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A while later, Clark and I are in the dining area, standing apart from everyone else. He reluctantly releases me from a tight hug. He regards me with infinite sadness, and I feel as if he sees his brother in me, the way I do in him. We each possess memories of Xave that no one else does which makes me wish I could meld my mind into his. I imagine he feels the same: a desperate need to construct a complete version of the boy we lost.
“Thanks for talking to them.” Clark looks over his shoulder to where his family sits at a cheap wooden table, eating dinner.
We are in the dining area. The room is packed, with most people sitting on the floor, plates on their laps. There are few tables, all mismatched, probably salvaged from picnic areas, patios, and restaurants. In the back of the rectangular room, three folding tables serve as a food counter. A few helpers stand behind them, ladling small portions of food as people present their cardboard plates.
“No problem,” I say.
It wasn’t easy talking to Xave’s parents and little sister, but it was the least I could do. I told them how brave he was, how hard he fought to defeat this evil. When he was killed, his family couldn’t make sense out of his sudden death. It wasn’t until The Takeover that Clark was able to explain how Xave had died. Knowing made it easier they said. Not right, but less wrong, somehow. I think I understand what they mean. He didn’t die in vain. He died for a cause he believed in.
Talking to them helped me, too. It was good to see that, as hard as it is, they’re coping and sticking together closer than ever. Their family isn’t complete by any means, but they have more than people like Hannah and me have.
“He would be proud of you, you know?” Clark says.
I shake my head and open my mouth to protest, but he doesn’t let me.
“You have sacrificed more than anyone here. Without you, Seattle would be in a lot worse shape. You bought the city a chance. I gotta say, I owe you big time for leading us to those Spawners. I had a heck of a time dispatching several of them.”
“Man, I hate I missed that,” I joke, hoping to lighten the mood a little.
“Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of fun to be had.” He tips a smile that makes my chest feel empty. Xave used to smile like that.
Aydan walks up, holding two plates. “I got you something to eat if you’re hungry.”
“I’ll head back.” Clark gestures toward his family. “These days, I try to spend as much time as I can with them. I’ll see you later.” He walks backward, a hand held up in a goodbye gesture.
Aydan leads me to a far corner of the room, away from everyone. We sit on the floor facing each other and place the plates in the hollow of our crossed legs. Dinner consists of a small portion of canned green beans, mac & cheese from a box, and four fiber crackers. We both stare at the food for a moment.
He shakes his head. “I can’t eat this.”
“Me neither.”
“I don’t know what made me think I could. It’s not fair.”
I know exactly what he means. Both Whitehouse and Hailstone have much better food than this. Food I’ve been enjoying without a second thought for weeks while others go hungry—people holed up in their apartments, in safe houses, or out on the street, like Hannah.
Aydan takes my plate away, gets up and gives our food to a couple of preschoolers. They accept it with wide, incredulous eyes, and immediately dig in. Aydan walks back with a sad smile stretching his always-too-red lips. He sits back down, his back against the wall. I shift positions and sit beside him. The brick wall feels rough through my t-shirt.
We watch people go through the food line, then sit to share their meager meals. James, Rheema, Blare and a few other people I don’t know sit at one of the few available tables. They are deep in hushed conversation. Kristen isn’t with them. She must have stayed back, playing with my abundant amounts of genetic material. Seeing them all together reminds me of that time Oso cooked dinner for us, and we celebrated our small victory against Elliot. I look over with longing and find myself wondering if Rheema blames me for killing Oso and is only pretending to hold no grudge against me. She’s the only one I don’t feel certain about.
Blare catches me staring and flips me the bird. For some reason, her animosity strikes me as funny. I give her a crooked smile. She looks away in disgust.
“Some people are born to add a little sour to our lives,” Aydan says. “Don’t pay her any mind.”
“I don’t.”
James steals a pen from a man who sits next to him and scribbles something on a notebook. The guy steals the pen back, shaking his head at whatever James wrote and shoulder bumping him. They look very at ease with each other.
“Who’s that next to James?”
“Oh, that’s Sal. He and James have been buddies since high school. They’ve been fighting against Eklyptors since James got infected. They founded ZeroBreach together. You might know him as Salvador Lopez.”
“Uh-uh!” I say incredulously.
“Yep.”
“The Salvador Lopez who came up with the Tumble algorithm.” A piece of programmatic gold that can process millions of business rules in a matter of seconds.
“The one and the same.”
“Wow.” I’m impressed. Really impressed. The man is a computer genius.
We watch in silence for a long moment.
“It’s so . . . quiet. It’s nice,” Aydan says.
“It is.”
There is the constant murmur of conversation, the shuffle of feet as people move up the food line, and the high pitched cries of children being children, but I know what Aydan is referring to. He means the buzzing. James, Rheema, Aydan and I are the only Symbiots here. Everyone else is human. I’ve kept my buzz-o-meter on, wondering if I would encounter any other Symbiots. I haven’t. We’re few and far between.
Aydan’s face turns in my direction. I stare straight ahead unable to meet his gaze.
“I was worried about you,” he says, undeterred by my apparent indifference.
“I was worried about you,” I admit.
“Really?”
I don’t say anything.
“What happened? What did Luke tell you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You can ask James. I’m sure he’ll tell you. Are you going back? You were blindfolded when you came in. That must mean you’re going back.”
He shrugs. “I shouldn’t have left in the first place. So I guess I’ll have to. It’s up to James, in the end.”
“You helped me escape, didn’t you?”
“I had to.”
“And they didn’t notice?”
“No. I sent my energy underground, through the iron bars in the concrete.”
“That’s some amazing control,” I say, wishing I could get there with my pathetic skill.
He cracks his finger in an absentminded way. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Sooner rather than later, I hope.”
“What about you?” he asks. “I bet you were also blindfolded when you came in.”
I look down. My left hand worries at one of my shoelaces. My right one rests on my thigh. “I was.”
“I wish we could stay. I wish we could . . .” He looks away, throws his head back against the wall and looks at the ceiling as if he will find words in the metal beams.
These times aren’t made for wishing, and he knows it.
Without looking down, he tentatively lays his hand on top of mine. My immediate instinct is to pull away, but his gentle touch paralyzes me, filling me with a staggering need for human contact. Slowly—giving me a chance to pull away—Aydan turns my hand over and intertwines his fingers with mine. A shiver runs up my arm. My eyes close of their own accord.
He holds my hand tenderly and, in spite of that, I still sense the intensity and desperation in him.
“How can I keep you?” he asks in a barely audible whisper.
My heart wants to turn away, wants to reinforce the wall that locks the pain away. Caring for people isn’t advisable anymore, especially when one has a track record of losing it all. Except a back door I didn’t know existed cracks open, more than willing to usher him in. My heart has been dead and hollow for too long, and loneliness comes at its own pain. How can I push him away when I have so little and he offers so much?
I wish there was a way I could tell him I may not be utterly broken, after all, but words have never come easy. I hope the fact that my fingers have remained intertwined with his is proof enough because, for now, that’s all I’ve got.