The Gathering (25 page)

*

The sound of conversation and clinking silverware circles the cafeteria. Luka isn’t with me. On the way from Clive’s room, we ran into the man of the hour—headquarters’ own certified therapist. Cap must have already told Dr. Sheng about Luka, because when Cap introduced us, Dr. Sheng asked Luka if he wanted to speak in his office. I thought Luka would decline. Instead, he gave me a kiss and went with a determined set in his shoulders, like counseling might get him his gifting back.

Discomfort squirms in my gut as I file into line. A few tables away, Claire eats with some girls, chatting like she belongs. She looks up and her icy blues meet mine for a brief moment before flitting away.

Everybody deserves a second chance …

Cap’s words scratch like wool. Cap’s words have me picturing the look on my grandmother’s face as she clutched her chest. I shake it away and grab a plate of hamburger and fries, trying to make sense of the luxury. There’s no grocery store for miles, and even if there was, it would take a constant stream of Runners to supply enough food for this many people. “Where does all this come from?”

“Felix is very well connected.” Cap wheels forward with his tray in his lap, scanning the busy room like he’s looking for someone in particular. Straight ahead, Lexi lifts her hand to wave. Cap jerks his head for me to follow. She’s sitting alone, her food untouched, like she’s waiting for someone to join her.

“Fancy a sit?” she asks when we arrive.

I slide onto the bench, expecting Cap to join us. Instead, he tells me to enjoy the meal and rolls off to sit with Sticks and Non, leaving Lexi and me by ourselves. My brow furrows. Why do I feel like I’ve just been set up on some sort of blind date?

“Cap thought we might eat lunch together. Have a bit of a chinwag.”

“A what?”

“A talk. A catch up. Whatever you call it here.” She twists the cap off her bottled water and takes a drink. “He thought you might have some questions for me.”

My furrow deepens. If I had questions, why would they be for Lexi?

“We have something in common, you and I.”

“You mean the Most Wanted list?”

“Well, yeah. But not that. I’m going on about having a Keeper.”

My mouth drops open.
A Keeper?
I stare—buggy-eyed—at the pixie-haired woman sitting across from me. Lexi has a Keeper? “Who?”

She gives me a look, like I’m being dumb on purpose. “Connal.”

I can actually feel my eyes going buggier. Connal is Lexi’s Keeper? I twist around, searching for the round-faced Irishman. I spot him across the room, eating with some guys I don’t know, and find myself rewinding the morning, replaying every single one of Lexi and Connal’s interactions through the filter of this new discovery. This is the first time I’ve met a whole pair before. No tortured Keeper with a dead
anima
, like Gabe. These two are fully intact. And yet … nothing clicks. Not even with hindsight. In fact, as I do my replaying, all I see is a distance between them that doesn’t line up with what I know about Fighters and their Keepers.

“I heard about what happened to Luka.”

I twist back around, blinking several times. “What?”

“You’re off with the fairies, aren’t you? I said, Cap told me about what happened to Luka. That he lost his gifting.”

The words irritate me. It’s not Lexi’s business. So why is Cap telling her anything? I peel open a ketchup packet and squirt it onto my plate.

“Connal would go absolutely barking if that were him.”

Yeah, well.
Barking
Luka is better than no Luka.

Lexi takes a bite of her burger, chews, and swallows it down. “How’d the two of you end up together?”

“I, uh, had an
episode
.” Complete freak-out and hospitalization is a little more accurate, but there’s no reason to go into details. “My family moved across the country to get me some help and Luka was my next-door neighbor.”

“A mystery how that happens, isn’t it? The way life forces us together?” She doesn’t sound mystified, though. If I had to assign an emotion, I’d say she sounded … aggravated.

I swirl a French fry into my ketchup. “What about you and Connal?”

“I couldn’t find a job after college. Employers didn’t seem to care that I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Edinburgh. Funny enough, I won a raffle incentive to come here. It was like winning Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. I thought for sure there’d be more opportunity. Connal and I went through the immigration screening process together.”

I pull the onion off my hamburger.

“He told me he had dreams about me. I thought he was a tosser. It sounded like a really lame pick up line, until I realized he saw the same things I saw. Not long after, the pair of us were accused of crimes we didn’t commit and forced into hiding. And now here we are, stuck together down here.”

Stuck. Forced.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Lexi isn’t a fan of her Keeper. I take a bite of my burger and glance again at Connal. This time, he catches my eye. His attention shifts to Lexi, then he shoots me a friendly wink and returns to the conversation at his table. He seems like a nice-enough guy. “Do you not like him or something?”

“Who?”

“Connal.”

“I like him just fine. Why?”

“I don’t know. I get the impression you’re annoyed with him.”

Lexi rolls her eyes. “That’s because he fancies himself in love with me.”

The furrow between my brow returns. “Is that a bad thing?”

“It isn’t real.”

“I’m not following.”

Lexi wipes her hands on a napkin and crumples it into a ball. “He didn’t choose me. It’s not love if it’s not a choice, is it?”

Something tells me she’s not actually asking. I set my partially-eaten burger down. I’m too busy digesting her words to deal with actual food. They awaken old insecurities. Insecurities Luka laid to rest that night in the hub, when Cap agreed with my plan to rescue my grandmother and Clive, and Luka flipped out. I barged into his room, all false bravado, ready to give him a piece of my mind. Instead, he gave me a piece of his heart.

Anima, Tess. Breath of life. It’s not your safety I care about. It’s your being.

“You’re his
anima
, though. It means breath of life.”

“That’s just it. I depend on my breath to live. I need it. But that’s not love. The two are quite different, don’t you think?”

Parties and Cougars and Snipers, Oh My

J
oanna smacks a wad of gum while penciling her eyelids. Another luxury the hub never had—makeup. Or gum. The general store has both, and you can buy whatever you’d like with the appropriate amount of tokens—the currency down here beneath the decimated city of Newport.

I’ve learned a lot my first full day at Headquarters.

There are 140 residents now and according to Joanna, that number grows by the week. Anyone underage attends classes like we did in the hub, except here, underage is sixteen or younger. Everyone older works. And there’s plenty of it to do. Felix has a pretty elaborate system set up to maintain life, complete with various offshore bank accounts and a whole web of contacts that keep us stocked in supplies and information. Jobs include accounting, analyzing, recruiting, security, sourcing, procurement, health care, teaching, training, janitorial, food prep. And those are only the ones I can remember.

Basically, everybody has a job to do. There are no freeloaders; not even the Sleepers.

But it’s not all work, either. Felix is a big believer in morale. Hence, Joanna’s penciling.

“You really don’t want to come?” she asks, finishing her right eye. “Next movie night won’t be for a month.”

“I’m pretty tired.” My mother’s voice echoes in my head.
You should have fun
, she’d say.
Go make some friends
. But I don’t want to make friends. I’m not here to make friends. And even if I were, everything feels too transient for friendship. Like the whole world could flip on a dime.

“I overheard your friend Link inviting Ronie.”

I look up from the book I’ve been trying to read.

Joanna drops the eyeliner into her makeup bag and pulls out a tube of lipstick. “Figures one of the cute new guys would go for an older woman.”

“I doubt Link is
going
for anybody. He’s just friendly.”

“Well, they looked awfully
friendly
in the common room a little bit ago, if you know what I mean.”

For some reason, my cheeks turn warm. I flip a page, trying not to imagine whatever Joanna’s implying. It doesn’t work. A picture of Link and Ronie sitting together on the floor, cuddled up in front of the big screen, has that same silly twinge I felt in the private wing returning.

“Is Luka going?” Joanna feigns casualty. I’m not fooled.

All day, girls have been ogling him. While we worked out in the gym, while he played a game of air hockey with Rosie, while we ate in the mess hall for dinner. Luka ignored them as he told me about his session with Dr. Sheng. I listened, unable to shake off the things Lexi told me during lunch. They’ve latched on like a leech and there’s no Samson in sight.

It’s not love if it’s not a choice, is it?

“Yoo-hoo. Earth to Tess.”

My eyelids flutter.

“Did Luka mention if he’s coming?”

“I don’t know.” As Lexi would say, I’ve been away with the fairies all day. Maybe he did tell me, and I nodded absently without really hearing.

“Well then, don’t wait up.” Joanna slides the lid onto her tube of lipstick and kisses the air. “A group of us always head to the common room after to shoot some pool. If you want to come, that’s where we’ll be. If you don’t, have fun
sleeping
.”

Being lame
, she means. I don’t care. I have work to do.

As soon as she’s gone, I flip another page of
The Golden Compass
. It’s a book my dad read to me and Pete when we were little. I’m not sure why I snagged it off the bookshelf. All it does is tie my throat into a giant knot of sentimentality. A few pages more and I set it on my nightstand. It’s only 8:35. I’m nowhere close to tired. But I slip into my pajamas, slide between the sheets, and close my eyes, forcing thoughts of Link and Ronie, Lexi and Connal, Luka and his female fan club out. I mean, really. I told Joanna that he’s my boyfriend. So why is she asking if he’s going to be at the party, like they might hook up or something?

I push out a breath. Felix gave me specific directions to relay to Agent Bledsoe. He’s to make his way to Newport. He will tell the security guard that Felix sent him. He will wait at the south end of the refugee community, near a statue of a soldier and a tank. I run over the directions again and again, my mind fixed on Bledsoe’s crooked nose.

But I’m still not asleep at ten. There’s laughter out in the hall at eleven. Joanna’s bed is still empty at midnight. With a loud groan, I stick my head under my pillow and beg sleep to come.

When it finally does, he’s already waiting for me.

“I got your letter,” he says.

“And?”

“I have no idea how any of this is possible, but I believe you.”

“Will you help us?”

“I became an FBI Agent to protect the innocent. You’re innocent. Tell me what I can do.”

“How soon can you get to Newport, Rhode Island?”

“
Newport
? Is that where you are?”

“It doesn’t matter where I am. How soon can you get there?”

He hesitates, the mistrust in his eyes mirroring my own. I don’t blame him. Newport isn’t exactly a place anybody visits these days. “I should be able to get there by three.”

“Tell the guard at the bridge that Felix sent you. Then make your way to the refugee community.”

“Refugee community? In
Newport
?”

“It’s on the south end of the old naval base. Look for the statue of a soldier and a tank and wait there for further instruction. Make sure you’re not followed and don’t even think of bringing anybody along. We’ll know if you do and you’ll never see or hear from us again.”

Bledsoe shakes his head—not in refusal, but in disbelief. “This is crazy.”

The truth, I’m learning, often is.

*