SEVENTEEN
MY FIRST FEW CLASSES passed in a blur. During lit class, I stared at the back of Malachi’s neck without blinking. He didn’t glance at me once. But as I headed for biology, his fingers closed hard around my arm and dragged me into the hallway next to the gym.
His face was in front of mine before I could protest. And it was no longer unreadable. His frustration showed in the firm set of his mouth. “Why?”
I didn’t want to know what he was really asking, because then I’d have to really answer. Why hadn’t I captured a Mazikin to interrogate? Why had I nearly gotten myself killed? Why had I kept him in the field instead of letting him come back? Why was I such a screwup? There didn’t seem to be any safe ground between us. Every inch was laced with the mines of my mistakes and shortcomings. I fixed my eyes on his shoulder, on a tiny flaw in the stitching at his collar.
A group of guys walked by, throwing curious glances our way. I faked a smile. “We have to decide if we’re going to pretend like we’re together or not,” I said. “I’ll let you choose, but either way, I’d like to avoid drama that might distract from our mission.” My voice was robotic; I was reciting lines from a script I’d practiced this morning as I got ready.
“I don’t care about that.” His palms were flat against the wall on either side of my head. His scent, the warmth of him, both drew me in and filled me with the desperate need to escape. “I want to know what happened last night, Captain,” he said in a low voice. “Henry told me that you dove in front of an arrow to protect a Mazikin. I need to know why.”
I gritted my teeth. If I talked about my mother now, I would fall apart completely. The raw, tender wound inside my heart would break open again and leave me spilled out and ruined right in the middle of the hallway.
“I need to focus on getting through the school day, and so do you,” I snapped, staring at the now bulging tendon that joined his neck and shoulder. “I will brief you at the Guard house. Later. Now. Back. Off. Lieutenant.” The words shot from my mouth like bullets.
They hit their intended target. His hands fell away, and he drew himself up to his full height. I wanted to suck my poisonous words back into my mouth. I wanted to throw myself across the minefield, hoping he would catch me and carry me the rest of the way. I almost believed he would.
Until I saw the trembling clench of his fists.
“Yes, Captain.” He backed away slowly. “And in answer to your original question: It will be easier if we do not pretend.”
And then he walked away from me.
I set down my nearly empty tray and slid onto the bench next to Tegan, who was staring blankly at her plate of lettuce. “Hey,” I said softly. “How are you?”
“Hanging in,” she said. “They called me down to talk to Ketzler, so I got to skip lit. She thought I might be suicidal or something.”
I glanced over at her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and looked like she might shatter. “Are you?”
Her gaze turned sharp. “Of course not. I just—” Her chin trembled, and her fingers scrabbled for her napkin.
A loaded tray landed on the table, and Jim lowered himself into the seat next to hers. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little packet of tissues. “Need another one?” he asked softly, holding them out to her.
She sniffled and accepted his offering. “Thanks. Did you survive your first lit class without me? Sorry I got pulled out.” She nudged him with her thin shoulder as she dabbed at her eyes.
“I barely made it,” he said, keeping his voice light. “I think Mrs. Peterson’s already decided I’m a lost cause.”
Tegan let out a raspy laugh. “I can help you out there. She loves me. I won’t abandon you again.”
I looked at Jim over her bowed head, and he raised his eyebrows, a silent What else did you expect from me? I gave him a warning glare and turned my attention to my apple as Jim and Tegan talked about the afternoon classes they had together. Laney set her tray down across from mine. She was pale, as usual, but her eyes were bright. She didn’t even say hi—she was too busy scanning the cafeteria. And I knew the moment she spotted her target, too, because her expression changed, becoming all gooey. She grinned and waved as Malachi seated himself at the end of the table. Laney and Tegan both zeroed in on the six feet and several open seats he’d put between us. Amazing how one little gesture gave everything away; how, with one simple decision about where to sit, he’d practically shouted that he was done with me to the entire student body.
Laney wore the tiniest of sly smiles as she slid her tray closer to his and sat down next to him. “Hey you,” she said.
He rewarded her with a killer smile that ripped me open. “I was hoping to see you,” he said to her. “Do you think you could help me with that web design assignment?”
Ian blocked my view of them a second later, thank God. With practiced movements, he pulled his milk and a bottle of juice off his tray, setting them down at ten and two around his plate. On autopilot, he sat down, and then paused for a moment, pulled from the everyday ritual. He looked over at Malachi and then at me, his eyebrows raised. I lowered my head and grabbed my apple, my stomach churning.
When Malachi and Laney started to make plans to go to the computer lab during their free period, my legs moved by themselves, carrying me out of the cafeteria, past Evan “Dirty Jeans” Crociere, who was handing a baggie to a pimpled stoner; past Greg leaning against the wall, texting it up on his shiny iPhone; past Jillian and Levi, sneaking in a make-out session behind the double doors; and out into the cool air in front of the school. I sucked it in, driving the scream down deep.
“Slow down, Lela, wait up,” Ian shouted as he came through the doors, leaving them to crash shut.
I jolted to a stop, glancing with longing at my car. There was no way I could leave now. Nancy the probation officer would be after me in a second, accusing me of truancy or worse. Ian drew level with me. He clutched his juice in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Mayonnaise was smeared in the crease between his thumb and pointer finger. He held up the food and chuckled. “Want to have a picnic?”
It was such a lame invitation, but unless I wanted to go back inside and watch Malachi flirt with Laney, I didn’t have any other options. We trudged over to the low wall that separated shrubs from concrete and sat down, facing the Aden memorial. I rolled my apple in my hands. “How are you doing?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Ian. I know it hurts.”
He turned to me, his chestnut-brown hair falling over green eyes full of sadness he seemed too young to bear. Green eyes that reminded me a little of Nick’s, that tugged at my heart. “I know you understand,” he said. “You were close to Nadia.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Two of them within a month.” He blinked and bowed his head. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Nadia had issues for a long time. She tried to hide them from all of us, and finally she just couldn’t deal with them anymore.”
“Do you think it was that way with Aden? Do you think he’d been feeling this way for a while?” He cursed under his breath. “I was his best friend. I’m supposed to know that kind of thing, so I don’t know why the hell I’m asking you.”
He glanced down at his sandwich, cursed again, and tossed it into the garbage bin a few feet away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “That was an asshole thing to say.”
I twisted the stem off my apple. “No, it wasn’t. You said it because it’s that confusing. Because it doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah. He just—it’s like he became this different person in the space of a few hours. He was clean. I know he was. I mean, he’d been drinking that night, but you know. Nothing serious. And then he runs off, and we find him at a freaking meth house? It’s like he went crazy. But I never thought—I never even considered that he’d—” His gaze traveled up the wall of the school, to the place the Mazikin had jumped. “Fuuuuck,” he said, his voice shaking.
At the edge of the memorial was a picture of Aden on the pitching mound. He looked like a teenage god—strong and flawless, one of the luckiest, the angel-kissed—destined for a perfect life. I hoped he was living that perfect life in the Countryside now, free of pain and worry and missing all that he’d had to leave behind.
“I don’t think he was in his right mind,” I said quietly. “I don’t think he chose it.”
“What are you talking about?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know, really.” Though I did. And I wished I could explain because Ian was blinking tears away again. It didn’t fit. He was one of the angel-kissed, too, lucky in so many ways he didn’t even recognize. Rich. Loved. Good grades. Ace batting average. Pretty girlfriends. Nice car. But the look in his eyes was that of a confused and hurt little boy. “I just meant that your best friend, that Aden, didn’t make the choice to kill himself. He wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. This isn’t the same thing that happened to Nadia.”
“You think so?”
I nodded.
“If that meth house hadn’t already burned to the ground, I’d do it myself,” he said. “I want to find the freaks who gave him whatever ruined him, and I want to kill them with my bare hands.” A tear slipped from his cheek and landed on the sleeve of his shirt, and he swiped the backs of his hands across his face and turned his back to me. His shoulders started to shake.
Crap. Was it what I’d said? Hesitantly, ready for him to shrug me off, I reached out. My hand hovered close to his back, not knowing if it should land or circle a few times. Then he gulped in a deep breath, and my palm collided with his body. He relaxed, the knotted muscles of his back going loose under my touch.
“Thanks, Lela,” he whispered.
I left my hand there, scared to keep touching him, scared to pull away, until the bell rang and yanked us back into the churning routine of our day.
The call to Ketzler’s office came during sixth period. I guessed they’d already run through the cheerleaders and baseball players and were now hitting the third-stringers, the kids who weren’t close to Aden but who were there when it happened. When the note arrived and the teacher nodded at me, I knew my turn had come.
Too much was happening. I still had the growing infestation to deal with, and that was my first priority. The Mazikin were attacking the most vulnerable people around, and they were building their numbers. They’d even gotten my mothe—no. I shoved the thought down and crushed it beneath my heels as I stalked toward Ketzler’s lair.
The Mazikin were recruiting the homeless. On top of that, I was willing to bet they’d make a play for another one of my innocent classmates. Tegan. Ian. Greg. Someone who had been important to Aden. Important enough for Ibram to tell Sil about. Someone they could use to get to me and Malachi. I had to protect them. I couldn’t live with myself if the Mazikin got any of them.
As if all that weren’t enough … I couldn’t figure out how to deal with Malachi. Or how to think about him. But he had been so right: letting emotion interfere was compromising the mission in multiple ways. I needed to let him go and look at him the same way I looked at Jim and Henry. A colleague. A fellow Guard. If only it were that easy.
“Oh, Lela,” said the gray-haired secretary, giving me a tremulous smile. “They’re waiting for you in there.” She pointed to the little conference room next to Ketzler’s office.
“I’m here to see Ketzler?” I said, thinking maybe she’d made a mistake. The conference room was where they cornered students. Confronted them and ganged up on them. It had happened to me a few times. Nancy had done it once or twice, teaming up with Ketzler to let me know they “all worked as a team” and were “here to support me.” Translation: Ketzler would tattle if I put even a toe out of line, and Nancy would see I got court-ordered back to the RITS.
The secretary nodded. “She’s in there, honey. Your foster mother’s here, too.”
What the heck? My dread mounting, I crossed the room. The door swung open before I got my hand on the knob. Ms. Ketzler, mascara-free today, greeted me with a softly serious expression on her face, like I was about to be executed and she felt kinda sorry for me. I craned my neck and saw Diane, who looked the same way.
“Diane,” I said as I walked into the room, my heart thumping heavily. “What’s up?”
My eyes scanned the room. My child welfare social worker, Jen Pierce, was sitting in the corner with a thick file in her hands. Nancy wasn’t there. A horrible thought occurred to me, one I’d never considered before now. Oh God oh God. My lungs stopped working. I sank into the nearest chair, staring at the pained look on Diane’s face. “You’re giving me up, aren’t you? You’re ten-daying me.”
It had happened to me so many times before. But I’d started to believe it wouldn’t happen with Diane, that her house was where I belonged. I should have been prepared for this, though.
It was easy to give me up.
It wouldn’t even be the first time this week that it had happened.
After a moment where everyone seemed frozen in place, Diane got up so fast her chair tipped over. She made it across the room quickly, and her arms were around me in the next second. For once, I welcomed them. “No way, baby. How could you think that?” she asked fiercely as I came undone, the pressure and sorrow bubbling up and leaking around my welded defenses.
My hands shook as she clutched at them. She tilted my chin up and looked down at me. “You’re mine as long as you want to be. That’s not what this is about. I’m so sorry you thought it was.”
I blinked up at her, still absorbing the moment. She’d said I was hers. “Okay,” I said stupidly.
My social worker righted Diane’s chair. The thick folder sat on the tabletop. Ketzler set a box of tissues on the table. Diane withdrew her arms and took a seat next to me.
Jen put her hand on the folder. “Lela, you’ve been in substitute care for a long time, I know. You’ve been in a lot of different placements. We wanted permanency for you a long time ago, but things never quite worked out …”
Her eyes darted up to Ketzler’s, and the counselor’s hand closed over my shoulder. I clenched my teeth and slowly leaned away. She didn’t take the hint.
Jen cleared her throat. “Anyway, I know you’ve been through a lot, and that you have stability here with Diane. You’ve become one of our success stories. We don’t want to mess that up.”
I glanced over at Diane. “Me neither.” If Diane wasn’t giving me up, were they taking me away from her?
Jen fiddled with her watch long enough for me to want to reach across the table and rip it off her. Her eyes lingered on the folder again, a catalog of all the places I’d been, all the things that had happened to me. All the things she had allowed to happen to me. Maybe that was why she looked so stricken.
“Come on, Jen, you’re killing me. What’s going on?”
Finally, she met my eyes. “Your mother came to my office today. She’s filed a request to see you.”