Spark (26 page)

It’s a paralysing sight, like watching a distortion of Jamie and me. My insides churn. I can’t fathom why Miriam needs me to stay.

“Miriam! They’ll be here any minute!”

It seems like a major effort for them to break apart, panting and wide-eyed. Leonard looks completely punch-drunk as he rights his glasses and Miriam’s face is flushed, her eyes bright. She almost staggers, turning to me. “Now, hit me.”

“What?”

“Not the face. Then go and find Jamie,” her expression hardens, clearly hating to have to say it, “and repeat what you’ve seen here.”

I’m too flabbergasted to move.

“Hit me, damn it!”

A terrible rush of adrenaline surges through me and I drive my fist into her stomach, lifting her from her feet, shunting her backwards. She folds, wheezing. Leonard catches her. “Good,” she says, a barely audible rasp, her face beet red. “Now, go.”

“Jamie?” I slip between the heavy curtains, from the living room into the conservatory. The French doors hang open and the cool damp smell of earth and orchid mingle with pungent fertiliser and the split wood scent of sap. Dark leafy shadows loom like malformed hands, reaching high over the mosaic floor, a spangled night above.

Jamie stands at a utility closet, yanking out shelves like he’s snapping twigs; nails whine then pop and the whole structure shakes. He’s hung his shirt on a potted rose and dust mottles the white cotton of his singlet, his chest and bandage glowing in the moonlight. He tosses the last shelf behind him and straightens up, brushing dirt from his hands. “There. It’ll be a squeeze, but you should fit.”

“Miriam says we should kiss,” I say, like I’m bringing a note from the teacher.

Jamie exhales, a sharp amused gust, regarding me with his hands on his hips. “I agree.” Then he comes for me, cups my head, tips my mouth, bringing his intoxicating scent of winter forest and warm skin, like he’s just come in from the cold, sat before a blazing fire, drunk eggnog and eaten cinnamon cookies right before kissing me.

My whole body hums, a bone-deep, homecoming hum.

Soon dizziness sweeps in, but I don’t pull back.
Time line, end point, he’ll choose her
. Jealousy, it rears in me, a red-hot blaze, vaporising my inhibition and inadequacy, and I dig my fingers in Jamie’s singlet, melding my hips to his, as though I’m bold and sexy and have a clue what I’m doing. He catches his breath and I relish the sound. I touch the ridges of his stomach, outline the hard muscle-wrapped cage of his ribs and trace the broad plains of his chest, mapping territory in a heedless rush to stake my claim before I pass out.

The foreign signal pulses, probing for me in the bandwidth. I wince and Jamie groans, squeezing his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt, not looking at him. “All that stuff I said. I know it’s only been a day. Obviously, I don’t expect – it’s not like I think we – what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t mean it to sound so creepy and intense. It’s Miriam, she does my head in. She wouldn’t shut up, and I swear, I didn’t know anything about, you know, the binding words, or whatever.”

He lifts my chin. “Wouldn’t hurt to let me believe you meant it, yeah?”

I don’t know how to respond, there’s no time. “Listen, if this doesn’t work and they take me–”

“It’ll work.”

“Fine, but we have Richard’s blood, if it’s him and I’m not here–”

He squeezes my waist. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.” I pull away and cringe. “I forgot. I’m supposed to give you this.” I draw my arm back and ram my fist into his stomach.

Inside the utility closet, my back pressed against cold wood, shoulders hunched, head ducked, I shiver, not because of the temperature but the bat-shit crazy fear of my fight or flight instinct. I hate picturing Kitty, terrified in the panic room, waiting for fate, or filling the pages of her journal with abject horror. I wonder what time it is, whether I’ll get to kiss Jamie again, when I last ate, when my nightmare period will hit, what will happen if they try to take me or if I fight.
Kitty, Kitty, Kitty
.

“They’re coming,” Miriam says from the living room. She doesn’t have to raise her voice. I’m concentrating so hard it’s a wonder I haven’t burst a blood vessel. “Stay connected,” she says. Something about the direction of her voice makes me picture her standing by the double doors to the foyer.

“Everton.” Jamie. Close. Just through the wall.

“I’m ready.”
They won’t take me. They won’t
.

I close my eyes, visualise Jamie (as he was before I punched him and he collapsed on his knees, gasping for air), his lips pouty from kissing the life out of me, his eyes all smouldering. I reach into the slipstream of static, looking for his signal. “Ha.” He’s waiting for me. The familiar vibration, the resonant hum.

Images flicker in my mind, sensation charges my skin, a strange blending of Transfer and Harvest between us, the give and take of physical memory. Then a sound from outside reaches me, tyres crunch on gravel. My eyes pop open and through the closet slats headlights light up the conservatory. I hear wheels turning, slowing, braking then the car engine dies.
Kitty!
Blind panic takes me, that lost-in-the-dark terror of childhood, like waking from a nightmare caught beneath suffocating sheets. My arms fly out, banging the wooden boards that seem suddenly coffin-like in constriction. I heave for air.

“Everton,” Jamie whispers.

“No,” Miriam hisses. “Pull it together.”

I bite hard on the inside of my cheek. I’ve lost Jamie’s signal. I stop breathing as an image blooms brightly in my mind. Jamie’s KMT.

Long dark hair fanned across a pillow, a warm wet cloth mopping blood from milk-white skin …

The doorbell. Steps in the foyer. Leonard’s voice.

Things become murky. Cerebral images clash with voices from the other room, disorienting me, like trying to watch a television while listening to a radio at the same time.

A man, not Leonard, brief low words.

A woman, an octave higher.

Miriam, formal, welcoming.

Jamie … silent.

Footsteps. The doors to Leonard’s study closing. I picture him pacing as he waits.

Movement in the living room, bodies sitting and then finally the voice of the Affinity Project.

The woman: “Is this a secure arrangement?”

Miriam: “Of course. I’m experienced with Relationship Protocol. Irregular work hours are part of my cover. Leonard believes you are here to examine proofs for an installation.”

The woman: “I’m not concerned about the Ticket. Your profile is exemplary.”

Ticket?

Jamie’s jaw, his mouth, his breath …

Silence. Movement.

The woman: “The Gallagher girl is a Spark? Eighteen is late.”

Miriam: “Police filed her attack.”

The woman: “I see that here … Governor’s Ball. Unfortunately high profile … Attempted mugging? Optimistic.”

A pause.

The woman: “However, two Spark events so close together, Ms Everton?”

Miriam: “It is unusual.”

The woman: “Supply protection is always preferable, but I suppose in these cases, we should be grateful it is at least someone of your experience. The mess some make …”

Miriam: “Mmm.”

A feather-light touch, tracing an angel’s scars …

The woman: “Your Watcher. Carolyn, is it? We’ll have her contact you. Perhaps a full course of Fretizine would be best when you’re done here.”

Miriam: “I was thinking the same.”

The woman: “And I will arrange a Reprieve.”

Miriam: “Thank you, that – that would be wonderful.”

The woman: “Asset preservation is paramount.”

Silence.

An explosion of glass, Jamie murmuring my name …

The woman: “Your presence here is a concern, Mr Gallagher. Only Ms Everton’s spike in demerits in the last half hour indicated she might be entertaining a fellow agent.”

Jamie: “I haven’t interfered. Miriam will tell you.”

The woman: “I have met few active family members who don’t.”

Jamie: “Interference leads to mistakes. I would rather my sister live. I have full confidence in Miriam and no interest in getting in her way.”

The woman: “However, your presence infringes protocol.”

Miriam: “I’m old enough to be Jamie’s mother.”

Whoa.

A scalpel flashes, opening a fissure in golden skin beneath a line of black ink …

The woman: “Hardly a deterrent, but I’m referring to Mr Gallagher’s current status. It says here you have entered the Deactivation Program with–”

Jamie: “Only the Pre-lim.”

Miriam: “Deactivation?”

Deactivation?

The woman: “You have not disclosed your status, Mr Gallagher?”

Jamie: “It didn’t seem important.”

Deactivation?

The woman: “The state of your signal is very important. Tesla takes his program seriously and–”

Miriam: “Tesla? Ethan Tesla?”

Jamie: “Ethan knows I’m here.”

Deactivation?

The woman: “I will have to verify this with Tesla, Mr Gallagher.”

Jamie: “Certainly.”

Silence.

Jamie? I can’t find your signal
.

The woman: “It is a concern to me that we could not identify you at all until we cross-referenced the address. How is it that your Marker has been allowed to degrade?”

Jamie: “My Watcher is Kaleb Kent.”

The woman: “Is he aware of your return from Berlin?”

Jamie: “No.”

The woman: “Would you like me to file a negligence report about Mr Kent?”

Jamie: “Yes, I would.”

Silence.

The woman: “There’s a niece on your file, Ms Everton. Carolyn has made note of her relocation.”

I hold my breath, the siren in my head.

The woman: “And her mother has died. Trauma is often a precursor to Priming, and with exposure to your signal–”

Miriam: “No. There’s been nothing.”

The woman: “Still, you should be alert.”

Miriam: “Of course.”

Silence. Movement.

The woman: “Do either of you require any other assistance at this juncture?”

Miriam/Jamie: “No.”

The woman: “Before we go, Mr Gallagher. It is my opinion that it would be better for you to remove yourself from the premises until Ms Everton has completed the assignment. The blurring in your signal is quite severe, as though it has divided or multiplied in some way. Even with Tesla’s permission for leave, I doubt he would be pleased with your current reading.”

I ache. Shoulders, back, thighs, calves, my bones generally. I trail Kitty through the double doors to the Senior Common Room. Dark-panelled walls, casement windows, roll armed sofas gathered in huddles around fading Axminster. I yawn and rub my eyes. Thankfully, I’m back in stretchy denim and Chuck Taylors; no more of Kitty’s restricting designer get-ups for me.

I scan the room, partly for Kitty’s sake but mostly for my own. Only a handful of people. No sign of Richard, but we’re early.

“Relax, he’s probably off having plastic surgery.” Kitty pokes me with her elbow, towards a clutch of sofas. “You’ve successfully duped an international underground organisation, doesn’t that make you happy?”

“Delaying the inevitable doesn’t make me happy. Thinking about what will happen to Miriam and Jamie doesn’t make me happy.” I bite my lip. Kitty has enough on her plate (target of the genetically deranged). I struggle to smile. “Staying with you makes me happy.”

She isn’t convinced. “They’ll be in trouble?”

I had lain awake half the night, between nightmares, worrying about what Affinity Project discipline looked like, among countless other things, like how long would it take Doctor Sullivan to compare samples, and what the hell was a deactivation program? A cure? Wouldn’t Jamie just say? He was so cagey about it. If Miriam hadn’t taken off straight after the Warden left, I might have asked her.

I don’t answer Kitty, lowering myself onto the couch, wincing at the collective cry of my musculature. I needed several hours in the gym, post-Warden, to calm down enough to sleep. Not that the sleep I’d had was any comfort, dream-stalking Kitty with sick, twisting hate. In the end, I fought my way back to consciousness at four, sobbing uncontrollably. I’m starting to think I need an exorcism. I try to focus on the positives. Leonard will have delivered my shirt to Doctor Sullivan by now. Who knows, he might already have Richard pinned under a microscope.

“I hate it.” Kitty slumps next to me, frowning at her hands. “Everyone’s lives screwed over because of me.”

“
No
.” I grit my teeth. “There is not a single shit thing about this whole DNA fiasco that isn’t the fault of the megalomaniac sons of bitches who conjured it up in a lab.”

“Too many double negatives for me to follow, Evs.”

“It means, I forbid you to blame yourself. It’s ridiculous, like apologising for being short.”

“I’m sorry about that too.”

“Ugh.”

Gil shoulders his way into the common room, brandishing an alarming bouquet of orange flowers. He props the door open and the rest of the guys follow, looking damp from the rain after their meeting down at the boatsheds. Jamie brings up the rear, an amused, long-suffering curve to his lips.