls, and some look like the hotel halls with sconces hanging every few feet. Most of the lights in the sconces are broken and some of the overhead lights are too. As we get closer, the floor crunches under our shoes. It’s covered in broken glass, but when I look at the ceiling, none of the lights are missing or damaged.
“Why is all this glass here?”
Milo lifts his feet as we walk so he doesn’t kick it up. “I don’t know, but that’s the door up there.”
At the end of the hall, the door he’s talking about is the heavy metal kind that I expect, with an empty stool beside it. There’s a hall to the left, but just solid wall on the right, exactly like what Mark’s map showed.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” he says. “Good.”
But the second we reach the door, I look down the hall on the left and there are two men, one blond and one redhead, talking as they lean against the wall, drinking from dark brown bottles. They have guns dangling from guitar straps across their hips. They see us and jump to attention, walking straight at us as they drop their cigarettes a
nd aim their guns.
“Hi,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” the redhead asks. His gaze flicks to Willow. The closer he comes, the more he makes me cringe. He’s got red hair and horrible blue eyes that look out of his narrow, red-speckled face. His nose is pushed-up so his nostrils are as large as dimes and his upper lip can’t quite close all the way.
“We’re looking for a car,” Milo says.
“This isn’t a garage anymore.” The blond is an older guy with a limp. He raps his knuckles on the metal door. He’s not so scary or so suspicious. He immediately drops his gun and leans his shoulders on the wall, hips thrust out a little in my direction. He smiles at me. Gross.
“What’s in there if it’s not cars?” I ask.
“Junk,” the redhead says, but the blond, with another smile, says, “A piece of trash that looks like a big ol’ soccer ball, blown full of holes.”
“Really?” I try to look mesmerized, flirty. I’m sure I’m doing a rotten job of it until the redhead does this creepy, deep chuckle and leans one shoulder on the wall beside me. Extra gross, because his nasty breath is fumigating my personal space. I still smile.
“I’ve heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them. Can I see it?”
“You want to see it?” the redhead shoves his big, red tongue into his bottom lip.
“Yeah, the Ball,” I say. But flirting doesn’t do what it does in the movies. Instead of being seduced into doing what I want, the redhead’s hand flashes out and snakes around my neck. He pulls me toward his thin, pink lips. I shriek as an elbow comes out of nowhere, sailing just past my nose and lodging itself in the redhead’s eye. Released, I stagger backward into Milo. It was the blond that defended me, and when the redhead goes down, the blond gives him a poke that I know very well. I don’t know how deeply he hit the redhead’s Cavis, but I know from the groan, the exhale, and the slump that if the redhead isn’t dead, he isn’t getting up anytime soon.
Jamb (The Cornerstone Series) Page 22
