The Unbound (13 page)

D
A NEVER LIKED
the word
illegal
. Semantics. There was no line between
legal
and
illegal
, he’d say, only between
free
and
caught
.

And I’m caught at the station, handcuffed to a chair next to Detective Kinney’s desk. My fingertips are stained black from ink, and Kinney’s holding up the page with my prints.

“This right here,” he says, waving the sheet, “isn’t just a piece of paper. This is the difference between a clean record and a rap sheet.”

My eyes hover on the ten black smudges. Then he folds the page and slides it into his desk drawer. “This is your one and only warning,” he says. “I’m not going to book you today, but I want you to think about what would happen if I did. I want you to think about the ripple effect. I want you to take this seriously.”

Relief pours over me as I drag my eyes from the drawer to his face. “I promise you, sir, I take it very seriously.”

The detective sits back in his chair and considers the contents of my pockets on the table in front of him. My cell phone. My house key (he left the one around my neck). Da’s lock pick set. And my Archive list. I hold my breath as he takes up the paper, running his thumb against it as his eyes skim the name—
Marissa Farrow. 14.
—before he drops it back on the desk, face up. He takes up Da’s lock pick set instead.

“Where did you get this?” he asks.

“It was my grandfather’s.”

“Was he a deviant, too?”

I frown. “He was a private eye.”

“What happened to your hands?”

“Street fight,” I say. “Isn’t that what deviants do?”

“Don’t talk back to me, young lady.”

My head is starting to hurt, and I ask for water. While Kinney’s gone, I consider the drawer with the page of prints, but I’m sitting in the middle of a police station, surrounded by cops and cuffed to the chair, so I’m forced to leave it there.

Kinney comes back with a cup of water and the news that my parents are on their way.

Terrific.

“Be glad they’re coming,” scolds Kinney. “If you were my daughter, I’d leave you in a cell for the night.”

“She goes to Hyde, doesn’t she? Amber?”

“You know her?” he asks, his voice gruff.

I hesitate. The last thing I want is for Amber to hear about this incident, especially since I’ll need her case updates more than ever. “It’s a small school,” I say with a shrug.

“Kinney,” calls one of the other officers. He strides toward us.

“Partial prints are back on the Thomson girl’s necklace,” says the officer.

Thomson. That must be Bethany’s last name.

“And?”

“No match.”

Kinney slams his fist on the desk, nearly upsetting the cup of water. I almost feel bad for him. These are cases he’s never going to close, and I can only hope I catch whoever’s doing this before they strike again.

“And the mother’s boyfriend?” asks Kinney under his breath.

“We rechecked the alibi, but it holds water.”

My gaze drifts down to Kinney’s desk. And that’s when I see the second name writing itself on the Archive paper.

Forrest Riggs. 12.

Kinney’s attention is just drifting back to the table when I rattle my handcuff loudly, hoping he reads my panic as natural teenager-in-trouble panic and not don’t-look-at-that-paper panic.

“Sorry,” I say, “but do you think you could take these off before my parents get here? My mom will have a stroke.”

Kinney considers me a moment, then gets up and wanders off, leaving me chained to the seat.

Ten minutes later, Mom and Dad arrive. Mom takes one look at me cuffed to the chair and nearly loses it, but Dad sends her outside, instructing her to call Colleen. Dad doesn’t even look at me while Kinney explains what happened. They talk like I’m not sitting right there.

“I’m not pressing charges, Mr. Bishop, and I’m not booking her. This time.”

“Oh, I assure you, Detective Kinney, this will be the
only
time.”

“Make sure of it,” says Kinney, unlocking the cuff and pulling me to my feet, his heavy static only making the headache worse. He hands me back my things, and Dad ushers me away before Kinney can change his mind.

I try to wipe the ink from the fingerprint kit on my skirt. It doesn’t come off.

I feel the eyes on me as soon as I’m through the doors and look up expecting to see Eric watching. Instead, I see Sako. She’s on a bench across the street, and her black eyes follow me beneath their fringe. Her gaze is hard to read, but her mouth is smug, almost cruel.

Maybe Eric’s not the one I should be worried about.

My steps have slowed, and Dad gives me a nudge toward the car. Mom’s in the front seat on the phone, but she ends the call as soon as she sees us. Across the street, Sako gets to her feet, and I clear my throat.

“See Dad?” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “I told you it was all just a misunderstanding.”

“Get in the car,” says Dad.

On the way home, I almost wish I could have another tunnel moment, lose time. Instead, I’m aware of every single second of weighted silence. The only sounds in the car are Mom’s heavy sighing and the tap of my phone as I delete the texts I sent to Jason. I can’t erase the prints from Judge Phillip’s kitchen or Bethany’s necklace, and I can’t unsend the texts or unmake the calls, but I can at least minimize the evidence. I whisper a silent apology as I erase his number.

Dad parks the car, and Mom gets out and slams her door, breaking the quiet for an instant before it resettles, following us up the stairs and into our apartment.

Once inside, it shatters.

Mom bursts into tears, and Dad starts to shout.

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

“Dad, it was an accident—”

“
No
, it was an accident that you got caught. But you broke into a crime scene. I come home and find your schoolbag here and your bike missing, and then I get a call from the police telling me you’ve been arrested!”

“It doesn’t count as an arrest if they don’t process you. It was just a conversation with—”

“Where is this
coming
from Mackenzie?” pleads my mother.

“I just thought I might be able to help—”

He throws the lock pick set onto the table. “With those?” he growls. “What are you
doing
with them?”

“They were Da’s—”

“I know who they belonged to, Mackenzie. He was my father! And I won’t have you ending up like
him
.”

I pull back. If he’d struck me, it would have hurt less.

“But Da was—”

“You don’t know
what
he was,” snaps Dad, running his hands through his hair. “Antony Bishop was a flake, and a criminal, and a selfish asshole who cared more about his secrets and his many lives than his family. He cheated and he stole and he lied. He only cared about himself, and I’ll be
damned
if I see you behaving like him.”

“Peter—” says Mom, reaching for him, but he shrugs her off.

“How could you be so
selfish,
Mackenzie?”

Selfish?
Selfish?
“I’m just trying to—” I bite back the words before they escape.

I’m just trying to
do my job
.

I’m just trying to
keep everything together
.

I’m just trying to
stay alive
.

“You’re just trying to what? Get kicked out of Hyde? Ruin your future? Honestly, Mac. First your hands, and now—”

“That was a bike accident—”

“Enough,”
snaps Dad. “Enough
lies
.”

“Fine,” I growl, throwing up my hands. “It wasn’t an accident. Do you want to know what really happened?” I shouldn’t be talking, not right now, not when I’m tired and angry, but the words are already spilling out. “I got lost coming back from one of Mom’s errands, and it was getting dark, so I cut through a park, and two guys jumped me.” Mom sucks in a breath, and I look down at my bruised knuckles. “They cut me off…” It feels so strange, telling the truth. “…and forced me off the bike…” I wonder what it would feel like to tell them about my wrist. About Owen and all the different ways he broke me. “…and I didn’t have a choice…”

Mom grabs me by the shoulders, her noise scraping against my bones. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” I say, holding up my hands. “I hurt them.”

Mom lets go and sinks onto the edge of the couch, her hand to her mouth.

“Why would you lie about that?”

Because it’s easier.

Because it’s what I do.

“Because I didn’t want you to be upset,” I say. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty. I didn’t want you to worry.”

The anger bleeds away, leaving me bone-tired.

“Well, it’s too late for that, Mackenzie,” she says, shaking her head. “I
am
worried.”

“I know,” I say.

I’m worried, too. Worried I can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep playing all the parts.

My head is pounding, and my hands are shaking, and there are two names on my list, and all I want to do is go to sleep but I can’t because of the boy with the knife waiting in my dreams.

I turn away.

“Where are you going?” asks Dad.

“To take a bath,” I say, vanishing into the bathroom before anyone can stop me.

I find my gaze in the mirror and hold it. Cracks are showing. There’s a glass beside the sink, and I dig a few painkillers out of my medical stash under the counter and wash them down before snapping the water on in the tub.

What a mess,
I think as I sink to the tile floor, draw my knees up, and tip my head back against the wall beside the tub, waiting for the bath to fill. I try to count the different things Da would give me hell for—not hearing the cops in time, getting caught, taking a full two days to notice I was being set up—but then again, it sounds like Da wasn’t as good at separating his lives as he thought.

He only cared about himself, and I’ll be damned if I see you behaving
like him.

Is that how Dad really saw him? Is that how my parents see
me
?

The sound of the running water is steady and soothing, and I close my eyes and focus on the
shhhhhhhhhhhhh
it makes. The steady hush loosens my muscles, clears my cluttered head. And then, threaded through the static, I hear another sound—like metal tapping against porcelain.

I open my eyes to find Owen sitting on the counter, bouncing the tip of his knife against the sink.

“So many lives. So many lies. Aren’t you tired yet?”

“Go away.”

“I think it’s time,” he says, tapping to the rhythm of a clock.

“Time for what?” I ask slowly.

“Time to stop hiding. Time to stop pretending you’re all right.” His smile sharpens. “Time to show them how broken you really are.”

His fingers flex on the knife, and I spring to my feet, bolting for the door as he jumps down from the counter and blocks my path.

“Uh-uh,” he says, wagging the knife from side to side. “I’m not leaving until we show them.”

His knife slides back to his side, and I brace myself for an attack, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he sets the weapon down on the counter, halfway between us. The instant he withdraws his hand, I lunge for the blade; my right hand curls around the hilt, but before I can lift it Owen’s fingers fold over mine, pinning me to the counter. In a blink he’s behind me, his other hand catching my free wrist, wrapping himself around my body. His hands on my hands. His arms on my arms. His chest against my back. His cheek pressed to mine.

“We fit together,” says Owen with a smile.

“Let go of me,” I growl, trying to twist free, but his grip is made of stone.

“You’re not even trying,” he says into my ear. “You’re just going through the motions. Deep down, I know you want them to see,” he says, twisting my empty hand so the wrist faces up. “So show them.”

My sleeve is rolled up, my forearm bare, and I watch as six letters appear, ghostlike on my skin.

B R O K E N

Owen tightens his grip over my knife-wielding hand and brings the tip of the blade to the skin just below the crook of my left elbow, to the top of the ghosted
B
.

“Stop,” I whisper.

“Look at me.” I lift my gaze to the mirror and find his ice blue eyes in the reflection. “Aren’t you tired, M? Of lying? Of hiding? Of everything?”

Yes.

I don’t know if I think the word or say it, but I feel it, and as I do, a strange peace settles over me. For a moment, it doesn’t feel real. None of it feels real. It’s just a dream. And then Owen smiles and the knife bites down.

The pain is sudden and sharp enough to make me gasp as blood wells and spills over into the blade’s path, and then my vision blurs and I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the counter for balance.

When I open my eyes a second later, Owen is gone, and I’m standing there alone in front of the mirror, but the pain is still there and I look down and realize that I’m bleeding.

A lot.

His knife is gone, and the drinking glass is lying in glittering pieces on the counter, my hand wrapped around the largest shard. Blood runs between my fingers where I’ve gripped it and down my other arm where I’ve carved a single deep line. There’s a rushing in my ears, and I realize it’s the sound of the bathwater
shhhhhhhhhh
ing in the tub, but the tub is overflowing and the floor is soaked, drops of blood staining the shallow water.

Someone is knocking and saying my name, and I have just enough time to drop the shard into the sink before Mom opens the door, sees me, and screams.

G
ROWING UP, I have bad dreams.


My parents leave the lights on. They close the closet door. They check under the bed. But it doesn’t help, because I am not afraid of the dark or the closet or the gap between the mattress and the floor, places where monsters are said to lurk. I never dream of monsters, not the kind with fangs or claws. I dream of people. Of bad people dropped into days and nights so simple and vivid that I never question if any of it’s real.


One night in the middle of summer, Da comes in and perches on the edge of my bed and asks me what I’m so afraid of.


“That I’ll get stuck,” I whisper. “That I’ll never wake up.”


He shrugs. “But you will.”


“How do you know?”


“Because that’s the thing about dreams, Kenzie. Whether they’re good or bad, they always end.”


“But I don’t know it’s a dream, not until I wake up.”


He leans in, resting his weathered hand on the bed. “Treat all the bad things like dreams, Kenzie. That way, no matter how scary or dark they get, you just have to survive until you wake up.”


This is a bad dream.

This is a
nightmare
. Dad is speeding, and Mom is sitting in the backseat putting pressure on my arm and I’m squeezing my eyes shut and waiting to wake up.

It
was
a dream. I was dreaming. It wasn’t real. But the cut
is
real, and the pain
is
real, and the blood still streaked across our bathroom sink
is
real.

What’s happening to me?

I am Mackenzie Bishop. I am a Keeper for the Archive and I am the one who goes bump in the night, not the one who slips. I am the girl of steel, and this is all a bad dream and I have to wake up.

How many Keepers lose their minds?

“We’re almost there,” says Mom. “It’s going to be okay.”

It’s not. No matter what, it’s not going to be okay.

I’m
not okay.

Someone is trying to frame me, and they don’t even have to, because I’m not fit to serve. Not like this. I’m trying so hard to be okay, and it’s not working.

Aren’t you tired?

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I don’t realize until Mom presses a hand to my face that there are tears streaming down it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper under the sound of her noise against my skin.

Fourteen stitches.

That’s how many it takes to close the cut in my arm (the marks on my right hand from holding the glass are shallow enough to be taped). The nurse—a middle-aged woman with steady hands and a stern jaw—judges me as she sews, her lips pursed like I did it for attention. And the whole time, my parents are standing there, watching.

They don’t look angry. They look sad, and hurt, and scared—like they don’t know how they went from having two functioning children to one broken one. I open my mouth to say something—
anything
—but there’s no lie I can tell to make this better, and the truth will only make everything worse, so the room stays silent while the nurse works. Dad keeps his hand on Mom’s shoulder, and Mom keeps her hand on her phone, but she has the decency not to call Colleen until the nurse finishes the stitches and asks them to step outside with her. There’s a window in the room, and through the blinds I can see them walk away down the hall.

They’ve made me wear one of those blue tie-waisted smocks, and my eyes travel over my arms and legs silently assessing not only the most obvious damage, but the last four years’ worth of scars. Each one of them has a story: skin scraped off against the stone walls of the Narrows, Histories fighting back tooth and nail. And then there are the scars that leave no mark: the cracked ribs and the wrist that won’t heal because I keep rolling it, listening to the
click click click
. But contrary to Colleen’s theories, the cut along my arm—the one now hidden under a bright white bandage—is the first I’ve ever given myself.

I didn’t,
I think.
I don’t—

“Miss Bishop?” says a voice, and my head snaps up. I didn’t hear the door open, but a woman I’ve never seen before is standing in the doorway. Her dirty blond hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, but her perfect posture and the way she pronounces my name send off warning bells in my head. Crew? Not one I’ve ever met, but the ledger’s full of pages, and I only know a few. Then I read the name tag on her slim-cut suit, and I almost wish she
were
Crew.

Dallas McCormick, Psychologist.
She has a notebook and a pen in one hand.

“I prefer Mackenzie,” I say. “Can I help you?”

A smile flickers on her face. “I should probably be the one asking that question.” There’s a chair beside the bed, and she sinks into it. “Looks like you’ve had a rough day,” she says, pointing to my bandaged arm with her pen.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Dallas brightens. “Why don’t you tell me?”

I stare at her in silence. She stares back. And then she sits forward, and the smile slides from her face. “You know what I think?”

“No.”

Dallas is undeterred. “I think you’re wearing too much armor,” she says. I frown, but she continues. “The funny thing about armor is that it doesn’t just keep other people out. It keeps us in. We build it up around us, not realizing that we’re trapping ourselves. And really, you end up with two people. That shiny metal one…”

The girl of steel.

“…and the human one inside, who’s falling apart.”

“I’m not.”

“You can’t be two people. You end up being neither.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you made that cut on your arm,” she says simply. “And I know that sometimes people hurt themselves because it’s the only way to get through the armor.”

“I’m not a cutter,” I say. “I didn’t mean to do this to myself. It was an accident.”

“Or a confession.” My stomach turns at the word. “A cry for help,” she adds. “I’m here to help.”

“You can’t.” I close my eyes. “It’s complicated.”

Dallas shrugs. “Life is complicated.”

Silence settles between us, but I don’t trust myself to say any more. Finally Dallas stands back up and tucks the notebook she brought and never opened under her arm.

“You must be tired,” she says. “I’ll come back in the morning.”

My chest tightens. “They finished stitching me up. I thought I’d be able to go.”

“Such a rush,” she says. “Got somewhere to be?”

I hold her gaze. “I just hate hospitals.”

Dallas smiles grimly. “Join the club.” Then she tells me to get some rest and slips out.

Yeah, rest. Since that seems to be making everything better.

Dallas leaves, and I’m about to look away when I see a man stop her in the hall. Through the blinds, I watch them talk for a moment, and then he points at my door. At me. His gold hair glitters, even under the artificial hospital lights. Eric.

Dallas crosses her arms as they talk. I can’t read her lips, so I can only imagine what she’s telling him. When she’s done, he glances my way. I expect him to look smug, like Sako—
the Keeper
is digging her own grave
—but he doesn’t. His eyes are dark with worry as he nods once, turns, and walks away.

I bring my hand to my chest, feeling my key through the too-thin hospital smock as the nurse appears with two little pills and a white paper cup filled with water.

“For pain,” she says. I wish I could take them, but I’m worried that “for pain” also means “for sleep.” Thankfully she leaves them on the table, and I pocket them before my parents can see.

Mom spends the rest of the night on the phone with Colleen, and Dad spends it pretending to read a magazine while really watching me. Neither one of them says a word. Which is fine with me, because I don’t have words for them right now. When they finally drift off, Dad in a chair and Mom on a cot, I get up. My clothes and cell are sitting on a chair, and I get changed, pocket the phone, and slip out into the hall. The hospital is strangely quiet as I pad through it in search of a soda machine. I’m just loading a bill into the illuminated front of one when I feel the scratch of letters in my pocket and pull out the list as a fourth name adds itself to my list.

Four names.

Four Histories I can’t return. Roland’s warning echoes in my head.

Just do your job and stay out of trouble, and you’ll be okay.

I take a deep breath and dig my cell out of my other pocket.

Hey, partner in crime.


A second later, Wesley writes back.

Hey, you. I hope your night’s not as boring as mine.


I wish.


I think about typing the story into the phone, but now is not the time to explain.

I need a favor.


Name it.


I chew my lip, thinking of how to say it.

A few kids are up past their bedtimes. Tuck them in for me?


Sure thing.


Thanks. I owe you.


Is everything okay?


It’s a funny story. I’ll tell you tomorrow.


I’ll hold you to it.


I pocket the phone and the list and dig the soda out of the machine, slumping onto a bench to drink it. It’s late and the hall is quiet, and I replay Judge Phillip’s crime scene in my head. I know what I saw. The void was real. I have to assume there are two more: one in Bethany’s driveway and another wherever Jason vanished. Three innocent people gone. If there’s any upside to my being stuck here, it’s that no one else should get hurt.

I finish the soda and get to my feet. The local anesthetic has worn off, and the pain in my arm is bad enough to make me consider the pills in my pocket. I throw them away to be safe and head back to my room and climb into bed. I’m not feeling anywhere close to sleep, but I’m also not feeling anywhere close to normal. I think of Lyndsey, who always makes me feel a little bit closer to okay, and text her.

Are you awake?


Stargazing.


I picture her sitting on her roof, cross-legged with a cup of tea and an upturned face.

You?


Grounded.


Shocker!


That I did something wrong?


No. That you got caught. ;)


I let out a small, sad laugh.

Night.


Sleep sweet.


The clock on the wall says eleven forty-five. It’s going to be a long night. I unfold the list in my lap and watch as, over the next hour, the names go out like lights.