The Marked (11 page)

“We’ll deal with them,” I promised. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

I headed back to my room, memories of the night swirling through my head. Cam, fighting like a ninja from some kung fu movie. Anna, accusing me of calling in the Irin. Barrett, eyes flashing, telling me I wasn’t ready. And the boy in the long coat. The boy I feared I knew.

I grabbed the handles on the bottom drawer of my dresser, jerking it hard when the old, warped wood refused to move. I must have been rougher than usual, because I knocked over the two silver frames I had on top, with their faded photos of me and my mom and dad just before they died. I was standing the pictures back up when I saw the note, carefully folded into a little tent, my name written across the front in narrow, arching black letters.

My heartbeat roared in my ears. I picked up the note with trembling hands and tore it open.

They’re still lying. Ask them where the Irin came from. Ask them what happened to Ethan Hannigan. Call me if you want to know the truth.


There was a phone number. I swallowed hard.

Jack had returned.

I JAMMED
the letter into my back pocket, then forced myself to grab my pajama bottoms and T-shirt and head for the bathroom. After I’d locked the door and turned on the water in the sink, I took out the letter and stared at it. My palms began to sweat as I gripped the sheet of paper. It felt hot under my fingers, like it might burst into flames if I held it too long.

I don’t know how long I looked at that number, but the hot water from the sink fogged up the mirror, and I knew Grandma would be banging on the door soon, asking what was going on. I had to make a decision. I should have destroyed the letter as fast as I could, but my hands refused to move. Finally, I dug my cell phone out of my pocket, selected “new contact,” and paused. It seemed dangerous to use Jack’s name, so I typed
Ethan Hannigan
instead. I entered the number from Jack’s note carefully, erasing and retyping when my trembling fingers missed the keys. If anyone found it, I figured I could say I had a cousin with that name.

When I was finished, I ripped the letter into tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet. If Anna or her friends were somehow watching my house, I didn’t want to keep any evidence that Jack had contacted me. I might already have been in trouble.

Yet I couldn’t throw away a chance to talk to Jack. Not after all we’d been through.

I’m the first to admit Jack and I hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms. He had wanted me to come with him, and I had stayed. I chose Cam and Delcroix over Jack, and he knew it. Still, I felt a bond with him that was difficult to explain—a bond that made it hard for me to believe he’d gone and joined the Irin.

And there was the small matter of the kiss we’d shared in my backyard. I tried not to think about it, because I had a boyfriend now. But still. He was the first boy I’d ever kissed. It wasn’t as if I could erase it from my memory.

I knew he had been terrified when he left, on the run from a pack of very determined Watchers. But Jack wouldn’t have hurt anyone. If the Irin were truly bad, Jack
couldn’t
have gotten involved with them.

Could he?

It didn’t help my confusion that, even after talking to Cam, things still didn’t add up. Why did a group of teenagers hate Delcroix so much? Cam had said there were hundreds of cells, all over the world. Were they all frustrated bad guys who wanted to take over the world?

There had to be more to their story. I wished I could have ignored it, but Jack’s note was right—Cam was hiding something.

I shook my head sourly. And I’d thought once I was in the Program there would be no more secrets.

I stared at the phone for a long time. Then, unable to believe what I was doing, I pushed the button.

“It’s about time you called.”

I jerked to my feet, heart racing at the sound of the familiar voice.

Black hair, silver eyes, smile lurking at the corner of his mouth.

Helping me over the Wall at orientation. Laughing with me during ethics.

Doing chemistry homework together in the commons.

Jack.

“Hey,” I gulped, trying to sound casual. “What’s up?”

He chuckled. “Not much. Have a good night?”

“Parts were good. Where are you?”

“I move around,” he said. “I can’t say more than that.”

I had to force myself to breathe. All I could think of was the Watchers and their guns. “Are you safe?”

I could imagine the little ironic grin as he spoke. “As much as I’ll ever be. How about you? What’s Button-Down up to these days?”

Despite everything, I had to laugh. Jack was the one who had coined the name Button-Down for the dictator-in-training who shared my room. “Catherine’s her usual self. She reinforced the tape dividing our closet just last week. Hennie thinks there’s something going on with her parents. She’s been particularly mean lately.”

Jack snorted. “You can tell the difference?”

“I guess I’ve actually been feeling sorry for her,” I said.

“That
is
strange. Everything else okay? Is it different now that you know their secret?”

The last time I had seen Jack, he had just uncovered the truth about the Program. But I couldn’t be sure how much he understood about the Watchers and the Governing Council. So, while I wanted to tell him about everything—Initiation, classes with Mr. Fritz, and Barrett—I knew I couldn’t.

Instead, I mentioned the one thing I figured was safe to complain about. “I think Anna’s spying on me. But it’s just her, not the other guys.”

Jack made a sound of disgust. “Don’t be too sure.”

“I’m probably just being paranoid.”

“You’re away from the windows, right? Not in the living room, I hope?”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

“Good. Sit on the floor,” he instructed. “By the door.”

I did as he said, crossing my legs in front of me. “Jack, what’s going on?”

“You need to get out,” he said.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. “We’ve been through this. I don’t
want
to get out. I want to learn from them.”

“They’re not what you think.”

“Neither are the people you’re mixed up with,” I said.

There was silence.

“What do you know about us?” he asked.

“That you’re called the Irin,” I said, “and you’re dangerous.”

“Do you want to know who Ethan was?”

“No.”

“He was a student at Delcroix who was too powerful, so they killed him. They claimed he was unstable and committed suicide, but he had a twin sister who refused to believe their lies. That’s how the Seattle group got started. She knew what the Watchers were capable of, and she wanted to protect people like her brother. People like me. People who would be dead if they didn’t have someone to help them.”

I held my hand in front of my eyes, wishing I could wipe away the picture he’d drawn in my mind. “I don’t believe you.”

“Yes, you do.”

I swallowed hard. “I have to go, Jack.”

“There are stories like Ethan’s all over the world. They say it’s all for good, but it’s still killing, Dancia. They’ll try to make you believe they’re right and we’re wrong, but the lines aren’t that clear. They want power just like we do. We just don’t fool ourselves into thinking that we’re doing it for some noble purpose.”

That was all I could handle. “I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have called. I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t let them do this to you,” he said. “They’ll eat you alive. You’ll start to believe them, and then it will be too late.”

“Good-bye, Jack,” I whispered. “Be careful.”

I shut the phone. The screen went blank, but two words stayed lodged in my mind.

Ethan Hannigan.

Why couldn’t I have left well enough alone?

I rode the Silver Bullet to school Monday with only a few other freshmen and none of the upperclassmen. Most people stayed at school over the weekends now, even Hennie and Esther. With spring break only a few weeks away, everyone had exams coming up and nobody wanted to waste time traveling. The only ones who went home were freshman who lived in or around Seattle.

Well, freshmen from Seattle and Catherine, to be precise. Catherine’s parents flew her home to California every weekend. This, despite the fact that they were rarely home themselves.

I walked around school that morning in a daze, seeing Watchers and the Irin in every corner. One of the art classes had put up a new photography exhibit in the front hall over the weekend, and it seemed half the school was crowding in front of the pictures. They were weird and artsy—pictures of old cars, parking lots, and chain-link fences. I didn’t understand those pictures any better than I understood anything else at Delcroix, and I couldn’t fight the mix of frustration and sadness I felt with every image I saw. I had no idea whom I could trust and who was lying, but I feared the answers were “no one” and “everyone.”

I expected Esther to pounce on me as soon as I got to school, but I didn’t see her until chemistry. When I arrived at class she was sitting in the back row, pulling homework out of her backpack.

I used to sit in the last row with Jack. We’d started passing notes to each other the first week of school. When he left, Esther moved next to me, which was fun but not nearly as helpful. Esther and I passed notes about boys, our horrible hair, and our teacher’s questionable fashion sense. When Jack and I had passed notes, it was actually about class.

Jack loved chemistry. He didn’t like to admit it, but he did. I guess that made sense, given that he was an Earth Talent, like me and Barrett. Jack had the power to change states of matter—liquid to gas, solid to liquid. We’d talked once about his turning a person into a gas. He’d said he’d never tried it because he wasn’t sure if he could reassemble them in the same exact shape they’d been when he started.

What if he tried it now? What if the Irin made him do it?

Hennie sat in the front of the class, four rows ahead of us, her hair in a long shiny braid down her back. She said if she sat next to us, we would get her into trouble. Still, she wasn’t too scared to lean against Yashir, who sat on her left, and whisper while our teacher’s back was turned.

I plopped down into the seat next to Esther and opened my notebook. Mr. Abbas started right in on Boyle’s law, his notes projected onto the screen in front of the class. Jack would have been thrilled. He’d started studying Boyle’s law back in September.

I stabbed the paper with my pencil and scowled. I
had
to stop thinking about Jack.

Esther sighed and stretched, dropping a note on the floor behind my desk. I waited for a few seconds and then turned around to extract my textbook from my backpack. While doing so, I snagged the note.

Trevor blew me off.


I paused and shot her a quick glance. Her usual smile had been wiped off her face, and her dark eyes radiated despair. She looked just like Greta Garbo, whom she’d been studying in her acting class. Her usually unruly hair fell from her face in smooth waves, and her lips formed a perfect red bow.

What happened? Did you make some kind of move on him?


I threw the note back in her direction.

We dutifully nodded and gave Mr. Abbas our full attention as he faced the room, then hurriedly passed another round of notes as soon as his back was turned.

I saw him in the cafeteria on Saturday, and he kept looking at me. Then in the library he sat across the table from me. We talked for a little while and I was super excited and then he got a text and that was it. He practically got up midsentence and left me there. I saw him walk out with Anna, so I know it wasn’t anything important. In English today he said he had a meeting and was sorry for walking out on me. But I know he was lying! What meeting could he have had with Anna that was so important?!


I raised my hand and answered a question to show Mr. Abbas I was paying attention. I got the answer wrong, but he was one of those teachers who always wanted to build your self-esteem, so he was nice about it. When he turned to Hennie to get the correct answer, I scribbled a response and slid the note back to Esther.

I’m sure he wouldn’t have lied to you.


I had a feeling I knew exactly what Trevor’s meeting was about, but I still wanted to wring his neck. I didn’t want to think he was deliberately trying to hurt her, but it was hard to believe he was oblivious to what she must have thought.

Esther sighed deeply and turned to face me. She seemed close to tears. “I asked him if he wanted to get together after school today,” she whispered, “but he said he was busy and probably would be for the next couple of weeks. He’s just trying to avoid me. It’s obvious.”

Mr. Abbas cleared his throat, and we set our pencils back to paper. I wondered what Trevor and Anna talked about over the weekend. I would have bet that Trevor was busy with something to do with the Irin.

As soon as class ended, I jumped up, reached out my hand, and pulled Esther to a standing position. Gently, I shook her by the shoulders, relieved to have something to think about besides my new obsession with the Irin. “Never fear, you
will
love again, darling.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll never find anyone to love me back. I’ve lost my touch. I’m a has-been.”

I rolled my eyes at all the drama. “Oh, please, Esther, you’re getting carried away, aren’t you?”

If she was kidding, she masked it well. Tears pooled in her eyes, and I could see beyond a doubt that it wasn’t an act.

She jammed her notebook into her bag. “All I know is that ever since we started school, I’ve been rejected by every boy I even
think
about liking.”

Hennie and Yashir walked up, holding hands and looking particularly cute—tiny Hennie, with her pink turtleneck sweater and matching headband, and gangly Yashir, dreadlocks strewn around his shoulders, hoops dangling from his nose and ears.

Yashir took in Esther’s appearance; he paid extra attention to her face. “That’s trippy,” he observed. “You don’t look like yourself. You feelin’ okay?”

“She’s heartbroken,” Hennie said.