Conjured (6 page)

“Just for the record, I
am
right, no matter who approves or doesn’t.” Malcolm put his hand protectively on Eve’s shoulder.

“Huh.”

Coming around the desk, Aunt Nicki peered at her as if
Eve were a strange new bug. Eve turned away, but Aunt Nicki caught her chin and tilted her face up. Pulling away, Eve spun toward Malcolm.

“Didn’t her eyes used to be brown?” Aunt Nicki asked.

Ignoring her, Malcolm said to Eve, “Lou wants you to meet a few people. Kids your age. They’re waiting for us in the cafeteria.”

Aunt Nicki jerked to attention. “Them? She can’t!”

“He insists,” Malcolm said, his eyes on Eve.

“Damn, Lou has balls,” Aunt Nicki said. “Stolen from all his prior employees. You have to talk him out of it. You know what they’re like—”

Malcolm rubbed his fingertip against his thumb. “We have no choice. He’s curious, he said. And the other options were worse.”

Aunt Nicki shook her head vehemently. “She’s not the same—”

“She can handle it.” He squatted so their eyes were level. Eve felt herself caught in his intense brown eyes. “Can’t you?”

Eve ignored Aunt Nicki. Malcolm’s eyes were warm and encouraging, as if he hadn’t noticed how she failed him again and again and again. “Of course,” Eve said.

His mouth quirked in a half smile, an expression she’d seen so often on him that she’d memorized it. She remembered all of his expressions. “Good girl,” he said.

As Eve trailed after Malcolm through the halls and between the cubicles, she listened to the
whoosh
of the air conditioner,
the hum of the server room, and the churn of a printer as it spat out pages.
This isn’t right
, she thought. She knew this place better than she knew any place, and it didn’t … sound right. She should hear the receptionist’s radio. At least one TV should be tuned to the local news. The police scanner should be crackling with voices. More important, the offices should be filled with marshals and their staff. Their conversations on the phone, to witnesses, and to one another should have drowned out the air conditioner and the computers.

The quiet made her skin prickle.

After she passed the third empty interrogation room, Eve asked, “Where is everyone?”

Malcolm pointed to a red light that flashed on the ceiling. “High profiles on the floor. Only essential personnel in the office. Best to limit exposure.”

“Is that who I’m to meet?” she asked. She wondered what “high profile” meant and why it was important to limit exposure.

“It’s ‘whom,’” Malcolm said.

“Whom,” Eve repeated dutifully.

“Never met anyone who didn’t sound pretentious saying ‘whom,’ though. Best to just imitate what people say and not overthink it. If you start thinking about it, English doesn’t make much sense. For example, the plural of ‘tooth’ is ‘teeth,’ but the plural of ‘booth’ isn’t ‘beeth.’ The word ‘abbreviation’ isn’t short. Neither is ‘monosyllabic.’”

He halted outside the cafeteria, and the lecture abruptly ended.

“Did you teach me everything I know?” Eve asked.

“No,” he said.

“Who did?”

“You did,” he said. “You listened; you learned.” He rapped her forehead lightly. “You. Not me. Not Lou. Not anyone.” He glanced at the cafeteria door. “That’s something not everyone understands. You know more than you think you do, more than you believe you remember.”

But I don’t remember!
she wanted to shout. She didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped. Instead, she followed Malcolm’s gaze, looking at the cafeteria door. It was blue, with a notice that read INTERAGENCY BILLIARDS RESCHEDULED, TUESDAY, 4:00 P.M. It also had a no-smoking sign, a poster with instructions for what to do if someone were choking, and a reminder to follow security protocol. Eve heard three voices through the door: two male and one female. She noticed that the muscles in Malcolm’s neck had bunched up.

Eve listened to the voices, but they were muffled by the door. She couldn’t distinguish individual words. “Are they connected to my case?” she asked. “Will they help me remember?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “After this, I’ll take you for pizza. Garlic knot crust. Kills your breath for hours, but worth it.” He pushed open the cafeteria door and then added in a low voice, “Don’t provoke them. Don’t question them. Don’t trust them.”

Inside was the cafeteria: yellow-and-green floor, round metal tables with chairs, refrigerator, water cooler. Before she’d moved in with Aunt Nicki, Eve had eaten here, either food that the agents brought for her or food from the vending machines
that sold vacuum-sealed sandwiches, wilted salads, and hardboiled eggs of dubious freshness.

It felt a little like she was home.

She decided that was the saddest feeling she’d had yet.

Opposite the vending machine and kitchenette was a lounge area with a pool table, a TV, and a brown couch. The couch was backed against a wall-size mirror that Aunt Nicki had once said was designed to make the cafeteria look larger than it was—a stupid effect, she’d said, since it made you feel as though you were being watched. Eve tried to remember when they’d had that conversation, but she couldn’t.

Two boys, each about sixteen or seventeen, were at the pool table. One leaned on the table, and the other lounged against the wall. Both had the same studied ease as models at a fashion shoot. Their faces were sculpted and smooth, as if carved from marble or ice, and she could see the curve of muscles against their shirts.

On the couch was a girl, also sixteen or seventeen, with blue-black hair. Her tanned legs were tucked under her and her head was cocked to the side, resting on her hand, as she flipped through a book. She was as beautiful as a statue, too, and if it weren’t for the way she turned the pages, Eve would have thought she was made of molded plastic.

Malcolm propelled Eve into the room in front of him. “Kids, this is Eve.”

All three of them swiveled their heads to look at her.

Instinctively Eve shrank backward. She bumped into Malcolm. Solid as a wall, he didn’t budge. All three sets of eyes
stared at her without blinking. She stared back. Looking at them felt like looking at herself in the mirror. Like her new face and body, they were all too perfect.

One of them—the boy who was leaning against the pool table—broke into what looked like a well-rehearsed smile, wide enough to seem friendly but with enough of a twist to convey boyish charm. “Welcome!” he said. His blond hair fell lazily over his eyes, and he pushed it back as if aware that the gesture made him look even more handsome. He was holding a pool cue in his other hand. He twirled it in a circle and then laid it down on the pool table. “We were about to play a new game. You can join us, Eve.”

“Can she?” the other boy asked. He raised one eyebrow in a perfect arch. Again, it looked like a rehearsed expression, or like he was a marionette whose master had twitched a string. He had brown hair that was so perfectly still it looked as if it had been carved out of wood. She wondered how she knew what a marionette looked like—did Malcolm show her one, or had she learned on her own?

“Aw, Big Scary Agent Man looks nervous.” The girl’s lips curved into a smile, which she aimed like a weapon at Malcolm. “Don’t worry. We’ll play nice.”

Eve felt Malcolm squeeze her shoulder as if to reassure her—or warn her. “I have a report to file for Lou,” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour. Eve …” His face tightened, as if he wanted to say something and then changed his mind. “I will be back.” He exited before Eve could formulate a reply other than
Don’t leave me with these people
.

Plastering a smile on her face, Eve took a step backward
toward the door. She thought of the look on Aunt Nicki’s face and the red light in the hall that had emptied out the agency. She shouldn’t have said she could handle this, at least not without clarification. It wasn’t at all comforting to think that this was Lou’s idea, not Malcolm’s.

The boy with the purposefully tousled hair left the pool table and strode across the cafeteria with his hand outstretched. “I’m Aidan. You must be scared. This is all so different, and Mr. Strong Silent Type—”

“His name is Big Scary Agent Man,” the girl corrected.

“—didn’t explain much, I bet, when he extracted you from your home and family.” Aidan clasped Eve’s hand. She started to shake his hand as Malcolm had taught her, but Aidan twisted her wrist and kissed the back of her hand. His lips felt cool, like water.

The black-haired beauty on the couch spoke again. “Aidan, quit flirting with the new girl. You’ll scare her off, and I need someone new to talk to. The last batch of innocents bored me to tears. Really, they need to set higher standards—he only targets the best of the best.” She uncoiled herself and laid her book, a slim volume with the title
Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka, on the couch. She crossed to Eve but didn’t offer to shake hands. “Except for your eyes, you could pass for my sister. The younger one, not the dead one.”

Up close, Eve could see her eyes were golden, the color fading into the white so only thin crescents of white framed the gold. Her pupils were like black lightning strikes in the center. She had lion eyes. Or snake eyes. Not human eyes.

Eve tried not to let any reaction show on her face.

“I’ve chosen the name Victoria,” the snake-eyed girl said. “I think it has flair.”

Aidan continued to smile. “I’m Aidan, as I said, and that’s Christopher, though he prefers to be called Topher, which is idiotic but we tolerate it.”

Topher still lounged against the wall. “I choose to be less generic.” He had clean-cut hair and a chiseled jaw, and wore a V-neck sweater and khaki pants. He could have stepped out of any magazine in the agency lobby. “‘Topher’ is sophisticated yet casual.”

“‘Topher’ is a douche,” Aidan said.

“Enough.” Victoria waved her hand lazily at the boys as if she were a queen silencing peasants. Topher tipped an imaginary hat at her in response.

“Excuse us. We love meeting people like us. You’ll have to forgive our enthusiasm.” Aidan’s voice was lazy and smooth. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. None of them did. The girl regarded Eve as if she were a potentially interesting specimen, and the other boy wore a sneer that bordered on hostile.

She found her voice. “That’s … fine.” People like us?

Aidan smiled again, as if they were already firm friends. “Of course, we can’t ask the usual nice-to-meet-you questions, like where are you from and who is your family. That wouldn’t be appropriate here. Rules, you know.”

Eve nodded, grateful for the rules. She wouldn’t have to explain why she couldn’t answer simple questions like where she was from.

“But you
can
tell us a few choice tidbits,” Victoria said. “Such as, what can you do?”

Eve thought of the birds on the wallpaper and the change to her eyes. Once, she’d caused a forsythia bush to bloom out of season. Another time, she’d lit a candle in Malcolm’s office without matches. She didn’t think she could talk about any of that. “I have a job at a library. I think that means I can alphabetize.”

Aidan laughed. He had a cascading chuckle that filled the room. At least she’d succeeded in making one of them laugh, though it didn’t seem to help. The air still felt stifling, and the room felt crowded with just the four of them.

“Harsh,” Topher said. “They’re making you work? Oh, tell me she doesn’t come from peasant stock. Does she smell like a goat? I can’t abide goats. Filthy garbage-eaters.”

“I
don’t
work, at least not for them.” Victoria examined her nails and frowned at one. Her nail polish was infused with glitter. “You should have made that clear when you arrived. They are required to ensure that we’re comfortable. Proper treatment was established decades ago, long before our case.”

“It’s fine,” Eve said, thinking of Zach. She’d liked talking to him. Words seemed to tumble out of his mouth. She’d also liked being within walls of books. There, she’d felt as close to safe as she could remember. Here … she didn’t.

She shot a look at the clock, but only a few minutes had passed since Malcolm left. Aidan noticed her gaze. “You’re right, Eve,” he said. “We should start our game before we run out of time.”

Victoria slipped her arm around Eve’s waist. “Think of it as a getting-to-know-you activity. Your chance to prove that you’re cool enough to hang out with us. We all went through it.”

“I don’t …” Eve tried to step away, but Victoria swept her toward the pool table.

“Oh, you’ll love it,” Victoria said. In a conspiratorial whisper, she added, “It’s so very invigorating.” She passed the pool table and positioned Eve next to the mirror wall in one corner of the cafeteria.

“But I don’t know the rules,” Eve objected.

“There are no rules.” Victoria wiggled her fingers at her and then scooted to another corner. “Except stay in your corner until I say ‘go.’” Aidan and Topher chose the other two corners, one by the vending machine and the other by the water cooler.

“I don’t—” Eve began.

“Ready?” Victoria said.

Topher raised his hands, palms out. Sparks danced between his fingertips as if his hands were electrified. Eve felt words die in her throat as she stared at the sparks.