Going Rogue

by Robin Benway

  And my instincts told me to follow Zelda.

  When we got to airport security, I saw the metal detector and froze so quickly that Roux bumped into me. “What is it, Mags?” she asked.

  I ignored her. The ten gold coins were pressed hard against my hip in my jeans pocket, and I forced myself not to cover them with my hand.

  “I can’t go through that,” I told Zelda.

  “Me, either,” Jesse piped up, and both Roux and I looked at him. I had no idea why he said that, but hey, safety in numbers.

  Zelda raised an eyebrow at Jesse, but when she looked at me, I realized that she knew exactly why I couldn’t go through the metal detectors. “This way,” she said, beckoning us over her shoulder as she turned around, and we followed her like rogue ducklings to the first-class security line. There was a man there in a uniform, watching bags go through the scanner, and when he saw us, he and Zelda exchanged a glance that was so fast no one else would have caught it.

  I saw it, though. I knew he was working with us. On one hand, I felt relieved, but on the other, it just made me more nervous. How many of them were there? How many people had been betrayed by the Collective? How many more were in danger?

  Zelda went through the detector first, looking like she did this sort of thing every day. Jesse went after her, putting his bag on the scanner as he took a breath and went through the metal detector. It didn’t let out a single beep, and the security guard never checked his bag or even looked up at us. Roux followed, again with no response or reaction, and I held my breath as I stepped through the gate. The gold coins almost felt like they were bruising me, their presence was so overwhelming. There was no way that they wouldn’t set off the metal detector, that they wouldn’t bring everyone running, that Dominic himself wouldn’t suddenly appear and—

  I stepped through without a sound.

  Zelda raised an eyebrow at me when I looked in surprise at her. See? she seemed to be saying, then beckoned us with one finger as we scurried through the airport. It was after nine o’clock by this point, and the airport was still busy. I hadn’t been in an airport terminal in years—we always flew private planes after 9/11—and I gazed around me as we hustled to keep up with Zelda. “They have Starbucks in here now?” I whispered.

  “Are you serious?” Roux whispered back. “You’re an international spy and you don’t know that there are Starbucks in airports?”

  “I’ve been sort of busy doing other things,” I shot back.

  “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Starbucks,” she replied. “That’s just the way the world works now.” Then she grinned at me, a shaky one but a grin nonetheless. “Better keep up, Maggie.”

  “Katherine,” I corrected her.

  “Oh, right, right.”

  I felt Jesse’s fingertips brush at my palm, and I reached out to take his hand. His fingers were cold, nearly as cold as mine, and neither of us even looked at each other as he caught up with my steps. We were walking in rhythm, Zelda a few steps ahead and Roux a few steps behind, two new security guards suddenly tailing us, and I realized that we were like a little army going into battle. We had already survived one shootout, and who knew what lay ahead, but we were a team now. Roux and Jesse were in this just as far as I was, and I couldn’t tell if that made me feel better or worse.

  Chapter 25

  Zelda led us into the Concourse Room, which was a lounge area for first-class passengers. The furniture looked new and comfortable, and the lighting was soothing and dim, almost like a hotel lobby. It was quiet and nearly empty, and as the doors zoomed shut behind us, I felt safe for the first time in what felt like hours. All I wanted to do was sink into one of the plush sofas and not think about anything, but Zelda clack-clack-clacked us over to a spa.

  “There’s a spa at JFK?” Jesse asked in surprise.

  “What, were you raised in a barn?” Roux asked, but I could tell that she was as surprised as he was. I had always imagined Roux as well traveled, her (real) passport full of stamps from around the world, but it suddenly occurred to me that her parents were the ones who traveled, not her. In fact, it was entirely possible that Roux had never been outside of the United States. It seemed like such a mean thing that I shoved the thought out of my head. I could think about that later, I decided. There was only enough room in my brain for so many broken things.

  “There are showers,” Zelda pointed, then positioned herself by the door. “I’ll wait here.”

  Jesse disappeared into the men’s side of the spa while Roux and I shuffled off into the women’s side. There was soft music being piped in through the speakers, and Roux and I glanced at each other before cracking up despite ourselves.

  “This is the least relaxing music I’ve ever heard!” she giggled.

  “Jesse must be loving this,” I added, which set Roux off again. “Why do we even have to shower? Can’t we just get on the plane and—”

  Roux and I were suddenly confronted with a large wall mirror.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “So that’s why.” She sighed.

  We both looked like disheveled orphans from a nineteenth-century novel. Roux’s hair was all tangled, and my braid was falling apart, leaving pieces everywhere. There was a tear on my sleeve, and Roux had a small cut on her forehead. It wasn’t enough to attract attention, but it was obvious that we had been through something. It wasn’t just our clothes and hair: it was the looks on our faces. I already knew that Roux was wide-eyed and pale, but what I hadn’t realized was that I looked worse than her. My lips were sort of bluish-white, and all the color was out of my face. I looked like a ghost of myself, in shock from the evening’s events. Pull it together, I thought. You have to get everyone through this.

  “You know her?” Roux asked, jerking her head back toward the spa’s entrance.

  “Zelda? Yeah, I saw her about a year ago. I think she works—well, worked, I guess—for the Collective.”

  Roux watched me for a few seconds, then glanced at herself in the mirror. “Do you think she could, you know, kill someone?”

  “Of course,” I said, then reached for a towel and pulled the elastic out of the end of my braid. “Why else would she be here?”

  “That’s what I thought,” Roux murmured, then followed me down the hall.

  I remained in the shower for a long time, putting my hands against the tile and letting the water run down my hair and bead on my nose as I stood still and tried to breathe. Now that I was away from Roux and Jesse, I let the panic swell a little bit. What was I going to do with ten priceless gold coins and two innocent people? I had told them that I trusted Angelo and I did, I really did. But it was harder to hang on to that trust and believe everything would be okay, now that I didn’t know where he was, or worse, if and when I would see him again.

  The water stayed hot longer than I thought it would considering that I was in one of the biggest airports in the world. My fingertips started to prune, and I could see pink splotches rising up on my arms and legs, my skin protesting against the heat. I didn’t adjust it, though. The water cut through the numbness and forced my brain to think instead of just float.

  I didn’t know when our flight was, but it didn’t matter. I was pretty sure that Zelda would reach in and yank me out of the shower if she thought we were going to be late. I wondered what Angelo had told her, how much she knew. She knew about the gold coins, that much was obvious from the look she gave me at airport security. They were still in my jeans pocket, a tiny glimmer peeking out from the denim, and I kept one eye on them as I rinsed the soap away. I had double locked the door, of course, but still. I had no idea who was an enemy anymore. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Finally, once the water ran cold, I stepped out and swaddled myself up in towels. They were itchy and smelled like bleach, but they worked, and after I dried off, I went through the bag that Zelda had given me. There was a toothbrush among other toiletries, two pairs of jeans that were the exact size and make of the ones I had been we
aring that night, and the two shirts and sweaters that I had been missing earlier. Angelo, I realized. He had stolen them from me, for me. I held them to my nose and smelled detergent, our loft, Jesse’s cologne, my dad’s cooking.

  “Knock-knock!” I heard Roux call, and I quickly got dressed and opened the door for her. Her hair wasn’t wet, but her eyes were red. She smiled, though, waving away my concern. “If a girl can’t have a breakdown in a steam shower, where can she have it?” she asked. “Don’t freak out, I feel better now. Cried it out. Salt water cures everything, right?”

  “Right,” I said slowly. “Roux, are you sure—?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked. “Really, does it? I’m in this now. It doesn’t matter what I think about it.” She didn’t sound upset, just thoughtful. “Although I wish Angelo would have packed some better clothes for me.” She gestured to her black long-sleeve T-shirt and jeans and sneakers. “It looks like the Gap threw up on me.”

  “Lovely imagery,” I said, smiling despite how guilty I felt.

  “Isn’t it?” she agreed. “That’s what AP English will do to you. And he didn’t even pack mascara or anything. Do you think I could borrow some from Zelda? She looks like she knows her way around a Sephora or two.”

  “I’m pretty sure Zelda would stab you with her mascara wand,” I told her, running a brush through my hair.

  “Good point. Or her stiletto heel. That’s another thing that Angelo didn’t pack, by the way.”

  “You really think you’re going to need a pair of stilettos?”

  “We’re going to Paris, Maggie.” Roux sounded reproachful. “I wish I could have packed for this trip. I would have done a much better job, no offense.”

  “None taken,” I told her. “I’ll let Angelo know that the next time someone tries to kill us, please consult about our wardrobe first. Priorities.”

  “Exactly,” Roux said, then smiled at me in the mirror. “C’mon, let’s go check on Jesse and make sure that Zelda’s not trying to seduce him.”

  The mere image of Jesse being seduced by Zelda made me laugh. “I would pay good money to see that.”

  “You don’t have any money,” Roux teased me.

  I thought of the gold coins and said nothing.

  Jesse, of course, was not being seduced by Zelda or the two businessmen who were sitting at the far end of the lounge. His curly hair was still damp from the shower and he was wearing a plaid button-down shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

  I know that we had a lot going on, and I know I should have been focusing on bigger things, like, oh, I don’t know, finding the people who tried to kill my family, best friend, and boyfriend, but when Jesse looked up at me, my breath caught in my throat a little. The plaid shirt brought out the green in his eyes (thank you, Angelo) and the shower had made his hair so curly that it was corkscrewing over his forehead and into his eyes. “Hey,” he said when he saw me, then reached out a hand so I could sit next to him. I perched on the arm of the loveseat and he wrapped his arm around my waist as I draped mine over his shoulders.

  “Scoot, scoot,” Roux said to him. “It doesn’t say JESSE’S SEAT, NO ONE ALLOWED on it, you know.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes but moved anyway, and Roux plunked down next to him. None of us said anything, but it was pretty obvious that no one wanted to sit by themselves just yet.

  A huge flat-screen TV was airing the local news, the screen filled with pictures of our building in flames and nearly a dozen firemen trying to stop the blaze. “So far, police suspect a gas leak,” the anchor was saying, “but they’re unclear if anyone was in the building at the time and are currently trying to locate the owners.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” I muttered. It didn’t seem like the fire had spread to any other buildings, which was good. “Can you turn it off, please?”

  Jesse got up and jabbed at the button, then came back and settled in next to me. Zelda eyed us as we all squished together, but if she thought anything, she kept it to herself.

  “I need your phones,” she told us, “and you—”

  “Jesse,” he said.

  “Jesse, yes, of course. You need to call your parents and tell them that you’ll be gone for a while.”

  Jesse just blinked at her and then started to laugh. It wasn’t an “Oh, ha-ha, Zelda, you’re a scream” laugh, though. “Are you serious?” he said, the smile starting to fade from his lips. “Just call my parents and tell them I won’t be home for a while. Do you know who my dad is? That’s not exactly gonna sit well with him.”

  “I’m wildly aware of who your father is,” Zelda replied coolly, and Jesse sank back a little against the couch. “You’re going to tell him that you’re visiting your mother in Connecticut.”

  Jesse pressed his mouth into a tight line, then glanced up at me. “How do they know that my mom’s in Connecticut?”

  “Hell, they knew my mom was in Berlin.” Roux shrugged. “It’s a brave new world, my friend. Better go along with it.”

  I nodded in agreement, squeezing Jesse’s shoulder, his skin warm under his shirt. “They’ll believe you,” I assured him.

  “But what if my mom calls my dad and—?”

  “It’s not like they talk to each other, anyway,” Zelda interrupted him, which was possibly the least helpful thing anyone could have said at that moment.

  “Really?” I said to her, raising an eyebrow.

  “Seriously?” Roux added.

  Zelda just shrugged, raising her hands in a “what can you do?” gesture.

  “Fine,” Jesse said, then dug his phone out of his pocket. “So … what exactly am I telling them?”

  “That you’re staying with the other,” Zelda said, a little more politely this time. “Don’t worry, we’ll have you call them every few days to reassure them.”

  “How long are we going to be gone, exactly?” Roux asked. “School starts in, like, four days. Not that I’m in any hurry to get back to that prison, of course. Paris is really fine by me.”

  “You’ll be gone until it’s safe to come back,” Zelda replied, then turned her gaze to me. “That’s your job.”

  I nodded.

  “Mom, I’m staying with Dad. Dad, I’m staying with Mom.” Jesse sighed and put the phone to his ear. “Good thing they hate each other.”

  “Good thing mine hate me,” Roux added, and she didn’t sound that disappointed about it, either.

  “Roux, they don’t hate you, they—hey, Dad.”

  Zelda, Roux, and I tried to look like we weren’t listening as Jesse spoke with his dad, then his mom. I gazed down the hall as I heard Jesse explain to his mom about staying in the city, my eyes falling on the two businessmen at the bar. “They’re fine,” Zelda said quietly, not even looking at me, and I nodded. That’s not why I was looking at them, though. I wondered where they were going, what they did for a living, if they had any earthly idea how lucky they were. For a few fleeting seconds, I even found myself wanting to follow them to their destination, far away from the maelstrom I had started, but then I heard Jesse take a shaky breath and I yanked my attention back to him.

  “Well, that was terrible,” he said, trying to smile and failing. “Lying to my parents used to be a lot more fun.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, rubbing my fingers over his shoulder blades the way he liked. “I’m really sorry, Jess.”

  “Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?” He sighed, then squeezed my thigh and took another shaky breath. I knew he had already forgiven me, that I didn’t need to apologize to him, but I wasn’t quite ready to forgive myself.

  “Now I need your phones,” Zelda said, and we handed them over without question. After that, she told us our flight was at ten thirty and then gave us a few minutes to ourselves.

  Jesse, Roux, and I all looked at each other. “Well, this is swell,” Roux said, sinking back against the loveseat. “My first time in Paris. I never thought I’d be traveling quite like this.”

  Jesse looked up at me. “You okay, kid
?” he asked.

  “You’re only two months older than me,” I protested. “You can’t call me that, it sounds weird.”

  “Yes, because that’s definitely the issue to focus on right now, Maggie,” Roux said, examining her fingernails. I didn’t know whether or not she was faking her nonchalance, but it was nice to see her acting like herself again. Her crying jag in the shower must have done her some good.

  “You okay?” Jesse asked again, a bit softer this time, stroking his hand over my knee. “You’re pretty pale.”

  “I’ll get you a snack,” Roux offered, then hopped up to go examine the food offerings. “Something doughy sounds good. Or sugary. Or maybe salty. Do they have french fries? I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’m fine,” I told Jesse after she wandered off. “Aside from the racking guilt I have about getting you two involved in this.”

  “You sort of didn’t have a choice,” Jesse said. “And it’s not like you were the one who tried to kill us.”

  “I know, I know. I just … you could be back home dating Claire instead,” I told him, mentioning his previous girlfriend, the one he had broken up with right before my family and I moved to New York.

  “Yeah, no offense to Claire, but I’d rather have someone try to kill me than date her again.” He grinned at me, wider than necessary so that I would smile back. “It’s not your fault, Mags. I’m serious. I told you, we’re in this together now. You’re the one who pulled me down even before they first started shooting, remember?”

  “Like I’m going to forget that anytime soon.”

  “You saved my life. You have amazing instincts. So don’t worry. And your parents are going to be fine and Angelo is Angelo, right? They’ve probably been through way worse than this.”

  “I just wish I knew where they were,” I admitted, tracing a loose thread on his shirt. “I like this shirt on you, by the way. It makes your eyes look really green.”