Keystone (11 page)

“Kind of,” I say as Garrett tugs me sideways so I don’t ram my head into the doorframe that leads into the back room. Beyond a million boxes and piles of books, Garrett punches numbers into an electronic keypad and the back door unlocks with a series of clicks and the sound of long, metal rods, sliding through the walls. I shift from bare foot to bare foot as the final lock releases and Garrett swings the door open.

Zane stands outside, his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his skinny jeans. And skinny jeans, when Zane Middleditch is the one wearing them, make them the skinniest jeans in the entire world. Zane is maybe an inch taller than me, but he’s probably about twenty pounds lighter. His hair is so pale, it reminds me of a faded lemon drop.

Zane steps inside, shaking his hair out of his eyes. Even his eyelashes are blond. Garrett closes the door and latches it.

“How’s it going, buddy?” Zane throws an arm around Garrett’s neck. The two of them clank heads and Zane lets go. “Sorry I couldn’t make it for the Memory.”

“It’s all good,” Garrett says.

“Yeah? So you’re back on top now? That circle…it’s amazing, isn’t it? I think of my mom all the time, but I don’t…well,” he kind of tips his head like he wants the words to just slide out and he grins. “I miss her, but it’s like she’s still here too. Weird, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Garrett says. He pulls me forward. “Zane, I want you to meet…”

Garrett doesn’t get to finish before Zane sticks out his hand to shake mine.

“Yeah, hey, Nalena. Zane.” He winks. “I bet I know more about you than you want me to.”

I hesitate with my hand extended. The smile ripples on my lips.

Of course he has to know my name from Simon Valley. The Waste was tattooed across my locker for three hours, until the school janitor was sent up with some off-color paint to hide it. It was written on the butt of my gym shorts and in the cover of my school books. Carved on desks. Shouted at me in the hallways. Garrett has never talked about it, but there’s no way that anyone at school didn’t know. Especially these two, former-Simon Valley jocks, since Jen, the head cheerleader, was the one who gave me the name to begin with. I wonder what kind of guy Zane really is and if, despite my being a Contego now, he will still try to haunt me with The Name.

I want my words to come out stronger than they do, but I only manage to sound cranky when I say, “You know things? Like what?”

Zane doesn’t miss a beat, but he looks confused.

“Like what, what?” he asks. He grabs my fingertips and shakes them. I try not to pull my hand away too quick. “I mean, you’re Garrett’s Vieo, right? What else do you think he talks about?”

“A Vi-what?”

Zane drops my fingers with a guffaw. He tags Garrett’s shoulder and just keeps blabbing, “Oh, whoops…too much talky talky, huh buddy?”

Garrett laughs but he says, “It’d be cool if you’d shut up now, yeah.”

Zane does the zip-his-lip thing to Garrett and turns back to me, giggling. Lightening fast, he snakes out his hand and grabs mine again. It’s too fast for me to avoid him. He holds my hand firmly in his and tickles the new Impressioning mark in my palm with his fingertips.

“Yup, yup, there it is,” he says as I yank my hand back. Zane doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, both his wink and grin seem genuinely warm. “So, you’re one of us all the way now. Don’t you worry, Nali girl...we’ll get you up to thunder.”

“Thanks,” I say, but it twists up at the end like a question.

“Spot on,” Zane says. And then, “So, Gare, who’s all in on the Totus?”

“I’m guessing everybody in the city, now that you went and hammered on the window like that,” Garrett says.

“So, you haven’t heard much since you’ve been down in the dungeon, have you?” Zane’s shoulders and mouth both drop into a serious line. “We took a pretty monumental hit, buddy, pretty dang monumental. You guys got a TV down there? I mean, brother...things are all Cusped-up.”

“There’s no TV and nobody’s been out until now,” Garrett says, but he’s suddenly so tuned into Zane that it makes the bottoms of my feet itch like I should be running. “I figured it was pretty bad since it’s been so quiet.”

“It’s quiet because they’ve had you in the mothballs, brother. Nobody even knew where you were until about ten minutes ago. Freddie wouldn’t say jack. Guess that’s the way we’re gonna slide, until we can figure out who’s putting The Fury onto us. Everybody’s a friggin’ suspect. Whose place is this anyway? I didn’t know we had any Alo camping out under the books.”

“It’s not Alo.”

“Contego? What Contego would hide under these bricks? Wait...it’s Carducci and Sasu isn’t it? Figures. They’ve been tunneling ever since they got bound.” Zane turns to me as if I’ve been included in the conversation all along. As if I even know what he’s talking about. “Whew...Sasu...wait till you meet her, Nal. Talk about your Vieo trolls!”

Garrett ignores the comment.

“It’s not a Contego house either,” he tells Zane. “It’s one of the Veritas. His name is Nok.”

Zane lifts both eyebrows too high to make me feel like things are going to be okay.

“A Veritas?” he says. “Buddy...this is some serious cane we’re raising up here.”

“You’re just coming around to that now?”

“Freddie didn’t say anything about it being a Veritas’ place. And the Totus is here too?” Zane’s eyes travel over the floor. “Oh ho! Is my dad ever gonna flip! I guess it kind of makes sense…it’s not like we can use a regular cover.”

I can’t help but look between the two of them, anxious to understand their conversation. Garrett catches sight of me and says, “It’s no big deal, everything’s fine.”

Zane rubs his thumb and forefinger together. He traces the floor with his gaze.

“True, nothing’s really
wrong
, per say,” he says. His sudden concentration makes me uneasy. I can already tell, in the minute and a half that I’ve known Zane Middleditch, that there are probably very few things that shut him up and make him concentrate this hard.

“It’s just not exactly right,” Zane says. “We don’t expose the Veritas. Not unless there are no other choices. It’s too huge of a risk.”

“We’re the only Cura left with an Addo,” Garrett says. “I’d say that limits our options pretty severely. How big of a hit were you talking about anyway? Who else is gone?”

“Brother,” Zane snaps out of his focus and exhales in a way that make his lips flap. “For Contego? It’s easier to say who’s left. Pretty much the inner ring. There’s us, you guys, Freddie Marcourt, only Van now, Carducci and Sasu...but I think they’re too busy trying to repopulate the world to be worried about helping us out with the Cusp…Trig, Mrs. Neho. I think that’s everybody. Oh, and Larson. Lucky us. We still got Larsy.”

“Wow.” Garrett says, rocking back on his heels.

“Yeah, wow.”

“I wonder how the Addo’s going to divide up the new Curas. He’s not going to be able to do it all on his own.”

Zane shrugs. “How’s the old man doing anyway?” he asks.

“The Memory healed him pretty well, but he’s still missing some teeth,” Garrett says.

Zane lets out a low whistle. “You think we’re going to pull up stakes and circle the wagons?”

“I can’t imagine all the Curas flocking here, but with only one Addo left, I can’t imagine them doing anything else.”

“Everybody’s coming to guard the Addo?” I ask. Both boys look at me like they forgot I was standing between them.

“Some,” Zane says. “Probably.”

“Hard to say,” Garrett adds. “We’ve never had only one Addo. I hope the outer Curas have Addos that are trained and ready to step up. Otherwise it’s going to be chaos.”

“Bigger question: are we really going to let anybody get close to him?” Zane plants his hands on his narrow hips. “For all we know, the Outer Curas could’ve been in on this. The attack was too planned and had way too much insider info for the Fury to have pulled it off on their own.”

Garrett just nods, but the way his lips turn down says it all. We’re the last Cura with an Addo. This might’ve been an inside job. There’s nowhere to run and we don’t know who to trust. The world I just signed on for is crumbling as I stand on its threshold. Everything is changing and it seems like this is all my fault.

I know everyone always says that, but I brought the change to this world, as a Cusp child of Alo that was given the sign of Contego instead. Alo are only supposed to have Alo babies, and Contego only Contego, so my birth signaled the beginning of the Cusp. If I hadn’t been born, maybe none of this would be happening.

“Holy crap,” I say. Zane just turns and grins at me. He farts at the same time.

“Now you’ve got it,” he says.

When we come back downstairs, Mrs. Reese greets Zane and sends Mark and Brandon upstairs to watch the back door and let everyone in.

“I want you two on watch up there during the Totus too,” she adds as they start up the steps. Brandon drags his shoulder along the stairway wall and Mark groans, but Mrs. Reese doesn’t give an inch. “Hey, I’m sorry, guys, but somebody needs to watch the perimeter.”

Mark howls, “We’re always watchin’ the stinkin’ perimeter!”

“Why can’t Garrett and Nali? Or Zane?” Brandon argues. Zane rubs the edge of his white eyebrow with two fingers.

“‘Cause last time I checked,” Zane tells him, “I wasn’t a grunt.”

“Shut up, Middleditch,” Brandon snaps.

“Manners,” Sean says from the end of the lined-up tables, but Zane jumps forward and starts tapping the sides of Brandon’s head so lightening fast that Brandon just flails around, caught in Zane’s slapping tornado.

“Make me, Brando,” Zane says. Brandon growls, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get away from Zane. Brandon resorts to wind milling, and Zane just jumps out of the way. He stands beside Garrett and I while Brandon huffs and puffs and Mrs. Reese sighs, unamused.

“I have enough to worry about without you whipping them up, Zane,” she says. She calls Mark and Brandon to her and rests a hand on each of their shoulders. “Now listen to me. You two are my smallest and fastest Contego.”

Brandon gives Zane a smarty-pants face over his mom’s shoulder, but Mrs. Reese keeps talking. “Dad showed you how not to be seen and now’s the time to do it. But I want you two to stay together, you hear me? If you see anything out there, draw it away, but I want you to stay out of sight.
Completely
out of sight. Nok will be monitoring both of you and he’ll let us know if you need an assist. But no heroics and no goofing off, you understand me? This is serious.”

“But we set up all the chairs!” The boys complain at once, waving at the line of tables. Mrs. Reese sighs.

“Just go,” she says and the boys go up the stairs, grumbling.

Mrs. Reese takes a seat at the far end of the table with Addo and Ms. Fisk and Sean. Nok takes Iris down the wider corridor, into one of the rooms just before the swinging doors. As Garrett, Zane and I make our way to the end of the table, Ms. Fisk stops talking and zeros in on Zane.

“Well, hello there, Mister Middleditch,” she says.

“Hi,” Zane gives her a quick wave and looks away, but Ms. Fisk clears her throat.

“I have something I wanted to discuss with you, Mister Middleditch.” She peers over the top of her square glasses at Zane. “I happened to be looking over the library’s ledger of overdue books before I came this evening, and I noticed that your name appears there exactly 23 times. Twenty-three, sir. Somehow, you’ve failed to recognize that borrowing books from my library also requires you to return my books to me.”

“I swear,” Zane says, “I dumped them in the return like eight years ago. If you can’t find them, then Julianne must’ve heisted them or something. Or maybe she fluffed a decimal and they’re in the wrong place now, I don’t know. But I know I returned them. I even remember the night I did it. It was a dark and stormy night...”

“Just so that we both understand,” Ms. Fisk interrupts as she adjusts her glasses. “The fines continue to tabulate, sir.”

“Tell you what,” Zane flashes a devilish smile at her. “I’ll trade you a ride on my Free Ball if you wipe my record clean.”

“No thank you,” she says. “I value my life. And there will be no wiping of anything, Mr. Middleditch. All I require is that you return my books and pay the fines you’ve accrued.”