Читать книгу Meridian - Josin L McQuein - Страница 8

Events that change the world seem like they should come with a herald or harbinger, but that’s not how it happens. The moments that mean the most happen in the pauses between breaths—easy to miss if no one knows they should be looking.

What did I miss with Tobin?

I should have noticed something before now. Tobin’s eye shine is more than a whisper of warning. It’s a plunge into an icy stream so cold, the surface grows solid over my head. It’s the pull of water away from shore before the waves crash down to drown us all in his nightmare.

“Tell me this is you,” I hiss to Cherish while in an empty hallway. Hardly anyone comes near the Arbor at this time of night, and I’m grateful for their avoidance. No one can see me talking to myself. “Tell me you’re playing with my head, or thinking about Rue, and somehow that made Tobin look different to me.”

But Cherish stays stubbornly silent.

If I call it stubbornness, then I can believe she’s really the cause—not Tobin.

The halls of the Arclight-below pass in a blur; routine by now, so I don’t think about where I’m going until I reach a door and need my wristband for access. Down here, you don’t need permission just to enter; you need it to leave, too. Every time I have to wait for the red light to turn green and let me through, my breath hitches and I wonder if this will be the day they change their minds. The point they turn on me and lock me away again.

Those fears have grown weaker the last few weeks, but if Tobin’s eyes are really silver . . .

The door snaps open, and I shoulder through as soon as I’m able, holding my breath when I pass the alcove that houses both Honoria’s office and the White Room, where Cherish died and I was born. This is nothing but a routine shift change, I tell myself.

I pass the familiar scrawl of USAF that someone stenciled on the wall between embossed stars; streaks into a line at the corner of my eye. One of these days, I’ll ask someone what it means. By the time I reach the final panel that allows me into the Arclight-above, I’ve denounced and defended Tobin a dozen times.

I should tell Dr . Wolff, insists the part of me indoctrinated by the Arclight’s rules. Nightmares, plus voices, plus eye shine, equals Fade.

Rue swore to me that the Fade don’t take unwilling hosts anymore. Tobin loathes the Fade; he’s terrified of them. No way would he agree to let them stay inside him by choice.

Did Rue lie to me?

Negative! The suggestion makes Cherish angry. Deceit is not a possibility .

“Okay, maybe it was an accident or an oversight.”

Nanites are tiny. Rue could have missed some when he took his back. Cherish has lasted this long, there’s no reason Rue’s contact with Tobin couldn’t do the same.

But where are the marks ? Tobin’s skin is clean.

Where’s the sensitivity to light? The arbor’s full of sunlamps. Tobin works on the perimeter with the high beams every day—no Fade could stand that.

And his father would have noticed. Wouldn’t he?

Turning Tobin in would bring suspicion to our whole class, and at least half the upper-years. Anne-Marie and her brother Trey, Silver and Dante—they all put themselves at risk. I can’t tell them they might have been wrong. And I can’t lose another life. The Arclight’s all I have left.

If something happens to Tobin, it’s my fault. I brought the Fade. I begged Rue to heal him.

“Were his eyes really shining?” I ask, but Cherish only answers with a reminder that Tobin left the Arclight for me. She nudges me to do the same for him. Rue’s in the Dark, and he’ll answer my questions.

She’s baiting me, not helping. Her strength is in the Dark.

What I need is a cooperative Fade who’s willing to come here. One who might understand what’s going on, but who also knows why I can’t mention it to anyone else.

I need Honoria’s baby brother.

Schuyler Whit turned Fade in the first days, more than a century ago, and has lived as one ever since. I named him Bolt, for his appearance, with its sharp, slashing lines, and a presence that invokes the violent nature of a thunderstorm. I’ve watched people approach other Fade with curiosity when they venture out of the Grey toward the darkened sections of the Arc, but few bother with him. He looks menacing, but he isn’t, and his connection to Honoria makes him taboo. It’s a shame, considering he has a knack for defusing people’s tempers.

My panicked heart begins to calm. Bolt comes at least three times a week. Once I make it through my promise to Anne-Marie, I’ll find him at the Arc, and everything will be okay.

“Yay!” Anne-Marie cheers when I enter the midyear classroom she’s been assigned for the night. “One of you showed up, at least.”

It was no surprise when she declared her intention to follow a teacher’s path the moment we were allowed to choose. Anne-Marie and her brother are a perfect split of their father’s personality. Trey got Mr. Pace’s desire for a security position, and she got the teaching bug.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Dante?” she asks.

I’m still getting used to how different she looks with her hair cut so short that it barely rises above her scalp. It seems an odd choice of celebration, but she said the change was for her birthday.

I should figure out if I have one of those.

“Silver’s gone missing, and you know if they’re together—”

“No details in the kiddie classroom.” She holds up a hand to cut me off. She’d probably cover her ears if her other hand wasn’t balancing an oversize tub on her hip. “Actually, no details on those two, period. Neither of them understands the concept of oversharing. Or locks.”

Poor Anne-Marie swears she didn’t sleep for days after walking in on the two of them in a closet; something about Dante having a really big, really weird birthmark.

There’s a bluish aura around her, glowing brighter and bolder with her increased agitation. It’s the way Cherish sees people who have touched the Fade but who aren’t part of the hive. I’ve seen Anne-Marie’s since I got my memories back, but it’s especially vibrant today.

“Besides,” she says. “I doubt Silver’s with him, unless he’s finally convinced her to go out on the short side with him. Every day, he skips out on rotation early and makes himself go a little farther into the Grey. You’d think he was hunting for buried treasure out there.”

That’s a conversation I have no intention of continuing. One person having Dark dreams is enough; I don’t want to think about it spreading. Thankfully, it’s only a passing comment, and Anne-Marie moves on.

“Could you get the chairs out of the way while I set out the cups and stuff ?” she asks. “That was Dante’s job, but he’s useless.”

Easy enough, and if I’m both lucky and quick, I’ll make it out of here in time to beat Bolt to the Arc, so there’s no chance of missing him.

“Why are you setting out snacks like for a baby class?” I ask offhandedly, as I stack chairs against the wall.

“Mid-years get snacks.” She stumbles but catches the cup she drops before it hits the floor.

“They do?”

The air between us hardens, developing the sharper edge of a knife drawn to keep me back. It’s been a few days since I’ve experienced an emotion so strong I can taste it, and it takes a steadying breath to reacquaint myself with the phenomenon.

“Sure. On special occasions,” she says.

“Today’s special?”

Did I miss another holiday? There are so many days on the calendar, I can’t keep them straight.

“Birthdays are special,” she says stiffly.

Anne-Marie won’t look at me. The scent of oranges, which usually hovers around her, turns as acidic as the toner used to strip down tables in the clean rooms of the Arclight-below. It burns my throat when I breathe.

She’s hiding something, Cherish warns. Danger . Flee .

But I’m not the one who looks like she’s about to dart out of here.

“Anne-Marie?”

“Do the last row, would you? I have to pick up the kids from orientation.”

She swings the box off her hip, toward me, so I can either catch it or let it fall as she rushes for the exit.

“Anne-Marie!”

She stops, shoulders rising with a sigh, without turning.

“You have to face her sooner or later, and the longer it goes, the harder it will be,” she says. “You’re my friend, Marina. I hate what she did to you, but we need her. So long as she’s avoiding you, she’s no good to us. This place will fall apart.”

“What are you—”

I don’t have to finish the question, and Anne-Marie doesn’t have to answer it. The room changes in a way she can’t sense, with explosive rings spreading through the air from the door. Into the void behind them, steps a person who sets my every nerve alight with panic. Cherish becomes a wild animal running amok inside my skull.

Honoria hasn’t made many appearances since she shot Tobin while trying to prove he was no longer human. She’s avoided me altogether, which suits me fine, but to my continued annoyance, most everyone has fallen onto the same side of the argument as Anne-Marie. They think Honoria’s countless years here are an asset—no matter the mistakes she’s made or crimes committed. Even Tobin’s father has tried to get me to talk to her.

They don’t understand that when I look at Honoria, I lose myself.

To me, she’s the woman who almost murdered Tobin for the sake of her misconceptions. She’s the one who ordered me kidnapped and altered. She’s the one who tried to exile Tobin’s father and those who went with him into the Grey. She’s the one who tortured Rue.

Honoria’s a monster, and she’s staring at me like I’m the one who doesn’t belong in a room meant for human children.

I don’t, and that’s her fault, too.

“You can’t leave me alone with her.” I make a desperate grab for Anne-Marie’s arm, and the box nearly topples to the floor when she steps out of reach.

“You don’t have to forgive her; you don’t have to like her, but you need to find a way to live with her so things can get back to normal.”

Normal for the Arclight means sleeping all day and hiding under lamps at night, jumping at shadows that never meant us any harm. That’s not normal, nor is it an existence I want to return to.

“I don’t care if you have to draw a line down the middle of the building and pick sides, just do something. Please try,” Anne-Marie says, rushing back to hug me for some, inexplicable reason. She lets go and turns very serious, scolding me with a pointed finger. “If either of you are dead when I get back, I’ll be really irritated.”

Then she walks out of the room, leaving me to face the one real enemy I have in the world.