Stray (14 page)

Gil pulls a rumpled copy of
The Collegiate Times
from his backpack and smooths out the front page. A comic strip titled “The Angel Avenger Strikes Back”. Three panels. A scantily clad cheerleader, leering, nails like talons, gripping the rippling chest of a hypnotised boy. A leggy Lara Croft, vaulting a beverage table, eyes burning with vengeance, braid trailing, chest thrust forwards. The boy fainting in Lara Croft’s arms, her eyes smoking and next to them a smouldering pile of ash topped with pompoms. “I’m not sure this is a fair or accurate representation of our Skipper.”

I can’t even work my way to outrage. “Um …”

“Too many ums, Van. I’m not liking the ums. You know there’s no way he’d ever–”

“No. Gil, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what? You had a fight? People have fights.”

Vision blurring, I frown at the floor, the ringing in my ears growing louder.

“Van,” Gil drops his voice low. “Tell me you haven’t broken up with him. I can’t be on suicide watch.”

I lift my head, biting the inside of my cheek. I rest my hand in the middle of his chest and give a tremulous smile. “You’re very sweet, but I can’t do this.”

I step away, not looking back when he calls my name, ignoring the curious glances of other girls and boys, the fevered chattering of the cheerleaders, heads now huddled together.

I. Won’t. Cry
.

As I approach Kitty and Pete, Pete looks up and his smile wavers. He releases Kitty’s hand … then I realise he’s worried I’ll tell Jamie.

“It’s okay.” My reassuring pat jars his shoulder and my voice sounds stupid and jolly. “I won’t tell.”

He grimaces and rotates his arm in the socket.

“Hmph,” Kitty snorts. “Jamie can pull his head in.”

Pete tucks his dark hair behind his ears, his expression morose. “He’s just, you know, being a brother.”

“Don’t defend him.” Kitty knots her arms then notices my expression. “Are you okay? Have you been crying? Oh God, it’s not Angelo’s T-shirts? Evs, you can’t take them seriously. The
Not without a mint
ones died off, these will too.”

“I need to talk to you. It’s kind of private.”

“No sweat.” Pete gives me the same wary look I saw on Gil’s face. “I’ll see you later, Kit.”

She barely acknowledges his goodbye, taking in the full wreck of my pallor and shadowed grooves beneath my eyes. “This isn’t about T-shirts, is it? What’s going on? Have you slept? You look like … like–”

“Crap. I know.” I lean past the edge of the locker to peek through a classroom door. “We can talk in here.”

Kitty follows me in. I shut the door behind her and pull the blind down.

“What’s going on?” she demands. “Where have you been? You haven’t answered any of my messages and no car pool this morning.”

“Miriam dropped me off. I’m grounded.”

“Is this about your sleepover?” Her lips retract like she’s tasted something revolting.

“He told you?”

“As if.” She shudders. “I heard Barb going on at Dad about Jamie staying out all weekend. I put two and two together.”

“All weekend?”

“Listen, you’re my best friend and all but I do not want to know what you and my brother have been–”

“We broke up.” The words stick together.

“What?”

“They came for me, Saturday. It’s over.”

Kitty sits slowly on the edge of a desk, her hand coming to her mouth.

“They gave me a tracker, they questioned me and–” I spread my hand over my abdomen and my mouth dries. I won’t tell her about that.

“Affinity?” she whispers, her hand sliding up the back of her neck.

“Didn’t Jamie explain?”

“He only came home this morning. I didn’t see him. Barb said he had a shower, changed his clothes and left for school without me. She was upset but I thought that was because he’d been at your place.”

I shake my head. Where on earth did he go without shoes or a jacket?

Her brow puckers. “Hang on. They came for you and you’re still here.”

I stumble over the explanation of the reprieve that I don’t even understand.

“Early Detection …” she says, murmuring to herself, looking thoroughly creeped out. “And they made you break up? How exactly do they police that?”

I gesture at the back of my head, still biting hard on the inside of my cheek.

Her face crumples. “Oh God, Evs. No wonder you look like hell. You poor thing …
poor Jamie
. He’ll go mad. He’s in love with you. You know that?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Not for long.”

She comes and wraps her arms around me. “Don’t say that.”

“You don’t understand,” I say, mumbling into the top of her head.

“What?” She strokes my back.

I stall at the cliff edge of my point, mute with fear.

“Evs,” she chokes. “
Too tight
.”

I release her and she takes a step back, pressing her hand to her chest. I still stand there, paralysed before the abyss.

“You’re scaring me.”

Say it. Tell her. Now. “They’re going to kill Aiden.”

She stops blinking. “They told you that?”

“No. They don’t know anything about him but they will as soon as they take me in. They’ll Harvest my memories; I won’t be able to stop them.”

“But if you explain about everything – I mean, he’s deactivated, right?”

“They won’t care and they won’t take the risk.”

“But surely–”

“Kit, I’m telling you, they’ll kill him. Jamie and Miriam both said there’s no way Aff … there’s no way
they’ll
let him live.”

Her eyes grow wide. “You’re going to do something.”

I drop my gaze. “I need your help.”

There’s no reply.

The seconds string out and I force myself to look up, prepared for her disgust, and disbelief, but her face is set. “To do what?”

“He won’t run. We told him, warned him they’ll come and what they’ll do but he refused. He’s afraid he’ll Spark again. He thinks he deserves what’s coming.”

I wait for her face to harden, for her to say that’s right, it’s exactly what he deserves, but instead her expression grows more intent.

“I have to prove to him that he’s deactivated,” I explain.

She stares past me. “And I’m the proof?”

“I don’t think he’ll believe it until he feels it for himself, but it would mean getting you two in the same room. I’d be right there. I wouldn’t let him hurt you.”

Her eyes move sharply to my face, but still no outrage or horror, just a penetrating gaze. “Like an allergy test.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You think he’s fully cured? Or just where I’m concerned?”

“I believe he’s cured.” I go over it again, the dramatic release in the hospital when my blood and KMT entered Aiden’s system, the breaking of the tether, the absence of fear in the bandwidth. “I’m certain he is, but … I can’t guarantee it. What I need is the chance to find out. Buy him some time. Get Doctor Sullivan to run some tests. If I can present them with hard evidence, then they have to listen to me.”

“Doctor Sullivan? The guy who–”

“Yes, I called him last night.”

“Won’t he get in trouble?”

“I explained the risks.”

She shakes her head. “When?”

“Are you saying you’ll help me?”

There’s a tremor in her lips but she nods again.

I drop my face into my hand. I can’t speak.

“I’ve thought about this before, Evs,” she says, astonishing me with her calm. “Okay, not this exact scenario, but big-picture wise, and if this were all reversed, I’d want to save my brother too.”

I lift my head to look at her through bleary eyes. “You could get in a lot of trouble. It would mean lying to your folks, lying to your brother.”

The full realisation dawns on her face of what her family will think about her helping me and she whispers, “Jamie.”

“It’s a lot to ask, I know.”

She doesn’t disagree but squares her jaw. “When?”

“Today. This afternoon, if I can get another appointment.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “That soon? Have you really thought this through?”

“I haven’t slept in two days. I’ve done nothing but think, Kit.” I tell her my fears for Miriam, the threat of “discipline” hanging over her already, my need to act before she does, the amnesty that applies to the uninitiated that I hope will buy me a pardon. Though that last part is for Kitty’s sake; I’m past caring about what they’ll do to me. I tell her about my grandparents’ holiday home and my pop’s jeep. I explain that it will take time for the doctor to process Aiden’s blood, but if I can get him out of the detention centre he can go to the holiday home, take the jeep and stay on the road until we have the results.

“What if he still refuses to run, even after the allergy test?”

“I’m busting him out whether he likes it or not.”

Kitty’s mouth falls open. “Right there and then?”

“
No
. Tonight. And you’ll be long gone. I promise.”

She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “How exactly would you bust him out?”

“I’m a Shield,” I say, my voice small. “I’ll break in. It needs to look like he’s being taken against his will anyway.”

“You could get
killed
.”

“He’s in the minimum-security wing of a psych ward, Kit. It’s not a proper jail. They’d taser me at worst. The facility borders the forest. It would be dark and if I’m quick, quiet–”

“
Taser you at worst?
That’s mental! You could go to jail.”

“
They
would come for me,” I say, darkly certain.

She presses her palms to her temples. “You have a tracker in your neck.”

“They’d have no reason to be concerned unless my signal showed signs of distress.”

“You mean like being
tasered
?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“What about Miriam? You’re grounded. Won’t she get suspicious if you don’t come home?”

“I can handle Miriam.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she says with a snort. “And you really think they’ll pardon
all
this?”

Dizziness hits me again and I lean on the edge of a desk, weak with worry and fatigue. “I don’t think they’d kill me.”

“Very bloody reassuring.”

“Your brother, on the other hand …”

She doesn’t argue, doesn’t try to say that Jamie will understand, forgive me or come to terms with it in time. She knows too well what it will mean to him and lets out a heavy sigh. “God help us both.”

Kitty fidgets in the sterile waiting area, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She wears a large, form-concealing puffer jacket, but it’s warm in here and she must be uncomfortable. She scratches her head through the woolly beret and tugs it lower at the back of her neck, poking blonde strands up beneath its hem. We only need to delay recognition for a few moments. Worst-case scenario, Aiden realises it’s Kitty and runs screaming from the room, but a second or two should be enough for me to read the bandwidth.

“Sit still,” I whisper, not looking at the security camera in the corner of the ceiling. “At least try to act less suspicious.”

The administrator didn’t quibble about another visit so soon and non-family members are allowed in minimum security, but my anxiety peaked at our second hurdle. Kitty had to sign the visitor’s register and show her ID. Did the court suppression of Aiden’s case cover the details of the Gallaghers’ involvement? Or would they stop her from seeing him? Would Aiden be warned and refuse to see us? I filled in the “relationship to patient” field as “sister and schoolfriend”, hoping that would be enough. The administrator had merely smiled and waved us through the metal detector to the smartly upholstered seats.

A counsellor steps out of the office, a greying, curly-haired woman in jeans and vest, lanyard and spectacles rattling on her thin chest. She smiles a non-smile, lips pressed back, not up, as she takes us in with a brief glance before scanning her clipboard. “Shouldn’t you girls be in school?” But she’s already moving towards the double doors, untangling her ID card from her glasses, waving it in front of the security panel.

“Study period.” My heart punches inside my throat, as though fighting its way out, and I rise on doubtful legs. Kitty too, almost translucently pale, as though she might fall over if anyone looks directly at her. We follow the counsellor through the heavy doors, but there’s no ominous feeling like my last visit with its horror-movie corridor. This has the feel of a clinic. There’s a water cooler and alcoves to the left and right with whiteboards and foam-covered benches as seats. We glimpse an activities room where patients watch television, play table tennis, use computers and help themselves in a small kitchen. Laughter rises from one alcove where a counsellor sits talking with a patient dressed in grey marl, and I feel as if a pressure valve has been released in the top of my head. This place is nothing like the maximum-security psych ward. I notice windows on the left, unlatched and half open.

The counsellor leads us to a corner alcove with a carpeted sitting area that has its own sink and electric jug. No security cameras that I can see. There’s a sliding glass door, framed with blue drapes, that opens onto a small courtyard. The potential ease of access makes me giddy.

She invites us to sit and leaves to fetch Aiden, who has been “settling in well”. As soon as the woman steps away, Kitty hovers to my side, her eyes huge. “Evie – Evie. I don’t know. I’m freaking out.”

Pressing my guilt down deep, I take her by the arms and force her to look at me. “You can do this. I am right here. Nothing is going to happen to you. Aiden’s safe. Today will prove it.” I’m distantly aware of sounding like Miriam managing a crisis; cool, commanding, ruthless. Inside, I’m as certain as a soap bubble. “I need you, Kit. He’s my brother.”

After a shaky breath, she nods and takes the chair with its back to the corridor, curling her shoulders and pinning her hands between her knees. Aiden won’t know who she is until he crosses the room. I position two more chairs to make an efficient triangle, coffee table in the middle as a psychological barrier, and sit so he’ll see my profile on approach.

I try to relax and let my focus turn inwards. The bandwidth crackles and clears. I’m aware of my pulse, Kitty’s too – a chaotic gallop. I anticipate Aiden’s signal, so different from when we shared Kitty as a Spark, like it’s been scrubbed clean. When I feel it, my hope soars.
He’s coming. He’s coming
. Either they haven’t told him Kitty’s here or they have and he’s coming anyway. The second option is a long shot, but wishing for it makes me hopeful. I have to control my face. I look at Kitty and she stiffens. I hold her gaze and reach deeply into the bandwidth as though my signal is an elastic mass that I can push out from myself. I picture it pulsing in a widening diameter. Aiden’s signal is clear, distinct like a person’s voice is from another’s. I guess he’s at the end of the corridor and note the strength in his signal as he nears. “Lower your head.”