Keystone (33 page)

Deeta giggles and takes two and then Addo reaches in and takes four before pushing the jar to me. I just shake my head.

“So, what took you to the junkyard today?” Addo asks as he takes a huge bite of his cookie. “Find anything…exciting?”

I pull the crumpled picture and business card from my pocket and push it over to the Addo. He picks it up, squinting to see the faces.

“Garrett and I found these when we were at the storage shed,” I say. “They were behind a picture of Roger my mom always had hung on the wall. Zane knew the guy on the right, Clint, the owner of Big Dog’s, and since it was his business card too, that’s where we went.”

Addo puts the photo on the table and slides it across, so all the people are facing me. He stares at the photo, a thoughtful rumble deep in his throat.

“I don’t recognize most of them. These weren’t kids from my Cura, besides your mom and, eventually, your…” He catches himself and clears his throat, starting again. “Roger. So what happened at the junkyard? Come up with anything interesting?”

“Besides an ambush?” Zane says. “Clint had Nalena’s grandfather’s car and we took it to get out of there. Clint hid it for Roger after, well, you know…”

Zane takes a bite of his cookie so he doesn’t have to say anymore. Something sharp turns inside me. Somewhere, my mother and grandfather are chasing Roger through the afterlife to retrieve the Memory I can’t find for them. Addo sighs, shaking his head. “At least it was used for a good getaway this time.”

“The Fury were more focused than we’ve ever seen them,” Robin says. “And there were more of them than ever too. They chased us to the Farm and we used the Free Ball to escape.”

“We had to blow Gpop’s barn,” Zane says. “The sensors went off, but I don’t know if the gases ever activated. Have you heard if anybody found a snoozing pile of Fury out there?”

“Haven’t heard,” Addo shakes his head. “But the Fury’s been keeping everyone busy.”

“The girl that came through the Veritas tunnel with us…you know about the girl, right?” I ask.

“Purple hair? That one?” he says.

“There’s others?” I drop my jaw, wondering, but Addo just shrugs and takes a bite of another cookie.

“The girl said there’s a Mastermind,” Garrett continues. “She said he promised her surgery and a palace and men…in exchange for The Key.”

“Oh he did, did he?” The Addo says, tapping his dunked cookie over his mug of tea. “So we know that he’s a he.”

“Do you know who it could be?” Robin asks.

“No idea,” Addo says. “Just that he’s a cocky little Mastermind if he’s going around making promises like that. It must be how he’s motivating the Fury to follow him. They’d follow anyone who promised them a nose job and a bag of cash. Except someone who couldn’t make good on their promises.”

“So the Mastermind has to have money,” Sean says.

“Or,” Addo pauses mid-chew, “he could just be exceptional at weaving strings of promises that will never catch up with him.”

“There’s more,” I say. “The girl said they were looking for The Key, but she wasn’t talking about my grandfather’s Memory. She meant a Veritas or…”

“No, no,” Zane stops me. “She said
who
The Key was didn’t really matter. But The Key that the Fury is searching for is a Tralate. She was just juiced that Nok might be both.”

“Which is absolute cuckoo sauce,” the Addo says. “If you say Nok is a Tralate, you might as well say gasoline is a car. A Veritas can send a Tralate a message, but a Veritas cannot translate specific messages sent by others. Hence the need for the Tralate, you see? A Tralate can receive and translate messages from everybody.”

“But if the Fury is looking for a Tralate, it means that they might have our Key after all,” Garrett says and Sean looks over my head at his brother, finishing his train of thought, “But they aren’t able to read it.”

“And
that,
” The Addo raises up his third cookie to salute us, “is the question of the hour, kids.”

Chapter 14

“SO WHO’S THE TRALATE?” ROBIN says. Her eyes are on the Addo, but it still feels like everyone is staring at me.

“Could be a Mox,” Sean says, the second before I open my mouth. He shoots me a goofy grin. “It’s entirely possible that another Mox went haywire and promised The Fury all kinds of kittens and unicorns.”

“Another?” Zane perks up from his floor seat.

“What’s a Mox?” I ask.

“Like me,” Sean says, his fingertips on his chest. Zane, Robin, Zaneen and Deeta’s mouths drop open. “I’m a Mox. It’s the name for those in training to become an Addo.”

“Congrats, brother!” Zane says. Deeta leans over and hugs Sean.

“When were you going to tell us?” Robin asks. “When the Fury were carrying you off?”

Sean shrugs. “As far as anyone else knows, I’m Simple. This way, I’ve got a chance at getting trained and adopting a Cura before the Fury take a crack at me.”

“It’s a good plan,” Garrett says. The way he leans against the wall, it’s almost a sigh, as if he’s resigned to accepting his brother’s plan, but is still worried about it.

“But what were you saying about The Fury’s Key being a Mox?” Robin asks.

“If the Fury got a hold of the other Addo’s thumb drives, they could definitely have an idea of who some of the Moxes were,” Addo says. “And a Mox would have some pull, as far as making promises.”

“But The Fury doesn’t trust anyone,” Zaneen says. Zane nods.

“Unless they think they can manipulate ‘em,” he says. “The Fury are always looking for new meat with money or connections or a hot, new body to slobber on. If The Fury recruits somebody, it’s because the recruit has something to offer.”

“New recruits are encouraged to share
everything
they have in order to make friends,” Sean adds. Since he’s Garrett’s carbon copy, it’s fun to see Garrett’s face making expressions like a professor.

“Friends,” Robin snorts from her spot on the couch. “There aren’t any friends in The Fury. There are alliances that only last until you run out of what they want.”

“An unfortunate truth,” The Addo says, waving the last cookie from his stack.

That’s when I see her. It’s just her eye, her tiny eye between the door and frame, and the wisp of her pigtail, planted on the top of her head. But she’s looking at me. Iris is looking at me, without screaming.

I grin at her and she doesn’t shut the door, so I lean across the table and snatch the last cookie from Addo’s hand, before it makes it to his mouth.

“They’re good aren’t they?” Addo says with a nod, like I’ve finally come around. Garrett follows my gaze, spots Iris, and says, “Hi pumpkin,” but then the door wafts shut and her little eye is gone.

“Hi sweet pea,” Zane winks at Garrett.

“Not tonight, dumpling,” Garrett winks back. “I was talking to my sister.”

“Oh,” Zane wiggles around to look at the closed door. “Iris is here?”

“That’s her room, Dipstick,” Zaneen says. “Where do you think I’ve been hanging out when I’m not home?”

“A dark hole in someone’s basement?” Zane says and then, looking around, he says, “Oh, that
is
where you’ve been.”

They start sniping at each other and then Robin tells them to shut up and the Addo dips his tea ball, explaining how Mrs. Reese is out serving as a filter, meeting up with members of the other Curas, trying to decipher who’s who and what’s what. Zaneen asks if there are more cookies and Nok stirs something that starts to make the entire room smell delicious and everyone forgets about Iris. Except me.

I move from my chair, past the Addo. Sean gives me a little grin as I move closer to the closed door, but he goes back to the conversation. I slide down the wall and sit in the space between the first two bowed doors. I think about slipping the cookie underneath to Iris, but I don’t want to slide it across the dirt floor. I think of knocking, but I don’t know if she’d answer and I don’t want to do anything that will scare her. I’m just about to give up when the door opens a crack.

And there she is. Her little eye stares right at me.

I figure she’ll slam the door shut, but she doesn’t. I wonder what is going on in her head. If she looks at me and sees murder. If she thinks that I had something to do with killing my mother. Why the circle didn’t heal her fear of me. I wonder if she thinks any one of the hundred thoughts that I think everyday.

And all the thoughts whirlwind in my head until I hear her tiny voice.

“I don’t miss Daddy and Evanchline anymore,” she whispers to me. She blinks, waiting for my response and I finally get it, when her little eyes drop to the floor and a fat teardrop rolls off her cheek. She was healed of missing them, but now she’s sad about
not
missing them.

“Me either,” I whisper back. “But it’s only because they’re still with us.”

I hold up the cookie and she blinks out another tear. Then her tiny, dimpled hand reaches through the opening and takes it. She doesn’t say anything else, but she lets me watch the thin strip of her face as she eats the cookie. I can tell she’s chewing, by the way her eye scrunches and the plume of her ponytail flutters with each bite.

“Well,” I hear Addo say and I look away from Iris. “Whatever we’re dealing with, it looks as though we’re all still adrift in the same inflatable dinghy for now. So we need to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves,” he glances to me and then at the door that Iris hides behind. “We need to get all hands on deck.”

“Agreed,” Zane says, jumping to his feet. “C’mon Nali Girl. Let’s get upstairs and get you on board.”

The ends of my hair drip. Zane’s shows me how to activate my field and how to separate myself from my fear so my field will stay up, which would’ve been super helpful when his Free Ball got us stuck on a tree. He shows me how to search for an opponent’s hidden Cavis and how to hide my own in a dozen different ways. And I’m so far beyond tired that I imagine my knuckles dragging on the training mat. My muscles are as shot as the elastic in century-old socks.

But Zane says, “Again.”

And Garrett doesn’t stop him.

And I’m not going to be the one that does.

It’s just the three of us in the gym, since Nok and Addo are hanging with Iris and Sean offered to entertain the girls in the Courtyard until we’re through. Even though I doubt Sean would ever allow it, the idea of Zaneen possibly gaining access to my apartment crossed my mind the minute they left the gym. I imagined her snooping through my apartment, judging me on how I left my new clothes on the dresser instead of putting them in the drawers. The anger of it made me strike out at Zane with everything I had.

But now, after two hours of non-stop training, I’m fried, and I couldn’t care less if Zaneen is up there taking a nap in my underwear drawer. I don’t care about anything, besides being able to breathe and getting a prediction of when this training session will be over.

But I activate my field again, like Zane wants me to, and just like always, it explodes with the energy of a cheerful puppy. When I stand back from my body, I can see how weary I really am, even though my bones still move, powered by instinct. My shoulders slouch; my hands hardly scoop away my Cavises or jab Zane as fast or effectively as they should.

I watch my heart Cavis drift up from my hip like a slow-moving smudge, and Zane waits for it to get close to alignment. He strikes. I manage to get out of the way, but I move with the finesse of spilled pudding. Zane withdraws, before he actually hits my Cavis.

“Game over,” he announces. I back away from him, three steps, until my back hits the gym wall. I flatten up against it, gulping air. Zane wipes the sweat off his own lip with his fist.

“You’re only moving your Cavis is one direction, Nali Girl,” he says. “Can’t do that. Wanna hear why? Again?”

I shake my head
no
. I really, honestly, can’t make myself care any less.

“C’mere and I’ll show you instead,” Zane says. Garrett perks up as I push away from the wall and drag myself back to Zane.

“Show her how, not why,” Garrett warns, but Zane raises an arm and bats the air like there’s nothing to worry about.