Keystone (17 page)

“And hopefully it won’t now,” the Addo says. The constriction in my throat relaxes.

Mrs. Reese pauses beside the darkened double glass doors that have GYM printed on them in gold letters. A shadow inside catches my eye and my field explodes around me, but then the lights flick on and Freddie and Nok walk toward us. There’s not a scratch, or a smudge, on either of them.

“Thank God, they made it,” Mrs. Reese murmurs and kisses the top of Iris’s head.

“How did they get here?” I ask.

“Another Veritas tunnel,” Sean says and I shiver thinking of the tight little hole we climbed through. I roll my shoulders.

“See how it works, Nali?” Mark pipes up. He’s smiling like I’ve won a prize. “They go one way, we go another. We were the bait car.”

“We were used.” Brandon throws a hand dramatically on his forehead.

“We were
useful,”
Mrs. Reese says. “We’d rather have them go after us as a larger target and be able to protect the Addo, rather than have them try for one of the Veritas. And the Fury almost always chooses the target that seems easiest to hit.”

“It’s true,” the Addo says, shuffling in his sandals like they’re tap shoes.

“They may not have even known it was a Veritas’ place under the library,” Sean says, but Garrett and Mrs. Reese and Addo all shake their heads and answer at the same time, “They knew.”

Freddie unlocks one of the gym doors from the inside.

“Good to see you,” he tells Mrs. Reese. “Everything go okay?”

“Flawless,” Mrs. Reese says.

“Almost flawless,” Garrett pipes up and we all turn to look at him. “The Fury were yelling when they came in. They were looking for the Key.”

“The Key?” Freddie frowns. “Are you sure you heard it right? What did they say exactly?”

“They were shouting
We need the key! Find the key!
Stuff like that,” I say. Garrett nods.

“They could be trying to throw us off,” Sean adds.

“Possible,” the Addo says. “But doubtful. Maybe this new development has something to do with the Fury’s sudden ability to be an actual threat.”

“Maybe Roger actually hid it from them too,” Sean says.

The Addo tips his head, side to side, as if he’s thinking. “Possible,” he says.Iris sniffles while she keeps her face pressed to her mom’s hip, blocking us all out, and when Mrs. Reese moves, Iris switches to the other side and quickly buries her forehead again. Freddie’s eyes take it all in.

“We should get everyone settled and revisit this a little later,” he says. Mrs. Reese nods. “I want Nok and the Addo in the safest location possible, so I was thinking you and Iris would stay with them, for added protection. We’ll put the kids in the courtyard. What do you think?”

“But there will still be access to the gym?” Mrs. Reese asks.

“Oh no,” Freddie explains, “it’s closed down to the public for ‘maintenance and updates’ until further notice.”

“Ahhh,” Addo says to Nok, “Looks like we’re roomies again.”

The tiny Veritas just nods once.

“Nok can show you the way down if you don’t remember,” he says. Mrs. Reese steps into the gym with Iris still clinging to her and the Addo follows behind them. She pauses a few steps away to turn back to us.

“There’s already a watch outside. We’re not in the rotation tonight, but we’ll be in it tomorrow,” she says. Her eyes rest on Mark and Brandon first. “So make sure you don’t get into your rooms and goof off all night. We all need to be well rested and alert tomorrow.”

Her gaze rolls over Sean and lingers on Garrett and I.

“Ok, we’d better all go and get settled.”

“I’ll show them to their rooms,” Freddie says and we follow him away from the gym doors. I wonder where they’re going even more than where Freddie’s taking us because I can’t imagine Mrs. Reese and Iris, Nok and the Addo, all curled up on weight benches and treadmills, trying to sleep.

Freddie leads us from the narrow hall to a labyrinth of wider ones. We pass a service elevator and go down another hallway that is identical to all the others, with mocha-colored squares on the carpet and latte walls.

“Alright,” Freddie says as he lurches to a halt in front of one of the unnumbered doors. He punches a code into a keypad and swings it open. “Mark and Brandon, you’re this one. The lock combo numbers on the dresser. Memorize them or you’ll be sleeping in the hall, because I’m only letting you in this once.”

“Because the lock code is so unique?” Sean asks, craning toward Freddie.

“No.” Freddie grunts. “It’s because I’m not going to be unlocking the doors every ten seconds just because nobody bothered to memorize the code.”

“Oh.” Sean straightens back and he clamps his lips shut. Mark and Brandon disappear inside and immediately shout back, “It’s a whole apartment! Holy crap!”

Freddie just closes the door behind them and moves to the next door.

“I’ll probably regret that,” he says. “Sean and Garrett, this is you.”

He opens the door and steps aside for Sean and Garrett before catching a glimpse of my toes poking out beneath the ragged hem of my dress. He looks back up and seems to notice Garrett’s dress shirt hanging off me for the first time. “I’ll put in another call to FIXI. We’ve got your kitchen stocked, but they’ve been running behind with all the relocations. They’ll deliver your clothes in a few hours, at the most.”

“Um…okay…” I say. He says things so casually that I feel stupid asking what he’s talking about. Garrett adds, “Could you ask them to leave out anything orange or fleece from Nali’s delivery?”

“Sure,” Freddie says with an amused chuckle. He moves to the next door. “Lucky you, Nalena. You’ve got this one all to yourself.”

I don’t feel lucky at all, but after Freddie pops the door open, he runs a hand over his face like he’s exhausted, so all I say is
thank you
and step inside, letting him close the door behind me.

The room isn’t anything I expect. Instead, it’s exactly what Sean and Mark and Brandon said it is: a whole apartment. When I walk in the door, there is a short hall with a table to dump keys on and coat hooks. Beyond that is an archway into a kitchen that seems bigger than the paper-filled one my mom and I had in our old apartment. Across from the kitchen is another archway, leading to a bedroom, but straight ahead, beyond the archways, is a living room. It’s capped at the end with a dark, sliding glass door, the opened vertical blinds bunched at one end.

Walking into my first place for the first time wasn’t supposed to be like this. My mom should be here making her cheesecake noises and gushing about how awesome it is that I’ve grown up and got my own place. I should have heavy boxes full of belongings, so I can complain about having to move it all in. I should be excited.

I shouldn’t be reading a note on the kitchen counter about key combinations and security systems and impenetrable glass.

I hear a soft knock on the patio door. It’s too soft of a knock to be dangerous, I think, but my field is up as I cross the living room. It’s gone the second I can make out Garrett, standing on the moonlit patio blocks outside. I open the door.

“Incredible, huh?” he says as I step outside, but all I can do is stare.

The courtyard is beyond incredible. It is a huge, round atrium with a small waterfall and full-grown trees. There’s got to be more than a dozen other sliding glass doors lining the atrium on this floor, but they’re all dark beside the Reese boys’ and mine.

I lean way back to look up and find the roof. It’s a glass dome, maybe ten or eleven floors above my head. There are patio ledges and hanging plants and enough doors to make this courtyard a whole colony. It’s a little overwhelming.

“What do you think of your place?” Garrett asks.

I just laugh the words back:
my place.
I can’t tell him that the hotel apartment is swallowing me whole. That it feels like I’m in a different universe, stumbling around beside him, imitating myself. My guts are twisted up like a crazy straw and I’m never going to let anyone know it. I’m Contego now.

He sways one shoulder, like he’s going to bump mine with it, but it doesn’t make contact. I still feel the energy pulse in the gap between us. It jumps from him to me and dissolves into my skin, running through my veins. I smile at him.

“It’s great,” I say.

“I’ll be right next door the whole time, you know,” he says. “No worries.”

“I’m not worried.” I sound like I mean it, which is a good surprise. “You can’t always be worrying about me either, Garrett. I’m Contego now too, right?”

“Right,” he says softly, but his eyes are on my lips as he says it, through his distracted grin. “You are.”

“I don’t think you’re really listening,” I tell him. “Or taking me seriously.”

“I am,” he says, “but it’s hard to think of you that way.”

“Why’s that?” My voice is flat.

“Because,” he whispers. “You’re my girlfriend and you’re not trained yet. I can’t be all for total equality, not yet. I can’t help it. Not when it comes to you. I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel okay about you going out there on your own. Once you’re completely trained, you can kick the Fury’s tails right alongside me, but I’m still going to want to have your back every second and be sure that you’re okay. I keep feeling like something will happen if I’m not there.”

“Like with your dad,” I say and Garrett’s brow crumbles. He looks away.

“Yeah, like that.”

“It was an ambush, Garrett. You couldn’t have saved him. You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

“I know that,” he says. “But I don’t feel that.”

I want to kiss him. My kiss would say neither of us is alone in a way we could both believe. I’m positive. But then he looks up, through the domed glass ceiling, and when he looks back at me, the moment is gone. When he looks back at me, he points to his dress shirt and my tattered dress beneath it.

“We should be listening for the door,” he says. “Somebody from FIXI should be coming to drop off clothes for us.”

“Freddie said that too. What is FIXI?”

“FIXI Incorporated. It’s the company that takes care of stocking the Ianua’s houses after moves and relocations. They keep files on each of us with our clothing sizes and preferences. When we have to relocate, they usually move all our things and set up our houses for us. They stock everything from shampoo in the bathroom to food in the kitchen. But this time, we didn’t know where we were going until we got here. We probably would’ve had a regular house someplace if the Fury hadn’t blown the library.”

I lean a shoulder on the wall beside my door, staring out at the courtyard.

“Who would make a file on me?” I ask. “How would they know…”

“It was probably my mom,” he says. “After you and your mom moved in with us.”

I rub the edge of Garrett’s dress shirt between my fingertips and someone knocks on my room door. Garrett opens the door and there’s a huge bag outside, on the floor. The hallway is empty.

“Looks like you’ve got some decent clothes now.” He hefts up the bag and hands it to me, clothes leaking out the top. Our fingertips just miss touching.

“I can go, so you can get cleaned up,” he says.

“Or you can stay,” I tell him.