Shine (10 page)

Stupid, stupid.
I’d thought I wanted to know and see my father. But now all I knew was the void he’d left behind. All I saw were pictures of me he would never be in.

Keys rattled in the front door downstairs. Gina was home early.

Blinking back tears, I shoved the album into the sweater box and slid it under the bed. Then I hurried to my room, sliding with my back to the hallway wall like a ninja.

“Aura?” my aunt called from the living room. “I have news.”

I froze, then sprinted down the stairs, clutching the banister to keep from tumbling.
Please, please, please let this be good.
“Are they letting Zachary go?”

“Sit.” She gestured to the dining room chair with a formality that reminded me of her courtroom demeanor. “They’ve moved him.”

My knees felt like rubber as I sank into the chair. “Where?”

“Remember that young girl who died in the plane crash, the one who allegedly saw Zachary and Logan meeting? Apparently she has passed on.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God.
“That’s good for her, right?”

“Yes, bless her soul, she’s at peace. But that leaves the DMP with no witness.” She set her purse on the table and held on like someone would steal it. “They’re transporting Zachary to Area 3A for testing immediately.”

“3A?” I leaped out of the chair. “That’s where they tried to take me
and Zach after they kidnapped us. Nicola made it sound like a horrible place! What will they do to him there?”

“I don’t know.” Aunt Gina rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know,” she repeated in a whisper.

I
did
know that if they tested Zachary to determine whether he could see ghosts, it would take one second to discover that he was a walking BlackBox.

They’d split him open to find his secret, then use it to “protect” the rest of us from ghosts. And they’d never let him go. He’d either be too useful or too dangerous.

Or too broken.

Anger and fear coiled in my gut. It was no longer enough to merely free Zachary. Now, I would wage a one-girl vendetta against the DMP for what they were doing to him. For what they’d tried to do to Logan. For what they wanted to do to me.

I would destroy them.

I
know how I can help you.”

“I’m splendid, thanks,” Simon said over the phone. “How are you?”

I parked around the block from my aunt’s office, where I’d just dropped her off. “Are you being sarcastic or is someone there?”

“Sarcastic. Continue.”

“Okay, so Nicola Hughes at the DMP offered me an internship. I told her no, but what if I took it? Then I’d be on the inside and could get you dirt so you can have … what did you call it? Leverage? To set Zachary free.” When he didn’t respond, I shouted, “They moved him to 3A!”

“I know. Agent Wolcott is incensed, as am I. But Aura, you can’t work for the DMP now. After what they’ve done, you have every reason to hate them. If you try to cozy up to the agency, they’ll be more suspicious of you than ever.”

He was right. By keeping Zachary, the DMP had all but declared itself my enemy.

“I’m sorry,” Simon said quietly. “I do appreciate your willingness to take such extreme measures.”

“Extreme?”

“What you’re describing is espionage. You could go to prison, perhaps forever. Since you’re not of age yet, they probably wouldn’t execute you.”

My stomach flipped.
Execute?

“This Nicola Hughes,” Simon said. “Can you get closer to her? Maybe she’ll tell you something useful. Then any transgression would be hers, not yours.”

“Perfect.” I hung up, not caring that I’d been rude at both the beginning and end of our call. Then I dialed Nicola, using the business card she’d given me.

While I waited for her to pick up, I glanced around, wondering if I was being watched. Maybe by that guy in the backward baseball cap lounging against the side of the bus station. Or the gray-haired lady with the stroller who’d stopped on the sidewalk to adjust the blue sunshade over what may or may not be a real baby.

The line picked up. “Hughes, Public Affairs, how can I—”

“Nicola!” I choked out her name. Sympathy was my only weapon. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Oh, Aura. I heard what they did with Zachary.”

“Not ‘they’—you. You’re part of them. You said you’d always help me. How could you let this happen?”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do. The Investigations Division has its own agenda.”

“It’s your job to explain that agenda to the public. So start explaining.” From the center console, I grabbed a pen and an old gas station receipt. “Please.”

“Aura, I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“Then find out. Did Zachary do something wrong? Did
I
do something wrong?”

Nicola’s voice went low and soothing. “Neither of you did anything wrong. It’s not about that.”

“When you thought they were taking me and Zach to 3A last week, you almost had a heart attack. Why? What’ll they do to him there?”

There was a long pause. Then her voice came hushed and echoed, like she was cupping her hand near the receiver. “Let’s not discuss this over the phone.”

Nicola met me at an indie record store in Fell’s Point. We both thought it’d be a secure, anonymous place to rendezvous, better than her coming to my house or me going to her office. Plus, now that I was officially obsessed with Frightened Rabbit, I had to pick up their exclusive, as-yet-unavailable-for-download EP.

Nicola chattered about music, a topic I normally enjoyed. But I was dying to shake some answers out of her.

I ran my fingertips over the foot-long selection of Rancid releases. “This was one of Logan’s favorite bands.”

Nicola came over with a small stack of alt-metal CDs. “I’ve heard of them. I think.” She flipped through the rack, her silver thumb ring clacking against the plastic CD holders.

“We saw them in concert when we first started going out. Logan bought me a T-shirt.” My throat tightened. “I was wearing it the night he died.”

“That must still hurt so much.” She gave me an awkward one-armed hug, then smoothed a wrinkle in my white cotton shirt.

“He died eight months ago, but to me, he’s only been gone a few days.”

“I bet you haven’t had time to mourn him, with all that’s happened to Zachary.”

I started to deny it, then realized she was right. Logan had left a void no one could fill. But it comforted me to know he was at peace—not to mention safe from the DMP.

“Nicola …” I held my CD in both hands, its corners digging into my palms. “What do they do to people at 3A?”

“It’s a ghost-research facility, so I don’t know what they’d do to a living person there. All I know is that sometimes a truck shows up to headquarters, collects a few ARGs, and ships them up to 3A.”

ARGs. At-risk ghosts: those that the DMP captures and puts into tiny obsidian-lined boxes so they won’t become dangerous shades. They’d tried to do it to Logan, but he’d turned into a shade in time to escape.

“What do they do with the ARGs there?”

“No idea. Since 3A isn’t known to the public, they don’t need to tell us flacks in Public Affairs.”

“Can you give Zach a message from me? I want him to know I love him and that I’m thinking about him.”

Her face softened. “Oh, sweetie, I’ll try. It might have to go through a few intermediaries, but I’ll make sure he knows.”

I believed her, or at least I believed that she believed they’d pass on the message.

“Aura, I know you’re mad at the DMP, but we’re doing the best we can. We’re not—” She cut herself off, rubbing her pressed lips.

“You’re not what?”

Nicola fingered the lapel of her black pin-striped blazer. “We’re not the ones calling the shots.” She went back to flipping through the row of Rise Against CDs, though she didn’t look like she was actually seeing them.

“Who’s calling the shots?” I reviewed my basic civics knowledge. “Congress? The president?”

“I wish. The president is temporary. This has been going on since way before—” Nicola stopped and scanned the ceiling. Her gaze rested on a security camera in the corner. “You ready to check out?” She held up her stack of CDs. “I should stop before I break my bank account.”

We headed for the cashier, my mind spinning. I had to tug more information out of her.

Nicola turned down the offer of a plastic shopping bag and stuffed her CDs into a black canvas tote. I angled my head to see the bag’s logo, which looked like red prison bars. The company name made me pause.

SecuriLab. The same firm with ten of its employees on the DMP visitors registry the day I was there. The day after the bombing of Flight 346.

“Cool bag,” I said. “What’s SecuriLab?”

Nicola looked embarrassed. “They’re the people who make Black-Box. They come into headquarters for meetings, and always bearing
gifts. Usually it’s pens or pencils, but last Christmas they gave us these sweet tote bags. Look, it has a pocket that’ll fit my phone.”

I tuned out her babbling about the tote bag’s marvels and wondered: Why would BlackBox manufacturers visit DMP headquarters the morning after a major disaster?

I pondered this puzzle while we walked down the hot sidewalk toward Nicola’s car. I had to make our last few minutes together count.

“So why did you want to work for the DMP?” I asked her.

“I lost my mother ten years ago, when I was almost your age.”

“I’m so sorry.” I felt bad for Nicola. I missed my mom, and I’d never even known her. “Was it sudden?” The polite way of asking,
Did she become a ghost?

“It was a car accident. My little cousin could see my mother’s ghost, but I couldn’t. It took Mom almost a year to pass on.”

“Yeesh. That must have sucked.”

“Totally. So I decided to help ghosts. Or at least help us understand them. That is the department’s mission, though I know it doesn’t always seem like it.”

No, it really doesn’t.

“We need post-Shifters’ help,” she added. “But I get why you don’t want to work for us, especially now.”

I shrugged, not wanting the conversation to turn back to me. I was still trying to understand her motivations. “What about before your mom died? What’d you want to do for a job?”

“I was always a government geek. But back then it was for the environment. I’m from Wyoming, so my big passion was protecting the wilderness. Problem is, there’s a lot of money to be made there.”

“Like tourism?”

She laughed. “That’s pennies. I mean like drilling, timber, ranches. Businesses pay lots of money to make sure the government lets them do what they want.”

“So these companies pretty much own the agencies that are supposed to tell them what to do?”

“Maybe not own them, but they have a lot of influence.” She stopped next to a silver Prius. “Send me a written message for Zachary, and I’ll do what I can to get it through.”

After she drove off, I trudged through the thick summer air to my own car, thinking of what she’d said about companies influencing government agencies.

Could it be the same way with SecuriLab and the DMP? Life with ghosts was a lot easier since BlackBox was invented. Without it, the dead would be everywhere, even in bathrooms and military bases.

And without BlackBox, the DMP would be powerless.

My phone rang as I got in my car. I checked the screen. “Hey, Dylan.” I rolled down the windows, expecting to be here a while, since Dylan tended to talk in circles and take forever to get to the point. “What’s up?”

“Aura. I need to see you.”

T
his. Was weird.

Dylan hadn’t been in my room since we were kids. The last time we were alone together (other than in the cemetery) we’d made out like crazy on his bedroom floor, driven by our grief for Logan and my confusion over Zachary.

I wondered if Dylan was thinking of that now. Or maybe he was only thinking of the pizza he was shoveling into his mouth.

“So what did you want to tell me?” I asked once we’d inhaled half of our first pieces.

Sitting on the floor across from me, Dylan wiped his mouth with a Fourth of July–themed paper towel. “Logan came to see me on Sunday. Before he went to find you.”

“I’m glad you guys got to say good-bye.”

“Yeah, it was cool.” Dylan was almost whispering now, though my
door was closed and Gina was downstairs, eating her own pizza before going out to meet clients. “He told me something he didn’t want you to know until after he passed on.”

I tensed. Had Logan withheld some hurtful secret from me? He hated having anyone be mad at him.

“It’s not about you.” Dylan chomped the last bite of crust. “It’s about shades.”

The word alone made me nervous. “What about them?”

“He said, and I quote, ‘Shades can do whatever the fuck they want.’ ”