The Awakening (14 page)

Left Behind

M
y eyes open with a start, like somebody shouted my name. A couple confused seconds tick past as I stare wide-eyed at a gray ceiling through hazy darkness, trying to gain my bearings. I am not in my bedroom in Thornsdale. Nor am I locked up at a mental hospital or awake in a motel room.

“Tess, are you alive in there?”

I turn toward the feminine voice muffled by the closed door. Artificial light filters in through the crack. I lurch upright in bed. I’m in the deep, dank bowels of an abandoned warehouse. A place called the hub—a sort of underground headquarters for people with the gifting. A gifting that can be masked by medicine. Medicine that Luka wanted me to keep taking. I look at the drain in the center of my room. Did I have any dreams last night? I recall the vaguest of impressions, which I suppose, is a start.

“Tess?” It’s Jillian. She’s outside my door. “If you don’t make like a rock and get rolling, we’re gonna miss breakfast.”

Breakfast—already? Without any windows, time is terribly disorienting down here. I fling the covers off my legs and open the door to a flood of fluorescent light. Jillian steps back. I’m sure I look like a real winner, with a nest of tangled hair and probably sleep creases on my face.

“Remind me to get you a clock with an alarm from storage,” she says. “If you hurry, we can still snag some food.”

I’m not so much hungry as eager to find Luka. I quickly get dressed, brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair, and rinse off my face. When I’m finished, Jillian leads us toward the cafeteria, I presume. The underground corridors are every bit as confusing this morning as they were last night. “Does this place always feel like such a maze?”

“You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.” Jillian smiles brightly. Her face might still be glowing over the excitement of having two newbies at the hub, but her skin is the color of Elmer’s glue.

“How long have you been down here?” I ask.

“Nineteen months, two weeks, and three days. Not that I’m counting or anything.”

“You haven’t been outside in all that time?”

“Nope. No sun for me. Non has us all on Vitamin D pills. To ward off depression, she says.” She must catch a glimpse of the horror I’m wearing on my face, because she rushes on to continue. “But don’t worry. It’s not so bad. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

The words offer little comfort. No outdoors for nineteen months? No fresh air on my face? No sun on my skin? The more I think about the future, the narrower the hall becomes. I want to set my palms against each wall and push them apart. This is better than being trapped in Shady Wood, I remind myself. I’m not shackled or medicated against my will. I’m not imprisoned in a white box of a room. Plus, I have Luka. He’s more vital than a thousand suns.

“So, that boy who’s
not
your boyfriend?” Jillian gives me a sideways peek. “He sure was happy to see you last night.”

Was he?
I was so preoccupied with my own relief that I didn’t really consider his.

“The look on his face was like …”

I twist his hemp bracelet around my wrist. “Like what?”

“A really amazing scene from a romance novel.”

My cheeks flush. I understand why Jillian would think that. I mean, it’s Luka. The boy has his own verb back in Thornsdale, created by Bobbi and her friends.
Luka’d: the act of being captivated by Luka Williams.
It happened to me on my first day; it happened to numerous girls before me; it will probably continue to happen to many more in the future. And last night, I pretty much catapulted myself into that boy’s arms.

Thankfully, the hum of cafeteria chatter saves me from having to formulate any sort of response to Jillian’s observation. Cap, Sticks, and Non sit at the same table they sat last evening. Anna and Fray sit at another, her hair even messier than before. There’s no sign of Gabe. (I’m really beginning to think he’s more robot than human. Seriously, when does he eat?) And then the rest of the tables are scattered with students. I spot Luka in line with his back to me, getting served his breakfast by Claire.

Jillian leans toward my ear as we approach the counter. “Want a name refresher?”

“Uh, sure. That’d be great.”

“Jose’s the muscular Mexican. The scrawny, mean-looking kid sitting by Jose? That’s Bass. Before he came to the hub, he was Detroit’s most infamous pick-pocket, which means you’ll want to watch your stuff around him. Declan’s the redhead. The girl with the dreadlocks sitting by herself reading the book? That’s Ellen. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, it’s usually to quote Shakespeare.”

I nod, like I’m paying attention. Really though, I’d like to know what Claire could be saying to Luka to make him loiter for so long.

“I told you about Ashley and Danielle last night. They’re sitting with Link. Poor guy.”

Both girls stare at Luka’s back and whisper behind their hands. Funny that even here—in this underground world populated by people who are not at all normal—teenage girls are still teenage girls. The closer we get to Luka, the more my skin flushes. “Where’s Rosie?”

“It’s her errand day.” Jillian picks up two trays. The motion has Luka turning around, and the second his attention lands on me, his entire demeanor melts with relief, as if he legitimately thought I might be kidnapped in the night.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I say back.

I try tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, but it’s too short to stay put. “Luka, this is Jillian. Jillian, Luka.”

He gives her a polite nod-smile combo that has Jillian’s cheeks turning the color of Leela’s favorite strawberry pink nail polish. Claire gives us each a ladle of colorless oatmeal, another of canned peaches, and Jillian leads us toward an empty table in the corner, away from the prying eyes of Danielle and Ashley.

“Did you get the pill I left behind?”

I nod, keeping my gaze pinned on the back of Jillian’s off-white sweatshirt, thankful we reach the table before he has a chance to ask whether or not I took said pill. Breakfast is as tasteless as it looks. The only edible way to eat the meal is by mixing the peaches with the oatmeal, and while this makes the oatmeal cold, at least it’s not quite so flavorless.

Once all the trays are stacked on the cart and everyone begins filtering out of the cafeteria, Non pulls Luka and I aside to give us the rundown—explaining the cycle of daily duties and the rules for all underage students. She puts extra emphasis on no purpling after lights out, which makes me suspect Cap told her that he found Luka in my room last night. She explains that training will be in the afternoon, then leads us down the corridor into one of the classrooms, where Sticks stands up front lecturing glassy-eyed teenagers. He barely pauses as we find empty seats at a table.

While my new bean-pole-of-a-teacher talks about some obscure war I’ve never heard of before, Luka twirls a pencil around the tip of his thumb. I try to listen to Sticks, but I’m much more intrigued by him than his words. In all my martial arts training, I’ve never once seen a man as tall as him in the dojo. His slacks stop short of his ankles, acting more like high waters than pants. I’m sure he has to make do with whatever clothes they can scrounge up and these are the longest they have. I try to imagine one of his long legs doing a round-house kick, but I can’t picture it. Still, he must be a good Fighter if he’s the one who does the training.

The question is—what, exactly, are we training for?

*

Morning classes drag into lunch. Jillian invites Luka and I to sit at the largest table in the cafeteria with Link and Claire and Jose. There’s still no sign of Rosie. I stuff my mouth with peanut butter and jelly sandwich and carrot sticks, as if the quicker I eat, the faster the meal will end. All it gets me is a stomachache and time to spare. Nobody besides me seems to be in a hurry to start training.

My leg begins to jiggle.

Perhaps in an attempt to calm me, Luka places his palm over my knee. And while it’s the opposite of calming, it definitely distracts me from training. My
not-boyfriend
is touching the inside of my thigh. It has me sitting up straighter. Sucking in my stomach. Impossibly aware of the subtle way his thumb moves back and forth, stirring up heat in places that don’t need to be stirred. Conversation floats about—all-too-normal-teenage banter that Luka joins when prompted. Me? I’m zeroed in on other things. Like what Jillian would say if she looked underneath the table. And not letting my eyes roll into the back of my head. If this goes on for much longer, I might melt into a puddle on the floor.

Finally, Non rolls around the cart collecting trays while Anna and Fray slip out unnoticed. Jillian excuses herself for cleanup in the kitchen. Luka removes his hand, but the impression he leaves behind remains. I begin to fidget—with my napkin, with Luka’s hemp bracelet, with a hangnail I’ve found on my thumb. Do Fighters report to one room and Shields to another? Will Luka and I be given further instruction? By the time Sticks approaches our table with his long lanky stride, I’m sitting ramrod straight, raring to go.

“Need my services today?” Link asks him.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” Sticks says.

Claire and Jose exchange disappointed looks.

“I hear I’ll be getting a new student soon.” Sticks may tip his chin at me, but all eyes turn to Luka. Apparently, if one of the newbies is a Fighter, I’m not the likely candidate. “I look forward to seeing what you’re made of, Tess.”

There’s a beat of shocked silence as Sticks’ comment sinks in, and then …

“Wait—
you’re
a Fighter?”

I look Claire straight in her disbelieving face with my chin slightly raised. I can’t tell if she’s more shocked or appalled. There’s definitely a healthy dose of both.

“Cap says once the medicine you’ve been taking leaves your system, you’ll join us for training.”

My posture wilts. I’d hoped to join them today.

“What do you do for training?” Luka asks.

“Looks like you’ll get to find out this afternoon,” I say dejectedly.

“I don’t mean Shield training. I mean Fighter training.”

Luka’s words have everyone’s attention sliding in my direction. My face blossoms with heat.

“The two aren’t so different. A lot of the same concepts, anyway.” Sticks gives my shoulder a paternal squeeze, then nods at his young apprentices. Jose and Claire follow him out of the cafeteria. To where, I haven’t a clue. Non pushes the cart of trays into the kitchen, then collects the Shields. Luka doesn’t budge.

“You should go,” I say. “Maybe you can finally learn how to throw that force field thing you’ve been trying to throw.”

My words hit their mark. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

The question rubs me the wrong way. What does Luka think—that I can’t survive without him for an afternoon? He sure didn’t have a problem leaving me last night. “I’ll be fine.”

He gives me one last lingering look, then follows after Non and the rest of them. All that remains is the clatter of trays and the spray of water coming from the kitchen, and my one-and-only tablemate. Link folds his hands behind his head and leans back in his chair. “Tess the Fighter, huh?”

“I guess.”

He wags his eyebrows at me. “Care to join me for a little research?”

The Plan

L
ink spreads his arms wide. “Welcome to my lair.”

We are standing inside the computer lab Rosie showed me and Luka during our tour—the room with the password-protected computers and other unidentifiable gadgetry with wires running every which way. “How’d you get all this stuff?”

Link plops onto a desk chair with a gash on the seat. The force rolls him and the chair toward the
piece de resistance
in the center of the lab. A Rubik’s Cube sits by the keyboard.

“Not without a lot of effort and planning.” He boots up the large supercomputer and the screen glows to life. “Dr. Carlyle’s a big help. Rosie and Bass, too.”

“I don’t understand why Cap lets the two smallest and youngest people at the hub go above ground.” You’d think he’d send someone like Jose or Gabe. I can’t imagine too many would dare hassle them on the streets. Rosie and Bass on the other hand? It’s a wonder they have made it this long.

“It’s because they have the most street smarts.” The screen, now fully lit, casts an ethereal glow onto Link’s profile. He types a code onto the keyboard so quick it’s nothing but a flurry of finger movement. “And nobody’s looking for them. Bass and Rosie are wards of the state.”

“Shouldn’t their social workers be looking for them, then?”

“Them and a hundred other wards of the state. Before they came here, Rosie and Bass spent more time on the street than they did under a roof. Their social worker was never too concerned about it.” Link opens up a file.

It’s a database. I’ve seen plenty while working with my dad. Safe Guard has a database for every affluent neighborhood in the United States, including what type of security system each resident uses. I spent many Saturdays looking through them, trying to help Dad identify potential customers. I take a step closer and squint over Link’s shoulder. “Who are you searching for?”