Enders (14 page)

The girl’s name was Savannah. She ate three Supertruffles while we sat in the car. We had to stop her before she ended up emptier than when she started.

“You’re right. I should know better,” she said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “My father was a nutritionist.”

“So do you know anything about medicine?” I asked. We could always use more medical help.

“A lot. My mother was a surgeon,” she said. “I wanted to be premed, but then everything changed with the war.”

“What made you go to Prime Destinations?”

She stiffened. She looked at me out of the side of her eyes. I could see she was trying to decide whether she should reveal her story.

“It’s okay. We understand better than anyone,” I said. “I went there to get money for a home for my sick brother. He had this respiratory condition, and living in abandoned office
buildings was just making it worse. I saw it as our only way out.

“I wasn’t going to let the marshals take me. I saw them taking the other kids on our block,” she said. “I could have stayed in the house, but the government condemned it, said it was contaminated. So I did the body bank.”

“When?” Hyden asked.

“A few months ago,” she said. “But then some renegades stole all my money. The first day back.”

I nodded. I’d heard that story before.

“Guess that didn’t happen to you,” she said, looking at the SUV.

“We’ve got plenty of time to tell our stories,” I said. “The main thing is, you can trust us.”

She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her head against the window. “That sure sounds good to me.”

When we brought Savannah into our place, I tugged on Hyden’s shirt. I mouthed,
What about …?
and gestured to Jeremy’s body.

He shrugged.

“Wow, this is nice,” Savannah said as she walked into the main room. “Thanks so much for bringing me here, y’all,” she said, turning to us. “So this is your place, Hyden?”

“Yeah. By the way, this isn’t my body. I’m just borrowing this one,” Hyden said.

“Really? I thought only Enders wanted to rent out our bodies,” she said, squinting.

“Usually, that’s true,” Hyden said.

“Where is your body?” she asked.

“In another room,” I said. “Why?”

“Can I see?” she asked.

Hyden started to shake his head, but I stepped forward. “Sure. You might as well meet the real Hyden.”

Hyden shot me a look. I knew he wasn’t crazy about this, but I thought it was important not to make any of the Metals feel excluded.

We went to the room where his body was. There he was, the real Hyden, sleeping on the bed. His breathing was shallow. He looked pale.

“How long has the body been like this?” Savannah asked.

“Not long,” Hyden said.

“Because if it goes too long, he needs fluids,” Savannah said.

“I know,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Good,” she said. “It’s a very nice body, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Hyden said.

His surprised expression almost made me laugh.

“Come on.” I motioned to Savannah. “Let’s go find you a room.”

Savannah wasn’t picky. In fact, she was so exhausted, she fell asleep on top of her small bed while I gathered towels and toiletries for her.

I went back out to the main room and found Hyden standing there.

He was in his own body.

His back was to me, but I easily recognized his muscular shoulders, his tousled hair that was neither curly nor straight. My legs weakened. Everything was upside down. He was there, but he was gone. It was the way it should be; he was back where he belonged. In his own body.

But it meant no more touching.

“Hyden?” I whispered.

He turned. I looked at his real body, with that face that I was getting to know, that handsome face with the pain in the eyes.

“What?”

“You didn’t wait for me? You just did it?”

He cocked his head. “You wanted me to,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

I did, of course. But this seemed so sudden. I realized I was secretly expecting something—some last kiss or touch goodbye. Some small moment before it was back to “don’t-touch-me” Hyden.

But that was selfish.

“I thought maybe—” I said.

“I know,” he said. “Me too.”

An invisible wall seemed to stand between us. Finally, the words came out of my throat.

“I hoped … you’d wait for me.”

“Couldn’t. It was getting to be too long. Savannah was right—my body would need fluids.”

He was acting like he didn’t care, but his eyes met mine and they betrayed him. He looked away. Jeremy’s body was lying on the couch next to the bed where Hyden’s body had been. Near Jeremy lay a small airscreen unit.

“That’s linked to the one in the car?” I asked.

“Shhh …” Hyden put a finger to his lips.

Jeremy’s eyelids fluttered, and his lips twitched.

He was coming to.

“Aren’t you going to do something to control him? He might just come out swinging,” I said quietly.

“I’ll call Ernie,” he said. He pulled out his phone and sent a Zing.

But before Ernie could arrive, Jeremy opened his eyes. His face registered panic. He scrambled to a sitting position, his back pressed against the couch. His head jerked around as he fought to make sense of his location.

“It’s all right, Jeremy,” I said.

Hyden motioned for me to be silent, but it was too late. Jeremy had heard me.

“You? Who are you?” he asked, turning to look at me.

I could have said that was no way to talk to a girl he’d kissed, but that wouldn’t have gone over well. He held his head, as if he had the world’s worst headache.

“My name is Callie.”

“I don’t know any Callie,” he said.

His voice was sharp. It made me feel like he was issuing orders every time he spoke.

“That’s right, you don’t know me,” I said. “Can I get you anything? Do you want some water?”

He started to nod and then stopped, from the pain, no doubt. “Yeah.”

Hyden motioned he would get the water. As he left the room, Jeremy noticed him for the first time.

“Who’s that?” Jeremy pointed.

The guy who used to be you, I wanted to say. But I stopped myself.

“That’s Hyden. He’s a friend.”

“I think I know that guy.… ”

I didn’t want him to think about the confrontation, when Hyden first captured him. “No, you’re just a little disoriented. We’re Metals, like you.”

“Metals. Like me …,” Jeremy said to himself.

Hyden returned with the water. Jeremy took it and downed the glass.

“So, you two have the chip too?” he asked. “From Prime?”

We both nodded.

“That body bank,” he said. “If I ever see that Old Man, I swear I’ll break his wrinkled neck.”

I looked at Hyden, but he never took his eyes off Jeremy.

“You look really fit,” Hyden said. “What skills did you list at Prime?”

“Mixed martial arts,” he said. “Tae Kwon Do, Kali, Gatka.”

Hyden nodded slightly.

We’d seen Jeremy’s skills in action. Deadly. We opted not to reveal very much to him right away but to let him get used to things gradually. Except for my adapted chip, the chips prevented a Metal from killing anyone while being rented. But we doubted that held true when we were just being ourselves. And this was no time to find out.

That night, as we all filled our plates in the kitchen, Hyden came up beside me—keeping his distance—and smiled.

“What?” I asked. “You’re that happy over chili night?”

“I just wanted to tell you thanks.”

“For what?”

“For this. For convincing me we should gather the Metals.”

“It makes you feel good, doesn’t it? See, I was right.”

“Yeah. It’s good to see all of these people protected from my father. To be part of our community.” He grinned. “And now we have better cooks.”

I rolled my eyes and went around the table to get the bread.

In the dining room, I sat by Redmond. Hyden was at the other end, sitting opposite Jeremy. Near them were Lily, the acrobat, and Derek, known for his climbing skills. He was trying to pass a salad bowl to Savannah, but she was busy laughing with Michael. He’d finished his food already and he was sketching her. The other tables were filled with more Metals.

Someone tapped their water glass and the conversation quieted down. It was Jeremy.

“I want to talk memories,” Jeremy said to the group.

“You mean from our renters?” Savannah asked.

“I know I’m not the only one who has them. I hear things. So let’s get it out in the open. Who’ll start?”

Savannah raised her hand. “My renter wanted my black belt body to go beat up her old boyfriend—some old Ender guy. When I relived that memory, I was shocked. I don’t know what he did to her, but she felt so satisfied.”

Michael raised his hand. “My renter was a sleazy Ender.”

“I know, I met him,” I said under my breath.

“He wanted my artistic talents to impress Starter girls with. He offered to draw them,” Michael said.

“In the buff?” Jeremy asked.

“Of course.”

Everyone reacted with disgust.

“You must have some interesting memories,” Jeremy said to him.

“No, they turned him—me—down,” Michael said. “Guess they saw right through the jerk.”

Lily raised her hand. “My renter was a hundred-year-old Ender dying of cancer. Her dream was to soar on the trapeze. I felt how thrilled she was, how light she felt. It was wonderful.”

People murmured and then went back to their private conversations.

Redmond turned to me and spoke softly. “So that key I left in the safe for you?”

“The one that told how you altered my chip?” I said quietly. “What about it?”

“Do you still have it?”

I wondered why he was asking. “I put it in a safe place.”

“Good.” His eyes narrowed. “Keep it there. Don’t give it to anyone.”

I saw a sadness behind his eyes and wasn’t sure why. I nodded.

“I have a favor to ask you,” I said.

“I can’t take that chip out of you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Not the chip. The plate in my head. The one you put in as a blocker.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t work anymore.”

“I told you it would only last a short time.”

“So I want it gone. I think it’s irritating me. I keep scratching at it.”

He pushed his bowl away. “It’s better to just leave it alone. Less trauma to your head. It’s not causing you any harm, the way it is.”

“It’s my head. And I say the less metal, the better.”

Redmond pursed his lips. I folded my arms. I wasn’t going to back down, even though I knew he was right. It was just
that somehow, I felt if we removed the plate that covered the site of the chip, then we were one step closer to removing the chip … someday.