The Gryphon Project (21 page)

“Phoenix, you’re okay. You’re fine.” Tariq pried himself out of her grasp and steered her into a chair. “You made it.”

Phee sat, dazed with relief, stunned by confusion. “Tariq, you
have
to tell me what’s going on. How did you even know about that cubbyhole?”

“We used to play in there when we were little.”

“Really?” She looked at him, challenging him to admit whether he knew the truth about Saul.

“Prisoner of war,” Tariq said. “That was the jail.” He slid a mug toward her. Hot milky tea. And then a chocolate-chip-banana muffin on a small plate. Two of her favourite things.

“How did you know …?”

“You order it all the time. Go ahead. Eat.”

Phee stared at the food.

“Phee, you must be hungry.”

Phee nodded, but couldn’t imagine eating the food. Her tummy was awash with anxiety, and even just looking at the sandwich made her gut churn uneasily. She pushed the plate away and took the mug in her hands, holding it tight. She concentrated on the heat against her fingers … anything to pull herself away from the edge of nausea. She took a sip and felt the liquid travel down her parched throat. He’d even put in the perfect amount of sugar.

“I can’t tell you anything right now,” Tariq started. He leaned forward, prepared for the look of protest Phee gave him. He put a
hand on her arm, his oak-coloured skin dark against her pale and freckled arm. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Phee didn’t even know where to start, but was sure she didn’t want the entire arcade to hear what she had to say. “How can you say that? After everything! You guys
know
what happened to Gryph and you won’t say and now he might not be reconned! You
know
he didn’t kill himself … and what about Saul? Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“You do!”

“No. I don’t. Honestly.” Tariq’s gaze was calm, steady. “But I can tell you that it’ll all work out, Phoenix.”

“I don’t believe you for one second,” Phee snapped. “Gryphon is gone, Saul is gone. What about you and Huy and Neko? Are you next? Is this some kind of weird suicide pact or something?”

With a small smile, Tariq replied, “No.”

“Would you tell me if it was?”

“No,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t.”

Phee sat back, giving up on that line of questioning. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I know that you know what really happened to Gryph. Please, Tariq. Why won’t you tell me?”

Tariq’s expression, flat and unresponsive to her coy gesture, didn’t particularly unnerve her. Tariq held his emotions and thoughts close, never letting on when he was rattled. If he ever got rattled, that is. Phee couldn’t think of a time he’d ever seemed ruffled, even when Gryph or the guys pushed too far and found themselves in sticky situations. Like that day when he and Saul got caught in the train doors. He was always the voice of calm reason. Now was no different. He would not tell her anything he didn’t want to. Once again, he was playing his hand the way he wanted to.

“Come on, Tariq. Give me something. Please.”

He set his hands on the table, fingers splayed, and leaned slightly toward her. Phee caught the scent of his aftershave, a smoky, seductive whiff that sent her back to that night at the rave when he had
danced with her. She blinked the memory away, struggling to stay in the moment even though she would have given anything to go back to that night.

“I’m going to ask you to do something very difficult—”

“Harder than dealing with Gryph dying? Harder than not knowing where Saul is? Harder than hiding in a secret hidey-spot with Crimcor agents just feet away?”

Again, he didn’t rise to her words. “I want you to trust me. Give me a week, and if things haven’t been sorted out by then, I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Gryph hasn’t got a week.”

“He’ll get the extension.” He was referring to the Chrysalis policy of permitting the stasis period to be extended for up to ten days.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. He’s Chrysalis’s poster boy. They’re not going to let him die. Not for real.”

“What if they want to make an example of him?” Phee voiced one of the bigger worries that had kept her awake over the past few nights. “What if they want to prove to people that there’s no special treatment for celebrities?”

Instead of answering her, Tariq rose from his seat. “I have to go.”

“Where?” Phee leaped up too and reached for him. She caught his wrist as he turned. “I want to come with you.”

“No.” He pulled away easily. “I’ll call you. In the meantime, Phoenix, you have to trust me.” For the first time since meeting him that afternoon, she saw his expression shift, letting in the smallest hint of concern as he stared hard at her. “Do you? Trust me?”

In the moment, Phee wished she could deny him. But the truth was that out of all of Gryph’s friends, she probably trusted Tariq the most.

“I do.” Phee nodded. “Trust you.”

She was so tired that her head felt like a bowling ball on her shoulders, too heavy. That one nod took the last bit of energy out
of her. Her day had been so bizarre, and so scary. And everything was so unsettled, and she didn’t know anything at all for sure. And her worry for Gryphon—and now Saul too—gnawed at her constantly. She wasn’t sure she could carry on. She let her chin drop to her chest and stared at the smooth tabletop. She was so tired that she just wanted to curl up on it, go to sleep, and wake up later to find everything as it should be.

While Phee was overwhelmed with the complexity of it all, Nadia was finding her own sort of comfort within her own world of denial. Phee wished she could exchange her curiosity and need to know with Nadia’s complacent denial. Phee had worried about what Nadia would think about Saul’s disappearance, but as it turned out she didn’t need to explain a thing. Nadia made her own assumptions about Saul and his family’s disappearance. As hard as it was to watch her friend suffer, Phee forced herself to keep her discoveries to herself. There was no mention of the raid on his house in the media, no mention of the family’s sudden, unexplained disappearance. After a couple of days of not hearing from him, Nadia had three ideas she was batting back and forth.

“If he wanted to break up with me, he could’ve just said!” Another swell of tears as she threw herself on Phoenix’s bed. Phee sat cross-legged beside her and patted her back, not daring to comment. The flaw in this version according to Nadia was that his entire family was gone. Another few minutes passed, and Nadia had flipped to her second idea. “Or if this is how he deals with death, he’s got a thing or two to learn.” And then the final alternative. She
sat up and gripped Phee’s hands in hers. “It’s something his father did, I’m sure of it. Fraud. Tax evasion. They’re in hiding. He’ll contact me. I know it!”

And the cycle would start again as she vacillated between the scenarios she’d fixed on. Nadia tried her hardest not to let her own crisis overshadow Phee’s family’s ongoing battle with Chrysalis, but often her despair overwhelmed her and she had a small fit every once in a while. Like this one, which was almost over.

“Phee, I’m sorry.” Nadia pulled Phoenix to her and gave her a tight hug. “I’m awful. Tell me the latest.”

The latest was not good. “Chrysalis is leaning toward ruling it a suicide—”

“But they won’t.” Nadia smiled sympathetically. “Not when it comes right down to it.”

Phee shrugged. “I don’t know, Nadia.”

“He’s their pride and joy!”

“Not lately.”

“That won’t affect their ruling though, right?”

“I don’t know, Nadia.” Phee wrung her hands in her lap. “I’m going with my parents later. To Chrysalis. And Grandma too. And Auntie Trish, even. They told us to bring as many family members as we could today. Grandpa and Fawn will stay here with Uncle Liam and the twins.”

“What for?” Nadia paled. This was not lost on her. “There’s one more day, right?”

“Not if they’ve made the decision already.”

“Your mom and dad can demand the extension.”

“Maybe.”

“Is your lawyer coming?”

Phee nodded. “Four lawyers. My mom thinks they’re going to rule against him.”

“Oh, my God.” Nadia dropped her hands into her lap. “This can’t be happening.”

“It is, though.”

“Oh, Phee … this is the worst summer in the history of terrible things.”

“It is.”

“Do you want me to come too?”

“I wish, but it’s family and legal team only. Thanks, though.”

Both girls looked up at the sound of Fawn yelling up from the bottom of the stairs. Nadia hurriedly wiped her teary eyes as Fawn’s graceless steps grew closer. Something sounded clunky in her gait, so Phee wasn’t surprised when she burst into Phee’s bedroom, each foot perched atop the bottom of a large, empty tomato can strung through with twine, which she held tight in her fists, lifting each tin as she stepped in theatrically.

“Look!” Fawn stomped in a little circle. “Grandma made them. They’re kilts.”

“Stilts,” Phoenix corrected her. “You mean stilts.”

“Yeah. Grandma says she and her friends used to make these when they were kids. Can you imagine Grandma as a kid? I can’t. Not at all. She showed me how to use them and I was laughing because she looked so silly in her old lady shoes and big bum and legs with all those purply veins running up and down like worms.”

Phee was as ever amazed at her little sister’s capacity to set aside the worry about Gryph and carry on, business as usual. She was exhausted just looking at her, and could hardly think of one thing to say other than to scream that their brother was dead and how could she be playing at a time like this.

“That’s something,” Phee finally managed. “Bizarre for sure. Grandma as a little girl.”

“With purply leg veins.” Fawn galloped past the girls on the bed. “I bet you can’t walk on these.”

“I can so. Grandma made them for me too.” Then again, Phee wasn’t sure that she could, come to think of it. There was a picture of her on ones their grandma had made for her, shortly before her second death. But, of course, Phee had no memory. Really, she just
wanted one less thing to deal with. Fawn. “Can you leave us alone, Fawn, hon? Please?”

“Why?”

“We’re talking grown-up stuff.”

“You’re not grown-ups.”

“We are more than you are,” Phee said. She got up and pushed Fawn toward the door. Fawn stumbled off the cans and landed on her knees. She jumped up, rearranged herself on the stilts and fixed Phee with one of her spectacular scowls.

“You made me fall!”

“I didn’t. You tripped.”

“You did! You made me fall.”

“Fine. I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not!” Fawn yelled. “I hate you! You’re no fun! Gryphon would’ve played with me. He would’ve tried my kilts out and been goofy and fun and you’re just boring! I wish you’d died and not him!”

“Fawn!” Nadia gasped. “You little shit—” In one movement Nadia was off the bed and lunging for Fawn. Fawn jumped off her stilts and dodged her. She dragged her cans with her as she backed into the hall.

“Fawn Nicholson-Lalonde,” Nadia hollered, “you get back here and apologize to your sister!”

“No! And you’re both boring old meanies, that’s what!” With that, Fawn stomped down the hall into her own room, slamming the door behind her.

“She’s horrid!” Nadia draped an arm across her best friend’s shoulders. “She didn’t mean it.”

“She probably did.” Phee shrugged. “But that’s okay. I’m kind of relieved, actually. I was honestly beginning to think Gryph’s death had no impact on her whatsoever. That little tantrum proved me wrong. In a good way. Proves the little monster is, in fact, at least partially human.”

“I’ll go make her apologize.”

“No. It’s okay. She doesn’t understand. It’s not her fault.”

“She can at least say she’s sorry for being such a little toad about it, though.”

“Nah.” Phee retreated to the bed and flopped backwards. When all of this was over, no matter how it played out, she would pay more attention to Fawn. Right now, though, she was too worried about the meeting that afternoon with Chrysalis to even go down the hall and try to explain things to her scared and angry little sister.

THE CHRYSALIS HEADQUARTERS
took up four square blocks in the section of the city designated for science and technology. The SciTech District was a lesson in building with steel and glass, the towers and warehouses alike gleaming with a sterile brightness that gave Phoenix a chill as they made their way to Chrysalis in one of their private shuttles, the logo on the side as good as advertising their grief. The mood in the shuttle was sombre, with the lawyers seated along one wall, silent and stiff, and Phee’s family along the other, trembling with worry, patting knees and whispering empty assurances to one another.

“Don’t you worry, dear.” Phee’s grandma handed her yet another hard candy, which Phee tucked away in her pocket, along with the others her well-intentioned and undeniably nervous grandma had foisted on her during the trip. “Everything will be just fine.”

Phee tried to smile back, but knew her face had contorted into the opposite expression, producing a pained sort of frown. She caught one of the lawyers watching her, so she gave the man her full attention, daring him to keep on with his prying curiosity. He blushed and turned his eyes down, fixing them on the briefcase carefully balancing on his lap.

The shuttle dock was built into the expansive glass foyer of Chrysalis itself. Phoenix did not recall ever being here, although she had been in this very building for the duration of her recons. When she stepped out of the shuttle, her eyes went straight to a
lush wall of green. One whole end of the foyer was an enormous wall crawling with cascading ivy and thick ferns and waterfalls of periwinkle dotted with nasturtiums. Instead of being surprised at such an incongruous sight, she smiled, happy to see it again. Then she caught herself, marvelling. She did remember the living wall, as it was called, the vertical garden that knitted itself all the way up to the ceiling. She remembered it from leaving, waiting for the provided shuttle after her last recon when she was six. She went up to the wall while the others behind her signed in and passed around the visitor tags. Phee ran her hand over a spray of feathery fern and breathed in the earthy perfume. A surge of optimism cheered her, and when she rejoined the others, she took her grandmother’s hand and whispered, “You’re right. It will be okay.” There was no way that they would refuse to recon Gryphon. No way.