The Gathering (22 page)

Finally, Hezekiah stops. “Welcome to your new home.”

I look out the rain-smeared window at a building that was probably large once upon a time. Now, however, only the first floor remains and that looks about as stable as the bridge we just crossed.

“Push the button at the front doors.” He shakes each of our hands, tells us it was a pleasure—that we’re welcome in his tavern anytime—and that’s that. We climb out into the rain and Hezekiah drives away.

The three of us run toward the front doors, out of the cold and the wet. A buzzing sound draws my attention upward. Another camera swivels in our direction, like it can detect movement. I shift behind Luka, who presses the button.

A computer automated voice crackles from an intercom. “State your identity.”

“Luka Williams, Teresa Eckhart, and …” Luka looks at Link, apparently stumped. Link isn’t his real name. It’s a name he goes by because that’s his gifting.

“Andrew Wyatt,” Link says.

There’s a loud click, like a lock being released. Luka grabs the handle and pulls the door open. We step inside to nothing. No sign of life. Just rain leaking in through the large holes in the ceiling and lightning flashing through broken bits of wall.

Not too far ahead is a doorway with a staircase sign above it. We walk through and begin our descent, my anticipation building. It’s like we’re in the belly of Detroit again, walking toward the red door, falling deeper into Alice’s crazy rabbit hole. There’s another door at the bottom, and a second security camera. We state our names, wait for the click, and step inside a small, sparse room.

This time, there is life.

A girl. Maybe my age, a little older. And a man, terribly thin. If not for the girl’s healthy proportions, I’d probably worry about the food situation down here. He smiles at us while standing by a door across from the one we just walked through. She sits behind a sort of welcome desk looking mostly bored, chewing a wad of gum. Her gaze lingers longest on Luka.

“Welcome to headquarters.” She picks up a walkie-talkie and presses a button on the side. “The new recruits are here. Do you copy?”

There’s a brief pause, then a blast of static. “Copy that. Begin the new recruit procedure. I’ll meet them as soon as I can.”

“10-4.” The girl lets go of the button. “Ralph’ll show you around. When you’re done, you’ll have your interview and get your ID badges. Felix’ll introduce himself whenever he’s free. Dinner’s over, but if you’re hungry, I’m sure the cooks’ll let you grab something to eat.”

“What about Cap?” I ask. Surely, he’s waiting for us.

“
Who
?”

“Josiah Aaronson.”

“Is that the guy in the wheelchair?”

I have no idea why this annoys me. “Yes.”

“He’s probably with Felix.” She turns her attention to the skinny man standing across from us, her expression softening, like she’s talking to a small child. “Ralph, you want to take our new guests on a tour?”

Ralph bobs his head eagerly.

She skims a printed list in front of her and removes two keys from a lock box in one of the desk drawers. “Rooms 14 and 35. Make sure to come back and get your tokens when you’re done.”

Ralph takes the keys with an enthusiastic thank you and holds his badge up to the door. It unlocks and he waves us through. We step into a room—at least three times the size of the common room in the hub—with a large screen television, air hockey, a pool table, an old pinball machine, and several bookcases spanning the length of one wall. The room is filled with three times the amount of people, too. Sitting on couches watching TV. Chatting in small groups. Reading by themselves. I spot a girl with dirty-blond dreads and a nose ring flipping pages off in a corner. Ellen.

The familiarity of it lifts my spirits.

I raise my hand to wave at her when a small body catapults itself into Luka’s arms.

“You’re here!” Rosie squeezes his waist, hugs Link and then me. It feels like a lifetime since I saw her, and yet it’s only been a week and a half. She says hello to Ralph, who says hello back. “You won’t believe this place. It’s huge. Way bigger than the hub.”

I glance around, doing a rudimentary headcount. “How many people live down here?”

“A lot. And I’m not the youngest, either. They put me on babysitting duty while the parents are in meetings.” She points to a small group of kids playing with action figures on the floor. The biggest looks around five or six. The smallest, a dark-haired little boy who can’t be any older than two. “Where’s Jillian?”

The question whacks me in the chest. Did Cap really not tell her? I turn to Luka and Link, unsure what to say. Link looks every bit as uncomfortable as me.

Luka cuffs Rosie under the chin. “Why don’t we catch up tomorrow at breakfast? We have to finish this tour with Ralph.”

Her big dark eyes fill with concern. Rosie’s no fool. But before she can press for answers, the dark-headed boy shrieks and hits one of his playmates. She turns to us with an exaggerated eye roll and leaves us with Ralph.

He flattens his thinning hair with his palm and begins the tour, sharing facts about our new home with buoyancy in every syllable, like this place is the most interesting place on the planet. “This used to be a naval hospital. It was built all the way back in 1909. A long time ago, there were rumors that it was haunted by the ghosts of soldiers who passed away within the walls.”

Link and I exchange a look.

Ralph keeps plugging along. “When it was shut down in the early 1990s, they left behind a lot of the rehab equipment, which comes in handy.”

It doesn’t take long to get my bearings.

Headquarters is much bigger than the hub, but the layout isn’t nearly as confusing. There are three sections.

The main one has a gymnasium in the center with cement floors and a smattering of exercise equipment. Off to the side, in a walled-off corner, a smaller area contains mats and punching bags, similar to the one in the hub. There’s the common room on one side of the gym and a cafeteria (which Ralph calls the mess hall) on the other, the welcome center in front, and a sort of general store (with snack food and toiletries, playing cards, magazines, and other odds and ends) behind.

Then there’s the west wing and the east wing. The west consists of two parallel hallways, one of which Ralph leads us down. It’s mostly classrooms and offices, with an infirmary at the end. The second hallway is closed off by a door marked
authorized access only
.

“What’s down there?” I ask, interrupting Ralph’s enthusiastic history lesson.

He shrugs. “They don’t let me in.”

I want to linger, ask more questions. I want to know what’s behind the closed door, but Ralph leads us toward the east wing, which he calls the barracks.

“There’s laundry at the end of the hall. Bathrooms and showers, too.” Ralph unlocks a door marked 14. There are two single beds inside, a dresser, and a desk. “You boys will bunk in here.”

“We’re sharing a room?” Luka asks.

“Everybody shares. Unless you’re Felix. He has his own.” Ralph smiles, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Luka and Link—roommates? That ought to be interesting.

Ralph waits for them to set their bags inside and waves us further down the hall, stopping in front of door thirty-five. “You, Little Miss, are staying in here with Joanna.”

I drop my bag on the floor, wishing I were rooming with Jillian. As soon as I step back out into the hallway and close my new door, another one opens.

A girl steps outside holding a towel. The familiarity of her hair, the slant of her shoulders, turns my breathing shallow.

I blink once. Twice. Three times.

But what I see doesn’t change.

She sees us standing there in the hallway and stops, her pale cheeks flushing pink.

Ralph raises his hand and gives Claire a friendly salute.

Surprise, Surprise

I
scratch the inside of my wrist. Claire can’t actually be here. I must have fallen asleep in the backseat of Hezekiah’s car and this, right here, is a dream. But my skin burns and she’s still there, a beautiful frozen statue four doors down, her back straight, her posture regal, her attention sliding from me, to Link, to Luka.

My ears start to ring.

Clamminess spreads across my palms and under my arms. I see them. Men with white eyes, binding Luka. Dragging him away. Swirls of black mist lacerating his soul as he arches up in agony. And Gabe, dead on the chair.

The ringing in my ears turns to screaming. I lunge. I lunge at her like I did in the hallway of the hub, when Luka wouldn’t wake up. But this time, Luka
is
awake. He grabs me around the waist to hold me back.

“Tess.” The sharp, familiar voice cuts through the screaming in my ears.

Cap rolls toward us from the end of the hallway.

“What is she doing here?” My question escapes on a ragged breath.

“She lives here.”

I shake my head. This has to be a sick joke.

“Thanks for giving them the tour, Ralph,” Cap says. “I’ll take it from here.”

Ralph doesn’t have to be asked twice. He gives me a strange look—like
I’m
the dangerous one—and quickly scoots away.

When I turn around, Claire is gone. She must have slipped back inside her room. The monster she awoke inside my chest, however, remains. “She can’t stay here.”

“It’s not up to you,” Cap says.

“Then I can’t stay here.”

“Where else are you going to go?”

The monster turns into a fire-breathing dragon, scorching everything in its path. My heart. My lungs. I can’t stop the memory from coming. It unfolds in slow motion—so vivid and real it’s like I’m there again. Waking up with a gun pressed against my neck. Fearing for Luka’s life. Then Link’s life. Rope cutting into my skin. Cold metal in my hands. The blast. The kick. My grandmother, sinking to her knees, clutching a circle of blossoming red. She was supposed to help me. Instead, she turned me into a murderer. She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Just like Claire. “She’s a traitor.”

“Felix conducted her interview himself. He believes she’s remorseful.”

“Then Felix is an idiot.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” A man walks toward us—the epitome of poise—and stops behind Cap’s chair. His hair is dark and slicked back. His face, thin. His clothes, carefully pressed—nothing at all like the faded rags we wore in the hub. Felix, I assume. He doesn’t look like a captain of a ship. He looks like a mob boss. “I’ve gotten us this far.”

He offers his hand. “You must be Teresa. Cap’s told me all about you.”

I look down at his manicured fingernails, a sour taste spreading across my tongue. “Funny. He hasn’t told me anything about you.”

His dark eyes twinkle, like my comment amuses him. He turns to the two boys behind me. “You must be Luka and … Link, is it?”

Unlike me, they both shake his offered hand. Nobody mentions Jillian. It’s like she never even existed. It sets my teeth on edge as Felix leads us back into the west wing, inside a room with a conference table. “Josiah tells me you’ve acquainted yourselves with the Rivard family journals. They have quite the extensive collection.”

I don’t say anything. Neither do Luka or Link.

“When you’re finished catching up, each of you will have your admittance interview. They’re conducted in here.”

The three of us swap looks.

“Nothing to worry about. Standard procedure for all new recruits.”

“Is it standard procedure to accommodate traitors?”

“It’s standard procedure to accept anyone willing to fight. Claire is willing.”

“Claire is a liar.”

Felix chuckles. “You didn’t tell me she was such a spitfire, Josiah.”

Cap doesn’t look nearly as amused. “It’s a character trait that seems to grow stronger with time.” He rolls up to the table. “Sit down, Tess.”

I do. Reluctantly.

Felix remains by the door. “Once your interviews are finished, you’re welcome to grab a bite to eat in the mess hall. We’ll get better acquainted tomorrow.” He gives the doorframe a couple taps. “I’m very eager to hear what you discovered on your mission.”

As soon as he’s gone, I turn on Cap. “You should have told us about Claire.”

“Would you have come if I did?”

“How do you know I won’t just leave now that I know?”

“Because you are smarter than your emotions. At least you’re supposed to be.” He massages the bridge of his nose, like he’s fresh out of patience. “And you have bigger things to worry about than a petty feud.”

“She nearly got Luka killed!” I look at Luka, expecting agreement. Expecting his outrage to match mine. If anybody has the right to be livid, it’s him. Claire’s the reason he lost his abilities as my Keeper. She’s the reason he wakes up screaming in the night. But he looks largely unruffled. He doesn’t even look surprised. “Did you know about this?”

He nods, that muscle tick-tick-ticking in his jaw.

“For how long?”

“Since you passed out on the train.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I had other things on my mind.”

“I can’t believe this.” I set my elbows on the table and run my fingers through my hair.

“There’s something else you should know,” Cap says.

Judging by his tone, it’s not going to be something I like.

“Clive is here, too.”

“
What
?” I stand so quickly, my chair topples back.

“Sit down.” Cap slaps the table, his voice sharp and commanding. “Good leaders are not hotheads. It’s time for you to get a handle on your reactions.”

I swallow the heat billowing in my throat.

Luka straightens my chair.

I force myself to sit down.

Cap fills his cheeks with air and releases it in a slow, steady stream. “I had Sticks and Non bring him because he’s too valuable an asset to lose. Clive gave them his full cooperation.”

I keep my lips pressed together. I never took Cap for a fool. Until now.

“Everyone deserves a second chance, Tess.”

“No, they don’t.” That is something I can never believe. Because if I do, then I would have to believe the same for my grandmother. But I didn’t give her a second chance. I pulled the trigger without hesitating. I didn’t aim for her arm or her leg. I shot to kill, and for the first time, I hit my target.