03 Saints (9 page)

“Others?” I asked. Did she mean the whole group? There had been lots of faces on the grounds…there was no way she could mean all of them.

“We have some who are just looking for protection, a place to lie low. We have those who are in transit. They don’t know what they are looking for. Then, there are the actual members of the Saints. They’re the ones who have decided, like me, to make a stand for something. They are the ones that carry out the actual missions. There are different levels in that, though, ‘cause, you know, trust is hard to come by. There are ten of us who are sort of…”

“Generals?” I supplied.

“I like that,” she agreed. “Within the Saints, there are those who have proven themselves to us, but haven’t been around long enough to gain ‘general’ status. And then there are those who are trying to prove themselves and earn their acceptance in the group.”

“Sounds pretty complicated,” I said. “Is Reaper a general?”

“He’s the president,” she said.

“Not dictator?” I asked.

River smiled. “No. He started the Saints, but we always have a choice whether or not to follow him, which we always do…follow him, I mean. He’s smart, takes care of us, and has a master plan locked in his head. He’ll lead us to victory, I’m sure.”

Her confidence in him said a lot about her and even more about him. I just wondered if they weren’t deluding themselves. Not dying felt like a win to me – what they had in mind would take years, if not centuries. Fighting against Lorian, Darian and Marcus was not as easy as she made it sound.

“Lead the way, I guess,” I said.

I followed River out of the room and down the hall. She led me toward the stairs again. As we walked, she talked about the group – its mission and its purpose. She kept circling back to the ideals of the group and that all Watchers deserved freedom. She was very adamant on that issue. I listened carefully. Part of me was skeptical of the fact that they could just be romanticizing freedom fighters, spouting the ideals, but not doing as much as they claimed. Another part of me loved the idea of what they were trying to accomplish. If it was true.

On the second floor, she took me down the long hall and into an open room at the very end of the hall. This room had sofas and round tables scattered around in a chaotic clutter. People sat around the tables and on the sofas, some in groups, and others singularly. It made the room feel even more cluttered. There was a lot of noise in the form of laughter, talking and music, as people let off steam and did whatever they wanted.

One group in particular caught my attention, mainly because they were the largest of the groups. They sat at the table closest to the door. Out of all the Watchers in the room they were the most relaxed; I sensed it was because they were the most capable. They were playing poker; playing with a lot of cash on the table. I didn’t need River to tell me they were part of the ‘general’ crowd. It was as obvious as the dawn.

I scanned the faces of the group in curiosity, wondering what it took to be one of Reaper’s top ten. I was more than a little startled when I recognized a face in the group. The neon blue eyes, the tattoo of the King of Spades, and, certainly his face, were familiar. It was the man who had taken me from Anna and given me to Master Limp. He was one of Lorian’s.

My body tensed from the urge to either fight or flee. I choose to fight. I took out the knife I had placed in my boot for safekeeping and crouched into a ready stance. He saw me, saw my reaction to him, and immediately stood. His face was apologetic, and his hands rose in a peaceful gesture. The others in the room stopped their merrymaking, so they could stare at me.

I ignored the stares and focused on the man. His eyes were the only ones I cared about. I wanted to rip them from his skull. River put her hand out as I glared at the man.

“Whoa! Hold your horses!” River told me. “What’s your deal?”

“She thinks I work for Lorian,” the man told her. “She saw me there. I took her to the holding cell.”

River’s face flooded with understanding. “Oh, I see. Clare, meet King. King here is the reason we were at Lorian’s, on the night we rescued you. We sent him there to spy on the organization…but he was discovered. We went there to get him out.”

“Sorry about turning you over to…” King started to say.

“Master Limp?” I said.

He laughed at my description, but I wasn’t in the mood for laughs.

“Sorry for allowing that creature to hurt innocent people? To hurt me?” I demanded.

“I was just doing my job,” he said.

“When you pretend to be evil, you learn to be evil. Pretending caves way to being,” I said. “You are the way you act.”

“That’s a very astute thought,” another man at the table said. “We should talk about it.”

“This is Preacher,” River said, trying to deflect away from King.

The man was black, with a large amount of curly hair pulled away from his face by a rubber band. His beautiful face was marred by a single scar just under his eye. His eyes were a dark orange. They were the most peaceful eyes I had ever seen; they were eyes that had spent days upon days in deep thought. I nodded at him politely, but kept my eyes on King.

King was fuming at my words. His face was full of anger; his neon eyes swirled with black.

“You don’t know me!” he said. “I didn’t like what I had to do, but it saved a lot of people’s lives. The information I was able to get…”

“King…” River warned.

He clamped his mouth shut and glared at me.

“I’m done playing.” He threw his cards on the table and stormed out.

A girl with long brown hair reached across the table and picked up his cards, to look at his hand. “Damn. I had him, too…”

“He would have out-bluffed you,” a blonde girl said.

“We need to talk for a moment,” River hissed in my ear.

She pulled me out of the room, down the remaining flight of stairs, and out to the back of the school.

“You need to be careful,” River warned, once we were outside.

“I saw him at Lorian’s! What was I supposed to think?!” I asked.

“That Reaper would know if his people were spying on him or not,” she replied.

“I don’t know Reaper, either!” I said. “I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Fine. Fair enough. Here’s a warning for the future: Reaper doesn’t babysit us. There is no martial law here. You got a problem here you take it to the pit and fight it out. If you say ‘no’ you gotta leave. What we’re doing is too big to worry about everyone getting in fights for stupid reasons. People don’t say things here unless they want a fight…and let me assure you of something: everyone here is capable. Don’t doubt it for a moment.”

“I will take your warning under consideration,” I said dryly, sticking my knife back into my boot.

I wouldn’t let her warning scare me. I would always say what I thought. That was just me.

“You are a very peculiar person,” she said after a moment.

I smiled; the smile hurt from dozen of memories I didn’t want to face. Memories of Daniel.

“True,” I said.

“I would apologize to King. He’s very sensitive,” River added. She started to walk back inside. “Best not to have any enemies, even if you are just staying for a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah…maybe,” I said.

Apologizing felt impossible. He had been there in one of my darkest hours and had done nothing to prevent my fate. I could rationalize the fact that he was operating on orders, but that didn’t change the memory.

When River was gone, I leaned against the brick wall and watched the landscape in front of me. I was on the opposite side of the school than my room. On this side there was nothing beyond the barren mountains. The farther away the mountains were, the less they were covered in vegetation. I thought I recognized the mountain chain, but it was hard to be sure. I realized I hadn’t even asked where I was, though I doubted we had left California.

Two weeks, I told myself, readjusting the arm that had been shot. Two weeks until I knew the truth of what had become of my family. It would be two weeks of avoiding the others, to avoid any more encounters like the one I had just faced. I didn’t need the tension or the attention. I had other things to worry about. I had plans to make and healing to do. Getting close to people who I would inevitably leave wasn’t on the to-do list.

The thing about intention is that it never goes to plan. Something always comes along to bend ‘intention’ to its will.

The next morning I woke up as suddenly as a door snapping shut.

Had a door snapped shut?

I rolled over on my bed and saw that I wasn’t alone. King had come to find me. I tensed, thinking he had come for a fight, but his mood was far different. He sat in the chair near my bed and looked at me solemnly. His piercing eyes were extremely disconcerting. Even though they were hard to look into, I stared into them, searching for a reason for his unorthodox visit.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I’m not sorry for doing my job, but I am sorry you were hurt because of it.”

“You’re sorry, but you’re not?” I asked sarcastically. “That means a lot.”

“This was a waste of time,” he muttered, standing.

I shook my head at his words. I was being stupid and childish. It took a lot for him to come and apologize. I knew that.

“Apology accepted,” I said, before he could leave. “I’m also sorry for calling you evil, and for wanting to use my knife on you.”

He smiled at my apology and sat back down on the chair. He made a temple with his fingers in front of chest. He thoughtfully touched the temple to his lips.

“There was so much chaos that night; do you know what happened to, uh…‘Master Limp’ and Mama Dot?”

“Dead,” I told him.

His face showed his approval. “Good. Did you do it?” he asked.

“Master Limp was killed by a group of Nightstalkers…Mama Dot...was all me.”

I still couldn’t believe I had killed her. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been and how little I regretted it. It was very different than my last kill. My official count was up to five, though I wondered if I could claim Master Limp and his helper…Having the Nightstalkers commit the murder still felt as if it was on my shoulders.

“I wish I had seen it,” King said.

“It didn’t feel as good as I thought it would,” I admitted. “More like I had given them what they wanted all along.”

He nodded. “I know the feeling.”

“What happened to the others who escaped?”

“Some left to go find their families…others are hanging around, until they figure out what they want to do. Most of them don’t have the courage to commit to our cause,” he said.

“The prison had a way of sucking out courage,” I said.

“Or building it up,” he said thoughtfully.

I shrugged noncommittally and went back to avoiding his eyes. I wondered which group I belonged to. Neither really seemed to fit me.

“River said you were hanging around, until you got your strength back. Then, you’re gonna find your friends or something?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why do ask?”

“We have a weight room here…it could help you with the first part, if you were willing to take advantage of it…”

I consider his offer. I was so out of shape that even walking up stairs took a bit of effort. How was I going to search for my family when I could barely manage walking? I was weak. Working out – working to reclaim my strength – felt like a better way to spend my weeks.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“I’ll show you…” he offered.

I followed him out of the room, feeling my opinion of him shift. It wasn’t trust, but it was the beginning of not hating everyone even remotely associated with my imprisonment. It was as good a place as any to start.

The weight room was on the second floor, and was full of people when we entered. Various work-out machines decorated the space; heavy bags were in the far corner, and a space for sparring was in the middle of the room. Everyone stopped what they were doing when I entered and stared as if they hadn’t seen a person before. The only sounds I heard, though, were of the machines, and other sounds from around the school. There were no thoughts being forced on me. There was just the eerie silence of cold-blooded killers looking at me. It was only thing different in a situation that felt entirely too familiar.

“Talk about déjà vu,” I said.

“How do you mean?” King asked, waving at a few of the people.

“This happened to me the last, first day of high school. I just can’t escape being stared at,” I said.

“Well, if you hadn’t threatened me with a knife, they probably wouldn’t care about you,” King said. “They just want to know if we came here to fight.”

“Oh! The answer is ‘no,’” I told the room.

The people around us started lifting their weights, punching on bags, and otherwise pretending to ignore us. King laughed a laugh that spilled over into the space. It was infectious. My lips lifted into a reluctant grin. He winked at a pair of girls in the corner of the room and plopped down on a resistance machine. He started using it, still chuckling over my reaction to the stares.