I woke up in the middle of the night and checked the clock—it was almost 2:00 A.M. We’d agreed to meet in Chatterjee’s classroom after the others fell asleep so I could give the Rebel helmet another try.
It’d be good if it worked.
Or at least if I didn’t puke my guts out all over the floor again.
I eased off my cot so the springs wouldn’t squeak and went to wake Alex. Her cot was empty.
That was weird. We’d planned to walk over together.
Patrick wasn’t in bed either, but that made sense since he was on lookout duty, keeping an eye peeled from Mr. Tomasi’s room. I snuck out of the gym and made my way to my old English classroom.
Patrick was sitting cross-legged on Tomasi’s desk, facing the bank of windows.
“All quiet on the western front?” I asked.
Without turning, he said, “Northeastern. And yeah.”
Patrick didn’t always get my references.
“I thought Alex might be here with you,” I said.
“Nope. Check Chatterjee’s—maybe she’s there already.” He turned his head to check the clock, and I caught a sliver of his silhouette. “I got ten more minutes till Dezi relieves me. I’ll meet you guys there.” His head swiveled away to face the windows again. I stared at his broad shoulders.
All business. That’s Patrick.
I withdrew.
As I walked back out of the humanities wing to head for Chatterjee’s, I noticed movement outside through one of the windows. Instinct kicked in, and I dropped to the floor. For a minute I breathed into the cold tile. When I finally peered over the sill, I saw a figure on the swing set in the sheltered picnic area.
Oh.
I let myself out through a side door and sat down in the swing next to her. We swayed back and forth on our toes. Even though the building shielded us from the street, the last thing we could risk was creaking chains. For some reason I knew not to say anything. I sensed she just wanted me there.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Alex finally said. “I try to push down all the memories of before, but sometimes they slip to the surface. Imagine that. With everything going on out in the real world, I’m most scared of what’s inside my skull.”
“You had a nightmare?”
She tilted her head, as if the question confused her. “A wisp of a memory. My dad pushing me in a swing at Hammond Park. This was before Mom left. I couldn’t have been eight years old yet. The summer sky, his hands on my back, the wind against my cheeks—I felt it like I was there. One of those timeless moments, you know?”
I did know. I’d never considered it directly, but I realized that I’d always thought of swings as timeless also. I’d figured that someday my kids would sit on swings, too, and be pushed by me, and then my kids’ kids would be pushed by them. But when this set rusted and crumbled to the ground, who would build the next one? There were no more adults, and there’d be no more kids. Not in this world.
Alex said, “I know that you and Patrick never got along with my dad—or him with you guys—but I remember how safe he made me feel.”
Sheriff Blanton had always thought Patrick and I were trouble, two broke ranch kids going nowhere. He couldn’t stand his daughter’s dating Patrick. He used to warn her, Rain only goes one direction. Down.
“He was a good dad,” I said.
“I shot him in the head,” she said. “I know it wasn’t him, but it was what was left of him, and every time I think of my daddy, even pushing me as a little girl in a swing, that’s where my mind goes. From a swing set to the bullet I put through his forehead. I can handle one memory or the other, but when you put them together, well…” She blew out a breath. “That’s what I can’t stand. That life contrasted with this one.”
“But we can’t forget who we were before either,” I said. “Or all we’ll have is what’s out there.”
She kicked her legs straight. The chains groaned, and she moved her shoes quickly back to the ground. “What’s the point of remembering if it only makes it hurt more?”
“I guess that’s our job now,” I said. “To take who we were before and try to bring it to this. Try to protect those seeds and grow them.”
“Even here?”
“Even here.”
The breeze shifted, bringing the smell of grass and rotting flesh from the neighborhood across from the school. We drifted forward and back, forward and back, not going anywhere.
“Patrick and I had a fight,” she said.
I thought about my brother on Mr. Tomasi’s desk, staring out those windows, and I realized he wasn’t just focused. He was mad.
“When I first woke up from the dream,” she said, “I went to talk to him. But I can’t talk to Patrick about stuff like this.” Alex turned in her swing to face me, the chains twisting overhead. Her ice-green eyes fixed on me. “Not like I can talk to you.”
I felt a guilty rush, more pleasant than not. It was like eating a piece of stolen candy, delicious and unhealthy. I wanted to say a hundred different things, but I didn’t know if any of them were the right thing to say, and so, with effort, I turned away from her vulnerable gaze.
“Patrick only thinks about now. About what has to be done. About the next step. And that’s safe and reassuring, and we need that more than ever.” She blinked and held her eyes closed for a moment, her long lashes arcing out. “But there’s also something … missing in that.”
The moonlight caught half of her face. It was hard not to look at her lips, not to remember what they felt like.
“It’s my fault,” I said. “When my parents died, he had to step up. He couldn’t be a normal eight-year-old. I wasn’t strong enough. So he had to be. I never would’ve made it without him.”
“I’ll let you in on a secret.” She leaned closer to me, and I could smell the lavender skin lotion she wore that she’d foraged somewhere. “He wouldn’t have made it without you either.”
There was only maybe a foot between us. I wanted so badly to lean forward into her.
Instead I said, “We should get to Chatterjee’s.”
She tilted off the swing, and I followed suit. We slipped back inside and walked quietly down the dark corridor. We’d just rounded the corner when I came chest to chest with two of Ben Braaten’s lackeys, Dezi and Mikey. They must’ve been heading to relieve Patrick on his lookout duty.
“Look who’s sneaking around behind his big brother’s back,” Dezi said.
“I’m not sneaking anywhere,” I said. “We were just talking.”
“Sure you were.”
“Don’t live down to your reputation, Mikey,” Alex said, breezing by him.
Mikey grabbed her by the biceps and spun her around. He was a husky kid, the starting center on our football team. His hand encompassed Alex’s arm; it looked like if he squeezed, it would snap.
“Watch your mouth, little girl,” he said.
Alex tried to twist away, and he yanked her into him, wrapping her in a bear hug from behind and lifting her off the floor so she couldn’t get traction with her feet.
My temper flared, and I charged at him.
Dezi blindsided me.
At least that was what I thought happened. I felt knuckles crush my cheek, and then I was lying on the floor and Dezi and Mikey were chuckling down at me. I started to get up, and Dezi kicked me in the stomach. My mouth was bleeding, the breath knocked out of me. I could hear Alex yelling and twisting in Mikey’s grasp.
Dezi set his hands on his knees, leaning over me. “C’mon, Little Rain. Why don’t you get up?”
I tried to suck in air but couldn’t find any. Drops of blood fell from my bottom lip, tapping the tile. I tried to rise but was having trouble moving.
A voice issued from the darkness in the hall behind us. “I got it from here, little brother.”
Dezi whipped around just as Patrick melted into view, barely more than a dark form with a cowboy hat. I didn’t see what happened, but there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a grunt, a crack, and then Dezi spilled onto the floor next to me. Unconscious.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on my brother again,” Patrick said. “Or on Alex.”
Mikey released Alex, shoving her away. He swung at Patrick, but Patrick ducked, the punch sailing over his Stetson. As he rose, Patrick kicked out one of Mikey’s legs and hit him with a cross on his way down.
Mikey struck the floor next to Dezi.
The three of us, in a neat little row.
Patrick wasn’t winded. He hadn’t rushed, hadn’t even moved that fast. He’d just ambled in and taken care of business like he always did.
I didn’t think I could feel any worse about the guilty pleasure I’d felt from my talk with Alex, but there it was.
Patrick looked over at Alex. “You okay?”
She rubbed her biceps. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
He looked at me. “Good?”
“I am now.”
“Let’s go, then,” he said. “We got work to do.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it and stood up. Wiping my mouth, I followed my brother down the hall.
* * *
Eve and Chatterjee were waiting in the classroom, the Rebel helmet out and ready on his desk.
“What took you so long?” Chatterjee asked.
“I overslept,” I said.
Eve glanced at my split lip but didn’t say anything. I’m glad she didn’t, or I would’ve probably snapped at her. I felt guilty for betraying Patrick, even though I hadn’t really betrayed him. I felt embarrassed for getting my butt kicked by Dezi friggin’ Siegler. And I was envious of Patrick for how he’d coasted in and delivered an ass-whuppin’ like the High Plains Drifter.
The last one bugged me most of all, because I was never envious of my brother. That’s not how we worked. We looked out for each other, and we were happy for each other.
Five minutes on a swing with Alex had turned me into a jerk.
“Well,” Dr. Chatterjee said, “perhaps we should discuss procedures for—”
I grabbed the helmet and shoved it onto my head, partly to move things along, partly to hide my face. Before anything could happen, I said, “Pressure.”
The blue lights flared to life, that circular icon blinking in the middle of the face mask. Because the helmet wasn’t crushing my skull yet, I took a moment to study it. It had notches along the perimeter. A dial that seemed to be floating in the air about two feet from the helmet.
I reached out and twisted the virtual knob.
The insulation tightened around my neck, starting to cut off my circulation.
I twisted the dial the other way, and the pressure lessened.
I said, “Done,” and the dial vanished.
Progress.
I took a moment to be proud of myself. Okay. Now what? I hadn’t thought much past this. I suppose I’d figured that the helmet would give me some direction, but no. Just the blank face mask staring back at me.
“Message,” I said.
Nothing happened.
“Transmission,” I said.
More nothing.
“Phone home.”
Still nothing.
“Customer service.”
Through the face mask, I could see Alex shaking her head, her forehead lowered into her palm.
I chewed my lip, thinking, until the taste of blood reminded me that it was split.
“I am Chance Rain,” I said.
The helmet ignited with blue lights everywhere. And then a series of symbols appeared in a row, turning over like slot-machine reels. Fascinated, I watched them whir until they landed on English letters.
It was a note spelled out for me.
THIS CONDUIT NOW OPEN. A TRANSMISSION HAS BEEN SENT. CHECK BACK DAILY FOR RESPONSE.
The blue lights vanished.
I took off the helmet, looked at the expectant faces surrounding me. And I grinned.
For the first time in a long time, I’d done something right.