Transcendent (12 page)

We didn't speak as we started off toward my parents' house. Every step seemed to take twice as long as usual, walking straight against the combined force of wind and rain. At first I kept my eyes sharp, scanning frantically for a cab to hail. But the handful I saw were all taken, everyone else clearly as eager as we were to be out of the rain.
I gave up after a few minutes and splurged on a flimsy bodega umbrella instead, though it was hardly enough to keep both Mikki and me shielded. By the time we turned onto our street, my clothes were entirely soaked through, plastered thick and cold against my shivering limbs.

“We're almost there,” I said, looking up toward my house and our distinct gold front door. But as my eyes focused through the sheets of rain, I froze.

“No,” I gasped.
“No.”

“What is it?” Mikki asked, bumping up against my back.

I didn't—couldn't—say anything. I pointed instead, my eyes locked on the scene ahead.

Because outside of my house—my
home
—there were three brightly lit-up news vans. The reporters themselves were nowhere to be seen, likely hunkered inside the vans until any real action started happening. But still, they were there. Surrounding our front gate.

Waiting.

Kyle Bennett had wasted no time—he must have made the call the second he drove away from me. I had ignored his threat. And this . . . this was the consequence.

I yanked Mikki through the gate just beside us, pulling her under the tiny roof that covered our neighbor's basement entrance. It didn't completely protect us from the rain, but it was better than the umbrella at
least, making it safe enough for me to check my phone.

There was a long list of missed calls and texts. Most of them from my mom. First to yell at me for leaving, after she must have pried open my lock to find that I'd disappeared.
THE FIRE ESCAPE, IRIS? REALLY? COME HOME IMMEDIATELY. PLEASE.
But then—
Forget what I said. Reporters are here now. Stay away tonight, go to a friend's until we can sort this out. Call me when you're there and please stay safe. They say this storm will be a big one, so please let me know all is okay and you're warm and dry.
And another, soon after:
I'm sorry, Iris. I'm so sorry this is happening. I love you so much and we're going to figure this out together. We're going to find somewhere safe for us to go as soon as we can get a flight. Please just tell me you're okay.

There were texts, too, from my friends. Ari was the first to chime in:
I have reporters calling me nonstop. They're at your house?!! This shit is nuts. Your mom told me the plan. She's right, get out of town. Come here, she'll get you early AM and you can leave.

There were similar messages from Delia and Ethan. I should listen to my parents and leave town, hide away somewhere until the story died down.
Come over.
They'd help me with my getaway.

How could they be so certain that my mom was right? They hadn't asked anything at all these past few days about what I was really feeling. Besides Ethan gushing about my
dad's video, they'd avoided the topic altogether. Pretended to go on like everything was okay, even as it so obviously wasn't.

Maybe they thought it would be easier if I did go away for a while. Easier for them.

A new text came in, interrupting that dark, terrible thought. It was Aunt Hannah now, with the name of a hotel she'd meet me at tonight. She'd no doubt turn me straight over to my mom, probably even hire a private plane to fly us somewhere far, far away.

A surge of fury flooded through me, warming me up even against the cool gusts of rain.

No
. I wouldn't go to that hotel. I wouldn't listen to any of them.

Not Aunt Hannah or my friends, who were all blindly following my mom's orders without asking me how I felt, what I wanted.

And especially not my parents—not after they'd lied to me for seventeen years, controlled my entire life for me without giving me a chance to make my own decisions. I couldn't trust them to tell me everything, not now. They fed me bits and pieces of the truth when it was convenient for them—when it fit with their plans for me.

But this would be my choice. My good or bad decision to make.

I didn't have to check my wallet to know that a hotel
room was out of the question, even for the grimiest, most roach and rodent infested of dives. My only credit card—linked to my parents' account for emergencies—had expired the previous month. I'd asked my mom about a new one, but the topic had gotten lost with everything else going on. Regardless, I didn't want their help right now. I needed to figure this out on my own.

“I'm not going home,” I said, leaning into Mikki to steady myself. My entire body trembled with anger as I stared down the street toward the vans. “Where else can we go?”

Mikki pursed her lips, her face crinkling in concentration.

“Well,” she said slowly, “there is one place. Where I go when the weather's real bad. An emergency shelter only, so you don't have to apply and all that, like you do for a more permanent bed. They don't ask a lot of questions. Not
too
far from here, but still a walk in this rain, even if we use the subway. United City Mission, it's called.”

United City Mission
. It sounded familiar to me. Where . . . ?

Zoey
. Zane Davis's little sister, that day at the soup kitchen. She'd said it was nice, that she'd liked it there.

“Come with me,” Mikki said. The words sounded so simple. I didn't have to decide anything else right now; I just had to follow. Mikki had no other expectations of me.
And who would think to look for me there? No one. Ever. I almost laughed out loud, it sounded so perfect and so preposterous at the same time.

“Yes,” I said, already nodding on instinct. I didn't think about it—I didn't let myself. I had to believe that it was a sign that I'd overheard Zoey mention United City Mission. It had to mean something, didn't it?

Mikki looked at me, her eyes wary even as her lips tried to smile. “It's not what someone like you is used to. It's not a motel or anything fancy like that. But it's just for a night, and I don't feel right sending you off alone right now, you looking so shook up and scared. So if you can't go home, come with me.”

“I trust you,” I said. Maybe I was crazy for believing in Mikki, but I did. And she was right—it was only for one night. “I have . . . I have friends who stay at that shelter, too.” Maybe not quite
friends
, but Mikki didn't have to know that. “My mom texted me, told me herself to stay away tonight. So that's what I'm doing. I'll let her know I'm safe.”

Mikki blinked away the rain from her eyes. And then she gripped my hand tighter and pulled me away from the basement roof, back into the storm.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Let's go.”

W
E RODE THE SUBWAY
for a half hour, shivering in our dripping wet clothes. Finally we climbed back into the rain above, Mikki steering me through the now darkened streets, streets that I soon began to lose track of—streets that I barely recognized or had never seen at all. She was taking me into a new Brooklyn, a Brooklyn very much outside of my world of brownstones and bicycles and farmers' markets, organic food, organic cotton, organic soap, organic everything.

I hadn't thought the storm could get worse than it already was—but I was wrong. The cold sheets of rain were slicing into us harder and more aggressively as we plunged forward, numbing me to the point where I could almost pretend that I wasn't hurting. Almost.

“Are we close?” I asked. My throat constricted around the words. I was lost and scared, so far from everything
and everyone I knew, everyone but Mikki, and I'd met her, what—three times? I had the urge to go back on everything, tell her that no, I couldn't possibly stay at a shelter with her. I would go meet Aunt Hannah and I would fly away with my mom in the morning, just like everyone was telling me to do.

No
. I needed time away from my parents, from everyone who
loved
me right now. I could do this. I'd befriended homeless people my whole life, hadn't I? I'd helped at the soup kitchen, too. This night would be new for me, but it wasn't so far-fetched, was it?

“There,” Mikki said, pointing straight ahead. I squinted through the rain, following the direction of her finger to see a brick church at the end of the block. It looked dark at first glance, the big white entrance doors bolted shut. I started to panic, wondering if Mikki had gotten the streets confused and dragged us to the wrong church, but then I noticed light spilling out from the side of the building. An old gate hung open over the sidewalk, leading into a narrow alcove with two glowing streetlamps mounted alongside a small door.

“So that's where we . . .” Mikki tugged at my arm, guiding me through the gate. I sucked in my breath, steeling myself for whatever came next. For the people, the conditions, the beds—if we were lucky enough—that would be
nothing like my bed at home, nothing like any hotel bed I'd ever slept in or the mounds of blankets and pillows I'd used for sleepovers.

Mikki pressed a buzzer on the door, and after a few seconds of stillness I heard a clicking from inside.

The door swung open. A tall, husky man stood in the brightly lit entrance, waving us in. “Come in, come in. It really started coming down out there fast,” he said. His voice was loud, heavy, but warm and smooth still, too, like it filled up his entire throat before it burst out into sound. The room we stepped into was small and spare, but tidy. I saw a teetering wooden desk covered in stacks of papers and a computer that looked older than me, a clump of plastic chairs, and a potted tree that I didn't need to inspect up close to see was fake, the plastic flowers more vibrant than anything I'd ever seen in nature.

“Oh, Mikki, right?” the man asked, his somber face breaking out into a wide smile. He leaned in closer, patting her on the shoulder. “Didn't recognize you at first, it's gotten so dark out there already. You came in this summer? That big thunderstorm at the end of August?”

“Sure did.” She nodded. “You got a good memory.”

“Have you heard the reports about this storm? A real doozy. The weather folks thought it would break up off the coast, but now we're right in the center of it. They're calling the storm Severus. Sounds mighty scary to me with
a name like that. Not a night to be out and about, so I'm glad you made it here.”

He turned to me for the first time, peering down from his vantage point of what seemed to be nearly two feet above me. I shrunk at least another few inches under his gaze, scared that he'd somehow sense I was counterfeit, faking my desperation. But I wasn't—that was one thing I wasn't faking. I
was
desperate.

“And what's your name, then?” he asked.

I opened my lips,
Iris
about to slip out, when I caught myself.

“Clemence,” I said instead. My mom's pseudonym, the first spare name that popped into my mind. If she used it as a mask, so could I.

“Clemence,” he said contemplatively, like he could learn all there was to know about me just by the inflection of those two syllables. “I'm Benjamin. And how old are you, Clemence?”

I wasn't sure of the best answer here—minor, not a minor?

I hedged my bets. “Eighteen.” Nearly enough. Older seemed safer, like I had more right to be on my own, no parents or guardians other than Mikki to claim me.

He looked over at Mikki, paused for a beat, then turned back to me.

“Okay. Well, we're in luck. The men's room is filled
up, but we have a few beds left in the women's quarters for the night. So we're happy to take you in.”

I nodded, my head spinning with relief. We wouldn't have to go back out there. It was warm and dry in here. This man was kind to Mikki, which made him good in my book.

Benjamin handed me a clipboard with some paperwork to be signed—which I filled in as Clemence Verity, because I was too shaken up still to come up with anything more creative. Benjamin didn't ask for any identification, which surprised me—but who was I to argue? I handed him back the pen and papers and looked everywhere but directly into his eyes.

“Well then, let me show you around, Clemence. We already served a warm dinner for the night, but we have some leftovers in the kitchen that I'm happy to bring out. There are three other staff members here with me tonight. We were expecting a crowd once word of the storm hit. They say it could last through most of tomorrow, with severe flooding and power outages and the like. I'm afraid we'll have to start turning people away soon enough.” He sighed, staring at the closed door behind us.

I wanted to reach out and hug him, but I fought the urge. I wasn't sure of the etiquette there. He had patted Mikki's shoulder. So contact was okay? Were there rules and codes about these sorts of things?

“So the tour,” he said again, beckoning us to follow him down a short hallway leading out of the central entrance and office area.

There wasn't much—a kitchen and dining area where I met another staff member, Mariela, who was finishing the post-dinner cleanup. It was much smaller and less impressive than the kitchen at Blessed Mercy, the counters and cabinets all looking older, more tired, but it still felt familiar to me. It had the same smell: a mix of coffee grounds and fake orange cheese from the box, with an edge of lemony bleach. I fought the urge to start wiping down the counters. I wasn't the volunteer tonight.

Mariela wasn't as immediately warm as Benjamin, but was still friendly enough. She wore her tiredness less subtly, her movements blunt and exaggerated as she started to unpack the dinner items she'd just finished putting away. I couldn't blame her, though, for any edge—I could see the purple rimming her lower lids, the tiny red veins that made her eyes look dull against her dark, olive-toned skin. The only bright thing about her was her shirt, an oversized pink T-shirt with a big winking Minnie Mouse face.

I cringed, looking away.

“No, I don't need anything, really,” I said, perhaps a bit too forcefully. I hadn't eaten since a few bites of lunch in the cafeteria—which seemed like weeks ago, not hours—
but I would be okay. Taking a bed made me feel guilty enough.

“I'm fine, fine,” Mikki said, waving Mariela off. “Well. Maybe that lemon granola bar there, that would be nice. But a bed out of that crazy rain is all we need tonight.”

Benjamin nodded, turning as he started toward the front office. He stepped back, though, blocked by someone or something else in the hallway.

“Sorry there, Z. Didn't mean to bump you,” Benjamin said, shifting so that I saw who he was talking to.

Z—Zane. Zane Davis. He was there again.

And he was staring straight at me, cool but curious, his deep amber eyes puzzling to fit me into these surroundings.

I stared back at him, refusing to break eye contact first.

“No worries,” Zane said, glancing away, turning back to Benjamin. “I was just going to ask you if I could say good night to my little sister. And say thanks for having the staff look in on her again tonight, like last time . . . it's tough being separated. For both of us. But like I said before, we should have a new place soon.” Zane looked down as he said this, his eyes focused on his boots. “My family . . . this is just temporary. They know we're here.”

“Of course,” Benjamin said. “I understand. I only wish
we were bigger, so that we could have a room just for kids and families. But I'm heading to the ladies' bedroom now, giving Clemence here the tour. I'll grab Zoey for you.”

Zane's eyebrows twitched at
Clemence
. He flicked his gaze back to me, looking even more intrigued.

I smiled before I could catch myself. We both had secrets.

Benjamin and Mikki moved into the hallway, and I ducked my head and followed, feeling Zane's eyes following me as I walked away. We stopped at a closed door just beyond the reception area.

“Nothing fancy,” Benjamin was saying, as he yanked a key from his front pocket and turned it in the knob. He glanced back at me, his hand paused on the door. “I don't know what you're used to, Clemence, being new to us and all. We're a small facility, all volunteers from our congregation. Good people who take it upon themselves to cover the shifts. We know how overcrowded the city-run facilities get, especially on nights like these. It's small, but we want to do our part in any way we can. We owe at least that much to our community.”

I nodded, overcome with gratitude—gratitude and guilt and shame, because did I deserve to be there? Really?

Benjamin opened the door, stepping inside to make room for us. It was a small space, but every last inch of
it was utilized. A dozen single beds, cots, set up in two tight rows of six. Every mattress was covered in jumbled patterns of blankets and pillows, plaids and florals and stripes, and above each one there was a small shelf for personal items. It was clean but chaotic, so much stuff and life packed into one tiny room. I took it all in: the beds, the shelves with their meager piles of belongings, the bright strip of fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The only art on the wall was an ancient-looking Jesus portrait, the paint dull, flecking off the canvas. He was smiling down at a group of ratty-looking children, his arms wide and welcoming, like he wanted to hug each and every one of them simultaneously, assure them that everything would be okay.

I yanked my eyes away. I refused to look at it again—to think about it.
Him
.

And then I was forced to see the one thing in the room I hadn't studied yet, the hardest part of all. The people. The other women—the old, young, big, little, tired bodies sprawled out on the beds, some already asleep, others sitting up, awake, staring right at me. There was a steady buzz of voices, women talking to each other or to themselves.

I swallowed and bit down on my bottom lip, hard enough that I tasted a drop of blood on my tongue. Something rustled against my fingertips—Mikki's hand. She wove her fingers around mine, squeezing my palm against hers.

“. . . and then the bathroom is back through the hallway,” Benjamin was saying, but I'd missed the rest of his instructions.

Nine, I counted, which meant one bed left now that Mikki and I were there. From the women I could see, the ones not hidden away under mounds of blankets, everyone looked to be older than me, everyone but one—Zoey.

She was at the end of the row closest to the door, with a small, flimsy folding screen set up between her bed and the next. It made her sleeping area at least a little more private. But she still had full view of the front, and she turned to watch us, her eyes sharp and attentive, sizing me up. Did she remember me? Had she thought I was eavesdropping, too, that day at the soup kitchen?

“Zoey,” Benjamin said. She peeled her gaze away from me, glancing over at Benjamin with the tiny beginnings of a smile. People liked Benjamin, I could tell. Even tough-as-nails people like Zane and Zoey. “Your brother wants to say good night. He's in the hallway.”

She nodded and slipped out of bed, looking even smaller than I'd expected, now that she was standing so close to me. I noticed, too, those music note tattoos again. Seeing them there, so permanent on her skinny neck, I thought of Caleb. I missed him with a breathless pang. I tried to imagine him with tattoos, him doing anything so mature or edgy. I wanted to hug him—and I wanted to
lock him away somehow, keep him young and innocent forever. I caught myself staring and looked away as she brushed past me, my skin prickling with the uneasiness of a memory, a memory circling closer and closer.

The rumor—the story that Zane had tried to kill someone who'd somehow wronged his little sister. The scissors. Was it true? Had someone done something to Zoey? The thought made my stomach turn. She looked so little and fragile in her massive T-shirt, probably another hand-me-down from Zane.