Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) (13 page)

A spluttering noise erupted from Farley’s mouth. “Ha! Forget it. What do I need something like that for?”

“Don’t play the innocent with me, Hopeless.” She jabbed a finger accusingly into Farley’s side. “I know you slept in Daniel’s room last night. There’s no harm in mixing things up a little bit.” She jiggled the bag at her.

A horrified blush exploded on the backs of Farley’s hands, which meant her face was doing its best impression of a beetroot. For one terrible split second she considered the possibility that Daniel had discussed what had happened the night before with Tess. She immediately dismissed the thought; it was madness- he would never do that. But it was humiliating to have Tess think she and Daniel were up to things they most certainly were not. Tess seemed to accept her furious blushing as an indicator that she was right on track, however.

“Give me the details, Farls. I’m starved of gossip. You owe me. Was it everything you ever dreamed?” She clasped her hands together and held them up to her cheek, looking dreamily off into the distance.

“You are so far off the mark,” Farley muttered. She eyed the bag still hooked over Tess’ hand as though it were full of deadly poisonous snakes. “There
are
no details. You can keep your gift. I’m sure Oliver will appreciate it.”

Farley sped up, determined to reach the café before Tess could breathe another word. Thankfully, three blocks in Gun Creek was more like thirty feet, and they were almost through the door of Old Pyke’s before her friend had chance to speak.

“You’re no fun, you know that?”

“You know who’s no fun? Daniel, when he finds out we snuck out without telling anyone. He’s going to go ballistic.”

Tess shrugged her shoulders and slumped down at a booth next to the door. The seats were made out of faux leather and were threadbare from the number of backsides that had perched on them. It was kind of gross sitting on them, like when you take someone else’s seat and it’s still warm. It was one thing knowing another butt had been where yours is, but solid evidence of the fact made that knowledge pretty hard to ignore.

“Come on, Farls,” Tess said, immediately picking up a tacky, laminated menu. “When was the last time you did something on your own? When was the last time you didn’t have someone looking over your shoulder, watching every move you make? You have to live a little. Relax.”

But Tess’ words didn’t have a relaxing effect on Farley. “I do remember the last time that happened… when we were on our own. Don’t you?”

The other girl froze, a finger halfway down the menu. “Actually…yeah.”

Memories of that night rushed at Farley, making her stomach churn. The pink motel. Waking up alone. The whyte- her mother- floating dead on top of the ink black pool water. A flashing neon sign,
The Queen of Hearts.
Farley shuddered, desperately trying to cram the terrifying images back under lock and key. Tess had gone a pasty color. She tugged at the sleeve on the right arm where the whyte had bitten her and sent her half mad.

“Maybe I can wait for the coffee,” she whispered.

Farley breathed out gratefully just as a waitress with orthopedic shoes and lank, dirty blond hair decided to approach their table. “Don’t bother. We’ve changed our minds.” It suddenly felt incredibly important that they get back to the cabin as quickly as possible.. They slipped out of the café and walked quickly down the street towards the Jeep. Halfway between the café and the car, something made Farley stop and look in one of the storefronts. It was the hardware store, and in the window sat an acrylic paint set.

“What are you doing?” Tess hissed. “Come on, I really think we ought to get back. You were right about Daniel.”

“It’s okay, I won’t be a minute.”

In reality it took twelve minutes to go in and buy the paint set. The ancient old man behind the counter had never used his card machine before, and Farley had to show him how to plug it in and wait for it to connect online before she could pay. By the time she came out of the store, Tess had worked herself into a frenzy. If it were at all possible, she set off burning back up the mountain road even quicker than when she’d come down.

Farley sat nervously tugging on her seatbelt, chewing on her lip. They’d only been gone an hour. If they were lucky they’d be able to slip back into the cabin unnoticed. She wouldn’t have to explain to Daniel how she’d momentarily lost all mental competency and decided to go off on her own with Tess as a bodyguard. If the past had taught her anything, though, it was that luck was rarely on her side. She was barely even surprised at what she saw when they turned the narrow switchback and rounded into the clearing. Daniel froze in his anxious pacing, piercing through the windshield of the Cherokee with a murderous look in his eyes.

Tess audibly gulped. She said something unrepeatable under her breath.

”What were you thinking?”

Daniel was wearing a hole in the Persian rug in the library. He was so worked up that tiny sparks of blue and white fizzled at his fingertips. They swirled in the air, twisting upwards like the glowing embers of a fire as they fl
oated toward the wooden rafters. He kept flexing his fingers and shaking his hands out as though that would make it stop, but it didn’t. Farley adopted the pose best suited for situations like this: the hanging of the head in shame.

“I’m sorry, okay. I wasn’t thinking. I’m still not used to a life where going into town on my own is a dangerous, life threatening event.”

“Well, it is,” he snapped. “Didn’t we have this conversation just last night? That I need to protect you? How could you have forgotten that so quickly?”

“Maybe because other things happened last night, too. Other things that were off the scale on my mental trauma chart, and it slipped my mind.” The comment blurted out before she could reign it in, and Daniel froze. He looked at her like she was purposefully trying to be hurtful, which was ridiculous because
she
was the one who was hurt, not him.

“Farley-”

“I’m sorry, okay. Just forget I said anything.”

“No!” He balled his fists up, made them glow like they were white-hot. “I’m all for avoiding awkward conversations if I can, but this is different. You don’t get to do this to me.”

He was shaking. She wanted to narrow her eyes at him and say something vinegary about what he didn’t get to do to
her
, but he was
shaking
and she couldn’t.

Her mom would have been proud. It was the first time in her life she’d properly bitten back her stubborn attitude and breathed through the moment until it passed.
It felt like an empty victory.
“Look… I’m sorry, okay. I swear I won’t ever do it again. Can we just forget about it?”

Daniel just stared at her, every part of his body stiff, inhaling deeply through his nose. His stance didn’t help assuage the impression that he was about to have an aneurysm. After a moment he looked down at the floor and closed his eyes. His creased forehead twitched a few times like he was considering saying something, or considering
how
to say something, but he never got to speak. His cell phone started vibrating. He blew out an annoyed breath and tugged it from his pocket.

Farley expected him to hit the ignore button, but his face transformed when he saw the display. His eyes flashed to her, wide.

“Beatty,” he whispered.

Farley shot to her feet, the muscles in her legs suddenly weak. Beatty, the man who had trained her to fight back in the hangar, their friend who’d disappeared right off the face of the planet, was calling Daniel. She couldn’t form speech. Waving her hands furiously at him, she urged him to answer. When he picked up, he didn’t say a word. He went utterly still. Farley could hear the muted sounds of a male voice on the other end of the line. She sat back down again, cupping her hands over her mouth, too worried to blink in case she missed something on Daniel’s face.

Beatty had called them after all this time. What did that mean? Was he safe? And Nyla and Scout, too? The last she’d seen of them, they were getting ready to follow them to the Queen of Hearts after the silos exploded. The attendant, Merv, who’d killed her mother had said a black truck- she’d assumed it was Beatty’s at the time- had followed Agatha into the night. Had it been him?

Daniel was immobile, transfixed on the floorboards. The tension was killing her.

C’mon, c’mon, what’s he saying!?

Daniel finally cleared his throat, coming back to life. “Yeah. I’ll be there,” he said softly. He hung up the phone. For a long minute he just glared at it in his hands.

“Daniel?”

“Hmm?”

“
What did he say?
”

He snapped out of his daze and gave her a surprised look, like he’d forgotten she was even in the room. “They’re in
Washington
,” he said. His voice was incredulous, like Beatty had told him they were on Mars. “They want to meet.”

“They?” A surge of hope burst up through her. “Is Agatha there, too?”

“I don’t know. I guess…” His eyebrows were way too high on his forehead; it was the expression of someone far too shocked to comprehend something they’d been told. Farley knew exactly how he was feeling, because she felt it too. Their friends were in Washington. They were safe. They’d abandoned them to fight the Reavers alone. And they hadn’t bothered to call in over a month. A knot of nausea tightened in Farley’s intestines. She got up and walked out of the library, her last steps quickening into a run as she raced to reach the bathroom. She’d barely made it to the toilet before her pancakes came up with a vengeance.

******

Lockdown sucked, especially since Grayson wasn’t very good at relaxing around people. For the past hour he’d sat opposite them on a hardbacked chair, watching every move they made. Tess and Oliver, without speaking, had turned it into some sort of game. They took it in turns to shift in their seats or cross their legs, barely troubling themselves to hide their nefarious smiles when Grayson twitched in his chair.

Admittedly, his awkward attentiveness was pretty funny, like he was readying himself to rugby tackle them if they got up, but completely unnecessary all the same. They were hardly going to walk all the way to Washington. The thought had certainly crossed Farley’s mind. During the incensed conversation she’d had with Daniel, where he’d told her that there was every possibility this meeting was a trap and, no, she wasn’t allowed to go with him, she’d thought of nothing else. But during the hour they’d sat there, watching Grayson floss his teeth repeatedly, the idea had lost its appeal. Farley finally lost it when Grayson pulled the little white box from his pocket again to draw out another minty-smelling length.

“That’s it! Don’t you guys have a TV here? We can’t sit like this forever, y’know! And has anyone ever told you that your teeth will fall out if you do that too often?”

“I used to tell him all the time,” a voice behind them declared. Farley noted the irritated furrow in Grayson’s brow before she turned and found Kayden standing on the other side of the library. Thankfully he was wearing clothes- a plain
white t-shirt and black jeans.
“And no,” he continued, “they don’t have a TV. Rots the brain.” He tapped the side of his temple with his finger.

Tess let out a loud groan. “What do you guys do all day?” She directed the question at Grayson despite the fact that it was Kayden who’d spoken. It was kind of funny how intimidated she was by him. No one, no one
in the world
, had ever intimidated Tess before.

Grayson gave her a baffled look before gesturing all around him. They were in the library, after all, and at least a thousand books lined the shelves.

“
Apart
from read,” she clarified.

“We used to have awesome Crav Maga tournaments,” Kayden offered.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Farley finally gave in and asked, “What the hell’s Crav Maga?”

“It’s the martial arts system Mossad uses,” Oliver told her.

“Correct.” Kayden strolled into the room, tracing his finger along the shelf that ran level to his shoulder. From the amused pull at the side of his mouth, it was clear he didn’t think Farley knew what Mossad was. She didn’t, but there was no way she was going to ask. Not with him looking like that. She decided to Google it later, or just ask Oliver since he seemed to know so much about it.

“Cool. Feel like teaching us some moves, then?” she asked lightly.

Grayson started puffing. His glasses fell down his nose a little from all the hyperventilating. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“For once, the old owl’s right. No Crav Maga for you.” Kayden turned to Oliver and Tess. “You guys, on the other hand…”

“What?!” Farley cried. The injustice was just too much.

“Take it up with your boyfriend.”

“I will!” Farley glowered at Tess and Oliver, letting them know she’d rip their heads off if they agreed to train in some super cool martial arts system without her. Tess gave her a look that said Farley was crazy for thinking she’d want to in the first place, but Oliver actually looked a little annoyed. Tess squeezed the hand he had resting on her knee.