The Unbound: An Archived Novel Part 11

I open my eyes to find Wesley a little ways down the path, a sports bag slung over his shoulder. I must not be hiding the frayed nerves well enough, because he frowns. Cash is only a few strides behind him, talking to another senior guy.

"All good?" asks Wes as casually as possible.

"All good," I call back.

Cash and the other guy catch up. They're both carrying sports bags.

"Hey, Mac," Cash says, s.h.i.+fting the bag on his shoulder. "Think you can find your way without me?"

"I think I can manage," I reply. "The parking lot is that way, right?" I point in the opposite direction of the lot. Cash laughs. Wesley's eyes are still hovering on me. I flash him a smile, Cash knocks his shoulder, and the three head off toward the fields.

I take a last, steadying breath and head through campus to the front gate and the bike rack. I unlock Dante and swing my leg over the bike, and I'm just about to head home when I see a girl in the lot.

I recognize her. It's the girl from the pendant I found in the locker room. The one who clutched a steering wheel in a driveway at night sobbing and dodged the gla.s.s her mother threw at her head.

She's a senior-gold stripes-and she's standing with a group of girls in the lot, leaning up against a convertible and smiling with perfect teeth. Every inch of her has that manicured look that so often comes with money, and it's hard to line this girl up with the one in the memories, even though I know they're the same. Finally she waves to the others and strides up onto the sidewalk, walking away from Hyde's campus.

Before I even realize it, I'm following her. Every step she takes away from Hyde seems to weigh her down, changing her a fraction from the girl in the lot to the girl in the memories. I remember the anger and sadness worn into the pendant, and I will myself to call out. She turns around.

"Sorry," I say, pedaling up to her, "this is going to sound really random, but is this yours?"

I pull the necklace from my pocket and hold it up. Her eyes widen and she nods.

"Where did you find it?" she asks, reaching out.

"The locker room," I say, dropping the silver piece into her palm.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows draw together. "How did you know it was mine?"

Because I read the memories, I think, and you keep bringing your hand to the place where it should be.

"Been asking around all afternoon," I lie. "One of the seniors in the lot just now said they thought it was yours and pointed me in this direction."

She looks down at the pendant. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

"It wasn't a problem," I say. "It seemed like something someone would miss." The girl nods, staring down at the metal. "What's the B stand for?"

"Bethany," she says. "I really shouldn't care so much about it," she adds. "It's just a piece of junk. Worthless, really." But her thumb is already there again, wearing away the front.

"If it matters to you, then it's not worthless."

She nods and rubs the pendant absently, and we stand there a moment, awkward and alone on the sidewalk, before I finally say, "Hey...is everything okay?"

She stiffens and stands straighter. I can see her mentally adjusting her mask.

"Of course." She flashes me a perfect, practiced smile.

Smiling is the worst thing you can do if you want the world to think you're okay when you're not. Some people can't help it-it's like a tic, a tell-and others do it on purpose, thinking people will buy whatever they're selling if it comes with a flash of teeth. But the truth is, smiling only makes a lie harder to pa.s.s off. It's like a giant crack in the front of a mask. But I don't know Bethany, not really, and she doesn't know what I saw. And since she's doing a pretty decent impression of a healthy person-much better than mine-I say, "Okay. Just checking."

I'm about to pedal off when she says, "Wait. I've never seen you at Hyde."

"New student," I tell her. "Mackenzie Bishop."

Bethany chews her lip, and I can imagine her mom yelling at her for such a nasty habit.

"Welcome to Hyde," she says, "and thanks again, Mackenzie. You're right about the necklace, you know. It's not worthless. I'm really glad you found it."

"So am I," I say. I feel like I should say something else, something more, but I can't, not without sounding trite or creepy, so I just say, "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she says, "see you."

We head our separate ways. When I reach the main road, I think for a second I see the golden man standing at the corner, but by the time I cross the street and steal a glance back, there's no one there.

I'm just parking Dante in front of the Coronado when I feel the scratch of letters in my pocket and find a new name on my list, but I don't get the chance to hunt it down, because Mom heads me off in the lobby.

"Oh, good, you're home," she says, which is never a good opening line, because it means she needs something. Considering she's got a bakery box, a slip of paper, and a frazzled look, I'd say it's a guarantee.

"I am," I say cautiously. "What's up?"

"Last-minute delivery," she says.

My bones groan in response. "Where's Berk?"

She blows a stray chunk of hair out of her eyes. "He's got some kind of art opening, and he already left. I know you've got homework and I wouldn't normally ask, but with the business being so new, I really need every order I can get and..."

A headache is starting to form behind my eyes, but the way I see it, anything that convinces Mom I am okay and normal and a good daughter is worth it. I take the box and the slip of paper from her hands, and she responds in the worst way possible. She throws her arms around my neck, engulfing me in a hug full of breaking gla.s.s and twisting metal and boxes of plates being pushed down stairs and all the other piercing sounds that make up her noise. My headache instantly gets worse.

"I'd better get going," I say, pulling away.

Mom nods and bounces back toward the coffee shop, and I drag myself back toward Dante, reading over the slip of paper. Beneath the order name, Mom has drawn a rudimentary map. The delivery is only a few miles away, if her chicken scratch can be trusted, but I've never been to that part of the city before.

For the first time in ages, I get lost.

I zone out a little while riding and end up overshooting the apartment complex by several blocks, and I'm forced to double back. By the time I've found the right building, climbed several flights of stairs-the elevator is broken-dropped off the bakery box to a housewife, and gotten back to my bike, the sun is sinking. My whole body is starting to ache from fatigue.

I swing my leg over the bike and hope Mom's on the phone with Colleen right this moment, telling her how okay I am.

But as I speed toward the Coronado, I don't feel very okay. My hands are shaking and I just want to get home and through tonight and back to Roland's room, so I take a shortcut through a park. I don't know the park, but if the map in my head is even close to correct, it'll be faster than the streets.

It is faster, until I see a guy crouching in the middle of the path and have to hit the brakes hard to keep from slamming into him. I nearly lose my balance as the bike comes to a jarring stop a few feet in front of him.

The moment I put my foot on the ground, I know I've made a mistake. Something moves behind me, but I don't dare take my eyes off the guy in front of me as he straightens and pulls one hand from the pocket of his hoodie. I hear a metal snick sound, and a switchblade flashes in his fingers.

"Hey there, pretty thing," he coos.

I bring my foot back to the pedal, but it doesn't move; I twist in my seat to find a second guy with a pipe threaded through my back wheel, pinning it still. His breath smells like oil.

"Let go," I say, using the tone Da taught me to use with difficult Histories. But these aren't Histories, they're humans-and they're both armed.

One of them chuckles. The other one whistles.

"Why don't you come off that toy and play with us instead?" says the one with the knife. He saunters forward, and the one holding the wheel reaches for my hair. I'm at enough of a disadvantage without straddling a bike, so I dismount.

"See?" says the one with the pipe. "She wants to play."

"There's a good girl," coos the one with the knife.

"Good schoolgirl," chimes the other.

My pulse is starting to race.

...residual trauma and extreme fatigue, paired with the influx of adrenaline...

"Get out of my way," I say.

The one with the knife wiggles the blade back and forth like a finger, tsk-tsking.

"You should ask nicely. In fact," he says, taking another step forward, "maybe you should beg."

"Get out of my way, please," I growl, my pulse thudding in my ears.

The one with the pipe chuckles behind me.

The one with the knife smiles.

They keep s.h.i.+fting so I can only see one of them at a time. When I try to cheat a step to the side, the pipe appears, barring my path.

"Where you going, sweetheart?" says the one with the knife. "The fun hasn't even started yet."

They're both closing in.

My head is pounding and my vision is starting to blur, and then the one with the pipe shoves me forward into the one with the knife, and he grabs my bad wrist hard, and the pain shoots through me like a current-and then it happens.

The world stops.

Vanishes.

Goes black.

A long, lovely, silent moment of black.

And then it comes back, and I'm standing there in the park, just like before, and my head is killing me and my hands feel damp, and when I look down at them, I see why.

They're covered in blood.

TWELVE.

THE MAN with the knife is lying at my feet.

His nose is broken. Blood is gus.h.i.+ng down his face, and one of his legs looks like it's bent at the wrong angle. His switchblade is jutting out of his thigh. I don't remember stabbing him or even touching him, but my hands say I did. My knuckles are torn up, and I have a shallow cut on one palm-probably from the switchblade. At first, I'm only aware of how numb I feel and how slowly time is moving. And then it slams into me, along with the pain radiating across my hands and through my head. What have I done? I close my eyes and take a few steadying breaths, hoping the body will just disappear-this will all just disappear-but it doesn't, and this time the breathing doesn't help me remember. There's just more panic and a wall of black.

And then I hear sounds of a struggle and remember the guy with the metal pipe, and I turn to see him being strangled by the golden man.

The golden man is standing there with his arm calmly wrapped around the thug's throat, pulling back and up until his shoes skim the ground. The thug is flailing silently, swinging his arms-the pipe is lying on the path a few feet away-as he runs out of breath. As the golden man tightens his grip, his sleeve slides up and I can see three lines cut into his skin.

Crew marks.

I was right.... Oh, G.o.d, I was right. And that means a member of Crew just saw me do...this. I don't even know what I did, but he saw it. Then again, he's currently strangling someone in front of me. But I bet he at least remembers doing it.

The thug stops struggling, and the golden man lets his body fall to the ground.

"I hate fighting humans," he says, brus.h.i.+ng off his pants. "You have to work so hard not to kill them."

"Who are you?" I ask.

His brow crinkles. "What, not even a thanks?"

"Thanks," I say shakily.

"Welcome. Wouldn't be much of a gentleman if I didn't lend a hand." His eyes drift down to the man at my feet. "Not sure you needed it, though. That was quite a show." Was it? He reaches out. "Let me see those hands."

His fingers nearly brush my skin when I jerk away. He's not wearing a ring.

"Ah," he says, reading my distrust. He produces a silver band from his pocket, holding it up so I can see the three lines etched on its surface before he slides it on. This time when he holds out his hands, I reluctantly give him mine. His noise is low and steady as a heartbeat through my head.

"How did you know?" he asks, turning over my hands to check for broken bones.

"Posture. Attention. Ego."

He smiles that half smile. "And here I figured you just saw the marks." He runs his thumbs over my knuckles. "Or, you know, there's the fact that we've met."

I wince as he traces the bones in my hands.

"In your defense," he adds, "we weren't formally introduced."

And suddenly it clicks. When Wesley and I were summoned to the Archive last month to explain how we'd allowed a teenage History to escape into the Coronado, the golden man was there. He came in late and flashed me a lazy smile. When he heard how long Wesley and I had been paired up before we let the History escape-three hours-he actually laughed. The woman with him didn't.

"I recognized you," I lie.

"No you didn't," he says simply, testing my fingers. "You thought I looked familiar, but there's a big difference between knowing a face and placing it. Stare at anyone long enough and you'll start to think you've seen them before. The name's Eric, by the way." He lets go of my hands. "And nothing's broken."