The Smaller Evil (16 page)

WHEN ARMAN OPENED HIS EYES
the next morning, the first thing on his mind was the cook. And he wasn't thinking about whether he'd knocked her up or contracted herpes or if he'd be lucky enough to get another shot at trying to do both. No, he was thinking about the fact that he hadn't told her about Beau. That he hadn't told her anything. Now that other people knew Beau was missing, it meant she might find out, too. If Arman didn't tell her what he knew first, there was no predicting what she might make of it.

Or of
him.

The coil of dread squeezing his rib cage got Arman to haul ass out of bed and make his way down to the dining hall in a hurry. He managed to leave before Dale and Kira were even awake, for which he was grateful. He was in no mood to continue their argument from the night before.

Walking through the meadow beneath a foggy sky, Arman went over what he might say to the cook and how he might say it. He just needed to sneak a quick moment of privacy with her, before all hell broke loose. Before everyone started looking at him the way Kira and the trainers had looked at him last night—like he was
guilty.

Like he'd done something bad.

Breakfast was served outside. Food and drink were laid out on tables located at the main dining hall entrance. While this arrangement was preferable to sitting with strangers, it also kept Arman from slinking into the kitchen from the garden. With everyone standing around, he'd be in plain view.

So much for privacy.

He took two sweet rolls and a cup of juice and lingered on the edge of the crowd. He ate quickly and swallowed his Paxil and Adderall when no one was looking. Scanning the group with what he hoped was discretion, Arman strained to spot the river-pebble-eye guy. But he didn't. He was about to start walking through the crowd, to search more, when he was stopped by the old man he'd sat with at dinner the night before.

“Oh, hey,” he said, because the old man had grabbed his arm, sloshing his juice onto the ground. The guy was stronger than he looked.

“I
know
you,” the man said.

Arman smiled. “Yes, you do. We talked last night.”

“We did?”

“We talked about love-shyness. You told me not to throw up around girls.”

The man made a face. All that wrinkled skin. “That's not it. I recognize you from back home.”

“Back home in Oakland?”

“That's right.”

“Well, I'm not from Oakland.”

“You got arrested recently, didn't you? That's where I know you from. You were in jail.”

“Wait, what?” Arman stared at him. “In jail? No, I wasn't. I've never been
arrested
.”

The old man made a clucking sound. “Oh, I never forget a face, son. You were charged with . . . oh, now, let's see. What was it again?”

“
Nothing.
I wasn't charged with anything because it wasn't
me
. I'm only seventeen. And I've never done anything wrong.” This was a lie, of course, but no one needed to know that but him.

“A pyramid scheme!” The old man pointed right at Arman with glee, pleased to have solved the mystery. At the victorious sound of his voice, people around them turned to look. “That was it, wasn't it? You were running it out of Emeryville. Something to do with self-hypnosis tapes, am I right? Or was it something else? Drugs charges, maybe?”

“
No
.” Arman yanked his arm free. Took a flustered step backward. People were still staring. They weren't looking away. “I never did anything like that. I swear.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure,” Arman insisted, although his body was starting to do its sweating thing. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “That wasn't me. You're talking about my
father
.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah.”

There was no flicker of recognition in the old man's rheumy eyes. He simply shrugged. Wandered off.

Left alone, Arman glanced around like a caged beast. It was like being up on the mountain again, standing in a circle of so many staring eyes. All that watching. Judging. Holding him under scrutiny he couldn't begin to read.

Are they looking at me like that because of my dad?

Or do they know about Beau?

• • •

A bell rang, a soft chiming. The signal to head into the meeting hall, apparently. The group watching Arman turned and walked away without further incident. No one said a word.

He trailed after them but felt sour. Bitter, really. Arman's Before Life wasn't meant to have followed him here. It was the last thing he wanted to deal with. Back at school he'd lived in constant fear that people would find out what kind of person his dad was. A junkie. A deadbeat. A college burnout who, after being handed every advantage in life, couldn't keep a job or stay sober and instead used his earnest face and sweet voice to hustle drugs and smooth-talk old ladies and college students into giving him money they couldn't afford in exchange for promises that had no hope of coming true. Lying was his father's one true gift, it turned out, elevated by the art of delusion. How could he live with himself otherwise?

Inside the dome, everyone sat cross-legged on the floor. Arman braced himself for some sort of meditation or guided exercise like they'd been asked to do at Vespers the night before. Instead they were broken into smaller groups and put to work. Real physical labor. Dr. Gary mumbled something about the importance of “maintaining a standard of health in every dimension of vitality,” but Arman was skeptical. Getting people to chop firewood and pick weeds in the garden seemed more like a ploy to get basic chores done than a genuine step toward self-actualization.

Then again, some of the groups were given more rigorous assignments: shoring up the fence perimeter on the eastern side of the property, cleaning the cannon, and taking inventory of all the canned goods and seeds that were in underground storage. Arman's own group, which unfortunately included Dale, got the worst job of all: They were directed to dig out four six-foot deep cylindrical holes
at the top of the sun-scorched hill overlooking the gravel drive so that the concrete footings for a “Surveillance and Communications Tower” could be poured.

So maybe this was about more than basic chores.

As he pushed a wheelbarrow filled with work gloves and shovels from the toolshed, Arman spotted Mari standing on the walkway outside the dome. She hadn't been in there when the work assignments were handed out, which was strange. At the moment, she looked lost. Or confused. Something. Either way, he made sure to duck his head as he passed by her. The last thing he wanted was to make eye contact.

At the worksite, Arman did as he was told. Pounding the clay dirt with a pickax couldn't be good for his concussion, but he didn't complain. No one around him seemed to know anything about Beau, and he intended to keep it that way. Arman swung helplessly at the hard-packed earth, which refused to make a dent under his efforts.

Dale, as usual, couldn't keep his mouth shut.

“What did you say we're doing this for?” he growled after they'd been working for almost an hour. He leaned on his shovel with gloved hands, and his face, streaked with sweat and dirt, wore an unmistakable fuck-this-shit expression.

The leader of the group gave him a flat look. “I told you. We're building a structure. These holes are going to be for the support posts, and Gary wants you to dig them. So go on and dig already.”

“Yeah, but you called it a ‘Surveillance Tower' before.”

“Surveillance and Communication.”

“So who's being surveilled?”

“Who says it's a who?”

“What?”

“That's exactly right. Maybe it's a what. Not a who.”

“Jesus. Well, then
what's
being watched?”

The man shrugged. “Don't know. Maybe fires.”

“
Fires?
Are you kidding me?”

“That's right.”

Dale looked around. “Anyone else buying this shit?”

No one said anything.

Dale shook his head in disgust.

Went back to digging.

ARMAN MANAGED TO GET AWAY
as the sun broke through the clouds. He begged off by saying he had to use the restroom.

The group leader appeared unimpressed. “You can't find a tree, kid?”

“Nope.” Arman scampered off, heading up the meadow trail toward the circle of cabins and the A-framed bathroom. He hid in one of the stalls for a while, in part because he really did have to go, but also so nobody could accuse him of lying about his whereabouts. The appearance of honesty, his dad always told him, was far more important than the truth.

There were two places the cook could be. Seeing as the kitchen was the more difficult location to access, Arman visited her cabin first. He went up the same way he had last night—by cutting through the woods and hiking around the research building. But Arman froze as he passed beneath the building's stone pilings.

He heard voices.

They were coming from outside the building's front entrance. Flattening his back against the cement wall so that he stayed in shadows, Arman peeked around the corner. He strained to see who it was or hear what they were saying, but they were too far away. The voices faded as
the group walked inside, leaving only the faint clodding of the human herd. Arman thought he caught a flash of long braids as they left, lit by the late-morning sun.

Then they were gone.

• • •

Arman didn't have to knock on the cook's window to find her. She was already outside, sitting by herself on the cabin's rickety front porch, reading a book. Arman's breath caught at the sight. The essence of summer—she sat beneath a wall of climbing ivy, and her bare legs stuck straight out, twisting in the milky sunshine as she stared down at the book's pages, lost in a world only she could know.

She looked up then, and she saw him. Only she wasn't scared this time. She didn't jump or yell or back away. Instead their eyes met and her lips did that twitching thing. Not a smile, exactly. But not
not
one, either.

Oh God.

“No one saw me come up here,” he said thickly.

“Good.” She set her book aside.

Arman shuffled closer to where she sat but remained standing. There was so much he needed to say, but he was having trouble thinking. It was overwhelming. Her presence. Her closeness. Her everything.

He stared at her thighs. That felt safest.

“You left last night,” she said.

“I know.”

“Why?”

Arman shrugged. He felt awkward all of a sudden and sort of horrible about it. Was there a right answer to her question? If there was, it's not like he would ever say it. Besides, that wasn't what he'd come to talk about.

“How's your head?” she asked.

“Better, I guess.”

“I'm worried about Beau.”

This was a startling statement. Arman stared at her. “Why?”

“He hasn't gotten in touch since he left yesterday. And he usually does.” The cook reached up, took Arman by the hand, and pulled him down next to her. “I tried asking those assholes about it. But they wouldn't tell me anything.”

“What assholes?”

“You know, the trainers. I've decided to stop being scared of them, by the way. They can't tell me what to do. I know Beau won't let them get rid of me, so I don't care if they like me.” She raised her chin. “Which they don't.”

“Oh,” Arman said weakly. “Well, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else. Especially them.”

She cocked her head. “Hear what?”

“That Beau's missing.”

“Huh?”

“Mari said he didn't get where he was going yesterday. I guess she heard from the person he was supposed to meet in San Francisco. And see, there was this thing that happened yesterday, when I left here. I don't totally understand it, and I thought maybe it was because I hit my head. That's what Gary said. That's why I didn't tell you.”

She held his hand tighter. “Tell me what, Arman?”

“That I saw him yesterday. After I left.”

“You saw Beau?”

Arman nodded. “I ran into him while I was walking down to the highway. He was going to give me a ride. But when I got in the van to go with him, he'd cut himself. With a knife. Really bad. There was blood . . . everywhere. I thought he was dead. I really did, and I drove up here with him, but by the time I found help, the van was gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“I mean, it was just
gone.
Vanished. With Beau in it. There was no trace it'd ever been here in the first place. It didn't make sense. It still doesn't. And my head was bleeding, see? I didn't know how I'd hurt it, so everyone told me I was just confused. That the things I remembered couldn't be true and that I didn't really know what had happened.”

The cook blinked. Then took a deep breath. “Who told you this?”

“Them! The trainers. Gary and Mari and that woman.”

“
They
told you you were confused?”

“Yes.”

“And they're the ones who said Beau didn't get where he was supposed to go?”

Arman nodded.

The cook said nothing. She sat there in silence, with her cheeks flushed and her jaw clenched. She sat that way for so long that Arman started to get worried.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No.” She jerked her head toward him. Her eyes were hot and her cheeks wet. “I'm not okay. Not at all. I'm going to
fucking
kill them.”

“Wait, what?” Arman said. “No, you can't do that. Why would you do that?”

“What do you mean why? You're telling me they murdered Beau!” Her voice choked.

“But I didn't say anything about
murder
. He killed himself. He cut his own wrists!”

The cook gave him a how-stupid-are-you look. “You think Beau just happened to cut his wrists right before he was going to give you a ride? And that even though nobody knew he was going to do this, someone was waiting to hide him and the van the moment you got back here?”

Arman was flustered. “No. I—I don't know. I hadn't thought about it.”

“Well, I am thinking about it. That's the only thing that makes sense.” Her nostrils flared. “Someone's coming.”

Arman glanced up. Sure enough, there was a figure running toward them. Well, sort of running. Whoever it was moved with a weird loping gait, like their shoes didn't fit right or they'd forgotten the basics of human locomotion. It was
Dale
, Arman realized, as the person drew closer. What was he doing here? Clearly not an athlete, he pulled up in front of Arman and the cook, then doubled over, grabbing his chest and gasping for air.

“Come on.” He wheezed and gestured to Arman. “You . . . need . . . to . . . come . . . with . . . me.”

“You need to stop smoking.”

“Very . . . funny.” Dale managed to stand upright as he gestured again. “But I'm serious.”

“You're never serious.”

“That's not true. And this is important. So come on, already.”

“How'd you find me?” Arman asked. “I didn't tell you where I was going.”

Dale's gaze drifted to the cook. “Wasn't all that hard.”

Arman turned to look at her. He hated to see the pain on her face. It made him feel guilty, even though he'd done nothing wrong. “I'm sorry,” he told her. “I guess I have to go. But there's more we need to talk about. A lot more. He could be fine. Really.”

Tears still welled in her eyes. “You think?”

“I don't
know
. I mean, that's just it. A lot of what I remember doesn't make sense. So please. Just don't do or say anything. Not yet. Not until I know more.”

She bit her lip. Nodded. “You better find me later. Please, Arman.”

“I will. I promise.” Arman squeezed her hand, then got up to go with
Dale. They began jogging back down toward the main path.

“You okay?” Dale asked.

“I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

“I just said I was.”

“I'm not pissed at you, you know. I mean, about last night.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Are
you
pissed at me?”

“No,” Arman said. “I'm not. That's not what I'm thinking about at all, actually.”

“Good.”

“Seriously, though. How'd you know I was with her?”

Dale grinned. “Shit, man. Wasn't hard. That chick's the only girl under forty around here and you don't strike me as the cougar type.”

“Oh.” Arman jogged faster. He wasn't sure what surprised him more: that Dale guessed he was with a girl or the fact that he was right. “Where did you say we're going?”

“I didn't say. But I was told to come get you. I think you're going to want to see this.”

“See what?”

“They found Beau's van.”