Still Point (7 page)

“I don't think you trust anyone,” I told him. “And that's your weakness. That's why your system is going to fail.”

His eyes shifted to mine. He looked more amused than annoyed. His amusement irritated me. Did he ever take me seriously? I guess my pink hair didn't help
I've grown up and I demand respect
case.

“How do you see that?”

“You're all about power and control. But you hold it all on your own shoulders. It's like trying to hold up a mountain that doesn't have any foundation. You need to spread it out,” I said. “Give everyone a voice. You put all the pressure on yourself. You can't do that. The foundation is everything. You like to imagine it's the other way around. You're standing by yourself, trying to hold up the world, Dad. We're going to topple you.”

“Interesting theory,” he told me.

“New offer,” I said. “I'll wear the tracker so you'll always know where to find me, if that's what you want. I'm not trying to hide anything from you. But then let me talk to my friends.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Maddie, we can't take the risk right now. Your phone could be tapped. Everything you do online, digitally, is followed. I have enough issues over the detention centers to deal with. You are an additional, volatile concern that I can't have loose right now. I need it to look like you're at home and cooperating.”

“Fine,” I said. “I won't interact with anyone digitally. But what if I should happen to see them face-to-face? At least you'll always know where I am.”

My dad thought about this. He knew as well as I did that if something happened outside, it was as if it never happened. No one took the time to wonder about the real world anymore.

He handed me the tracker, and I stuck it on my wrist, below my tattoo. The adhesive rose on my skin like a bug bite.

“Deal?” I asked him.

He nodded and left me there, inside the walls, inside a heavy block of time.

I woke up to the sound of a woman screaming and bolted upright in bed. My hand went to my heart, and for a brief second I thought I was back in the DC, until my soft comforter and Baley's barks howling through the dark house reminded me I was home.

Another high-pitched shriek flooded through my bedroom window. I flipped the covers off my bare legs and pulled back the blinds, but the usual electrical shower of streetlamps was out. It looked as if there was no world beyond my window, just a black, inky canvas.

“On,” I said, and rubbed my eyes, but nothing happened. “On,” I muttered again. I looked around at a pitch-dark room. Did the voice-recognition system cut out? I reached blindly for a pair of shorts at the side of my bed and tugged them on.

My dad's voice called out in the hallway, shouting for Baley to be quiet, and my door tapped open as I was pulling on a sweatshirt.

“The power is out,” he said. Our house generator kicked in, and emergency ribbons of light streamed along the edges of the ceiling. I followed my mom and dad downstairs.

Baley was still barking at the foot of the stairs, and I ran my fingers down her back to quiet her. My mom pulled a white robe tight around her waist, and I opened the curtains in our foyer to look outside.

“All the streetlights are out,” I said. “The whole block must have lost power.”

My mom pointed out a group of people huddled around flashlights and pulled the door open. “Maybe they know what happened.” Her hand hesitantly unlocked the screen door, and Baley took the opportunity. She pushed the screen door wide enough to wriggle through and jumped down the porch steps.

“Baley!” my mom screamed after her.

I grabbed an old leash hanging in the closet and kicked on a pair of tennis shoes. “I'll get her,” I said, and ran past my mom.

“Maddie!” my dad yelled after me, but I ignored him to chase Baley. I spotted her halfway down the block, sniffing the ground, but she started to run when she saw the leash in my hand. Neither of us liked to be tied down. I chased her down the block and around the corner. I smiled as I ran, silently thanking Baley for giving me a reason to be outside. The night air was foggy and cool and smelled sour, a common effect from the wet turf grass.

We sprinted down the dark street, past people fumbling with tiny beams of light. I lost Baley and stopped to listen for her collar tags when a hand suddenly grabbed my arm. Out of instinct, I swung my free arm up to try to elbow whoever was holding me, but the person let go in time to catch my flying wrist and pin it against my side. Before I could scream, a familiar voice cut through my panic.

“It's good to see you too.”

My eyes were still adjusting.

“Justin,” I breathed.

He let go of my arm, and I realized his other hand was holding Baley's collar. I bent down and attached her leash while Justin scratched her ears. My heart was still hammering from the jolt of surprise, and my lungs burned from the sprint.

“What are you doing here?” I panted.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

My eyes adjusted well enough to see him. He was wearing a baseball cap backwards and a black soccer jersey, as if he had been sitting on the couch, bored, and decided to get up and shut down the city power just for kicks. He hadn't shaved in a while, and a light stubble was growing in.

“Look at what you did,” I said. People were stumbling in the grass, fidgeting with flashlights, and staring anxiously around the empty street like being outside at night was as terrifying as a haunted house. One woman tripped over a curb and stared down like she had never seen one before. A tree branch hit her arm, and it made her scream and lash out like she was being attacked.

He smiled. “It's pretty funny sometimes.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you trying to intercept someone?” I asked.

“I was,” he said, and looked at me. “I found her.”

“This was for me?” I asked.

He nodded. “We were interrupted at the benefit.”

I looked around. “You did all this because you want to talk?”

“You don't like my romantic gesture?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes. “I can't call you. How else was I supposed to get you out of the house?”

Someone screamed in the distance.

“Why do you feel the need to cause mass chaos everywhere you go?” I asked him. I wiped off a layer of sweat beading on my forehead.

He took a step closer to me, and even in the darkness I could see his eyes were hard. “Why do you make it so impossible to see you? First a detention center, now the impenetrable fortress of Kevin Freeman?”

“I thought guys liked a challenge.”

He shook his head. “No, we really don't. A little mystery in the beginning is okay, but this is getting old.”

I blew out a sigh. “I know.”

“I needed to see you,” he said. “I want to finish our conversation.”

“That's right,” I said. “Now I get the chance to tell you how I feel about you.”

He grinned. “That you're more in love with me than ever?” he asked.

“No, that you're more of an idiot than ever,” I said.

His smile faded. “What?”

“I didn't leave Eden because I was breaking up with you,” I told him. “I can't believe that idea even crossed your mind.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, Clare tried to explain it to me.”

“And you didn't believe her?” I asked.

A piece of hair broke loose from my ponytail, and Justin brushed it back off my face, letting his fingers linger on my cheek. “I don't like secondhand information. I prefer to hear it from the source.”

“That's why you're here?”

He dropped his hand. “I thought you left California because you were leaving me, but after I saw you last night, I knew I was wrong. That's why I'm here. I came to get you.”

My eyebrows rose. “Right now?”

He nodded and laced his fingers through mine. “Why not?”

“Where would we go?” He looked at me as if he had never contemplated this.

“We'll figure it out,” he said.

“We'd be on the run again.”

“We'd be together,” he pointed out.

I shook my head. “I don't want to hide anymore, Justin. I'm tired of running away. This is where I need to be right now,” I said.

He squeezed my fingers. “Look, I let you rot in that detention center because you convinced me it was what you wanted. And even though it was crazy, I supported you. But it killed me every day you were in there. I can't go through anything like that again.” He gave my fingers a soft tug. “Come with me. I have a car waiting down the street.”

“This is a little different,” I said. “My dad isn't torturing me.”

He let my hand go and took a step back. He looked at me like he didn't recognize me. I couldn't blame him. “You
want
to be here?”

“I don't want to be here, but I need to be.” I looked down at my feet because I didn't want to see his disbelieving eyes at my next statement. “I know it's the best thing.”

He slid his hands over his baseball cap. “You're really messing with my head, you know that?”

I sighed. “I'm sorry. But I have to do this. I need you to trust me, one more time. I started something when I was fifteen that I need to finish. And I hate being here. I'd leave in a second if I could.”

His dark eyes dared me. “Then leave.”

“It's not that easy. I've got my father to deal with.”

“Don't let your dad scare you. Don't let me persuade you, either. Just do what you think is right,” he said. “I spent a lot of time trying to protect you when I first met you, because I didn't know you. And I finally get it. I don't need to protect you. You push people away when they do; you think it's suffocating.”

“True,” I said.

“You can handle anything. Your dad hasn't figured that out yet. So show him.”

I nodded. “That's what I'm trying to do.”

Justin's mouth tightened. His eyes scanned mine for any hesitation, for any way inside. But he couldn't find an opening. “Fine. You're staying. What can I do to speed up your self-induced prison sentence?”

I fidgeted with the leash in my hand. “I might need to do this one on my own.” I looked up at him, and his face was unreadable. “I'm tired of making other people responsible for my problems.”

“Didn't the DC teach you anything? You can't do things by yourself,” he argued.

“Well, there's a slight problem.” I held up my wrist. “A little welcome-home gift. He guessed I'd cave in and run away.”

Justin rubbed his fingers over the small bump that was starting to dissolve under my wrist. He had seen skin trackers before.

“He's not kidding around this time.”

“Nope. He clipped my wings.”

More people were opening doors and talking. Someone laughed. Justin's fingers traced my skin, my wrist, all the way down to my fingertips.

“They'll grow back,” he said, tapping my fingernails.

Justin's hands slid around my waist, and he pulled my body so close to his that I almost gave in. He was the most important thing to me. But that's also why I needed to stay. I was doing this for him as well, for us. His lips were inches from mine. His fingers were in my hair, and then he pulled my face into his hands.

“They're going to have the lights on soon,” he said, his eyes drinking me in. I hadn't kissed him in weeks. I stood on my tiptoes and breathed him in, the soapy smell of skin and lotion. The lights above us started to flicker. We could hear emergency sirens in the distance. I wanted him to stay more than anything else. He added texture to something flat, flavor and color to something dull, heat to something lukewarm, and movement to something fixed so that it all melted and blurred inside of me and around me.

“By the way, this was a very romantic gesture,” I told him. I closed my eyes and waited for him.

His lips grazed mine, but it wasn't a kiss. It was the teasing flitter of a kiss.

“Come with me and I'll promise to do a lot more,” he said, his voice low and raw. My heart tripped and clamored and I reached out for his shoulders, but he pulled away. He turned and walked down the street, leaving me with Baley and legs so wobbly I could hardly walk home.

Student ID #DS1029MF. Submit.

I was done. I finished taking my last graduation exam to finish DS-4. A stadium of claps and whistles filled my room. Voices applauded me. A generic audience surrounded my walls, made up of friends and parents and teachers. They all waved and smiled and offered me digital high-fives. My pixelated image pumped her fists in the air.

I sat at my bedroom desk and stared at the screen and waited for a feeling to take shape. Shouldn't I be relieved? Excited? Proud? Instead, I was confused. What had I actually done? What memories had I made in this place, this school I had been a part of for more than ten years? Who were my friends? I could barely even remember one class from another. I'd never met one of my teachers. I'd never met a single student. I'd never gone to a real dance.

All my social and professional profiles immediately switched to my new status. High School Graduate. A list of congrats flooded my screen. My yellow happiness meter shot straight up.

Before I could second-guess myself, I was bombarded with advertisements.

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Just out of curiosity, I clicked on the last advertisement.

A sultry female voice oozed out of the speakers, cleansing the air.

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