We settle back on the bed again, the blanket covering us. I couldn't help but catch glimpses of Garrett's body--the hard, straight lines and graceful slopes of his muscles--and I can't get the visions out of my head now. Especially with him lying so close to me.
Our bound hands are entwined as he lays on his back, his legs bent at the knees. He uses his other hand to massage his forehead. I wonder if it's got anything to do with not being able to get my glimpses out of his head either. The warmth rising off our skin turns the bed into a barbecue grill and the blanket over the top of us is about as comfortable as a covering of aluminum foil, trapping in the heat.
"What was your idea?" I finally ask. He moves his fingers down to squeeze his eyes.
"Uh...I don't know if I can do that now."
"What did you want to do?" I ask. He answers with an uncomfortable laugh. He turns his head to me with a grin. I shrug and smile.
"What?"
"C'mere," he says. I dip my ear to his mouth and he whispers, "I was thinking it would be convincing if we pretended to...you know..."
Garrett blushes. And der...I get what he's talking about.
"You mean, do it?" I pull back. He grimaces. What he doesn't know is that I'm busy lying here thinking, over and over again, in detail, of all the things we're not supposed to be thinking of doing. I'm ashamed of the way my insides are pounding at me to be closer to him, but there's a window and we're being watched like rats.
"No, not to actually...it doesn't matter. I can't do it at the minute anyway," he says.
Oh.
I blush as I glimpse his raised knees and the heat in my face sears my mouth shut. He chuckles. I stare up at my spitball-freckled ceiling so I can think about that some more.
"We wouldn't...not for real," he says. "Not here, not like this."
"I have a question," I say. "About that."
"That?"
"Well, about you and Teagan, actually."
"Oh." From the corner of my eye, his grin deflates like a blown tire. "That."
I roll toward him, slipping cable from the binding box as I prop myself up on my elbow. He frowns at the ceiling.
"When we were in the Cache," I begin. He swallows hard. I want to kiss his throat to relax him. Or maybe I just want to kiss his throat. I refocus. "Was it hard being with Teagan all the time?"
"Being with her?" He swallows again.
"Yeah, what was she like?"
"Like." Another swallow.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, fine," he says, but his eyes still track across the ceiling instead of finding me. "Teagan was...I don't know...she was a good mom. But she was starting to lose her mind. She would get nuts if I wasn't complimenting her all the time."
"I mean," I say, and now I'm the one that swallows. That he is still kind of paralyzed forces the question I didn't want to ask. "Uhm...where did you sleep?"
There it is. Ruining the mood like one of Zane's farts. Garrett takes a deep breath and frowns.
"She had to believe I was Sean," he says. His eyes scour the ceiling. Hard.
"Did you sleep in a bed with her?"
"I was supposed to be Sean," he repeats, but there is a sad current to his tone that drags down his words a little.
"You didn't sleep with her, did you?" I ask with a numb little laugh. It's ridiculous to even ask. Of course he didn't. He's Garrett. He would never do that to me. He would never do that with his brother's wife. I know Teagan believed he was Sean, but I know Garrett is super clever too. If he could get her to believe he was Sean, I'm positive he could just as easily find ways to get around doing that with her. I'm sure he had a million excuses and I just want to hear his funny stories of those close calls and how he managed to get out of them. How he kept her thinking he was Sean. Garrett's not the kind of guy that would compromise himself or Teagan--even over a very important, very necessary lie. I'm sure he found a way around it. I just need to hear it.
"Nalena." He rolls to his side to face me and my nerves immediately turn to threads of ice that poke at the lining of my stomach. His lids are too heavy. His mouth is set in too sad of a line. Everything about his expression sends my soul sinking through the mattress, straight into hell.
"No." I shake my head, putting my fingers over my mouth. His bottom lip trembles and I feel my face crinkling up all ugly.
"She had to believe I was her husband." Garrett's face crinkles up too. "I'm sorry, Nalena. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
"No." I shake my head, refusing it. I have to. There's no way I can process what he's saying while I'm trying to snuff out the thoughts of her reaching for him. And worse, of him reaching back, him touching her.
"I didn't want to..." His hand comes for me and I pull away, with a sharp zip of the binding box, to the very edge of the bed. I keep thinking of her and how she must have felt, opening her mouth to accept his kiss.
The first time, I'm sure she wouldn't have been able to anticipate the wild kind of electricity he generates, but after, I'm just as sure that she'd never want to stop kissing him, knowing how exciting the white-hot surge feels, once it is released from his lips.
I think back to the Cache, when Milo and I saw Garrett and Teagan making out on the other side of the Hub. She was kissing him, touching him, because she knew.
She knew that his touch would transform her entire body into nothing more than a flipped switch. Her internal gears would crank into overdrive, generating that raging crack of thunder in response to him. She knew everything I know of Garrett, but she knew more. The air rushes out of my lungs. Teagan's ghost stands on my heart in beautiful, spiked heels that make her an infinity taller than me now.
"I didn't want to," he whispers again.
My own words are stuck sideways in my throat. I choke them out. "You'd have to want to or you wouldn't be able to, right?"
"Don't do this." His tears rain down his cheeks. "Sex isn't love, Nalena, don't do this."
"You were mine," I cry. He reaches for me, dragging me roughly to him, squashing my head beneath his chin. I feel his chest quake as his tears land in my hair.
"I am yours. I was always yours. I still am." His voice is jagged and torn, choked and desperate, but he keeps chanting that he's mine between sobs. I hear what he says: he is mine, he's always been mine. I love the words, I would kiss each syllable and cradle every vowel, but the problem is that these are incomplete. They are not all the words. He was also hers. I'm too heartbroken by the truth to find ways to be cruel about it.
The grief pulls me down. I wail against his chest and all he can do is pull me closer, his naked body pressed against the side of mine, as he sobs with me.
Peggy's voice comes from a distance, It's time for me to go. Thanks for trustin' me, Nalena.
Go? You can't leave me like this!
Sure I can, she replies. You can handle it.
No, I can't!
You better toughen up, little girl. Listen here, didn't the Addo give you a mission?
Yes, I groan.
And ain't you ready to ditch everything, including Garrett, to go?
I don't have a choice.
Yeah right, Peggy snorts. There's always choices. You're plannin' on breakin' your binding with him and you're okay with destroyin' him, just so you can go off and save the world, right?
You make it sound like I want to hurt him! Or that I want this mission! I don't want to do either!
But you think he wanted his mission? You think he had a choice? 'Cause the way he's cryin', I'd say he didn't want to hurt you with his mission neither.
It's different, I say. I feel trapped, like I'm the bad guy and I'm not. I'm not sleeping with someone else.
Oh no, Peggy's laugh is haughty and shaming. You're just breakin' your binding. Leaving him forever. I'd say what he done to you is nicer than what you're plannin' on doin' to him. Or maybe you mean to say that your mission is more important than his? Gettin' your heart broke ain't nothin'. We're talking about savin' mankind here. Don't you think that's a little more important?
Of course I don't. I grumble that last part because I can't defend what I've been thinking any louder than that. Peggy's right. Some things have to be done and there has to be forgiveness for those things.
But I still hate the whole conversation.
Alright, it's time for you to let me go, Peggy says. You need a new Connection that can help you in ways I can't. So let me go now--it'll be easier than if I gotta be replaced.
Who? I ask, but Peggy doesn't say. The crying has made my lungs feel soggy and I'm too tired to argue with her. How do I do it?
Tell me to go, hon. I remember having to do this with my father, before I went into the Jamb. I'm about to thank her, but she just tsks. Don't do that. We're good. Just tell me to go.
Go, I say. Go Peggy. I don't need you as my Connection anymore.
Peggy's essence ricochets around my captured field as if it is looking for its escape. It finally breaks through the center, near my belly button and when it is gone, the tightness inside me releases, but the heat coming from Garrett's body intensifies to a blaze against me.
He presses in so hard, it's as if he thinks I might slip apart from shoulder to foot, and that he could scoot inside me, to gather my soul in his arms. Instead of shredding, a prickling starts beneath my skin.
My nerves punch up on the surface, raising up like wire-bristled goosebumps. I suck in a sharp breath, but my body is compelled and my muscles refuse to push away from Garrett's. The best I can do is brush my fingers over his arm and my hand drops with shock at what I feel. His skin is pressing back with blunt needle tips too. We both feel like bagged pincushions.
And I press closer. I throw back my head to see him gritting his teeth the same way I am. This is not a sexual thing. It is a joining thing and it's freaking me out way more than a sexual thing.
My field comes alive, grinding inside me without exploding out around my body. I wince, trying to will it out to protect me.
Our flesh settles together, still pressing to be closer, the valleys of our bodies accommodating the needles rising up beneath our skin, meshing us together. My field churns, and I think I'm going to pass out as the pain of my risen skin presses harder against Garrett's. My insides feel like they're being ground to dust. I think my field is caught, opening inside by accident and crushing me.
Garrett throws back his head, his eyes smashed together in agony. My body takes over and I squeeze my own eyes closed in a pain too overwhelming to believe I'm going to survive it.
With a mutual crack, our fields finally explode. They blast out of both of us, a bubble within a bubble and the pain I couldn't handle a moment ago bolts out of me too.
I open my eyes, slowly, to see Garrett opening his. I feel his presence, all around me, all over me, all through me. I would ask if we are dead, but I already know we aren't. I know this feeling. We've combined fields somehow. Peggy's gone and I don't feel any other presence but Garrett's.
And I'm connected to his emotional keyboard. His pain comes thrashing into me first and the way it comes is as a searing energy that moves through me. It is exactly how the Memory Circle felt, when I got to feel everyone's life force bounce through me.
I try to reach out with my soul, instead of my mind or my body, and what comes back shakes me to the beginning and end.
We are here because a part of Garrett has just died.
His pain eases off and I get a blast of the other emotions he has for me. His love is this enormous tangle of respect and trust and care and passion--an overflowing treasure chest the size of seven hundred galaxies. I open my chest too, adding another seven hundred. The swell pulls me. I know why I'm here and what we're supposed to do.
"Do you feel it?" Garrett asks. "Our fields combined. This is a double field."
"How is this happening? I feel...you."
"The piece of me that was with Teagan... it's gone. I let it die."
"I felt it."
"Since part of me died, I guess it's still death. You needed a Connection and my death, no matter how small, allows me to be your Connection."
"But I had to agree to my other connections. I didn't have to agree to you."
"No, I think it might be because you already agree to me so much. I could feel it all through you."
"I do," I say, wiping his cheeks with my fingers. "I agree with everything about you."
"I want to heal you, Nalena. I never wanted this to happen. I am going to spend the rest of my life feeding the part that still lives between us. I want to heal you. I'm going to make us whole again."
The living part is so much bigger than the part we lost. It's a million feet high and blinding in its beauty. It is all our days and nights and infinity, washing over me, through me.
The brilliance moves me on its back and in its belly. It feeds me. It takes my breath away and returns it. My body responds to the incredible glow by spreading out further than my limbs, healing the places that need healing, and re-creating me as me, but more whole than I have ever been.
It is full of such huge emotion, such an enormous light, that I almost don't recognize the familiarity in it. But as its intensity begins to sift away, I realize that I have felt it before. Every time I touch Garrett, talk to him, look at him--the energy I feel from him is a diluted sip of this incredible illumination. Just a smaller glimpse of it.
"Maybe you just did," I say.
As it fades off, I drift back into myself and my field glides along with me. Garrett's field moves too, as if it is a reflection to mine. As fiercely as our fields had connected, the release is almost effortless, coming apart with only a tiny quiver, the kind a pebble leaves on the surface, after breaking through the top of a serene pond.
Having had our fields twist together like that, I expect to feel absolutely wrecked, but I am totally energized as I open my eyes all the way. I'm back in our bed with our normal naked skins close, but no longer touching. Garrett's eyes find mine.
"Can you forgive me?" he asks. I open my mouth to let my forgiveness pour out, but the words won't come. Only gasping wisps of sound escape as I shake my head, trying to release the words. Watching me struggle, Garrett misunderstands what is happening. He needs me to comfort him, to tell him I completely forgive him, but my vocal cords are still too dazzled by the powerful glow that I can't get them to speak. But Garrett does.
"I love you...I love you more than anything in this world...or out of it," he cries. His desperation flares my own. I try to push the air over my vocal cords, but he's squeezing me so tight, I can't seem to get my throat and mouth to sync up and work even if they were willing. I grip his arms and, as if I'm trying to make him let go, he pulls me in tighter, pleading as he does. He doesn't realize that his strength could actually kill me.
Unable to shove him away, it hits me. I will let my body explain what I'm really thinking. It will have to be my words, a sensory conversation with him about how I forgive him, how I feel for him, how much I want him. I don't try to orchestrate it. I just let go.
My body takes over immediately, relaxing within Garrett's titanium embrace. I fit my lips to the tender curve of his neck. I press my warm breath against his skin. His biceps loosen. My fingertips stroke calming circles on his arm and his back. His shoulders drop. My leg slides over his calf, hugging it close and he eases off like Jell-O from a mold. I can finally tip my head back from him, and when I do, I look into his eyes, sharing the smile that saturates me.
I feel his exhale in my own chest and it makes more room between us. I capture a breath and my words to finally bloom. But, as I open my mouth to speak, he reaches up and moves his thumb across my lips, caressing them shut. His gaze is riveted to mine as his own words come first.
"I am yours, Nalena," he says. "Don't ever doubt that. It was never me with Teagan, it wasn't. It was what I had to do and it killed me."
"No," I say. I know what he is saying and I know it did kill a part of him because I felt the pieces, but I want to him to understand how much I forgive him. "You and me, we're whole now. It only killed the part we didn't need."
"I will always be yours, always, so I don't ever want to talk about this again," he says, his voice struggling to remain steady. "Is it okay with you? Not ever."
"It's over," I say. My arms work on their own, pulling Garrett to me. This time, he nestles his ear to my chest and a whole new round of sobs break loose from him. Naked, I don't feel at all vulnerable with him curled so intimately against me. All I feel is more and more whole as his tears stream down over my skin. I soothe him with gentle sounds as his body shakes out the last little bits of our grief.
"I know you're looking," I say as I bend over to slip on my panties. When I stand up straight again, Garrett's eyes are right on mine, even though he's smiling. I smile back, but slyly. "I know you are."
"Nuh uh," he insists. He's still naked, his arms stretched out as he holds the blanket up for me to change first. Kaya dumped our binding clothes near the door when she delivered our food. Garrett was almost right. I get a bustier top, panties, and jean capris; Garrett gets tan shorts, navy blue boxers, and a blue t-shirt sporting a lumpy seam down the side. No socks, no shoes.
Having a boy see my underwear even peeking out of the waistband of my jeans used to be such an enormous humiliation, but now I'm standing, totally naked, in front of one. And one is standing totally naked in front of me.
But I don't even catch Garrett looking, let alone staring or making jokes. Still, my shame train has never carried such a huge load. The blush spreads like a rash until it looks like my entire body has been spray-tanned in eggplant, but Garrett doesn't seem bothered at all. Maybe it's because he's got such a huge family and it's hard not to be seen. Maybe it's because he's got a little sister. Maybe it's because I won't look down, even if there was a bucket full of diamonds at his feet.
But I want him close to me and I know I won't stop him if he tries to touch me. I'm even tingling for it, my skin all sunburny-hot. I ache with the absence of his fingertips in a way that makes me kind of angry. Why do I feel so weak and needy?
Standing in front of him with my jeans on and needing his help to fasten the bustier, the ache hikes up. With my back to both him and the window-wall, he drops the blanket and helps me with my top. I hold my hair up and when his fingertips brush my back, I shudder. His touch flits away and he's careful then. He doesn't even scrape my skin with a knuckle, but my anticipation of it happening makes me want to groan. Why doesn't he feel this?
I'm a woman, he's a man and isn't he supposed to want to touch me? To look at me? I'm absolutely sure I wouldn't chew his arm off if he tried, and shouldn't he at least try?
But he's a perfect gentleman.
"You're all set," he says and I turn around. His gaze, momentarily interrupted, flicks right back to mine. But there is a flick, at least I am pretty sure it was. My heart leaps as I turn and look over my shoulder. The mirror over the sink is right behind me. In perfect alignment to see everything as I put on my top. Oh, and that was definitely a flick, which means he was definitely looking at something else, besides my back.
Like I'm reading his thoughts, he smirks, his eyes still clamped to mine.
"You were looking the whole time," I say.
"I can see you have a body, Nalena, but everything beneath your eyes, it's all just a blur..."
"It's blurry in the mirror? You were staring..."
"I would never."
I laugh. "Why not?"
That catches him off guard. Smiling, he opens his mouth, closes it, squeezes his grin together.
"Well, I could look a little," he says. "If it was okay with you."
I sigh as I bite down on the edge of my smile. "It would be a little okay."
"It would? That's info I could've used before you got your clothes on."
I swap him for the blanket and hold it for him as he changes, but I turn my back, so I won't look by accident. Looking at him makes me more nervous than the idea of him looking at me. I hear his chuckle along with the rustle of clothing. The binding box whirs and tugs as I hear the fabric sliding over his skin, along with the rip and suckle of the Velcro seam.
"What?" I giggle.
"You're more of a gentleman than I am," he laughs. I almost drop the blanket.
"You were looking!"
"Only a little," he says, stepping beside me, fully clothed. "I couldn't help it. You stand any guy in front of a toasted marshmallow version of a modern Monroe and you can't expect them not to look."
"Not if they're naked!"
He laughs. "Especially if they're naked."
He puts his hand over mine, guiding my arms down to my sides as I still hold tight to the blanket, and he kisses my neck.
"Every single thing about you is beautiful, Nalena. Every single thing."
We eat, chewing around the edges of our goofy, enchanted smiles. Using one fork, I give Garrett a bite and then give myself one.
"You know, I'm going to have to get better at feeding myself," he says, "and I'm going to miss this when I do."
"We're not going to be bound forever," I say and the flicker of what I've been trying to forget singes my smile. Garrett, chewing, notices it. He studies me until he finishes swallowing his food.
"Talk to me about what's going to happen," his whisper hardly scratches the silence. I scoop up a huge glob of mashed potatoes and chicken and peas, enough to shut him up for a couple minutes at least, but he turns away from the fork. "Tell me. I want to know."
"I know you do, but I don't want to talk about it." I push the fork toward his lips, but he ducks away from it again. His stare is intense.
"You're planning on breaking our binding, aren't you?"
"I said I don't want to talk about it."
"But I do."
"Good for you," I say. It's a little too harsh, but I don't want him asking. If he knows, he's going to argue with me and this isn't up for debate. "What you want doesn't change what I don't want."
I dump the fork on the tray, jump up, and try to walk away. The lousy thing about binding is that I can't do that kind of thing. The zip of the cable and tug on my wrist reminds me of it. I look back at Garrett's limp hand, suspended in the air like an unenthusiastic zombie. He's still seated at the table, with a patient grin on his face. Frustrated, I let out a growl and give a tug, but all it does is make Garrett's arm dance.
He stands and comes to me, the cable retracting.
"Talk to me," he says. "We're bound. There's nothing you can't tell me."
"But there are things neither of us want to talk about," I say. He clamps his lips together, point taken, but he's still not giving up that easy, no matter how many sticks I whack him with.
"Whatever you have to do, I just want you to know I'm okay with it," he says. "Just give me a heads up when you can, okay?"
"I don't know if I'll know when to do that."
"Well, if you do."
"I think it will be soon."
"Alright." His lips drop with a frown. His eyes are full, with more words than any mouth could ever speak or any throat could ever hold. I move back to him, our hands at our sides, fingers entwined, and I kiss him with more love than any other kiss could ever express.
There's a knock at the door.
The sound pulls us from the kiss, because nobody ever knocks on the cell door. They let themselves in and out, but nobody knocks. Garrett and I both position ourselves toward it, side by side.
The door blasts open, thrown with such force that the handle bangs the outer wall. And it takes a blink or two to really compute who is standing in the threshold. They're the skinniest skinny jeans in the entire world, and the owner's hips are dry-humping the open door space as he shrieks a triumphant WHOOP!
"You're sprung! You guys coming out or what?" Zane hoots from the doorway. His smile is one of those manure-chewing happy kinds that spreads out across his entire face. Zaneen elbows him to the side, her pink and blond locks appearing first, as she sticks her head in to look around. Spotting us, she does a spastic wave and a HI! Then she throws a hard elbow into her twin's ribs.
"Stop hogging the door, Dishbag. Let me give them their socks and shoes."
Zane gives her a hearty shove back. "I'm not hogging anything. I got here first, Belladonna."
"Neither one of you would be here if I didn't pick the locks," Robin's voice booms from the comm overhead. I jump at the sound. I'd forgotten it was there and that it has the ability to deliver speech to us as much as it was there to eavesdrop on us. "So both of you shut up and back off the door, so Garrett and Nali can come out."
"Out?" I say. My palms break out in a sweat. Is this finally it? Is this how I'm leaving?
"Yeah, out," Zane laughs. "Of course, out. We're not stuffing everybody in your little jail cell for your binding party!"
"How is this happening?" Garrett asks, but he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door with him. "Why aren't you guys trying to find the Addo?"
"Find him?" Zane tips his head with a squint, like he's trying to decipher what Garrett means. "I ain't lookin'. Old Doe's someplace, tucked away in the mothballs. Your mom, my dad, Freddie, and Heema are the only ones who know exactly where he's hiding out. But they said he's safe and sound. Come on out! Wojtek is on guard duty and your brothers are here."
"Addo's hidden? Not taken?"
"Where would he be taken to?" Zane asks, but Garrett changes the subject.
"Wojtek is okay?" Garrett pauses before going out the door.
"He's okay," Zane says. "Your mom gave him the thumbs up."
Garrett processes it a second and then gives Zane a nod as we step out into the hall. Robin hands us socks and gym shoes. They look out of place with what I'm wearing and only out of place with Garrett since we're not supposed to be wearing them at all.
"You never know when you're going to feel like going for a run," Robin says. I look for meaning, but her eyes don't linger on mine when she says it. Garrett and I lean on each other to put them on. I want to ask her when it's going to happen, how much longer Garrett and I have together before any final decisions have to be made, but Deeta's squeal distracts me. I look off to the left and see Deeta and Milo emerge from their cell, waving their bound hands at us at the same time. Deeta doesn't rush him over to us, because Milo's still limping.
Wojtek opens up another cell and Mark comes out, pulling Lenta along with him. She stumbles and runs into his back; she's too busy scoping the hall from end to end with huge, frightened eyes.
"It's fine," Mark tells her. "For real." She grins at Wojtek before dropping her eyes to the floor, but she relaxes a little and grabs hold of Mark's forearm as if she's blind and needs to be led. Mark beelines it right for Brandon and Sean, both of them standing against the wall and armed with 2 liters of soda. Robin and Zaneen lay out pans of homemade pizza on the floor.
"Everybody cleared out of here, since Van's throwing a mandatory party upstairs," Zane glosses over the unnecessary details of names and the reason for that party, which obviously matches the reason for this one.
"Gotta thank The Fury for giving us this little bit of peace," Wojtek says, pouring himself some cola.
"Thank nothin'," Brandon grumbles. "They just don't give a crap about anything but their own good time."
"Exactly." Zane pushes his white blond hair out of his face.
"If everybody's busy, then why aren't we busting out of here?" Mark says, but Lenta whispers something to him, violently shaking her head. I'm wondering the same thing.
"Because we're better off staying put," Robin says. Wojtek lets Robin do the talking, but he adds a nod here and there as he drinks his cola. "We don't need to be anywhere else, if you know what I mean. And you're all still here because you were supposed to be the back up."
"You guys were our secret weapon," Zane giggles. "Until Van got a step ahead of us and tied you all together. Otherwise, we were just going to wait until we needed the cavalry and pop the locks."
"You could pop them now," Mark says.
"Hardly," Robin snorts. "What do you think will happen if we charge into the courtyard and go up against five dozen of The Fury?"
"Five dozen? Seriously?" Mark gulps.
"We don't know for sure if they're all bad eggs, but we know they're not all good," Zane says.
"So what's the plan now?" I ask.
Zane shrugs. Wojtek grins sheepishly from over his cup.
"Plan is: come up with a new plan."
"My plan is: I can't stay down here long, so let's get the party started," Sean says. Garrett waits for the hoots of agreement to carry everyone closer to the food and away from us. He snags Sean's t-shirt before Sean can walk away, grabbing him in a short hug. The cable drags me in closer too, so we're almost in a huddle instead of a hug.
"Hey, you know Tuco and Rolan know you're not an Addo, right?" Garrett mumbles to his brother.
"Yeah," Sean says. "There was a lapse, when they did a midnight-move with the Addo and didn't tell me. Rolan figured it out pretty quick. Then, you guys came back and my abilities resurfaced, but Rolan can't figure out exactly who is doing it. For some reason, he's eliminated the rest of you and decided it's either Grace or Trig. We think Rolan's starting to lose his grasp on reality, so Tuco, Wojtek and Heema are helping to keep an extra eye on Grace."
"Good," Garrett says, but the lines in his brow tell me he isn't completely at ease. "Where is Grace?"
"With Mom," Sean says. "You know nothing is getting by Mom."
"Besides Van."
"Not even," Sean puffs. "She's keeping him under her thumb..."
Mark and Lenta drift closer with their plates of food and Brandon follows along behind them. Sean clams up and we follow his lead. When they get close enough, the cable zigs as he reaches over to ruffle Brandon's hair. Brandon jumps back, but it's the first smile I've seen on his face since Freddie found him, busted up, outside the Hotel Celare's door. And while Brandon's smile makes things feel more normal again, what really does it is when Mark drags Lenta forward and resumes his brother's ruffling until Brandon slaps him away.
"Still not as fast as me," Mark taunts. Brandon shoots out a toe kick that nails Mark in the calf. Mark grabs his leg and hops up and down, wincing at the pain. Lenta, throws her hand in front of her mouth, as if she's not sure if she should just stay out of it or jump in and help Mark.
"Yeah right," Brandon says. "You're just an old married codger now."
Mark doesn't need any help. He waits until Brandon accepts a cup of soda from Zaneen and takes a sip. Mark snakes a hand out and pops the bottom of the cup so the cola splurts down Brandon's chest.
Brandon goes to launch himself at Mark, but Garrett and Sean both reach out and grab the back of Brandon's shirt before he can go airborne. Brandon strains against the fabric of his tee for a moment, but when his brothers give him a sharp tug, he snaps backward, in place between them.
"Enough, gentlemen," Sean says. "There are ladies present and they don't want to watch you two rip each other to bits."
Mark takes a breath to start up again, but Garrett changes the subject fast.
"I can't believe you guys pulled off this binding party," Garrett says. "I doubt it's safe, but man am I glad to see all of you."
"Nothing is safe anymore," Brandon grumbles. "So who really cares? We snuck right out of the Celare to loot the pop. It's whacko out there. Sasu just about got a black eye for it."
"Sasu?" Garrett asks. We both turn our heads, looking around the room for our tiny Contego, but she's nowhere to be found. "Where is she?"
"She's gotten really nuts since Carducci died," Brandon shrugs. "Not Fury nuts, but she started fighting anybody and everybody that comes at her wrong. She was supposed to be here, but she came looting for the pop with me and..."
"You looted for pop?" Garrett asks. "And you snuck out of the hotel?"
"How else was I going to get it?" Brandon says. "But no, I didn't just leave, there's guards all over the place. I took Sasu with me and we snuck out of one of old Veritas tunnels."
"You know where tunnels are?"
"No, I knew where that one was. But Tuco caught me coming back in and he collapsed the thing for good. You guys must've heard it. It shook the whole place."
So that was the explosion. "Hyo told us the Addo had been taken."
"Don't trust Hyo," Wojtek pipes up. "He's not Ianua anymore. If he talked to you, he was fishing, to see if you knew something."
"Where's Sasu now?" Mark asks.
"I dunno. She took off on me."
"And you didn't go after her?" Mark stares at his brother, stunned. Brandon shifts from foot to foot, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I couldn't catch her." He winces at the admission. "She said she had to go, but I thought she meant, like, to the bathroom or back to the hotel or something. When I turned around, she just took off."
"Sounds like she had something specific in mind," Garrett says, and even though he doesn't look at me directly, Sean does. It takes him a second before he pins up a sad little knowing grin for me.
Holy crap. I guess I'm not the only one going on the mission.
The sinking feeling in my gut is shameful. I'm less upset about going, or that Sasu has disappeared, than knowing Addo doesn't think I'm so stand-out-special after all. There's probably a whole fleet of us--all the losers that nobody believes can ever cause any damage--that he's sending out on the same mission, after pumping us up with his big cheerleader speech. I'm just another waste that might stumble on the right thing and have enough pumped-up-kamikaze in my veins to risk my life and maybe even succeed in kicking off the Reset. I'm just one of the arrows he's firing into the abysmal dark, all hope and no skill behind the possibility of nailing the target.
"C'mon Garrett, Nali--you two haven't gotten any pizza!" Robin says. Garrett tugs my hand, snapping me out of my pity party.
"You okay?" he asks. I nod, hollow. Garrett raises an eyebrow. Of course he knows there is something wrong, but no matter how whole Garrett makes me, it's only one more reason not to tell him all the thoughts I'm having. Garrett's brave. He wouldn't think twice about this whole mission thing; he'd just do whatever the Addo asked of him, no matter what the cost. He'd do it for the same reason my mom wrote the Memories 24/7, because it was right to do for mankind. And that's why I can never admit that I'm petrified and angry and letting all this fear leak into my fight, because the truth is, I don't want to risk everything, from my happiness all the way down to my actual life, just to be somebody's long shot.
The truth is...I'm selfish.