The Unbound Page 9

  He smiles, and I can’t tell if it’s my rare moment of clumsiness or the fact I lean into his noise instead of away from it that makes his eyes glitter.

  “Steady there,” he says as I finally free the fabric from my shoe. I get both feet back on the ground, but his touch lingers a moment before sliding away, taking the thrum of music with it.

  “Morning, Ayers,” says Cash with a nod.

  “Where did you come from, Wes?” I ask.

  He tips his head back down the sidewalk.

  “What, no fancy car?” I tease.

  “Ferrari’s in the shop,” he shoots back without missing a beat.

  “And the Lexus?” chirps Cash.

  Wesley rolls his eyes and shifts his attention to me. “Is this one giving you trouble?”

  “On the contrary,” I say, “he’s been a perfect gentleman. One might even say a knight.”

  “In shining armor,” adds Cash, gesturing to his gold stripes.

  “He brought me coffee,” I say, holding up my cup.

  Wes runs a hand through his black hair and sighs dramatically. “You never bring me coffee, Cassius.”

  And then, out of nowhere, a girl swings her arm around Wesley from behind. He doesn’t even tense at the contact—I do—only smiles as she puts her manicured hands over his eyes.

  “Morning, Elle,” he says cheerfully.

  Elle—a pretty little thing, bird-thin with bottle-blond hair—actually giggles as she pulls away.

  “How did you know?” she squeaks.

  Because of your noise, I think drily.

  Wesley shrugs. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

  “All the cool powers were taken,” mutters Cash, half into his coffee.

  The girl is still hanging on Wesley. Perching on him. Like a bird on a branch. She’s chirping on about some fall dance when the bell finally rings, and I realize I’ve never been so happy to go to class.

  It’s a good thing I’ve had two coffees to go with my four hours of sleep, because Mr. Lowell kicks off the day with a documentary on revolutionaries. And whether it’s the healthy dose of caffeine or the strange way the subject sinks its nails in, I manage to stay awake.

  “The thing to remember about revolutionaries,” says Lowell, killing the video and flicking on the lights, “is that, while they may be viewed as terrorists by their oppressors, in their own eyes, they are champions. Martyrs. People willing to do what others won’t, or can’t, for the sake of whatever it is they believe in. In a way, we can see them as the most extreme incarnations of a society’s discontent. But just as people elevate their revolutionaries to the station of gods, avenging angels, heroes, so those revolutionaries elevate themselves.…”

  As he continues, I picture Owen Chris Clarke, eyes blazing on the Coronado roof as he spoke of monsters and freedom and betrayal. Of tearing down the Archive, one branch at a time.

  “But the mark of a revolutionary,” continues Lowell, “is the fact that cause comes first. No matter how elevated the revolutionary becomes in the eyes of others—and in his own eyes—his life will always matter less than the cause. It is expendable.”

  Owen jumped off a roof. Took his own life to make sure the Archive couldn’t take his mind, his memories. To make sure that if—when—his History woke, he would remember everything. I have no doubt that Owen would have given or taken his life a hundred times to see the Archive burn.

  “Sadly,” adds Lowell, “revolutionaries often find the lives of others equally expendable.”

  Expendable. I write the word in my notebook.

  Owen definitely saw the lives of others as expendable. From those he murdered to keep his sister a secret, to those he tried to murder—Wesley bleeding out so Owen could make a point—to me. Owen gave me the chance to come with him instead of standing in his way. As soon as I refused, I was worthless to him. Nothing more than another obstacle.

  If Owen was a revolutionary, then what does that make me? Part of the machine? The world isn’t that black-and-white, is it? It doesn’t all boil down to with or against. Some of us just want to stay alive.

  TEN

  AMBER’S LATE TO PHYSIOLOGY, so she has to snag a seat in the back and I have to spend the period studying the nervous system and trying to stay awake. As soon as the bell rings, I’m out of my chair and standing by hers.

  “That eager to get to gym?” she asks, packing up her bag.

  “Question,” I say casually. “Is your dad a cop?”

  “Huh?” Amber’s strawberry eyebrows go up. “Oh, yeah. Detective.” She hoists the bag onto her shoulder and we head into the fray. “Why?”

  “I just saw him on the news this morning.”

  “Kind of sad, isn’t it?” she says. “I didn’t get to see my dad this morning.”

  Treading dangerous waters, then. “He works a lot?”

  Amber sighs. “On a light day. And the Phillip case is killing him.” She almost smiles. “My mom hates it when I use words like killing in casual conversation. She thinks I’m becoming desensitized to death. I hate to tell her she’s too late.”

  “My grandfather was a detective, too.” Well, a private eye, and mostly under the table work at that, but close enough.

  Her eyes light up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I grew up around it. Bound to make you a little morbid.” Amber smiles, and I take my shot. “Do they have any idea what happened to that guy, Mr. Phillip?”

  Amber shakes her head and pushes the door open. “Dad won’t talk about it around me.” She squints into the late morning light. “But the walls in our house are pretty thin. From what I’ve heard him say, none of it adds up. You’ve got this one room, and it’s trashed, and the rest of the house is spotless. Nothing missing.”

  “Except for Mr. Phillip.”

  “Exactly,” she says, kicking a loose pebble down the path, “but nobody can figure out why. He was apparently one of the nicest guys around, and he was retired.”

  “A judge, right? Do they think someone might have been angry with a sentence or something?”

  “Then why not kill him?” says Amber, pushing open the gym doors. “I know that’s cold, but if you have a vendetta, you usually have a body. They don’t have one. They don’t have anything. He just vanished. So my question is, who would go to all the trouble to make someone disappear and then leave a mess like that? Why not make it look like he just walked away?”

  She has a point. She has a lot of points.

  “You’re really good at this,” I say, following her into the locker room.

  She beams. “Crime dramas and years of eavesdropping.”

  “What are you two going on about?” asks Safia, dropping her bag on the bench. I hesitate, but Amber surprises me by giving a nonchalant shrug and lying through her teeth. “Arteries and veins, mostly.”

  Saf screws up her nose. “Ewww.” She keys in her locker code and starts to change, but Amber smiles and keeps going. “Did you know that veins move around beneath your skin?”

  “Stop,” says Saf, paling.

  “And did you know—” Amber continues.

  “Amber, stop,” says Saf, tugging on her workout clothes.

  “—that the brachial artery,” she says, poking Saf’s arm for emphasis, “is the first place blood goes after being pumped through your heart, so if you sever it, you could conceivably lose all five liters of blood in your body? Your heart would just pump it right out onto the floor—”

  “Gross, gross, stop,” snaps Saf, slamming her locker and storming away toward the gym doors.

  Amber looks back at me with a smile after Safia has stormed out. “She gets squeamish,” she says cheerfully.

  “I can see that.” I’d be lying if I said it didn’t lighten my mood. “Hey, will you let me know if they find anything?”

  She nods a little reluctantly. “Why so interested in the case?”

  I flash a smile. “You’re not the only one who grew up on crime shows.”

  Amber smiles back,
and I make a mental note to spend more time watching television.

  There’s a nervous energy in my bones. I want to run—want to sprint until it dissipates—but I’m terrified of triggering another tunnel moment, so I spend the first half of gym walking on the track, trying to clear my head. Amber and Gavin are “stretching” on a mat across the room, trying to hide a magazine on the floor between them. Safia is fencing—she’s actually good, in an obnoxious way—and Cash is on the weight machines with a few other guys. And Wesley is…right beside me. One moment I’m alone, and the next he’s fallen casually into step next to me. I count the number of strides we walk in silence—eleven—before Wesley feels the need to break it.

  “Did you know,” he asks, affecting an accent that I think is supposed to be Cash’s, “that the hawk, which is Hyde’s mascot, is known for performing dazzling aerobatic feats to impress prospective mates?”

  I can’t help but laugh. Wes smiles, and slips back into his own voice. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Crime scenes,” I say absently.

  “Never a dull answer, I’ll give you that. Care to be more specific?”

  I shake my head.

  “Bishop! Ayers!” shouts the gym teacher near the sparring platform. “Come show these idiots how to fight.”

  Wesley knocks his shoulder against mine—a ripple of bass through two thin layers of fabric—and we make our way to the mat and suit up. I roll my wrist, testing.

  “Do you really have a Ferrari?” I ask as I cinch my gloves.

  He gives me a withering look. “For your information, Miss Bishop,” he says, pulling on his helmet, “I don’t own a car.”

  We go to the center of the platform.

  “Shocking,” I say as the whistle blows.

  Wes throws a punch, and I dodge and catch his wrist.

  “Waste of gas,” he says, before I turn and flip him over my shoulder. Instead of resisting, he moves with the flip, lands on his feet, and throws a kick my direction. I lunge backward. We dance around each other for a moment.

  “So you live in walking distance?” I ask, throwing a punch. He catches it—his grip oddly gentle around my bad wrist—and rolls my body in against his, one arm snaking around my shoulders.

  “I use the Narrows,” he says in my ear. “Fastest transportation around, remember?” He shoves me forward before I can try to flip him again. I spin to face him and catch him in the stomach, on his good side.

  “You could only do that if Hyde School was in your territory,” I say, blocking two back-to-back shots.

  “It is,” he says, clearly trying to focus on the match.

  I smile to myself. That means he lives nearby—and the only houses nearby are mansions, massive properties on the land that rings the campus. I try to picture him at a party on one of the stone patios that accent many of the mansions, staff flitting about with trays of champagne. While I’m busy picturing that, Wesley fakes a punch and takes out my legs. I go down hard.

  The whistle blows, and this time when Wesley tries to help me up, I let him.

  “That’s how it’s done,” says the gym teacher, shooing us off the mat. “A little less chitchat would have been nice, but that’s the idea.”

  I tug my helmet off and toss it into the equipment stack. Wesley’s hair is slick with sweat, but I’m still picturing him with a butler. And maybe a pipe. On the Graham family yacht.

  “What are you grinning about?” he asks.

  “What’s your real name?” The question tumbles out. There, in the sliver of time after I ask it and before Wes answers, I see another one of his faces. This one is pale, raw, and exposed. And then it’s gone, replaced by a thinner version of his usual ease.

  “You already know my name,” he says stiffly.

  “Cash said Wesley is your middle name, not your first.”

  “Well, aren’t you and Cash just thick as thieves?” he says. There’s a tightness in his voice. He’s a good enough liar to hide discomfort, so the fact that he’s letting a fraction of it show makes me wonder if he wants me to see. He strides away across the gym, and I rush to follow.

  “And for the record,” he says without looking back, “it’s still real.”

  “What?”

  “My name. Just because it’s not my first doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to keep up, “it’s real. I just want to know your full name.”

  “Why?” he snaps.

  “Because sometimes I don’t feel like I know the full you,” I say, grabbing his sleeve. I drag him to a stop. His eyes are bright, reflecting specks of mottled brown and green and gold. “The other girls here might think your air of mystery is cute, but I know what you’re doing—showing everybody different pieces and keeping the whole secret. And I thought…” I trail off. I thought if you could be honest with anyone, it would be me. It’s what I want to say, but I bite back the words.

  Wesley squints at me a little. “You’re one to talk about secrets, Mackenzie Bishop,” he says. But the words are playful. He turns to face me and surprises me by bringing his hands to rest firmly on my shoulders. My head fills with the cluttered music of his noise.

  “You want to know my full name?” he asks softly. I nod. He brings his forehead to rest against mine and talks into the small window of space between our lips. “When Crew are paired up,” he says, his voice easy and low over the sound of his noise, “there’s a ceremony. That’s when they have their Archive marks carved into their skin. Three lines. One made by their own hand. One made by their partner. One made by the Archive.” His eyes look down into mine. His words are little more than a breath between us. “The Crew make their scars and take their vows to the Archive and to each other. The vows start and end with their names. So,” he whispers, “when we become Crew, I’ll tell you mine.”

  And then the bell echoes through the gym, and he smiles and pulls away. “About time,” he says cheerfully, heading for the locker rooms. “I’m starving.”

  Da won’t talk about his Crew partner.

  He once said he’d tell me anything if I asked the right question, but somehow I never ask the right one to get him to tell me about Meg. He doesn’t even tell me her name; I learn it later, after he’s gone and I’m packing up his things.

  They all fit into one box.

  There’s a leather jacket, a wallet, a few letters—to Dad, mostly (and one to Patty, my grandmother, who left him before I was born). There are only three photos in with the letters (Da was never very sentimental). The first one is of him as a young man, leaning up against an iron fence, looking lean and strong and a little arrogant—really the only difference between young Da and old Da is the number of wrinkles on his face.

  The second one is of him with Mom and Dad and me and Ben.

  And the third one is of him with Meg.

  They stand close, shoulder to shoulder but for a small gap, Da tilting his head slightly toward hers. His sleeves are rolled down, but hers are rolled up, and I can see, even in the faded photo, the three parallel scars of the Archive carved into her forearm. It’s a mirror image of the one etched into Da’s skin, the two of them bonded by scars and oaths and secrets.

  Neither one of them is smiling in the photo, but they both look like they’re about to, and all I can think is that they fit. It’s not just the way their bodies nest, even without touching. It’s the knowing way they share the space, sensing where the other ends. It’s their mirrored almost-smiles, the closest I have ever seen Da to happy. I know so little of this woman, of Da’s days as Crew—only that he left. He told me he wanted to live long enough to train me himself (what would have happened if he’d died first? Would someone else have come?), but seeing him—this strange, vibrant, happier version of my grandfather—it hurts to think he gave her up for me.

  “Do you think they were in love?” I ask Roland, showing him the photo.

  He frowns, running a thumb over the worn edges.

  “Love is simple, Miss Bishop. Cr
ew isn’t.” His eyes are proud and sad at the same time, and I remember that underneath the sleeves of his sweater, he bears the scars as well. Three even lines.

  “How so?” I press.

  “Love breaks,” he says. “The bond between Crew doesn’t. It has love in it, though, and transparency. Being Crew with someone means being exposed, letting them read you—your hopes and wants and thoughts and fears. It means trusting them so much that you’re not only willing to put your life in their hands, but to take their life into yours. It’s a heavy burden to bear,” he says, handing the picture back, “but Crew is worth it.”

  ELEVEN

  I TAKE A LONG, cold shower.

  Wesley’s touch lingers on my skin. His music echoes through my head. I remind myself as I scrub my skin that we are both liars and con artists. That we will always have secrets, some that bind us and some that cut between us, slicing us into pieces. That we will never see each other whole…until we become Crew. But I don’t know if I want to be Crew with Wesley. I don’t know if I’m willing to let him see all the pieces.

  I try to put his promise from my mind. It doesn’t matter right now. A world stands between me and Crew: a world of nightmares and trauma and Agatha. How do I tell Wesley that I might not make it to the ceremony, let alone the naming? Crew are selected. They are assessed. They are found fit.

  If Agatha got her hands on my mind right now, I would never be found fit. Which means I need to keep her from getting her hands on me until I find a way to fix whatever’s happening.

  I have to hope there is a way to fix it.

  A way that doesn’t involve letting the Archive inside my head to cut out memories. If I let them in, they’ll see the damage Owen did. The damage he continues to do.

  I snap the water off and begin to get dressed. The lockers have emptied out by now, but as I slip the key back over my head, shivering a little when the metal comes to rest against my sternum, Safia rounds the corner, focused on the braid she’s weaving with her hair. Until she sees me. Her eyes narrow even more than usual.