C
HAPTER
25
T
he next day, midway through second period, one of the office aides dropped off a note for me. It was written on such thick, beautifully textured paper I knew it had to be from Niobe. Someone needed to explain to her that guidance counselors did not make enough money to waste high-end stationery on their students. A notepad with “From the Desk of Niobe” printed across the top would blend better.
Then again, what did she care about blending in?
In bold, navy script, the note read,
Pascal will meet with you and Luc this evening
.
Seven o’clock.
Nice, the way she informed me instead of asking.
Lena nudged me. “So, are you excited?”
“Not particularly.” Pascal would either want to run more tests or deliver more bad news. Neither one appealed very much.
She grimaced in sympathy. “Are you sure they won’t let you in? It seems stupid to make you come and sit in the lobby the entire time.”
“The lobby?” Lena meant the Sadie Hawkins dance, which had slipped completely off my radar. I frowned. How was I supposed to work the dance and meet with Pascal? Even if I went Between, I couldn’t be in two places at once. “What do you think Sister would do if I left once the dance started?”
Lena stared at me, mouth agape. “You really are crazy,” she said finally. “Look, I know your year has sucked beyond belief. But not showing at that dance? That’s academic suicide.”
I sighed. “I know. There’s someplace I need to be, though.”
“I thought we had plans,” she said quietly.
“We do. We totally do. This meeting is during the dance, not after.” I’d explain to Luc that I only had an hour or two.
“I don’t care how hot the guy from this summer is or how hard you’re crushing on Colin. Sister will boot you out of NHS and suspend you. Life as you know it will be over.”
She didn’t need to know it already was.
“And since when did you get so guy crazy, anyway? I didn’t think you were one of those girls.” She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, disdainful. “Maybe we should just forget it.”
I shook my head rapidly, not wanting to offend her any more than I had. “No way. I would much rather hang out with you than do the other thing. I can reschedule.” I hoped.
Lena sat back, eyes still flashing. “Don’t let me interfere if you’ve got something better to do.”
Other than Verity, I didn’t remember how long it had been since I’d had a true friend. I missed having someone to talk to. Even with Colin, there was always something left unsaid, our feelings running just under the surface of our conversations. “Nothing’s better than hanging out with you.”
The bell rang, and I hoisted my books. “I have to run down to the office. We can talk later, figure out times and stuff?”
“Sure.” She didn’t look like she believed me, and I couldn’t blame her.
I made my way to the guidance office, and the secretary waved me through to Niobe’s tiny room. She’d redecorated, scrubbing away all traces of poor Miss Turner. The motivational posters of baby animals were gone, replaced with a series of moody black-and-white landscapes. Instead of the electric teakettle and overcrowded bookshelf I’d stared at all semester, a Japanese tea set sat atop a low table, two chairs pulled up next to it as if inviting conversation.
“No students? Shouldn’t you be helping people figure out their lives?”
“Regardless of the sign on the door, I’m not a guidance counselor. I try not to encourage repeat visits.” She dropped into one of the chairs and crossed her legs at the ankles.
“Nice. Listen, I need you to take a message to Pascal.”
“I’m also not an errand girl.”
“This is important. I can’t meet him tonight.”
“Excuse me?” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me correctly. “You’re going to cancel a meeting with a member of the Quartoren? What could possibly be more important?”
I gritted my teeth. “The dance.”
She laughed, the sound mingling horror and mirth. “A high school dance?”
“I know it sounds stupid.”
“It
is
stupid. Mind-bogglingly so.” She leaned forward and poured a cup of tea for herself.
“Maybe to you. But there’s exactly one person in this school who’s willing to hang out with me. If I bail on her tonight, that number drops to zero. Not to mention, if I don’t work this dance, Sister Donna will revoke my probation. I’ll never get into NYU.”
“And you truly believe your simple Flat problems matter when placed next to the dangers facing my world?”
“They matter to me. And since you’re relying on me to fix your world, it might be a good idea to help keep mine from imploding.”
She waved a hand. “Fine. At the very least, I’m sure his reaction to the news will provide some entertainment. Is that all?”
“How’s Constance doing?” I asked, sitting down. This seemed like as good a time as any to make sure the Quartoren were holding up their end of the bargain. “Is she making progress?”
“Some. She’ll end up wielding considerable power, I think.” She sipped at the tea before continuing. “She’s highly emotional. It makes her control of the lines unpredictable.”
“You can teach her control.”
“To a degree. I can give her techniques for mastering her emotions, but she’s alone, and frightened, and very confused.”
“She’s not alone. She has me.”
“That’s less of a consolation than you seem to think.”
“Luc said she’s making friends.”
“I believe so, yes. Others in her training sessions. They’re from established, respected families. It should smooth her way.” She shook her head. “There is something else. My sources tell me that the Seraphim are planning to move against the Quartoren soon, and publicly. And they’ll use you in order to do it.”
Unease made my scalp prickle. I didn’t ask where she’d heard it. Niobe knew things. She had connections to parts of Arc society even Luc couldn’t penetrate, and he’d relied on her information in the past. “How?”
“I don’t know. Keep in mind that, while the Arcs are indebted to you for stopping the Torrent, they’re also leery of how much influence you wield—a Flat who knows their ways, bound to someone of Luc’s standing. It wouldn’t take much to tip feelings from gratitude to resentment, and the Seraphim are counting on that.”
“Why are you telling me this? You don’t even like me.”
She seemed to consider the question, and the wind chimes stirred for a moment before falling silent. “Not particularly. But Luc does, and I have a ... fondness for him. It’s sentimental, but there you have it.” She handed me a hall pass. “I’ll send your message to Pascal. You should go back to class.”
C
HAPTER
26
J
enny Kowalski’s e-mail came through during Journalism. I sat at my work station and let the pointer hover over the subject line, thinking about rumors and how the story you heard was almost never the one that really happened, even in the papers. I thought about how long ago my dad’s trial was, and how over the years, the truth had rippled and faded like an echo, only certain parts coming through. I’d done research, but even the newspaper accounts at the time seemed biased and incomplete, like the authors knew more than they could say. Jenny knew things, and she wasn’t afraid to say them.
She knew Colin, too.
I opened the e-mail, my limbs tingling.
Mo—
Let me know when you want to talk.
J.
I skimmed the first attachment, the unofficial court transcript of my dad’s trial. I’d tried over the years to get a copy of the official version, but it was sealed. This file was the truth, unfiltered by people’s agendas. Without hesitation, I printed it out, hearing the ancient laser printer wheeze to life across the room.
Colin’s file was much smaller, and somehow more complicated. If I looked at it, I was pretty much confirming he couldn’t trust me. But I didn’t see another choice. My uncle had said Colin was free to leave, but he said it with the confidence of a man who knew it was never going to happen. If I was going to help Colin get free, I needed to know what Billy had on him.
I clicked print and headed across the room to pick it up.
“Research?” Lena asked as I scooped up an armload of paper.
“Sort of.” I hugged the stack to my chest so she couldn’t see what it was.
“What time should I pick you up tonight? Seven sound good?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t like I had to worry about my hair and makeup. Usually, the job of running the check-in desk went to some sophomore desperately hoping to get into NHS. This year it would be me, desperately trying not to get kicked out. When I’d hoped for a memorable senior year, this wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind.
“Maybe you could slip in, once everyone’s arrived,” Lena said with obvious pity.
I shrugged. Without Colin, the dance had zero appeal. “What’s the point?”
She shook her head, baffled. “To see and be seen? To witness firsthand the stuff everyone’s talking about on Monday? You are starting to worry me.”
I waved away her concern. “Seven o’clock, right?”
She flashed a grin, twin dimples appearing. “Can’t wait!”
The bell rang and I loaded up my messenger bag, carefully tucking the files inside. Colin’s was such an innocuous-looking sheaf of paper. It didn’t seem possible that his past—the one he hid from me at every opportunity—could be summed up in so few pages. Surely if things were as bad as he implied, the file would have been as thick as a phone book.
When I stepped outside, the wind slapped at me, stealing my breath. Colin lounged against the truck, his only concession to the cold a dark gray knit cap that matched his eyes. I tried not to look guilty as I crossed the sidewalk.
“Your bag looks heavy.” He held out his hand to take it, but I clutched the webbed strap and ducked away.
“No! It’s not too bad, just bulky. I’ve got it.” I was babbling, protesting too much, and he squinted at me for a second before pulling open my door. “Lot of work this weekend?”
“Yeah.” I waited until he’d climbed in and started the engine to continue, holding my fingers up to the heating vent. “It’s like the teachers know we have something fun scheduled and they want to balance it out.”
“Something fun, huh?” There was more than curiosity in his voice. Approval, I thought, as if he was pleased that I was taking his suggestion to act like a normal teenager. “What’s that?”
“The dance. I’m not actually dancing, just taking tickets. Lena’s driving me.”
Abruptly, the mood in the cab shifted, Colin’s expression turning suspicious. He wasn’t storing the gun in the glove compartment anymore, I noticed. He kept it on him all the time, tucked into the holster at his back. “You’re not supposed to go anywhere without me.”
My temper started to crackle like tinder. “You didn’t want to go, and Lena’s staying over tonight.”
“While your mom’s out of town? Is she okay with that?”
“Yes. She thought it might be nice for me to have company.”
The muscles in his jaw jumped. “You can meet her there. I’ll drive.”
“No. If you’re that worried, follow us. You’ll have to sit outside, though. Only ticketed guests are allowed in.”
He ignored the dig. “I can’t believe your mom is letting you stay home while she goes to Terre Haute.”
“I can’t believe you’d think I would go.”
“I’m not crazy about you staying by yourself. Too many people are interested in you.”
“I won’t be by myself. Lena will be there. You said yourself that if Ekomov wanted to hurt me, he would have done it by now.”
We pulled up in back of the house and I felt the tight knot of fear in my chest loosen slightly, the concern he might discover the files in my bag dissipating.
“Are you coming in?” It was our usual routine when I wasn’t working. He’d have a snack and watch sports while I did homework. Sometimes he’d tinker under the hood of the truck or do some little household repair that had been bothering my mom. We’d flirt and joke around, and it was the closest thing to normal since Verity’s death. Sometimes, when the snide comments and sideways glances during school were especially cutting, those moments were all I had to look forward to.
But nothing between us was normal anymore. Nothing was easy. And today, with a bag full of Colin’s secrets resting at my feet, his company was the last thing I wanted.
“Your mom’s home,” he said. “You two should visit before she leaves for Terre Haute. I’ll sit this one out.”
In the kitchen, Mom was wiping down counters and rearranging the pantry, determined to put everything in perfect order before she left. I watched her from the screened porch. She was wiry—small but strong, her hands red from all her work at The Slice. Growing up, I’d watched her roll out countless pie crusts, handling the delicate pastry with confidence. Outside the restaurant or our house, that confidence seemed to evaporate, and the transformation always made me sad. Now, as she darted around the room, I felt a twin rush of affection and irritation. She wore herself out to make things as perfect as they could be, but she refused to see that it was my dad’s fault she had to work so hard.
“You’re home early,” she said, rinsing out the sink. The scent of bleach and artificial lemon filled the air, and my nose wrinkled involuntarily. “Where’s Colin?”
“Outside.”
She looked crestfallen. Something in Colin’s unflappable manner diffused the tension between us. I kept a better hold on my temper when he was around; Mom hovered less. Plus, he loved her cooking. She was always happiest when feeding someone who went back for thirds. Most important, he was dedicated to keeping me safe. For that alone, my mother was ready to have him canonized.
“Daddy’s going to be so disappointed when he sees you stayed home,” she said. “You could still come with.”
I dropped my bag on the recently washed floor and slipped off my Birkenstocks. “It’s been four years. He’s probably not expecting me.”
She shook her head. “He misses you.”
I stifled the urge to tell her that if he really missed us, he should have stuck to accounting instead of branching out into money laundering and embezzlement. Good dads coached soccer. They taught you how to ride a bike. They videotaped your performance in the annual Christmas pageant. They didn’t commit felonies and get arrested at the Fall Festival when they were supposed to be working the beanbag toss.
“He’s coming home soon. You owe it to him to bend a little.”
“What could I possibly owe him?”
She set the sponge down and turned to face me. “Your father sacrificed a great deal for us. You act as though he wanted to leave, but nothing could be further from the truth. It nearly killed him, but he did what he thought was best. For us.”
“You sacrificed, too. Didn’t you ever want ... more?” More kids, a bigger restaurant? A car with a muffler that wasn’t constantly in danger of falling off? A husband to sit next to on Sundays at church? “Nobody should have to work as hard as you do.”
She smiled, a little sadly. “I have a beautiful daughter and a business that brings people happiness. Hard work seems like a small price to pay.”
I picked at a snagged thread on my sweater, feeling petty and ashamed, like my question had diminished all that she’d worked for over the years. “All I meant was, you deserve to be happy, too.”
Turning away, she dumped more Comet into the already-spotless sink and scrubbed feverishly. “I’m content. And when your father comes home, I’ll be happy.”
“You gave up so much.”
“Sometimes you do,” she said over her shoulder. “Sometimes you have to choose between the dreams you’ve carried and the person you love, because without them, the dreams turn to ash. The people you love matter more than ideals. Always.”
I scoffed. “If that were true, Dad would be here, not in prison.”
“Oh, Mo. The truth is always more complicated than you’d like.”
“I’m going upstairs. Schoolwork.” I lifted my bag for emphasis.
Mom swallowed, as if there was something in her throat that wouldn’t quite go down. “I’ll come up in a little bit to say good-bye.”
My room was spotless. Mom had already cleaned in here, no doubt looking for something—anything—to explain my recent behavior. But the only things I’d kept from my time with the Arcs were the strangely fused Covenant rings.
I tossed Jenny’s files onto the bed and leaned against my dresser, staring at the two stacks of pages.
Maybe this was a mistake.
The front door banged. Through my window, I watched my mother approach Colin’s truck with a thermos and a foil-covered plate. She was probably giving him last-minute instructions before she left, like he was a babysitter. It made sense, because deep down, he still saw me as a kid.
He was deliberately keeping me in the dark, trying to protect me, but the dark was where the scariest things lived. I wasn’t going to stay there anymore. I climbed onto my bed and picked up his file.
The first several pages were scans of handwritten reports from Denver Child Services, detailing a visit to the Donnelly-Gaskill home, eleven years ago. The words looked like bruises on the page.
Compound fractures, multiple lacerations, cigarette burns.
Ages eleven, eight, and six.
Mother refused to press charges.
Girl, six, demonstrates play patterns consistent with repeated sexual abuse.
Recommend removal from home.
I pressed my fist to my mouth. The scars across his back made sense now, in the cruelest possible way. My eyes filled, grieving for those kids as I flipped through the other pages. There was no follow-up, no formal report. Nothing to show that the children—Colin and his siblings—had been saved.
The next few pages were a rap sheet for a man named Raymond Gaskill, Colin’s stepdad. A string of thefts, from breaking and entering to auto theft and armed robbery, interspersed with assault charges—domestic and otherwise. In nearly every case, the charges were dropped or the cases dismissed. A few stints in jail, none lasting longer than ninety days. And then, suddenly, nothing.
I turned the page. An EMT logbook—a response to a 911 call in an apartment in Denver, shots fired. A man and a woman, both dead at the scene, and a boy, eight, who’d died en route to the hospital. A girl, six, unconscious with massive head trauma. And another boy, eleven, in shock and badly beaten, with multiple fractures but expected to survive.
Greasy nausea swamped me, and I curled in a ball, trying to stave it off. The image of an eleven-year-old, alone in the ambulance, alone in his pain, wouldn’t go away. And Billy had told me.
A nightmare.
Billy had told me the truth, and I hadn’t believed, because I thought nothing could be as bad as Verity’s murder.
So
stupid
to think I’d cornered the market on misery.
My fingers shook so badly as I turned the page that the paper ripped. I was desperate not to see the catalog of injuries Colin and his siblings had sustained, but it was pointless. I’d see it anyway, for a long, long time.
A newspaper story—a small one, only a few paragraphs, buried on page twelve, about a home invasion that had left a mother and son beaten to death. The survivors, a boy and girl, were handed over to the custody of distant family members. No mention of a stepfather or anyone else at the scene.
I pressed my back into the wall, trying to piece together the information in front of me. Colin’s stepdad had abused the whole family. I remembered the lattice of scars down Colin’s back, and my stomach twisted, picturing how big Raymond Gaskill looked in his mug shot, a hulking brute of a man, and how small an eleven-year-old boy was. How impossibly, terrifyingly unstoppable he would have seemed to a six-year-old girl.