The Institute (31 page)

“Really?” he
asks. “Why would they pair you with him?”

“He thinks they
did it to punish him.
Yes, him
!”

Shilah hugs me
and comes inside. “Is there anything you can do?” he asks.

“I doubt it.
Mr. Brookfield has a way of making you think you are getting what
you want when in reality you aren’t, you give him exactly what he
wants. If I was to ask him for a new partner, he would probably end
up getting me to agree to
actually
marrying Drew without me
realising it.”

“Marrying?”

“Yeah, great
cover story they worked up for us. For my ability to work, we have
to be touching, so of course we should be married. It’s so
stupid.”

“What did Chad
say when he found out?”

“Nothing,
because he doesn’t know yet. He leaves tomorrow anyway and for the
millionth time, nothing is happening between us so he won’t
care.”

“If you say so.
When do you leave?”

“In a week,” I
respond.

“Do you think…”
he hesitates, “Will you get to see Dad at all?”

I hang my head,
“I was really hoping to, and I’ve been placed in Rockford so it’s
not too far, but if I get caught, they’ll throw me back in here and
they said that I don’t want to know what they would do to Dad.”

Shilah goes
quiet. I pour myself a glass of water, maybe I can wash the anger
down. “I’m sorry,” Shilah says, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
He hangs his head, “I’ve been noticing things lately, those
classes, the way we’re treated; they don’t want to help us at
all.”

Having him say
that, washes away any anger I was feeling. I’m glad he’s finally
seeing the truth, but I don’t know where to go from here. “I don’t
know what to say to that.”

“Really? I tell
you that you are right for once and you don’t rub it in my face?”
he says with a light smile.

I sit down on
the bed, “Maybe because it’s not something to be boastful
about.”

“I’m thinking
of dropping out of the training program,” Shilah admits.

“No, don’t do
that. I was wrong to try and keep you from doing it, I didn’t
realise how much I missed seeing the sun until I got to go outside
yesterday and I don’t want to deny you that. I just wanted you to
be aware of what is really going on around here and now that you
are, you won’t be so quick to agree to everything they offer you,
you won’t be so quick to trust their every word.” I find myself
recycling the advice Tate gave me, “Just be true to yourself and
you will do fine.”

Shilah nods.
“So you got to see outside?” he asks, his face lighting up like a
child at Christmas time.

There’s a knock
at the door, I don’t want to answer it. I just stare at it and hope
whoever it is goes away. If it is Drew, I’m no longer angry enough
to punch him even though I would really love to.

“It’s Chad,”
Shilah tells me. “Do you want me to let him in?” I nod and he gets
up to answer the door. “Oh, hey,” Chad says. “I can come back
later.” I stand up, I do actually want to see Chad.

“No, she wants
to see you, she’s just hiding from her husband,” Shilah laughs. “I
was just about to leave anyway. Oh hey, if I don’t see you, good
luck out there,” he says as he walks out.

“Uh, thanks,”
Chad runs his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck
as he enters the apartment. He’s nervous, why is he nervous? That
makes me anxious, what’s happened now?

“I’ll see you
tomorrow Allira,” Shilah says as he leaves.

The door closes
behind Shilah and Chad walks over to me, one eyebrow raised,
“Husband?”

“Don’t even get
me started, why couldn’t I have had a pretend mother like you?”

He gives off a
little laugh, “Really, you have to be ‘married’? To who?” The look
on my face says it all. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the smile is
wiped from his face now too. He looks down at his feet, “That is so
screwed up,” then he wraps his arms around me.

“That’s what I
said.” I pull away from the hug and we both sit at the dining
table. “So what’s your new mum like? You know, a few months ago she
was Drew’s mum, that kind of makes you like brothers,” I smirk.

“At least I’m
not married to him,” he says. I grimace at him which makes him
laugh. “She’s going to be the substitute teacher at the school I
will be attending, yes attending,” he shudders. “That is, if these
targets don’t flee like we expect.”

I can’t help
but laugh, “Really? They’re going to send you, an actual substitute
teacher, back to school to as a student?”

“Yeah, the
irony wasn’t lost on me either,” he rolls his eyes.

“Well at least
you still have your boyish good looks. I’m sure you’ll fit right
in,” I tease.

“Yeah, minus
the five o’clock shadow,” he scoffs.

We’re smiling
but we both go silent. I know we’re both thinking the same thing:
this is a sucky situation and neither of us want to be in it. And
it’s all happened so fast, it has only just felt like I got in some
sort of routine and it’s taken away from me.

“So you’ve come
to say goodbye?” I say more seriously now. I don’t want to say
goodbye.

He looks down
at his hands, “Something like that.” We are silent some more. “So,
how do you feel about having to be married, especially to him?” he
asks.

“So thrilled.
Isn’t it every girl’s fantasy to be betrayed, assaulted and then
married?” I say sarcastically before letting out a huge sigh. “No,
I’m really angry. Of course I’m angry. I can tell you my pillow got
an earful before.” He smiles at me, that half crooked smile I see
almost every day. It’s usually right after he has made fun of me.
“Have you seen Tate?” I ask.

“Not yet, I
will later. I’d ask you to look out for him after I am gone but
that won’t do any good – you’ll be out in a week.”

“I’ll tell
Shilah to keep him company a few nights a week. Although, I’m
pretty sure Tate can handle himself.”

“You’re right,
he can,” he agrees. “I guess I’d better get down there though and
tell him what’s going on.” He stands up to leave so I get up and
walk him to the door. “Okay, so this isn’t goodbye. This is, I will
see you soon; a few weeks hopefully,” he says. I take in a deep
breath and nod. Why does it feel like goodbye?

We’re standing
in the doorway to my apartment and I’m scared that if I close that
door when he walks out, I will never see him again. He embraces me
again and this time, I don’t want to let go. He puts his hands up
to the sides of my face and brushes a strand of hair behind my
ear.

“You will be
great out there, I know it.” He leans down and kisses me on the
forehead. I want to tell him to really kiss me, to stay with me, to
be with me but that would just complicate things. I’m already
having enough trouble saying goodbye as it is.

I open the door
and I can hear keys rattling a few doors away from us. We both look
over to see Drew, trying to open the door to his apartment.

Chad leans in
for one more hug, “I’ll see you soon.” He walks away, down the hall
and past Drew who is still fiddling with his keys. I go to shut my
door when I hear Chad say, “Oh, I just banged your wife.” He turns
to me and winks and I burst into laughter. I go inside my apartment
and lock the door behind me; I don’t want Drew thinking he can come
talk to me.

***

Chad’s gone. I
keep replaying our goodbye over in my head.
I should have kissed
him
, I think to myself, but then I tell myself the same thing
I’ve been telling myself since I met him. We couldn’t be together
anyway; he can be condescending and way too serious, we are going
to be living two hours apart, for the foreseeable future anyway and
besides that, he will always be Ebbodine’s, to me anyway
. I
should have asked him to stay with me.
I tell myself to shut
up. I was planning on going to see Tate but with the stupid voice
inside my head, I really shouldn’t, I would never hear the end of
it. I don’t really want to be alone though either.

As I make my
way down to the Crypt, I keep telling myself
don’t think about
Chad, don’t think about Chad,
which of course only makes me
think about Chad and how I should have kissed him weeks ago.

‘
Weeks ago?
Did something happen between you two?!’
Tate sounds giddy, like
he has just discovered the biggest piece of juicy gossip.

Damn, just how
far is your telepathy range? I’m not even at the Crypt yet.

‘
It’s not my
fault your thoughts are loud, and you narrate nearly everything you
do. Which is totally weird by the way. But you so need to tell me
what happened with Chad.’

Nothing
happened. I thought for a moment that something might have happened
but it didn’t. Can we drop it now?

‘
No. Hurry
up and get your butt in here, young lady.’

“I’m here,” I
say as I reach his cell door just moments later.

He just looks
at me and sighs, “And why was I not told of this almost event that
might have happened, when it happened, but didn’t?”

“Did you even
understand what you just said?”

“Not really,
but tell me!” He’s too excited, like a child who has eaten a lot of
sugar.

“We both
pretended like it never happened,” I reply. “Wait, are you telling
me you never heard it from me? You know, up here?” I point to my
head.

“No.”

“That actually
surprises me.” I smile, maybe I am getting better at this blocking
out thing, but then again it’s not like I have thought much about
it when we’ve been down here.

Our
conversations more consist of ways we could help people on the
outside once we are agents, or me listening to Tate and Chad’s
ramblings of how the Institute works and how it would be so much
better if someone other than Mr. Brookfield was in charge, someone
who wants equal rights; this place should be a voluntary centre for
those who want or need the help. I would tune out a lot, I just
didn’t see the point in fantasising about what this place could be,
when we can’t do anything ourselves to try and change what it is
now. It’s our job to just put up with it.

I would find
myself thinking about Dad a lot during those conversations though.
A lot of the things Chad and Tate would say reminded me so much of
him, sometimes I could even hear Dad in their voices.

It’s funny,
growing up in a world where you feel so alone, you wonder if there
is anyone else out there feeling exactly the way you do. I came
here and found two. They understand me because they have been in
the same situation as me. Well, maybe not the exact same, after all
I was forever protecting my brother not myself. I wonder if it
would have been the same if I had known I was Defective all
along.

Tate sighs, “I
still don’t understand why you two aren’t together.”

“There are
plenty of reasons, one being that we are both out on assignments. I
don’t know when we will even see each other again, we have just got
to the stage of being really good friends, I wouldn’t want to
jeopardise that and the other big reason – if he truly liked me,
I’m sure he would have made a move by now, he’s had plenty of
chances.” I think to all of the lunchtime sessions in my room, our
hands all over each other while he taught me self-defence,
practicing my ability to borrow his power, I think of ‘the
incident’ – falling on the bed and him gently brushing my hair out
of my face.

I look at Tate,
“You just heard all of that didn’t you.” I sigh, he laughs, “My
point is, if we were really into each other, something would have
happened already.”

“If you say
so,” he says with a smile.

“Ugh, you sound
just like my brother.”

“I just think
your reasons for not being with him don’t really hold up. You’re
just scared because of what happened with Drew. Don’t get me wrong,
I would have trust issues too after something like that but I can
tell you without any uncertainty, Chad is on the right side; he’s
one of the good guys, he’s actually the best guy I know.”

“Isn’t that
just a little bit biased coming from his cousin? And speaking of
Drew, I should go. I was meant to meet him fifteen minutes ago to
go over our case again.”

“Hang on,
you’re paired with
him
?” Tate asks, shocked.

“Oh, yeah. I
don’t know how I forgot to tell you, it’s an absolute
nightmare.”

“You’ve
probably been too busy thinking about Chad.”

I sigh, “Okay,
now I really am going.”

I walk my way
over to Agent Headquarters and meet Drew, only half an hour late. I
would blame it on getting lost but I actually know my way around
here pretty well now. It’s funny, I finally memorise where I have
to go and I’m being sent away. I’ll probably get lost again when I
come back.

“Sorry
sweetheart, I got a bit held up,” I say sarcastically.

“At least
you’re able to joke about it this morning.”

“Well it’s hard
to take something seriously when it is an absolute joke.”

“You’re going
to have to when we’re out there. We have to trust each other to
watch one another’s backs.”

I can’t help
but laugh, “Don’t you worry, I can be professional. As far as trust
goes, I couldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you, but I can
promise you that I will do my job while I’m out there.” Maybe not
to the extent they expect, but enough for them to not take notice
of me.

“And yet, you
are angry at me for just doing my job professionally,” he stares at
me with a puzzled look on his face.

I sigh. “Okay,
if you really want to do this, let’s do it. I’m not angry at you
for doing your job and I think we can both agree you didn’t exactly
do it in the most professional way; I’m pretty sure, ‘don’t have an
intimate relationship with a target’ is one of the first things I
learned in my training. Putting that aside, you arranged my arrest
on a hunch and it was only lucky for
me
that you were right
or I would be rotting away in a cell downstairs for something I
wasn’t even guilty of. Just like everyone else down there.” The
more I’m talking, the angrier I’m getting, “You sat by and watched
me get beaten and tortured for days and then when I wouldn’t get
back together with you – gee I can’t imagine why – you tell
everyone that I’m a slut and I left you for Tate … or was it Chad,
I don’t know I can’t keep up with the rumours anymore. So please
tell me, how am I meant to ever trust you again?”