We did five hours in the House of Horrors this morning, had a short break for chow, and now we're back in the strategy room where the squad first got together.
“I want to run a scenario,” Matt says, from his chair at the head of the table. “To be clear, we do not discuss anything with anybody outside of this group. Superior officers of any rank included.”
Matt leans forward. “The focus of this squad is an insurgent group. The Red Hand.”
The image of a boy with a bullet in his head and a bloody red hand on the Palace Theater flashes before me.
I look at Matt in surprise. “The Red Hand?”
I look around to see if the rest of the squad is familiar with them. Matt seems mildly irritated by my interruption.
“Yes, that's what they call themselves, the Red Hand,” he confirms.
“Are they Deviants?” I ask.
Matt hesitates briefly. “They are from the other side of the border, yes.”
“But they're here too, inside, aren't they?” I ask, and I tell them about the boy.
“The blood of our blood is on your hands,” Matt repeats quietly.
He explains that incidents such as the one I witnessed used to happen only occasionally, here and there, and never as far north as the Minneapolis area. Most Red Hand activity happens on the other side.
“But there has been a shift recently,” Matt says. “More frequent, more damage, bolder situations with direct conflict, rather than hit-and-run bombs or fires. There is more organization and more recruitment, probably spurred by the coming Centennial.”
“Who's the leader?” Sheree asks.
“No one person, as far as we can tell. There are independent units all along the east and west borders, and they have some sort of communication network, but we cannot identify any leadership beyond the individual groups,” Matt explains. “And even the local leaders are unknown to most of their own units. That's what we’re here for, to find the leaders and remove them.”
It's a bit unreal to be talking about this. Growing up, I'd always envisioned savage, wild subhumans, clawing at the border wall, ready to eat us alive if they ever got in. Most people were relieved when they took Deviants away because that's what they would turn into. But now we're talking about organized groups, with communications and leaders, and bombs and plans.
“What exactly do they want?” I ask, feeling dumb.
“They want to come in. Our job is to keep them out.”
I have more questions about the Red Hand, but Matt is impatient to move on.
“So, back to the scenario,” he says. “Is it possible that one or two insurgents could get onto the base, breach a secure area to steal some information, and then get back out again, alive? We need to know if this is a possibility and what countermeasures might be taken.”
I'm instantly intrigued. Finally, something that does not require me to lug around a heavy weapon.
Charlie brings up a virtual replica of the base. It fills the whole table. I want to throw questions out, but I wait, unsure how this process works. The variables are racing through my head, and it takes me a minute or two to realize everyone is looking at me.
I look at Matt. He rubs the scar on his chin, which I think means he is annoyed. Maybe with me? I remember what Matt said at the pool, about what he needed me for.
I reach out and slowly spin the virtual model around. My fingers move in the air as I turn the problem over in my mind. The memory of looking down from the roof with Matt surfaces and I picture the soldiers and prisoners getting out of the transport.
“Attempting to break into the base is futile. There are too many obstacles, and we're too well fortified,” I say to myself, but out loud. “It won't work.”
“You mean no one can get in here?” Charlie says, challenging me.
“Oh, there are plenty of ways to get in,” I say. “You just can't break in. Being escorted onto the base is something else entirely.”
“The best illusions are done in plain sight,” Ramón says, and nods at me in understanding. “The audience needs to see what they expect to see.”
“Exactly,” I agree with a grin.
Matt and Charlie exchange glances while Ramón and I quickly run through about a dozen possible scenarios for someone to enter the base in plain sight. Matt stops us and concedes that the base is protected from the enemy, but not protected from ourselves. Any kind of impersonation, be it prisoner, officer, or civilian delivery person, could work under the right circumstances.
“Okay, they're in,” Matt says. “How do they breach a restricted area?”
This is trickier.
We go at it for almost two hours, and I reach information overload. I need time to process it, so we break for the day.
“Sergeant?” I say.
Matt steps over to me, eyebrows raised.
“You've already gone through all of this, haven't you?” I ask him. “You've covered every angle I just went through.”
“You look at things … differently,” he says. “I wanted you to start at the beginning, without any assumptions in place.”
“Did I come up with anything new?” I ask.
“Well, we hadn't thought of a lot of those ways to get onto the base, and none in quite that much detail, but no, nothing new,” Matt admits. “But you will. I'm counting on it.”
“So … no pressure then?”
“Not yet.” He grins.
—
The common is full, and there’s an upbeat mood in the air. Personal packages arrived today. If you had someone back home to send you something, you got a package. There was no package for me, I don’t even know why I went to check. I wasn’t worth her love or attention back home, why would it change now. If I were betting, I'd lay odds my mother has removed all trace of me from the house. I know she’d rather I’d never existed. I’m surprised it can still hurt and I shove all the pain into my grey box.
Sheree got a package with a new shirt in it. She’s across the table from me and looks fabulous in the shimmery red top. She’s totally unselfconscious about how sexy it is. Tonight, she's working on a nine mil pistol. She leans forward over the various bits that make up the weapon.
“Go,” I say, and her hands move on their own. She doesn't need to think anymore.
She's in a remarkably good mood. The LeSalles are big believers in voodoo, and Sheree was decidedly unhappy about having to give up her lucky charm when she enlisted. She explained that voodoo is a belief, hoodoo is the practice of charms and spells, and her mojo is like a charm in a bag that was created specifically for her. Sheree's mojo bag came in her personal package. It's a tiny leather bag containing unnamed ingredients that she slipped into a small pocket on the inside of her pants.
I have my espenak around my neck, but I never gave it up in the first place. I managed to sneak it through.
Jay comes to sit next to me; he’s beaming for no apparent reason. Something is up. His hair has grown in a bit, and he has it perfectly tousled, but I know better than to actually try to tousle it.
“Time?” Sheree raises her hands from the table to show she's finished.
“Twenty-seven,” I say, and Sheree swears. Seven seconds too long.
“And then there was this noise,” Ramón tells Boyd as they take seats around us. I have missed the beginning of this story.
“What kind of a noise?” Boyd asks.
“You know, like a sound.” Ramón shrugs and his black hair hangs forward as he looks to see if Boyd understands.
“A sound? That sounds like a noise? You, my friend, are depriving a village somewhere of its idiot.” Boyd reaches over to flick Ramón on the head.
“How's it going with … you know?” Boyd nods in the direction of Sheree, who is preparing to take down the nine mil again.
“Go,” I tell her.
“You've never kissed anyone, have you?” Boyd asks Ramón.
Jay turns to me, and I can tell by his expression that something is obviously up.
“What?” I ask.
“Okay, I kissed someone! Actually kissed,” Jay whispers triumphantly, close to my ear.
“Who?” I whisper back, grinning, but he won't tell me.
Here, it doesn't matter if you're a girl or a boy; if you make it to Special Forces you've proven you're man enough, so no one cares who kisses who. But I still don't think Jay wants to share his news with everyone.
A few people join us—Pete, Jay's Nightstalker pal Laurie, and Hendrick, who sits across from Jay looking relaxed in a faded t-shirt and jeans.
“Did you hear that?” says Boyd to Ramón. “Flyboy had his first kiss.”
Jay reddens like I've never seen before, his eyes fast on the table in front of him. Hendrick looks away, smiling. Jay finally looks up; the two of them lock eyes and grin away at each other. They only break it off when they realize I’m looking back and forth between them.
“So?” Ramón waves his hand in dismissal.
“Well you better get to it, man,” Boyd says.
“Oh, we're going to talk about me again? Great,” Ramón says, and sighs.
“Ramón, we could be sent on a mission at any time. You can't die without, at the very least, having been kissed,” Boyd insists.
“Look, Boyd,” Ramón starts to say, but he's interrupted when Sheree smacks her pistol on the table.
“Time?” she asks.
I check. “Twenty-four.”
She’s obviously pleased and strolls over to Ramón and takes his hand. He stands up, and Sheree wraps her arms around him and gives him an intensely passionate kiss. She steps back, hands on her hips.
“There, now you can die. You've been kissed,” she tells Ramón.
My jaw drops as I watch Ramón take one of Sheree's hands, spin her around and catch her before she falls. I glimpse the shocked look on her face before Ramón moves in for what is the most dramatic kiss I have ever witnessed.
He pulls her up.
“Now you've been kissed,” he says in a slow, sexy voice as he stares into her eyes.
He sits back down.
“What?” Ramón asks Boyd innocently, in response to Boyd's look of amazement.
Complete silence as everyone looks at Ramón, and then the whole room erupts into whistles, catcalls, and laughter. Sheree looks a little dazed as she adjusts her top and manages to sit down. She sneaks a look at Ramón, who is studying his nails closely as if nothing happened.
—
Sheree makes her way over to the dartboards and challenges somebody to a match. I move to stand beside Ramón, to watch. He nudges me.
“Full of surprises, that one,” he says close to my ear, so I will hear him over the din. He has a slightly spicy smell. It's nice. I think he is in love.
Pete comes to stand beside me. I don't think he has a lot of friends. I suggest a game of chess for tomorrow; he'd told me that he liked to play. He seems pretty happy that I asked.
Sheree pushes up the sleeves on her red top and loosens up her shoulders. She launches a dart at the target. But it isn't a dart, it's a knife. She raises her fists into the air and looks around with a big grin. Her competition does not look happy. He's about six feet, wearing a dark-green t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He looks nineteen or twenty, square jawed and handsome, and holds himself like he knows it.
“It looks as if Luke is goin' down,” I hear from somewhere behind me.
I glance back, and spot Jay. He's leaning against a wall by the bar, bent in conversation with Hendrick, their blond heads almost touching.
“Luke got a double twenty,” Ramón informs me.
Ramón tells me Luke Winters is the highest ranked marksman in Special Forces. He’s also known to be lazy and mean, and he has some connection with the colonel. There is some bad blood between him and Matt. Ramón isn't sure about what, exactly.
The chatter dwindles.
“She needs a double,” Ramón says, giving me the play-by-play.
Boyd is taking bets. Sheree holds out her hand, and someone puts a new blade in her palm. She looks perfectly calm as she takes aim and throws.
“Double!” Ramón shouts.
Luke's jaw clenches. He’s given a blade and hits the green. There is quiet as Sheree steps up for her last throw. She's going to beat him.
“How about we make this interesting?” says Luke, before she can throw.
Sheree turns to look at him, assessing his intentions. He nods to someone beside him, and a brawny guy with bushy hair walks over to the wall with the targets. He backs up against it and stands with legs apart, arms out, a knowing smirk on his lips. They have done this trick before.
Sheree looks angry and frustrated, until I step forward.
What do I think I’m doing?
Sheree's eyes widen as we look at each other, then she gives me an almost imperceptible nod, telling me that she can do this. I take off my sweater and toss it to Ramón. I step up to the targets, push my hair back and move into position. I have seen her shoot, and I've seen her practice with knives. She's told me how she grew up hunting, on the other side of the Mississippi. Her daddy taught her how to shoot and throw a knife when she was little. Now, she can throw almost without looking, and she never misses. She’s sure. That's good enough for me.
I'm not scared of getting hit, but I’m intensely uncomfortable with the crowd watching. I feel as though they all moved in closer. It is not lost on me which target I'm standing in front of, and that Skinny Ugly Deviant is written on the wall beside my head. I stand perfectly still, my eyes on Sheree. I make myself believe no one else is looking at me.
Luke throws first, and I hear the thwack. Sheree follows immediately, landing close. He throws again, and before his blade has landed Sheree has already launched her next throw. I will my muscles not to move as Sheree aims closer and closer to my body. By the sounds of the crowd, Luke is doing the same.
A blade hurtles toward my head. I know it will land beside my ear, so I don't move; I keep my eyes on Sheree. But a yelp of pain from beside me says the other guy was hit. Luke has embedded a blade in the tip of his target's ear, pinning him to the dartboard.
There is an eruption of sound. Sheree nods and accepts claps on the back. She meets my gaze in a moment of thanks. Luke stalks off to the bar. Apparently, he's never lost before, especially not to fresh meat.
Boyd collects chits from about a dozen people. He bet on Sheree. Matt is at the bar sipping a beer, watching me. I'm suddenly embarrassed that he saw me up there, in front of all those people. I get my sweater back from Ramón.
Pete tries to talk to me, but Jay grabs my hand and tugs me over to a corner. It’s pointless to ignore him, he won’t go away. He’s like that. People are making comments about me as I pass by. I hear someone call me brave, but stupid and crazy come up more often.
“Jay, I've watched her in our room. I knew she wasn't going to miss,” I explain.
He’s exasperated. “Jess, that was an idiotic thing to do. I can't believe she actually threw knives at your head. Think of what could have happened.”
“I wouldn't have done it if I thought that was even a possibility. I knew she was sure.” I look directly at him so he will understand. “Jay, she's my friend.”
It is the first time I have ever said that about anyone but him, so he knows I’m serious. He purses his lips a little and turns to narrow his eyes at Sheree. I expect she will be getting an earful from him. Jay really knows how to tell someone off.
“Listen to me. You've been trying to please your mother your whole life to get her to love you, but you don't have to do that here. Don't please other people just to get them to like you, it doesn't work anyway. You especially don't have to do stupid things like having knives hurled at your head.”
“I don't do that,” I say in a tiny voice.
I'm stung. It’s true; I kept trying with my mother. Too much guilt to stop. But I gave up on other people except Jay a long time ago. And now here’s Sheree, who simply takes it for granted that I’m her friend and I don’t have any say in the matter. She’d shoot me if I tried to suck up to her. I was sticking by her, that's all. It’s what friends do.
Jay sees my hurt and wraps his arms around me.
“Oh, Jess. I'm sorry that came out so harsh,” he says. “Sheree is already your friend, and I know she likes you a lot. It's just…sometimes I'm not sure you're convinced you deserve it.”
“But I'll always have you, right?” I say, and hold him as tight as I can. He's the one true thing in my life.
“And I'll always have you. It works both ways, you know.”
We hold each other and it's good.
“Anyway, forget about that. I would like every detail about this kiss.”
He dissolves into a sloppy grin and collapses back against the wall.
“It was last night,” he says huskily. “We were talking, and he's interesting, and he gets my humor. Hendrick's a bit older than us, right? Maybe twenty? Well then he says he wants to walk me to my room!”
I express my shock. “What if he wanted to come in?”
“I know! I didn't know what he was expecting and I wasn't planning to invite him in. But I didn't know what I was going to do if he asked to come in. We reach my door and all of a sudden he leans in close, our eyes meet, and he just does it.”
Jay looks away, wistful. I grin happily back at him.
“It was so good,” he says, eyes closed.
—
When I say good night to Jay, I look around for Sheree. I last saw her in a cluster of unfamiliar people, but I can't find her now. I leave and head back to our room. I hear indistinct voices coming from down Hallway D. I get closer to the hallway and stop in my tracks.
“That was a setup. You and your friend had it all planned out, didn't you? Well, you're going to pay for that,” says a mean, sneering voice.
I step around the corner and see Sheree.
She’s pressed up against the wall. Luke is not quite touching her. Yet.
“What do you think the payment should be?” He looks her up and down, his index finger traces a line on her skin. He moves from her neck down along the edge of her V-necked top.
Sheree is watching him. She doesn't look afraid, she is waiting, but Luke seems oblivious.
With surprising speed, Luke produces a blade and holds it against her throat. Sheree curses.
Luke leans in to her now, his hips pinning her to the wall. “Yeah, c'mon,” Luke taunts, “you gonna make me have to use this? The skids never give me any trouble. They pay up when I tell them to. But they know their place, they're not all stuck up the way you are. No, I'll enjoy making you pay.”
Luke doesn't understand that Sheree is holding back. I think she might kill him if this keeps up. Which would not be good for Sheree. Not so good for Luke either.
An image of the bodies being dragged behind the jeep comes unbidden, and I see Luke cheering them on. Standing behind him now, I recognize Luke as the shooter at Raines's “demonstration.”
I can't stop it, I ignite. A burst of hot anger streams through my veins and suddenly time shifts. Everything slows down except me. Luke doesn't get the chance to see me coming. I grab his hand to dislodge the blade, but I think of something better. I swing his hand out and then slam it back in and down. The blade enters his thigh with a satisfying snick. I step away, connect with Sheree's eyes, and time jerks back to normal. I need to find my balance. Sheree pushes Luke to the ground and he doubles over moaning in pain, clutching at his thigh.
“How about an IOU?” Sheree tells him. She says something under her breath and spits at Luke.
My body starts to tremble as Sheree grabs my hand and pulls me away.
Whatever it was, it happened again.
—
Sheree sits with her legs crossed, top leg swinging angrily as she tells me her daddy taught her more than how to hunt.
“We LaSalles take revenge very, very seriously,” she says as she fingers her mojo bag. “We'd go to my cousin Antoine for the big stuff, his mama had the serious voodoo in her, but I’m not without my own charms—or curses, as the case may be.”
Sheree looks at me and smiles.
She's imagining something. Something bad. I'm a little scared by that smile and a lot scared of what that was with Luke and how, exactly, it happened.
“It's probably good you were so fast,” she says, after a minute. “I'm not sure Luke would be walking at all if you hadn't shown up. Thanks.”
I don't think Sheree has ever had much cause to thank anyone for assistance, except maybe her daddy. So that feels good.
In the bathroom, I lock the door and look in the mirror. I lift my shirt. The flake is now more what you'd call a blotch, or maybe a splotch. Before, I think someone would have to be looking for it to notice it. But I can’t strategically hide this in the showers anymore. The hot surge I felt inside me with Luke is connected to the thing I see on my skin. I could feel it get hot, like my anger, when I stabbed Luke. It's as if something inside me was squeezed until it seeped out, and left this blotch that’s beginning to curve around my waist. It’s a dark brown now, and about the length of my index finger.
And somehow, I can make time slow down.
Okay. Nothing like that can ever happen again. Maybe, if I don't have another incident like that, if I keep absolute control and don't lose it, then this won't grow bigger. I can't allow it.
I pull the first aid kit down from the supply cupboard and take out the Nu-Skin. I cut a piece of the tissue replacement to the right size and smooth it over the blotch to hide it. Nu-Skin is supposed to graft anywhere. Maybe it will help.