Mom invited Rex for dinner again. This time, before he answered, he paused and looked at me, making sure I didn’t have other plans. I gave him a slight nod, and he said he’d love to. He had to do a quick job for Jerry, unloading a pallet of sheetrock, but he’d come out afterward. Ruth and Pell went to the coffeehouse, to be with friends and friendly faces. I kind of wanted to be there, too, but today I felt ready for the comfort of Mom and Trudy and home.
It was sweet watching them all saying goodbye: Mom and Trudy both reached up to hug Rex, then hugged Ruth and Pell. Ruth and Trudy lingered for a moment, talking quietly, and I realized they had become friends—not just through me, but on their own—and it made total sense. They shared similar types of sweetness and wisdom.
I was touched that Mom and Trudy had made an effort to get to know my new friends and my new world, and also that my friends were cool enough that they were open to that, that they welcomed it.
As the car drove us home, Mom and Trudy in the front, me in the back, I told them what had happened at the protests. Then Trudy started asking me questions about the day before, about the bombing. It seemed like a long time ago, so much had gone on since then. When I got to the part about the abduction—pulled off the street, a hood over my head and my hands taped together—they both turned to look at me, horrified and sympathetic, yes, but also a little accusatory. It took me a second to figure out what that was about, but my mom’s expression gave it away: she might not have been so cool about me going to Rex’s if she’d known just how creepy the kidnapping had been.
Before she could say anything, I switched gears. “Mom, I saw Stan Grainger.” That was legitimately newsworthy, even though I’d brought it up then to change the subject.
My mom’s face froze. “You saw Stan? Are you sure?”
Trudy looked back and forth between us. She knew who Stan was, but she didn’t know him, hadn’t experienced him and or shared any of that history.
I nodded. “Pretty sure. When Wells was giving his speech, right before the brawl, they showed it on a big screen outside. Stan was onstage, part of Wells’s security team.”
“Are you serious? How did he look?”
“He’s alive. He looked good, I guess. For Stan. He got spiked.”
“Spiked?” Trudy asked.
“Yeah.” I pointed a finger at my forehead. “He got a Wellplant.”
Trudy screwed up her face. “Is that what people are calling it?”
“Wow.” Mom shook her head. “I guess they must be paying him well enough then.”
“They all had them. The whole security team. A lot of the cops, too. I guess it’s one of the perks of the job, if you can call having a spike drilled into your brain a perk.”
“Oh, I get it,” Trudy said. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Not since Pitman,” I said, mentally stiff-arming the memory to keep it at bay. “I kind of thought he was dead.”
“Well, I guess…I guess it’s good to hear he’s okay,” Mom said. She said it like a platitude, without really thinking about it, just to be polite.
I didn’t want to be polite. Not about Stan. “He’s alive, but he’s not okay. He’s a horrible person who murdered his own son. I wish he were dead.”
Trudy gasped.
“I do,” I said. “I hate him. And everything he stands for.”
They both went quiet.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You can’t think the world wouldn’t be a better place without him. And it’s not like he’s having a fun life. He’s miserable, filled with hatred and fear and judgment. Who knows, maybe once he’s dead he’ll get to be with the God he’s so obsessed with. Or even better, with a God that’s kind and loving instead of vengeful. Maybe he can get started making up for all the pain he’s caused with his misguided hatred. Or maybe he’ll just disappear into the void, if that’s what’s waiting for us. That’d still be better than having him walking around here on Earth.”
Trudy stared at me, shocked. She was even more shocked when Mom quietly said, “No, you’re right.”
We were silent after that, which was fine with me. I had a lot on my mind. We all did.
My plan when we got home was to go to my room and close the door, close out the rest of the world and take a break from it all, just for a little while.
When we pulled into the driveway and I got out, for the first time in a long time, I shivered at the sight of Stan’s house next door. Lately I’d gotten more accustomed to its silent vacancy, but in the months after Pitman, I’d had to suppress a shudder every time I stepped out of the house and every time I came home.
For my entire life, the house we shared a driveway with had been the home of my best friend, Del Grainger. But after Pitman, it was the home of the man who had driven Del to run away, and who had then killed him. Stan disappeared after Pitman, and I’d slowly gotten used to him being gone, had accepted it, had figured he was probably dead, or at least that he was never coming back. Now I knew he was alive, and once again, I had to deal with the reality that at any moment, he could return to live next door to us.
Stan had scared me ever since I was little, and he scared me still, only now at least part of that fear wasn’t about what he might do to me, but what I might do to him.
Mom put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“I know, honey,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”
I nodded and we climbed the steps onto the back porch and went in through the back door.
Trudy immediately started making coffee. I loved the fact that she felt at home in our house, that she and my mom had grown so close after having been estranged for years. And that she and I had grown so close, too, after I had grown up barely knowing her. As much as I wanted to hang out, though, the plan was still the plan.
I poured myself a glass of water and announced, “I’m going to go lie down.”
Trudy looked disappointed, like she pretty much always did whenever I opted out. But my mom said, “Okay, good. I’ll wake you before dinner.”
On the way to my room I saw that there was a phone message. I pressed the button without bothering to look at the number.
“Jimi!” my friend Claudia’s voice blared, sounding distressed. “I just heard about the bombing, that you were there.” She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “I hope you’re okay. Call me as soon as you get this, alright?”
My bed was calling me, but she sounded upset. I knew I had to get back to her.
I hit the call-back button, and the phone rang once. Then a low voice I didn’t recognize said, “Hello?”
It sounded a bit like her dad, but more like it wasn’t. “Um, hello?” I said, caught off guard. “Is Claudia there?”
“Is this Jimi?”
“Yes?” I said, sounding more like I was asking a question than answering one.
“This is Claudia’s dad.” It still didn’t sound like him.
“Oh, um, hi, Mr. Bembry. Is Claudia there?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. His voice was oddly flat. I was wondering if he was okay, when he said, “Are you okay?”
“Me? Yes, I’m fine.”
“That’s good to hear. You gave us all quite a scare yesterday. Claudia was most upset.”
“Sorry about that. Well, I’m okay.”
“Good. That’s good. Well, Claudia is out running some errands with her mother. I’ll tell her you called and that you’re okay.”
“Thanks, Mr.—” But then I realized he was gone. I looked at the phone to double-check, and sure enough, he had hung up on me.
I’d met Claudia’s dad a few times and spoken to him on the phone, briefly, many more. He was an odd guy, but he’d never sounded like that before. I wondered if maybe he was high. It wouldn’t have been out of the question.
I placed the phone back in its charger, and was stifling a yawn, thinking I really needed to lie down, when my mom appeared at my elbow.
“When is Rex coming?”
I shrugged and yawned again. “I don’t know. Before dinner, but probably not for a while.” Just as I said it, though, the doorbell rang. “Or maybe he’s here right now.”
I wasn’t disappointed that he was there—I don’t think I could ever be disappointed to see him—but I really, really wanted some alone time.
Then I opened the door, and Rex wasn’t there at all. Instead, there were two blue suits, and behind them, next to a pair of black, government-issue SUVs parked on the street, were two more. Wearing the blue suits were Agent Ralphs, standing on the welcome mat, and next to her, a foot taller, was another agent wearing dark shades the same color as the Wellplant embedded in his forehead.
My head sagged to the side as I let out an exasperated sigh. “Seriously?”
“Come on in, Rex,” Mom said, as she and Trudy came up beside me. Then she said, “Oh.”
Ralphs dipped her head at my mom. “Ms. Corcoran.” Then she did the same to Trudy. “Ms. Corcoran.” Then she looked at me and paused, I think trying to greet me in a way that would be consistent but not repetitive. She gave up with a sigh and said, “Ms. Corcoran.”
“We’ve been through a lot these last couple of days,” Mom said. “Jimi needs to rest. Can’t this wait?”
Ralphs smiled sympathetically but shook her head. “Sorry. This won’t take long, but it is urgent.”
“Do you have any information about my daughter’s abductors?” Mom said, her voice accusing.
“Actually, yes I do,” Ralphs replied.
Mom looked conflicted: relieved there was information, but maybe disappointed that she couldn’t tell them to go away. She turned to me and I shrugged, then she sighed and said, “Okay.”
She opened the door and led everyone into the dining room. Trudy kept going, straight through to the kitchen, to check on the coffee.
Ralphs smiled awkwardly and Agent Wellplant looked around like he was scanning the house. I wondered if he was recording it, maybe even transmitting that recording to headquarters or something, and if that was even legal. Ralphs didn’t show it in any specific way, but I got the feeling she was annoyed by him, which made me feel a little more warmly toward her.
Mom gestured for the agents to sit on one side of the table, then motioned me over to sit next to her. “Okay?”
I nodded and she turned and nodded to Ralphs.
“We found the white van,” Ralphs said. “The one used to abduct you. It was parked behind a house in Camden, where we found bomb-making equipment consistent with the device used in the Seaport Museum attack. Inside was hair that matches your DNA.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You have my DNA on file?”
Ralphs smiled, but before she could respond, Agent Wellplant added, “Yes, that’s right.”
Ralphs gave him a sidelong look, her irritation a little closer to the surface.
My mom and I both started to speak at the same time. “I’m sorry…” we both said, then she trailed off as I continued with, “But who are you?”
Mom smiled at me with something like pride. She had been going to ask the same thing.
“Agent Scanlon,” he replied without emotion.
“Agent Scanlon is part of a program partnering up agents with Wellplants and those without,” Ralphs explained.
Mom ignored her. “And do you have identification, Agent Scanlon?”
Scanlon sat quietly for a moment, his face blank, but his aggravation somehow obvious anyway. He sighed and held up his badge.
Ralphs seemed to be biting back a smile as Mom and I studied the badge. Then he put it away and said, “We also found a photograph of you in the house.”
“A photograph?” I said, creeped out at the idea that a bunch of mad bombers in masks would have my photo. I turned to Ralphs. “What kind of photo?”
“We’re hoping you could tell us.”
She slid a photo out of her folder and put it on the table. My hair was tied back the way I used to wear it when I was younger. I was wearing a bright red sweater and a big goofy grin.
“That’s a school photo,” Mom said. “From last year’s yearbook.”
“The year before, actually,” I said. “Freshman year.” I looked so young, so different. It looked like a different person, a different lifetime. I glanced at my mom, incredulous that she might think that picture was only one year old.
“Oh, right,” she said. “The red sweater. You really did love that sweater.”
“Any idea how they got it?” Ralphs asked.
I shrugged. “Anyone at my school would have it, and anyone else could get it from my school. The yearbooks are all in the library. Digitized versions, too. But I don’t know why they would have it.”
“Well, that was my next question. Any thoughts?”
I considered it for a second, hard, not just because she was asking, but because it was starting to really bug me. Apart from killing people and screwing up the world with their misguided violence, these CLAD fanatics were seriously complicating my life. “I guess it would make sense that the people who grabbed me would need a photo, so they’d know what I looked like. But I still have no idea why they grabbed me in the first place.”
Ralphs nodded slowly, leaving that question out there.
Scanlon leaned over and slid the photo back away from us, saying, “We have footage of you and your friends running from the altercation yesterday at the Humans for Humanity convention.” His voice was flat, but he was clearly implying something, and as he did, a waft of halitosis rolled across the table, so intense and acrid I’m pretty sure I would have been able to see it if it hadn’t made my eyes water.
I turned to him, deliberately keeping my face expressionless. “And?”
“A bit of a coincidence.”
My expressionlessness faltered as I rolled my eyes. “How is that a coincidence?”
“Well, you were supposed to be at the meeting, but narrowly missed the bombing. Then you were at the protests, but you narrowly missed the violence. Were you tipped off?”
Maybe I was still off-balance from the revelation of the photo, but for some reason, I found Scanlon’s insinuation really annoying. I turned to Ralphs as she took a deep breath. “I thought getting spiked was supposed to make you smarter,” I said. “Was he just really dumb to start out with, or do you think he might have one of those faulty ones?”
Ralphs snorted despite herself. Trudy, in the kitchen, let out a short, involuntary yelp of a laugh. I couldn’t see my mom’s face because I was looking at Scanlon’s, which betrayed no expression whatsoever.
The doorbell rang again, and Trudy bustled out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I’ll get it,” she said.
“No,” I said to Ralphs. “Obviously I was not tipped off.”
“Then how did you know to run?” Scanlon asked.
“Because I’m not an idiot,” I snapped. “It was obvious things were turning violent. I didn’t want to be a part of that. Neither did my friends.”
Trudy came into the dining room with Rex. We bobbed eyebrows at each other. He seemed a little freaked out by the FBI agents, and I totally understood, although at this point, I found them more tedious than anything.
Scanlon looked up at Rex and did a double take, giving us the first glimpse of anything human behind those shades. Ralphs smiled at the reaction, then stared at Rex for a moment before looking away.
“Um, I can come back,” Rex said.
Agent Scanlon nodded. “That would be pref—”
“No,” I said, interrupting him. “We’ll be done soon.”
“Back to CLAD,” Ralphs said. “You really have no idea why they would have singled you out to save?”
Mom was staring at me as intently as Ralphs was.
I shook my head. “I wish I did. I really do.”
Ralphs nodded, then produced an envelope and started sliding out photos, one by one, and placing them on the table. They were pictures of chimeras, two men and two women.
The women both had reptile splices, their faces shimmering with smooth, multicolored scales. One of the guys appeared to have a rhino splice, his skin rough and gray with a substantial horn protruding from his forehead. I couldn’t help thinking how much it must have hurt to sweat out that change. The other guy was spliced with a raven or something, his face framed by shiny, blue-black feathers that were only slightly darker than his brown-black skin.
I looked closely at the photos, then looked up at Ralphs.
“These are known associates of CLAD,” she said. “Do you recognize any of them?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Scanlon leaned forward across the table, dipping his head so that his Wellplant was staring at me. “You know it’s a crime to lie to the FBI, right?”
Ralphs rolled her eyes.
“It is?” I said, feigning surprise. “Well, in that case, I think we need to talk about that thing in your head. I don’t think it’s working right.”
Rex snorted but swallowed his smile as Ralphs looked up at him. Scanlon stared at me and ground his jaw.
“Jimi!” Mom said, scolding.
“It’s a crime to lie to them, Mom,” I said. Then I turned to Ralphs. “I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but I don’t want to get into trouble.” Then I turned to Scanlon. “I hope that’s helpful.”
Scanlon started to speak, but Ralphs held up a hand to silence him. “No, it is not,” she said. “And this is a serious matter.”
“I know it’s serious,” I snapped, then the snark left me, leaving sadness in its place. “Look, I was kidnapped yesterday. By terrorists. Who for some reason apparently wanted to spare me from the bomb they planted, that killed a bunch of innocent people. I’m trying to help, I am, but frankly, it doesn’t seem like Agent Scanlon over there is.”
Ralphs took a deep breath, then waved a finger over the photos. “So you’re sure you don’t recognize any of these people?”
“That’s correct.”
She nodded as she scooped them up and slid them back into their envelope. “Okay. Well, if you have any ideas or new information about CLAD or why they seem so concerned about you, let me know immediately. I believe you, but not everyone does.” She paused, and somehow without moving a muscle, she made it clear that Scanlon was among them. “You’re right about CLAD, Jimi. They’re seriously bad news. Murder, terrorism, who knows what they have planned next. If I find out you’re lying to me, there’s going to be hell to pay.”