Awaken (14 page)

“Nice battle wound,” Riley said. “Does it hurt?”

I shook my head. “Not too bad.”

“You’re going to feel it in a couple hours,” Justin said. “Come on, let’s clean you up before we go.”

Riley drove the car into the garage while the rest of us walked inside. The house looked like it was decorated by an eighty-year-old woman with a flower fetish. All of the chairs and couches were upholstered with pastel floral designs. Paintings of flowers hung on the wall and a large rug displaying a giant sunflower was laid out at my feet.

Justin brought a first-aid kit over to the couch and told me to sit down. He squatted next to me and carefully rolled up my bloody pant leg. He eyed my calf and gave a short whistle.

“That’s impressive,” he said. I leaned over to see the dried blood, which covered a good part of my leg. Justin dabbed some disinfectant on a cotton ball. He met my eyes and rested a warm hand on my knee. “This might scar,” he said. I shrugged down at him.

“I need a few scars. It’ll toughen me up.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

He looked more concerned than he should be; it was a cut, not a bullet wound. “It’s okay, it looks worse than it feels.”

“This might sting a little,” he said. I wasn’t sure what I felt more, the heat from Justin’s touch or the alcohol burning my skin. My body tensed from the sharp burn and I looked around the room to distract myself.

“This isn’t the hideaway I expected,” I noted of the atmosphere.

Justin smiled. “Yeah, most of the houses we use are donated by older people. They retire and volunteer their homes; we can’t be too picky about the decor.”

“Was her name Daisy by any chance?” I asked as I studied the daisy paintings on the wall.

Justin looked up and considered it for a moment. “I think it was Petunia.” I laughed out loud at this and Justin applied another master dose of alcohol while I was distracted. The burning shot through my entire leg and I instinctively kicked out at him. He held my leg down and I watched the muscles in his arms contract.

“Sorry,” I said, for almost kneeing him in the face.

“I should have warned you that one was coming.” He took out a small tube and inserted the tip carefully between the gash in my skin.

“Is that skin glue?” I asked. My mom had some in her bathroom drawer at home, but I had never used it. He nodded.

“It works pretty well,” he said. “It dissolves in your skin as the cut heals.”

I watched with fascination as he lightly squeezed the cut together until the skin on my leg closed up and sealed itself shut. It was like magic.

He took a syringe out of the box and uncapped it with his teeth. He glanced at me for approval.

I looked at the needle and nodded for him to continue. I could hardly feel it pierce my skin.

“What was that?”

“Maybe the greatest invention ever created. It’s like Advil, but five times as strong and it lasts for days.”

Justin wrapped some gauze around my leg expertly and taped it up. He carefully, almost tenderly, pulled my jeans down over the gauze.

“You must do this a lot,” I heard myself say. I was acutely aware of his hand still lingering on my leg. His face was only inches from mine. Our eyes held together a moment longer than necessary. He dropped his hand and stood up.

“You’re good to go,” he said, and handed me a ball of gauze. “I’d change that in the morning and try not to get it wet for a few days.”

Riley, Emily, and Mark sat at the kitchen table studying a map of Washington. Justin walked over to them. “I need to get her home. Is there an extra pair of pants in the house?”

Riley looked over at my jeans.

“Her mom might get upset if I bring her daughter home soaked in blood,” Justin pointed out. Riley told him the bedroom down the hall had clothes in the dresser.

I stood up and winced at the soreness in my leg. Justin watched me with a worried look and I assured him it was fine.

“It’ll take some time for the drugs to kick in,” he said. He walked down the hall and motioned for me to follow him. The bedroom light automatically snapped on when we walked in and he rummaged through an old dresser. He pulled out a pair of black sweatpants.

“Will these work?” he asked. I grabbed them out of his hand.

“As long as there aren’t flowers on them,” I said. I sat down on the bed and looked up at him.

“Who trained you to do all this?” I asked. He sat next to me and ran his hands through his hair. I tried to stay calm. I’d never been on a bed with a guy before, at least not with a guy I wanted to kiss so bad it felt like my heart was having some kind of a seizure in my chest.

“No one trained me. I pretty much taught myself.”

Finally, things were falling into place. Why Justin was seeking me out. What I was doing here tonight. “I get it,” I say. “You’re the one that trains.”

“Right.”

I leaned back on my hands and studied him. “And you recruit people?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“What’s the name of your class? Anti-establishment 101?”

“Funny,” he said. He leaned back on his hands, too, so his face was level with mine. I felt the soft blanket under my fingers and had an urge to lie all the way back on the bed. And pull him down with me.

“What does a person have to do to get in?” I asked. “Break the law?”

“A rebellious streak doesn’t hurt,” he said, and held my eyes. “And knowledge of underwater-driving vehicles is a bonus.”

I glanced down at my leg and could already feel the pain beginning to fade. “Any pointers for me?”

His eyes stayed on mine. “On what?”

“On how to outsmart a probation officer? Hypothetically.”

His lips curled up and he looked away for a moment.

“My best advice is to get to know your strengths. You can’t always count on technology to save you. You need to know what you carry in here,” he said, and he tapped his head. “And in here,” he said, and tapped his chest. “The gadgets, the cars, those things are great. But first you have to be able to think on your feet. That’s been our biggest advantage. We try to sever the connection between technology and people. Like tonight in Toledo. Turn the power off and people are too numb to react. That’s when we make our move.”

“Know my strengths,” I thought out loud.

“Yours are pretty obvious,” he continued, and I raised my eyebrows. “You’re smart, that’s your greatest advantage. And you’re also a woman, another huge advantage.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “How is being a woman going to help me get away from the cops?”

He grinned. “Guys are easy to distract,” he said. “You’re young, you’re gorgeous – that’s a huge power, if you know how to use it.”

I felt my face heat up. Gorgeous? Did he actually say that?

Justin stood up and told me we should get going and shut the door behind him. I sighed and stretched my legs out in front of me, exhausted. I took my phone out of my pocket and saw it was almost midnight.

“Crap,” I muttered out loud. I voice-messaged my mom, apologizing, and said I was on my way home. I slowly took off my shoes and jeans and studied the gauze wrapped clean and secure around my leg. My skin still prickled where Justin’s hand had touched me and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cut or from the memory of his fingers.

I was pathetic. Who gets aroused for getting first aid? He was being kind and responsible and I was being ridiculous. I pulled the soft black sweatpants over my legs and put my shoes and socks back on. I opened the door and walked down the hall to the main room to find Justin standing by the door waiting for me.

I said goodbye to Riley, Mark, and Emily and followed him into the cool night air. He unlocked the door of a blue sports car and I slid in. The medicine was taking effect and making me drowsy.

I yawned and rested my head against the back of the seat. His phone rang and he glanced down at the screen.

“I have to take this,” he said. I nodded as he pressed an earpod into his ear. While Justin talked, I was content to listen to his voice and I found myself drifting off to sleep.

The next thing I knew someone was saying my name and I opened my groggy eyes to see the front of my house, the porch light on. I yawned again and heard Justin tell somebody he’d call them back. He took out his earpod and looked over at me.

“I’m heading out of town tomorrow,” he said. “Have fun on your chatwalk this weekend,” he added with a mocking grin.

I shuddered at the memory of the virtual walk Paul asked me to take. “That might have to fall through.”

“You could fake a sprained index finger,” he offered.

“Yeah,” I said, “or a hand cramp.”

Justin grinned and his eyes reflected the porch light. I stared back into them and I knew I was gaping but I couldn’t look away. Silence stretched between us in the small space of the car and something electric charged the air.

His face turned serious. “The next time I’m in town, will you meet with my friends again? We have to talk to you about something.”

I felt dazed but I couldn’t tell if it was the medicine or sitting so close to him in the confined space. Close enough to hear him breathe and smell his skin.

“You know where to find me,” I said. He finally let my eyes go. I opened the door and had to give my full concentration over to walking toward the front door. I didn’t know what was coming over me. My body tingled and my stomach was tied in knots and my head was so light it felt like I was floating, back and forth, in a dark ocean current.

I slept in until almost noon the next day and woke up feeling like a truck had run me over. A rock song suddenly pumped through my wall speakers, the music tugging at me like hands trying to pull me out of bed. I trudged into the bathroom and took some pain reliever; the shot Justin gave me didn’t live up to its pain-free promise. I washed my face and smoothed out my messy hair with a brush. After I dressed, making sure to put on baggy pants so they wouldn’t rub against my leg, I tied my hair back in a ponytail and hobbled down the stairs for breakfast. I walked into the kitchen and jumped to see my dad’s face staring back at me, his image projected on our wall screen. For a second I thought I was seeing a ghost.

“I was wondering if you’d ever get up,” he said to me. My mom stood in the middle of the kitchen, obviously talking to him online.

“You scared me,” I breathed. I passed my mom to get to the coffee machine and poured myself a cup, pumping cream and sugar inside.

“What else is new?” she asked him as she pointed out a breakfast bar and a bowl of vitamins set out on the table for me.

I sat down and picked at the protein bar. It was stale and tasted bland, but I never considered it until Justin pointed it out to me.

“There was a power outage last night in Toledo,” my dad said with annoyance.

I quickly took another bite of the bar and raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“Is everything all right?” I asked with my mouth full.

“It only lasted twenty minutes.” He smirked. “You’d think with all the advances in technology they could avoid things like this.”

I nodded with agreement and hoped my acting was convincing. “How long will you be traveling?” I asked, and did my best not to sound hopeful.

“Probably another week,” he said. He gave me a careful stare. I noticed dark circles under his eyes and wondered how many hours a week my father worked. The older I got, the more I noticed his job demanded him twenty-four hours a day.

He and Mom discussed a volunteer luncheon she promised to organize this week. He turned to me before they hung up and his identical eyes met mine.

“I love you, Maddie,” he said. We always ended conversations this way. And I never thought much into it. They were just words, like a standard greeting. But now love was starting to mean more to me than a simple expression, than a routine. Maybe I was demanding more out of the word.

“Have a safe trip,” I said. My dad nodded and his face disappeared from the screen. Even though his image was gone, I could still see those dark, untrusting eyes. I looked outside and low gray clouds swept by overhead. I felt lonely for my dad. I wondered if he, like Justin, let himself get close to anyone.

I stayed in my room the rest of the week sulking. This life had always been my routine but now it felt like a cage. I had walked from a moving, living, breathing artificial world back into my digital real one but now it felt so backward. I sat at my computer and pressed buttons, but found myself staring at my fingertips, craving more.

My mind drifted away from school and papers and practical things I should be concentrating on. My brain decided irrational ideas were more important to consider, like how many girls Justin had trained. Probably hundreds. I imagined how many girls, like me, he was recruiting.

I wondered if there was a Justin Solvi fan site. Most likely. The thought made my heart sink. Every girl he meets has to fall in love with him.
But,
did he call those girls gorgeous? Did he take those girls out for cake and coffee? Was that a date? Oh, god. Obsessing over a boy is like throwing precious time into the garbage, and all I have to show for it is chewed-off fingernails, self-doubt, and emotional distress.

Saturday night, a week after I’d seen Justin, I sat at the window seat in my bedroom and stared outside. I studied the leaves intently, as if I could see all the answers to my questions perched on the branches if I looked hard enough. I spent too many days thinking, only to end up back where I started. Thoughts are circular, they don’t take you anywhere. They don’t have feet – they can’t gain any ground. They can trap you if you don’t eventually stand up and make a move.

I heard a knock at my door and sat up straighter.

“Maddie?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, still gazing out the window.

“Can I come in?”

My mom opened the door. I moved over on the seat to make room for her. She crossed the room to join me and carried two books.

“Here,” she said, and sat down next to me. “I thought you could use these tonight.”

I took the books and ran my finger along the spine of one, titled
Emma,
and opened it up. I inhaled the strong, rich scent of the aged paper and ink and flipped the soft paper through my fingers. This was the third Jane Austen book my mom had given me. I looked at the other book, small and thin, titled
The Little Prince.
I didn’t recognize the French author.