The Awakening (27 page)

I pull up the calendar and attempt to figure out how many days it’s been since Luka and I broke in and saw her. The more days I count off, the more my guilt festers. How could we just leave her there, after everything we saw? I want to get her out of that prison. I want Elaine Eckhart to be the next patient we break out. But she’s not a Cloak. Cap would never approve it. I don’t even think Link would go for it. The only hope I have of breaking her free is by finding a cloak at Shady Wood. Maybe then, Cap would agree to rescuing my grandmother, too. Since we’d already be there.

I search the Shady Wood database all afternoon, poring over every detail of every file until my eyes sting and my shoulders ache from hunching. With twenty minutes to go until dinnertime, I find something that makes me sit up straighter.

Patient:
Clive DeVant,
Age:
46,
Diagnosis:
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,
Symptoms:
Claims to hide important items in his dreams,
compulsively looks for items during the day, unable to stop …

“What you doing on my computer, Xena?”

I spin around. Link stands in the doorway of the computer lab. Sticks must be finished training Claire and Jose for the day. I wave him over and point at the section I’ve highlighted—
hides important items
.

Link leans over my shoulder and peers at the screen. “I think you just found us another Cloak.”

*

Link and I make a beeline for Fray’s room, throwing each other excited, disbelieving looks as we go. After Link pulled up Clive DeVant’s individual file, there could be no denying it. On top of having dreams where he hides things so well he can never find them again in real life, his therapist reported that Clive could see things nobody else could see, and he often insisted that demons were responsible for everything he had lost. We missed him the first time around because Shady Wood didn’t tag hallucinations or delusions as a main symptom. After weeks and weeks and weeks of desperate searching, we finally found another Cloak.

Fray’s door is ajar.

When I peek inside, my excitement loses its sparkle. Fray lay in bed looking even grayer than the day Luka administered CPR, painfully thin too. Thanks to Dr. Carlyle, he wears a cannula hooked to an oxygen tank and there’s an IV that needles the vein in his bony hand, providing medicine and nutrients. It’s not enough, though. He’s creeping closer to death every single day.

Link raps lightly on the door. Fray doesn’t move, but someone does in the corner of the room that the door blocks from view. A second later, Cap appears.

“Tess found a Cloak,” Link blurts.

Cap doesn’t react. He stares up at us from his chair, then wheels out into the hallway, closing Fray’s door behind him.

“I need you to train me some more tonight so I can get the hang of it.”

His lips draw into a thin line; his silver eyes turn to steel. “No.”

“What?” Surely, he can’t mean it. He’s upset that I didn’t listen to him, I get that. But this is bigger than hurt feelings. This is bigger than Cap’s sense of pride. “I had a breakthrough last night.”

“You disobeyed a direct order last night.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“I’m making sure of that.”

“If you’re upset because—”

“I will not bring an insubordinate soldier onto the battle field. Nor will I bring an impulsive one. Impulsive is what got me in this wheelchair. Impulsive is what killed Gabe’s sister. I can’t have you risking your life and the lives of everyone else all because you’re feeling impulsive. There will be no loose cannons here.”

“Come on, Cap, it was only one time.”

The captain rounds on Link, his eyes flashing like bolts of lightning. I’ve never seen him look angrier, or more imposing. “Once is all it takes.”

With that, he wheels down the hallway, toward the cafeteria for dinner.

I shove both hands through my hair and kick the wall. Pain stabs my big toe. “I need to practice
tonight
. Not tomorrow or the next day. If I wait, I might forget how I did it.”

A slow smile pulls up the corners of Link’s mouth. “Cap said he wasn’t going to train you tonight.”

“I know!” It’s nothing to smile about.

“He never said you couldn’t train on your own. Or that I couldn’t join you.”

*

I find Link sitting in the stands of what appears to be an ancient gladiatorial arena. I quirk one of my eyebrows.

“I thought you should have your own arena. I’ve never actually been to The Coliseum, but I’ve seen lots of pictures. I think I did a pretty good job, don’t you?”

“Yes, excellent.” I close my eyes, eager to feel the tug of a doorway.

“Aren’t you going to get Luka first?”

“I thought we’d give him the night off.”

Link makes a sound.

I open one of my eyes. “Do you have something to say?”

He shrugs a shrug that speaks volumes. He knows I’m not concerned with giving Luka the night off. I’m more concerned that he’d put a stop to our plans the second I pulled him into this arena. He’s not comfortable with my training when Cap’s around. I can’t imagine he’d be too thrilled to learn that I made plans with Link to do that very same training without Cap’s supervision.

I push thoughts of Luka out of my head and focus on the tugging. I step to the right and the thin pulse strengthens. Another step to the right and it turns into a pull. “You feel that?” I ask.

“Sure do.”

We clasp hands and walk through together. When we step over the threshold, we aren’t where we normally are—directly outside the warehouse. We’ve gone further than usual. We’re standing outside the rundown tattoo parlor, the one with a dragon painted on the window. It sits on the corner of the street that leads to the warehouse, and another street that’s not quite so abandoned. A scantily-dressed woman hangs out kitty-corner across from us, showing off long legs and crooking her finger at a car that drives past. The vehicle slows to a stop. The woman climbs inside and the street is deserted again.

“Can you feel that?” I ask Link.

“The cold?” He rubs his hands together. “I never understood why we can feel cold when we’re not in our physical bodies.”

No, not the cold.

It’s a heaviness. As though something dark lurks around the corner. It makes me uneasy. I step closer to the tattoo parlor, next to a bolted-down garbage can (just in case someone’s in the mood to pilfer a garbage can, I guess). A crushed beer can sits on the ground beside it. I close my eyes and let myself feel the emotions I felt last night—the fear and the anger, and most of all, the love. My mother, the woman who raised me. I think about the way she played with my hair whenever I had a nightmare as a little girl. The motherly way she peppered me with questions the minute Pete and I walked through the door after school. The embarrassing tour she gave Leela of our house. Her happiness when I started making friends in Thornsdale. What it must have been like for her when she had to pack a bag for me and send it with Luka. I miss her so terribly it feels as though all the world’s gravity takes up residence in my chest. I let it swirl and build until I can’t handle it anymore, then I swing back my leg and kick the can.

It whizzes past Link’s nose.

My eyes widen. I did it. For the second time now, I have moved something in the physical realm without being there in physical form.

Link looks from me to the can. “Do it again.”

So I do. Again and again and again, until I’m exhausted, replete, absolutely wrung dry. And just as I’m learning some control, just as I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t send the can sailing, but scoot it a few subtle inches with my toe, the sound of clapping breaks through my concentration.

“Well done! Well done, Little Rabbit.”

I whip around, dread crawling up my throat.

He’s here in Detroit, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

It’s so startling that my eyes fly open in bed. I sit upright and look about, as if the man is here in my room. How did he find me? How did he get from California to Detroit? Last night, when I finally obeyed Cap’s orders and startled, it was only after Scarface lunged at me. Did I give him enough time to grab on? To travel through the door and find us here?

If this is true, I’ve put everyone in serious danger. Anna’s cloak is failing. It’s only a matter of time before he finds us.

The Prophecy

N
ever mind purpling, I have to talk about what happened. Besides, it’s four fifty-five, which makes it more early morning than middle of the night. I step out into the darkened antechamber, prepared to head down the boy’s hallway when a light flickers to life down the corridor that leads to the cafeteria.

Is Link already up and about?

After a couple months here at the hub, I’ve learned many things about Link, one of which is his affinity for sleeping in. If he could make up the schedule, breakfast would be at ten every day. Not only does he enjoy sleeping in, he can sleep through almost anything. Once, Bass and Declan were in a full-out wrestling match—complete with body-checks against the wall—right outside Link’s bedroom and he slept right through it.

I tiptoe toward the mumbled conversation and scratch the inside of my wrist, just in case I didn’t actually wake-wake up and this is still a dream. The spot burns. When I reach the entryway, I stand against the wall and force my breathing to come as silently as possible.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” The gruff voice belongs to Cap.

Whoever he asks doesn’t reply—at least not verbally.

“Still having the nightmares?”

My ears perk.

“Some nights are worse than others.” It’s Luka. He’s the one who is awake.

I peek around the corner and see them sitting at one of the tables. Cap pours coffee from a pot into the mug in front of Luka, then fills his own as well.

There’s a long stretch of silence. So long I start to feel silly, standing here in my pajamas, listening to the pair of them drink their coffee. I should make myself known. Shuffle out from my place against the wall and join them.

“Did you train Tess tonight?”

I press my shoulder blades against the wall.

“I’m trying to teach her a lesson, but something tells me she took matters into her own hands.”

So Cap knew I would go anyway? And Luka suspected that whether with Cap or not, I wasn’t going to bring him with me this time. I close my eyes. Luka’s primary concern may be about my safety—he may, in fact, feel as though he’s forced to babysit—but my feelings for him go so much deeper than that. And although he drives me crazy with his over-protective ways, I miss him. So much it leaves an empty ache in the pit of my stomach.

“Do you think she figured it out?” Luka asks.

“If I was a betting man, I’d say yes.”

“So where does this leave us?”

“We have some time before we need to move. I have an eye on Anna’s cloak. She’s holding up better than we think. I’d like Tess to have a couple more weeks of training under her belt before we enter into life-or-death situations.”

Another couple weeks? How can Cap possibly think Anna’s cloak will make it that long?

A rhythmic scritching sound, as though someone is slowly spinning their mug against the surface of the table, fills the silence. And then, “It took me two years before I learned how to do what she did the other night. I’ve been training Sticks for three. Tess managed to figure it out in a little less than three months.”

My brow furrows. I had no idea it took Cap that long.

“Why her? Why can she link
and
fight? Why am I her Keeper?”

Luka’s frustrated questions pull at the corners of my mouth, turning them downward. Worry is a gnawing emotion. It’s no fun to feel, not even when that feeling is our choice. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to have the emotion thrust upon you against your will. I’m like a thorn in his side. One he can’t escape. One he never asked for.

“There’s a prophecy.”

A prophecy? Is this the same one I came across in the journals?

Cap clears his throat. “It was made many, many years ago. Given by a believer during the fall of Rome in 476 A.D. Recorded on a scroll, the whereabouts of which are unknown.”