Keystone (35 page)

Garrett and Sean’s apartment is a mirror image of mine. The minute I walk into the living room, Zaneen lifts my damp hair with the end of her finger.

“What were you doing over there?” she asks. Garrett ducks in close to her with a smile.

“Some things are secret, Belladonna,” he tells her. I smile and she rolls her eyes, but it doesn’t seem as ruthless as before. Especially when there’s a knock behind me, on the sliding glass door that opens to the courtyard.

I don’t even need to see who it is to know who it is, just by watching Deeta’s smile stretch across her face and Zaneen’s eyelids lower two notches. I turn to see if I’m right.

I am.

Milo Frangere is right outside the glass door and Deeta nearly hurdles the coffee table to let him in. Robin groans.

“Party?” Milo steps in after Deeta slides the door open as wide as her goofy smile.

“Come in, come in!” Deeta squeals. Zaneen holds back until Milo is all the way in and glancing around like a trapped animal, probably wondering if any of us are going to help scrape Deeta off him. He looks from face to face until he finds mine. His eyebrows relax. I’m sure no one will, besides maybe Zaneen, and she’ll give it a while.

“Where have you all been? The hotel was a ghost town today,” Milo says. The pause hangs a minute too long before Robin says, “We were shopping.”

Deeta makes an awkward sound, something between a snort and a guffaw.

“That was the wildest shopping trip I’ve ever been on!” she sputters. Robin shoots Deeta a glare, but Milo zeros in on her and Deeta’s entire body seems to ignite under his gaze. She tips her head to the side and drops her eyelids a little. I think she’s trying to imitate Zaneen. But instead of Zaneen’s sexy, hungry cheetah look, Deeta just looks like she’s drifting into a coma. Milo still grins at her.

“So, what’d you get?” he asks.

“We were looking for some people in a picture Nali’s mother had and we were chased by The Fury.”

“DEETA!” Robin shouts. Deeta startles and I touch the picture in the pocket of my hoodie, as if something just took it away from me.

“What?” Deeta turns on Robin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Deeta look serious until now. “We can trust him. Principal VanWeider vouched for him.”

“Jeez, I’m Simple and I know you don’t trust
anyone
with
everything.
” Zaneen says. She tips her head to Milo and blasts him full force with the hungry cheetah. “Even if he is adorable.”

“He’s Alo,” Deeta’s face, her words, and her tone—all blunt.

“All the more reason we should lock our doors and watch our mouths. Because we don’t know of
any
Alo that’s ever gone to The Fury before,” Robin snaps. Then she turns her own signature stare on him, launching icicle spears. “Like his mother.”

Milo’s shoulders twitch back. A grin comets across his face and sizzles out in the scorching glare he levels on Robin.

“You really need to lay off my mother,” he says. Zane moves beside Robin, but Garrett moves right between Robin and Milo.

“Everybody needs to cool off,” Garrett says. “Milo, maybe you want to take a walk around the courtyard?”

Milo doesn’t hesitate. He goes out the glass door, leaving it wide open.

“Why do you have to be like that?” Deeta turns on Robin. “Van ok’d him. He’s safe. And he’s right that it’s not his fault what his parents were. He’s trying to be different and we should be supporting that.”

“We. Don’t. Know. Him.” Robin drawls.

“And we’re not trying to get to know him either.” Deeta shoots back.

“You don’t do that when everything’s all jacked up.” Zane says. “Robin’s right. We don’t know him, we can’t trust him.”

“I don’t see the point in being mean,” Deeta says and she goes for the front door.

“Aww, come on,” Mark says as she stuffs her feet into her shoes. “We finally get to hang out and everyone’s gotta fight?”

“Catch a grape, Deeta!” Brandon whips a grape at Deeta, but she doesn’t pop up her head or open her mouth. Instead, it bounces off her head and she clutches her temple with a sniffle.

“Later,” she says and lets herself out into the hall. Robin sighs.

“I’ll make sure she gets home,” she says.

“I’d go, but I’ve got to be up on the roof in about ten minutes.” Garrett says. Zaneen groans, but follows after Robin.

“I’ll go with you, then,” she says. It’s Zane’s turn to groan.

“Well, if you’re going, I’ve got to go too,” he says. Brandon’s shoulders drop and he dumps his bowl of grapes on the coffee table.

“Some party,” he says. “I could’ve just stayed up top on guard.”

“That an offer?” Garrett asks, but both Mark and Brandon shake their heads at once, jumping to their feet.

“Forget it!” Mark says. “It’s our night off. We’re out of here.”

They bob off to the door and slip out into the Courtyard and back to their own room. Garrett gives me a long look.

“I could come up with you,” I say hopefully, but Garrett just shakes his head.

“No guard duty for you until you’re completely trained,” he says. His eyes are on my lips. “As much as I want you with me, I’m kind of glad you’re staying down here. Maybe we should slow down your training after all.”

He takes a step toward me and I take a step back.

“Not a chance,” I tell him, but when he grins and turns away from me, it makes me feel like I’ve been pulled under by a huge wave.

Once Garrett’s gone, Sean and I stare at each other a couple of minutes before he says, “Game of Scrabble?”

“Nah,” I say. He looks as tired as I feel. I don’t ask him what it’s like to train with Addo. It seems like one of those mind-your-own-beeswax kind of things, so I just tuck my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. My fingertips brush against the picture and I sigh. I wonder how I’m ever going to figure out who the rest of the people are in the photo with the Fury following us around like black clouds. And knowing who they are might not even matter if it can’t get me any closer to finding my grandfather’s Memory.

“I think I’ll just get some sleep,” I say and Sean’s face smoothes over in relief.

“Good plan,” he says, walking me to the glass slider. “If you need anything, just bang on the door.”

“Will do, and if you need protecting, just let me know,” I tell him with a smirk.

“I’m never going to get used to that.” He laughs as I let myself out. He locks the door behind me. I don’t turn back, but the little snap of the lock sends a weird twinge of loneliness through me. It’s stupid, of course. But being locked out makes me feel like I’m a threat. And then I spot Milo, seated at one of the stone benches beneath a lemon tree.

Robin’s words replace Deeta’s, like a bad song in my head.
We don’t trust him. We don’t know him.
I try to slip past him to my door, but he catches me with a glance over his shoulder as I pass. It would be rude not to acknowledge the little wave he tosses my way.

“Hi.” The word slips out of my mouth.

“Hi,” he says. His eyes dart to Sean and Garrett’s door wall. From the outside, the sliding doors reflect like dark mirrors instead of glass. Milo half-laughs. “So, you drew the short stick?”

“What short stick?”

“The mighty Contego sent a girl out to question the big bad wolf,” he says, shooting another bitter glance at Sean and Garrett’s door.

“No one sent me out,” I say, but the insult flares a blast of steam straight through me. I stop before I spill everything: that the party has broken up, that there were only two Contego in there and Sean’s not even one of them, that Garrett’s gone up on guard duty. Robin’s words:
We don’t know him, we don’t trust him,
keep burbling in my head.

“Besides,” I say, the steam doubling inside me. My nerves stand up like metal shavings to a magnet. “I’m Contego and just in case you’re wondering? I can totally take care of myself.”

But he kills my boil and flattens my nerves with how he drops his eyes to the ground. He’s not much of a threat, sitting there, rubbing his knuckles with his thumb. His shoulders droop.

“No doubt,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just sick and tired of always having to prove myself because of what my parents did.”

He meets my gaze and the last of my steam evaporates in the mocha swirl of his eyes. He doesn’t give me floaty tingles that Garrett does. Not at all. What happens inside me when I look at Milo is like walking through the halls of Simon Valley High and hearing
Waste
whispered behind me. It’s like being at my first Impressioning ceremony, where several of the Ianua members didn’t want to accept me because they questioned what kind of person I would end up being, because my father was a murderer. It’s like when I thought Roger was just my father and then finding out the whole truth, all the things he was, and hating it and still being tied to it at the same time.

I remember the exact feeling of what it was like to be judged for my father’s mistakes. And when I look at Milo, I plug right into him, a direct line into his despair.

And Principal VanWeider said Milo was safe. It should be more than enough. And no one’s named anything Milo had done that was untrustworthy, besides having parents that made mistakes. I mean, the scary thing is, Milo’s not really any different from me.

“You want to sit?” he asks. I don’t, but not for the reason he thinks, so when he scoots over, I sit.

“I’m sorry for how everyone acted in there,” I say.

“It’s alright. I can usually blow it off.” He continues to rub his knuckles. “You just can’t imagine how
much
it gets to be sometimes.”

That makes me laugh.

“Do you even know who I am?” I say. “I thought everyone in the Ianua knew about my father. Roger Maxwell? I mean, hello.” I put out my hand to shake Milo’s. “Murderer’s daughter, nice to meet you.”

He only looks up momentarily to give me a fleeting grin.

“Murderer,” he whispers with a frown.

“Yup.”

“So how come they don’t seem to mind you?”

“Maybe because of Garrett,” I say. Even though I feel like I should stay in serious mode with Milo, I can’t help the smile that spreads across my mind when I say Garrett’s name. It doesn’t help that the smell of the lemon tree reminds me of his kiss. “But it could be because the Addo set everyone straight at my Impressioning. Or it could be that they all feel sorry for me, because my father was in the Fury and my mom,” I think of the tiny diamond she hung in my heart. “She was a dedicated Alo when he killed her.”

“Sorry,” Milo says quietly. “Van mentioned it.”

“I get why you’d want to leave your Cura,” I say, to change the subject. I don’t want to start thinking of my mom and where she is now and how I’m not helping her enough. And I can’t talk to him about it. “But why now?”

“Lots of reasons,” he says, but when he doesn’t offer any of them, I feel like maybe he’s taking Robin’s advice too and locking his own doors too. His shoulders dip even lower, as if he’s carrying the entire Cusp on them. Then he says, “It wasn’t such a big deal, me leaving, until all this happened and everything went haywire. I was lucky Van took me in. With my family’s black sheep status, I was a prime target from the start.”

“Target for what?” I ask.

“It’s not settled out there like it is here. All the Outer Curas are backstabbing and accusing each other, and it’s not even just one Cura against another. Everyone’s suspicious and plotting against the other members in their own Curas.”

I knew, from the Totus, that the Outer Curas were worried that we were keeping the Addo from them, but I figured it would be resolved pretty fast—once the leaders in the Outer Curas were authenticated. Maybe it’s a lot worse than any of our Cura knows. Or maybe Milo doesn’t really know.

“Why would they fight?” I ask.

Milo looks up at me then, his eyes wide with shock. “Because each of the other Addos were assassinated by members of their own Cura,” he says. I almost choke on my own tongue.

“No,” I say, but my voice shakes. “It was The Fury that assassinated the Addos.”