Flame (18 page)

He squeezed along behind the apartments, pausing to listen every few feet until he heard someone singing softly to herself. It wasn’t Waverly’s voice, but it might be her mother’s. He was about to enter when he noticed unmistakable red, yellow, and white surveillance wires snaking into the com system units from behind the kitchen wall. So they were spying on her. He angrily yanked them from their housing and let them dangle loose, then eased into the closet in the master bedroom. He waited until he heard the occupant go into the kitchen, then he sneaked down the hallway to the smaller bedroom and shut himself in.

A quick look around told him this was definitely Waverly’s room. There were historical novels on the bedside table, and the sweater draped over the chair smelled like her. He even found a picture of her on her desk, a bad photocopy of her, and underneath her face was written
LIAR
in bold black letters. He wrinkled his brow, worried. This was definitely something to ask her about.

Then he had nothing to do but lie down on her bed to wait for her.

Only an hour passed before Seth heard Waverly enter the apartment. She said something soft to her mother, her tone of voice sweet and loving. He heard her footsteps come down the hallway, and the door opened, and there she was, standing in the doorway, staring down at him. He’d surprised her. And she’d surprised him, too; she was so beautiful that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

“What are you
doing
here?” she finally hissed. It was worth all the worming around, the sneaking, even the pain, just to see her face.

“Surprised?” he whispered. She closed the door behind her, but she didn’t act happy to see him. She stood with her back to the wall, staring, shaking her head. She looked skinny, too skinny, and her eyes had a darting, haunted look that made him think she must be too scared to sleep at night.

“Once I knew where to look for you, it wasn’t that hard,” he said to her, then wished he hadn’t. It sounded like bragging. “I wanted to see you.”

“Where the hell have you been?” she spat.

He was shocked by her anger. “I’ve been hiding out,” he said, detesting how small his words were. Small—that’s how he used to sound when he tried to explain himself to his father at the beginning of an interrogation. Seth had always known how talks with his father would end: cruel words and fists, then being locked away in a dark closet for hours. These punishments never scared him like they were supposed to; they only enraged him. Now, looking at Waverly, the way her lips glowed red, her eyes pink with veins … he had no idea how this conversation would end. That
did
scare him. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“So you could do what?” She folded her arms over her chest, tapping her heel against the floor with an exaggerated movement that jerked her whole body. “
Rescue
me? There’s nowhere to go.”

A knock sounded at the door. “Waverly?” her mother called. “Everything okay?”

“I’m just watching a vid file,” Waverly said through the closed door, her eyes never leaving Seth.

“Okay,” her mother said doubtfully, but she shuffled away.

Getting here had been the easy part, Seth was beginning to realize. Getting Waverly to forgive him would be another story.

“What do you want?” Waverly whispered, her eyes burning coals.

“Just…” He’d had no hopes for anything tangible, he just needed to see her, hear her voice, be near her. He’d been thinking about her all this time, missing her, wanting her. He’d taken a real chance trying to get here. Anger flared inside him. “I’ve been trying to help. Finding out things. You should be grateful.”

“
Grateful?
Your presence puts me in
danger,
” she hissed. “They have surveillance cameras in this apartment. They might be watching us now.”

“I pulled all the video wires before I came in. There’s no video coming into or leaving this apartment. So you’re welcome.”

“Then they’ll come here to fix it.” She shifted on her feet, looking around the room, near panic. “You always thought you were so much smarter than Kieran! He’d never be so stupid.”

Seth felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. He stood up.

“Princess Waverly doesn’t want me here,” he said, hating the words as soon as they left him, but hurt flooded through him, warping everything. “I’ll go.”

“Don’t call me that again.” She took a half step to block his exit, her eyes narrow, bottom lip trembling. “You need to learn how to fight without burning bridges.”

“Or what?” he said, and God help him he sneered at her scornfully, knowing full well he was making a mistake but unable to control his hurt and rage.

“Or you’ll be alone forever,” she said, her voice rumbling.

The room was small enough that he got a sense of how much taller he was than her. He looked down at her for one heartbeat, two, three …

The old tactics, the power plays, the sarcasm and name-calling, all the old tricks he’d learned from his father—none of that would work with Waverly. Did he want to be the freak his father had made of him, or did he want to be with her?

The old rage fell away.

You’re right,
he ought to say. He knew it. He tried, opened his mouth, made a fist, tried to say it, but …

A long moment stretched between them, long enough for him to see what a terrible mistake he’d made, abandoning her to face these people alone. Had he actually said she should be
grateful
? Now what choice did he have but to stay hidden and separate from her? Maybe forever.

She lifted a hand to her brow, and he could see her fingertips trembling. She was scared. Terrified, he realized. “What have they been doing to you?” he said, realizing this should have been his first question all along. He picked up the picture he’d found of her and held it up. “What’s this?”

“Nothing,” she said as she swiped it out of his hand, balled it up, and threw it in the waste bin. He thought he saw tears forming, but when she looked up at him, her eyes were icy. “You cast your lot when you decided to come alone. Now you have to stay hidden, and I…”

“Waverly,” he whispered, his throat swollen and thick.
Put your arms around her,
he told himself.
Say you’re sorry.

He took a half step toward her; she took a half step away. He couldn’t find his voice to apologize, so he did the only thing he could think of. He pulled her to him, cradled her head on his chest, and held her, held her, held her, the both of them rocking back and forth. Her body was like a rope pulled too tight, but gradually he felt her muscles releasing, and slowly she melted into him. She gulped air, and he felt her tears soaking through his shirt. “Waverly,” he whispered.

A knock sounded at the front door and they both startled. She jerked away from him, looking more scared then ever. “Hello!” her mother said to someone, and a silky male voice responded, though Seth couldn’t hear the words.

“You have to go!” Waverly said to him. “
Now!
”

Waverly went out, motioning for him to slip away through the master closet. He stayed just long enough to swipe the balled-up paper she’d thrown away and shove it in his sweatshirt pocket. Then he slid into her mother’s bedroom closet where he’d left the paneling loose, and into the passageway.

He didn’t like the way she’d jumped at the knock on the door. He needed to know who it was that scared her so. With no regard for silence, he frantically crawled past pipes and ductwork until he spilled back into the maintenance closet, knocking over a jar of a yellow liquid. It smelled strongly of ammonia, but he hardly noticed.

“I’ll be fine,” he heard Waverly’s mother saying to someone in the hallway. “You go have fun,” she said.

Fun?

“Okay,” Waverly said. Seth picked up the bag of supplies he’d left on the shelf and hastily draped it over his shoulder. He didn’t dare open the door yet, so he pressed his ear to the cool metal to listen.

“What’s going on?” Waverly asked the man who’d come for her.

“Something happened,” the man said, sounding urgent. “The doctor wants to see you right away.”

His heart pounding, knowing he should stay hidden but unable to help himself, Seth eased open the closet door and stepped into the hallway. The closet was on the inside corner of the hallway so, with his back to the door, he could peek around the corner to watch the front door of Waverly’s apartment.

A few doors down a guard stood at attention, the picture of military discipline. Waverly emerged from her apartment with a svelte man in his early forties and walked with him to the elevator. The man pushed the call button and Waverly nervously fingered the hem of her sweater, working at the stitches as though trying to make a hole. She stood with her profile to Seth and rubbed at an eye with the knuckle of her index finger, looking stressed and worryingly exhausted. With all his heart Seth wished he could tell her he’d be back, that he hadn’t abandoned her.

The man reached out a hand, snaked it around Waverly’s shoulders, and gave her a gentle shake. He whispered something in her ear and she smiled, nodding as she tugged on a lock of her hair. The blood rose to Seth’s face, and he pressed his fist against his thigh. The man kept his hand on her shoulder until the elevator bell sounded, the doors opened, and they stepped aboard.

All Seth could do was stare at the place where she’d been, his illusions broken. That guy was good-looking, he’d had his hand on her shoulder, and she let him keep it there. No, she didn’t seem to mind it one bit.

She doesn’t love you,
a voice inside him whispered.

“Hey!” The word smacked him into reality, and he turned to look down the corridor behind him, blinking with disbelief.

A group of four guards were running toward him!

“Stop right there!” one of them yelled, pulling a gun from his holster.

Seth jumped across the corridor, jerked open the stairway door, and ran down the stairs. Only a few seconds passed before he heard the guards enter the stairwell above him, one of them shouting, “He’s headed toward the biosphere levels!”

Seth had a six-flight lead at best. He slid down the handrail and landed with a bang. Above the door he spotted something that didn’t belong: A surveillance camera had been set up. They were monitoring stairwells now, too? A long wire snaked from the back of the camera, across the top of the doorframe, and into a freshly drilled hole in the corner—a jury-rigged connection into the com system.

They’d probably seen him come here on surveillance after all! Waverly was right to call him stupid. He’d put her in danger.

Seth jumped up and swatted at the wire, his bag of supplies banging painfully on his hip. The camera came away from the wall and bounced on the stairs behind him, leaving him holding a wire about ten feet long. He could hear the guards a mere two flights above him, closing fast. With a stroke of inspiration, he wrapped the wire first around one handrail and then the rail opposite it, tying it down so the wire stretched across the staircase.

Don’t let them see it,
he prayed as he started running again. A few seconds later, the stairs above him exploded with the sound of heavy male bodies falling, yelling in frustration.

He rounded the next flight, his ears tuned to the men above him. They’d hurt themselves, he could tell from how long it took them to get back up and how much slower they were now. He’d bought himself a lead of about eight floors, but how could he use it?

At every other stairwell landing he encountered another jury-rigged camera, and he pulled the wire out of each of them. This might be futile—a disabled camera was as much of a clue about where he went as a video image. Unless …

He sprinted down eight more flights, yanking the wire out of each camera as he went, listening for his pursuers. They were about twelve floors above him now, but surely they were calling in reinforcements.

He pulled out the last wire from the camera eight floors from where he started pulling wires, but then doubled back up two flights and slipped into the corridor. Now they’d have to search eight whole floors for him.

He slipped into the first door he came to, not even aware where he was going, and stopped short. He was in some kind of lab, a small one, not one of the big main labs in the administrative levels. A man in a white coat was standing with his back to Seth, focused on his work. Without looking up the man said, “Can you bring me those CBC slides, Em?”

Seth ducked behind the row of counters that ran down the middle of the room and peered at the man through a small space between two metal storage cabinets.

“Emily?” the man called out, turning to survey the room. When he saw no one, he switched on a centrifuge. At first it ran silently, but once it sped up, the vibration rattled the dozens of glass beakers and test tubes on the shelves above.

Seth crawled along behind the rows of counters, hoping the noise from the centrifuge would mask his passage. He slipped past the end of the counters and into a shower stall at the back of the room, concealing himself behind the curtain. Water soaked into the seat of his pants. His pulse was birdlike, and he dropped his forehead onto his knees. He heard the centrifuge slow down, then stop, leaving the room silent enough that Seth could hear the scientist counting under his breath.

Who was that guy with her?
Seth wondered, now that he could think.
Why did Waverly smile when he touched her?

He remembered the picture she’d thrown away, and as quietly as he could, he pulled it out of his pocket. Though crumpled, he could see the picture of Waverly was drawn with strong lines in sharp relief. It showed her in profile with her mouth open as though about to speak. And those bold letters:
LIAR.

Something had happened with Waverly. Something serious that scared her badly. Maybe that guy was a part of it. But she hadn’t
seemed
scared of him. It hurt Seth to admit that to himself, but the truth was she seemed to like him.

A door squeaked open. Seth froze.

“Hi!” the scientist said to someone, sounding alarmed.