The Collectors' Society 01 (20 page)

At the end of my second week, Victor and Mary are sent off on a retrieval assignment after Wendy proclaims his pen rehabilitated. I learn that, at any point, only three teams can go out on missions, leaving the rest behind to research identifying catalysts or whatever else it is they do in their off time. Grounded locally, Finn follows through on his offer to show me around New York City. After communal dinners, he takes me out exploring, sometimes until the sun rises slowly back over the horizon. We sneak out to Central Park on more than one occasion and walk in comfortable silence or minutes filled with words and questions for one another. He borrows one of the Institute’s cars and takes me outside of the city to a place called the Hamptons. With my toes buried beneath sand, salty air licking my face, and a man finding seashells for me, long-lost snatches of pure, unadulterated wonder and joy burble to the surface.

Slowly, slowly, I get to know him through these outings.

Finn’s smart. He’s funny, he’s honest, he can be maddeningly sarcastic, and sometimes, he bears too much weight on his shoulders. I’ve learned that the Society views him as Van Brunt’s second in command, so he’s constantly inundated with questions and problems that no one else outside of his father gets asked. He takes it all in stride, though, and listens without impatience and strives to do what’s best for all he knows. Including me, even when instinct kicks in and I try my damnedest to keep him at arm’s length.

Impossibly, I’m weakening toward his charms.

I’ve finally allowed myself to admit a truth that I thought never could be. I’m utterly attracted to him. He’s honorable and kind and, on a superficial note, he’s gorgeous—terribly, painfully sexy in a way that leaves me wishing I’d been assigned a different partner. Not that I’d ever act out on this pathetically burgeoning yet undoubtedly one-sided attraction, but I’ve dreamed about him more than once (which I insisted to myself later on could at least be viewed as hopeful progress, no matter how shameful it may be). Fantasized when I ought to have been focusing in on more important things.

Like where the bloody hell Sweeney Todd went to.

Since our run-in, the weasel has vanished. No sighting of him or the woman he was initially photographed with has surfaced on security cameras Wendy has running day in and out. No further break-in attempts have occurred, no alarms set off unexpectedly.

It doesn’t sit well with me. Not when there are lives at stake, and catalysts he could be destroying.

I’m thinking about this after our breakfast plates are removed one morning two weeks after I first arrived. “We ought to go to the bookstore, the one Todd disappeared into for hours. Remember? We could talk to the owner there. See if he knows anything about our barber friend.”

Finn sets down his coffee cup, now emptied. He’s amused. “I was wondering how long it would take you to finally say this.”

Somehow, that stings. “Meaning?”

He shrugs an infuriatingly charismatic yet annoying shrug that leaves me assuming he doesn’t want to tell me what he means.

I stare at him for a long moment before frustration rips through me. Perhaps I’ve been the blind one. Perhaps I’ve let myself be dazzled by something that I had no right to let myself feel. Finally, a fault of his to cling to.

Defenses rise up out of freshly tilled ground. “Was this a test, then? See how long it takes poor, befuddled Alice before she screws her head on just right?”

I might as well have slapped him, Finn’s so taken aback by my quiet vehemence. “What?”

I refuse to allow myself to be taken in by the hurt that flashes in his eyes. My napkin is thrown on the table and I storm out, purposely choosing to ignore the curious stares of fellow diners.

Right before I reach the stairs, Finn grabs my hand. “What just happened?”

The skin beneath his fingers tingles. Too many memories fight to surface. I’m not ready for this. I’m not. “Let go of me.”

He does so with alacrity. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“My leaving changes nothing. How could it?”

“Nonetheless, I will always hope it will.”

I need to push him away. I can’t do this—I . . . I can’t believe I even momentarily entertained the notion of letting someone so close again. “I do not appreciate you testing me.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

I’ve had more than enough games to last three lifetimes. “You’re wondering how long it would take me to finally come to a conclusion.”

Somehow, my icy statement relieves him. “All I meant was that I’d been wondering when you’d be ready.”

Never, I vow. I’ll never allow myself to be ready for vulnerability again. But I won’t allow him to know that. Instead, I play naive. “Ready for what?”

“Anything. Your first night here, there was a break-in. Your second, you were attacked. It’s okay to ease into—”

My defenses double. “I’ve been watching movies and learning to turn on computers like a mindless puppet while some fiend is undoubtedly collecting catalysts. Situations like this do not call for easing, no matter how alluring it may sound.” My words ring through the empty stairwell. “I told you before, I am not fragile. I will not break. I do not need to ease into anything. I’m—”

“Stop. Just stop.” He runs a hand through his hair as he slumps back against the wall. “I know you’re not fragile. But you’re also not a superhero, so—”

“What in the bloody hell is a superhero?”

“Somebody with magical powers. All I’m saying is, we’ve thrown a lot at you.
A lot
. Probably more than we do anyone else.” I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going. “Actually, I can verify that one. Nobody since I’ve been here has ever had so much of the Society’s secrets and histories thrown at them so quickly. We like to ease members into their roles. People tend to freak out over the existential shit. They’ll be fine, think they’re fine, and it’ll hit them out of the blue. They freak out. Retrievals have been ruined. We just thought—”

I’m livid.
Is this what he’s thought of me all along?
We?
Has there been an official discussion concerning the newest recruit? Behind closed doors, perhaps, while I’m off in a child’s classroom, learning how to dial a damn phone?

He grabs my arms. Forces me to look at him. Says quietly, calmly, “I need you to tell me what’s going on right now, Alice. Because I’ve gotta admit, I don’t have a clue.”

I can’t.

I can’t.

I say, hating how cold my voice is, “I was told that if I didn’t come along, Wonderland might disappear. And yet, nothing has been said about going back since that first day.”

“We don’t go into magical Timelines without preparation. And the Librarian is still researching what the catalyst might be.”

He fights me with logic. It makes me want to break down in maniacal laughter. Wouldn’t the Caterpillar approve of this man? “How is it we can find a playbook at some fancy house yet can’t figure out one for Wonderland?”

“We will figure it out. We’ll go. It’s only a matter of when. Never an if.”

My hands shake. I’m confused. I want to lash out again, force him and his kindness away. Because if we are to go back to Wonderland, and he as my partner . . .

What if I can’t keep him safe? What if—

My heart sinks. Ice fills my veins. Vivid images of
what ifs
spring forth. Too much blood has been spilled over the last few years, too many lives lost. Too many dreams crushed beneath the feet of reality.

I barely know this man, but something inside tells me if he were to die because of my inability to follow the peace accords, I would never be able to forgive myself. But then, I also don’t think I can live with myself if something were to happen too all the people I left behind if I get caught once I cross into Wonderland’s borders.

A thumb brushes across my cheek. I flinch back, but Finn’s still here. “What are you not telling me?”

Everything
, I think.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Maybe you and I come from different time periods. I come from a time in which people didn’t offer up intimate details freely. In my time—”

“We don’t.”

I blink in surprise.

“My original Timeline’s dates were similar to yours. I’ve just been here longer than you, that’s all.”

I think back to the dirty, young boy in ragged clothes I saw on my phone that day in the coffee shop. Since then, I’ve refused to search for anyone else, myself included. I know nothing other than what they’ve all told me, which is not much at all, to be honest.

Not much at all. It’s easier that way, especially when it comes time to walk away.

“What are you so afraid of?”

I tell him quietly, “Not a damn thing.” I’m pleased that my words don’t wobble.

Liar, liar, liar.

“Do you think I’m going to use whatever you tell me against you?”

Knowledge is the sharpest of weapons.

“How are we supposed to work together if you don’t trust me?”

I have begun to trust him, which is the problem. I’m terrified to trust him, which is an even bigger problem. Trust is an intimacy I cannot bear to risk again. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitation.

“You shouldn’t.”

A pair of Wendy’s tech team walks by. Finn steers me to a small room just off the stairway filled with brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies. Once he shuts the door, he asks, “Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

“This is a delightful place for a meeting.”

He sighs. “Why shouldn’t I trust you, Alice?”

My back is literally and figuratively up against a wall. “Trust can be . . . fragile. Fleeting. Changing. It can be used against a person.”

“Do you plan on using my trust against me?”

I’m chewing on glass when I say, “Trust is not any easy thing for me.”

“News flash,” he says softly. “It isn’t easy for most of us.”

“You can’t possibly trust
me
. You don’t even know me.”

“Your choice, not mine.”

I’m stunned.

He takes a deep breath. Puts several feet between us as he leans up against the opposite wall. “Every time we’re together, you’re constantly asking me questions about myself and my history. But whenever I ask one in return, you clam up. Switch subjects. I know nothing about you outside of the books from your childhood and that your father works at a university.”

“That’s not true!”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to, because he’s telling the truth. I do hide my past from him, from all of them. We’ve spent hours and hours together, many just the two of us, and in that time I’ve slowly picked away at the shell he hides behind.

He has let me. And in return I’ve only continued to fortify my shield.

His frustration is nearly tangible. For long seconds, the standoff between us in unbearable, and I fear that I’ve crossed a line I may never be able to erase.

But then he says, “Let’s go to Ex Libris.”

Just like that.

We take a cab to the bookstore, and while we’re stuck in mind-numbing traffic, he says nothing. Asks nothing. Doesn’t even look at me. He spends his time doing whatever it is he does on his phone. I choose to follow suit and scan a file he’s sent me rather than stick my foot any farther into my mouth.

F.K. Jenkins has owned the business for years after inheriting it from a spinster aunt. From what the Society can tell, he makes very little profit except for the rare first edition book that’s found by eagle-eyed hunters on the search for buried treasure. Such surprise sales, often found within dusty, long-forgotten shelves, seem to fund his existence alongside the remnants of a trust from the aforementioned aunt. There are several notes indicating Jenkins has tried his hand at writing, too, but none of his books ever made it past slush piles. A copy of a form rejection from five years prior stares up at me when the car slows down at a light. Impersonal and short, it simply tells him that his work isn’t what the publisher is looking for.

According to the notes, Ex Libris has been under surveillance ever since Todd and his lady friend were first tracked there weeks before. A camera was surreptitiously placed on a building across the way to face the front door, but so far, there has been no indication that Todd has returned. Jenkins himself seems to rarely leave the vicinity, and when he does, it’s to shuffle down to a nearby local grocery store for supplies. Most of his food is delivered, though—twice a week, two boxes each time. A look at past orders shows he never varies in his requests.

What is it about this particular bookstore that drew Todd and his cohort?

I think about this as we slowly make our way through what Finn calls gridlock. Todd searching out books would not be a surprise, especially if he’s using them to edit into Timelines or to search for catalysts. The real question is, though—why Ex Libris? Is it because it’s local to where he lives, convenient for his needs? Or is it the opposite—does he travel across the city to an unfamiliar location, one that makes it all the harder to track him to his home base?

I read his story a few days back, during the dead of night while everyone else slept. I found a scanned copy of it online, as it’d fallen into public domain over the years. The thing is, Sweeney Todd died at the end of
A String of Pearls
. Victor had thought he’d merely been apprehended, but the story insists he was hanged for his crimes. And that troubles me, because Finn insisted that whatever happens in a story cannot be altered—Timelines, yes, but not the period of time described in the books themselves.

Sweeney Todd died hundreds of years ago. How is it he is running around New York City?

The silence is stifling. I clear my throat and ask, “Did you ever read the Penny Dreadful called
A String of Pearls?”

I feel the driver’s eyes settle on me via the rearview mirror.

Finn shifts in his seat as he angles his body toward me, his eyebrows lifting in question over the dark plastic frames of his mirrored sunglasses.

“I did. The villain in it died.” I cock my head to the side, as if it has a noose around it and hold a fist aloft as if I’m holding the rope. A smile I hope might surface on his face never does. “Are ghosts real?”