The Woken Gods (16 page)

What I came in here for is right on the desk, practically inviting me over. I slide into Bronson’s high-backed cushy leather seat, which dwarfs me, and pick up the telephone receiver. The dial tone is crisp. It probably never goes out. The phone is black, but should be red like in those old movies where the president gives orders in emergencies. Bronson’s practically that guy now.

And you’re going to trick him. Right. Good luck
.

I peck out the number on the buttons, and wait for the ring. I’m ready to hang up if needed, but after four rings, a sleepy voice says, “Hello?”

It’s Bree. I figured her mom would head back to work, that she’d be home alone. I want to hear a friendly voice, after waking up in this strange place. Maybe I need confirmation I was someone before this started. I consider hanging up, but she says, “Kyra? Is that you?”

“How did you know?”

“Where are you? How are you? Do you need me to–”

“I’m at my grandfather’s mansion. And I’m fine. I just… I woke up. Wanted to make sure the rest of the world still exists.”

“Of course it does.” But she’s silent for a troublingly long moment.

“What?” I prompt.

“Did they tell you anything when you got there?”

“I was asleep.”

“You wake up when a pin drops.”

“A pin has never dropped in my presence so I don’t know how you’d know that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I was pretending. It was easier,” I admit. “Now, what?”

Another silence. I check out the papers on the desk in front of me. But they seem boring, though some of them are covered with languages I don’t recognize. I’m pretty sure Bronson’s too meticulous to leave a piece of paper headed with the words My Nefarious Plan laying around anyway, even in ancient something or other.

“Mom only heard this through a source, so it might not be true… But your dad’s supposed to be on trial soon. Day after tomorrow.”

The treason isn’t the problem
, I think. But it is still
a
problem. “Hm. Quick.” But it has to be, so it’s over by solstice. “Anything else?”

“Just that the full Council’s expected to be on the jury. If he’s convicted… well, you know already. Kyra, what are you doing there?”

“What I have to,” I say. “Thanks for the intel. I’ll call again when I can. Bree?”

“Yes, person who is making me crazy with worry.”

“You’re a better friend than I deserve.”

“No, I’m not. Listen–”

I would, but Oz appears in the doorway. He leans against it, like someone in a commercial cast for the specific purpose of leaning attractively. By which I mean, he’s shirtless, wearing only baggy pajama pants.

“Bye,” and I hang up.

“Are you a spy?” he asks, tone teasing.

“Are you?” I ask.

“I got up to get a snack and heard your voice,” he says. “Anyone I know?”

“It was Bree. I wanted her to know I was alright.”

“You guys seem tight,” he observes.

“So do you and Justin. How best friends work, right?”

He saunters toward me. “I guess. Hungry?”

It is really hard to concentrate with that bare torso in front of me. It’s… defined. Not that Tam’s wasn’t, but we’re over.
This
is a dangerously handsome boy. Maybe he
is
a spy. Which is a silly thing to think, because I already know he can’t be on my side.

Get your head, not your hormones, in the game, Locke
.

“Starving.” I get up, and slip past him. “Can’t afford a shirt?”

“Sorry,” he says, and oh-my-god I can’t believe it, his cheeks color. He’s blushing. “I didn’t think about it. There’s not usually…”

“A strange girl roaming around at night.”

“Exactly. Though I don’t know if I’d call you strange.”

I give him a
Really? Nice try
look. “Where’s this magical food you speak of?”

He leads the way to the kitchen, where he opens a wooden box with a pulldown closure. Inside is a plate of perfectly round cookies. I can smell them from where I’m standing, a few feet away.

My stomach growls. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” I say defensively. “Yesterday.”

“You like chocolate chip?” he asks, extending the plate toward me. “We could make you something else too, a sandwich?”

“You have got to be kidding me. Chocolate chip is my favorite. I live for it. Give me all of them. Now please.”

He smiles as I pick up two – make that three – off the plate.

Mom used to be a baker. A gardener, a homebody, someone who liked making stuff. She was constantly putting out plates of cookies for a pre-bedtime snack. The first cookie I bite into tastes
exactly
like the chocolate chip ones she used to make. More cake than chocolate, balanced between crispy and chewy.

“This is oh-my-god good,” I say, with my mouth full.

“Bronson’s family recipe. His wife used to make these. The cook, Ann, does them every week.”

Oz is leaning against the counter this time, and again looks like someone paid him to be here and do just that. His short hair sticks up in messily random spikes, and the nightlight plugged into the kitchen wall seems to have been placed to highlight the angles of his cheekbones, his jaw.

I have to focus on his face, right? So I don’t get distracted by his torso again.

I chew and try my best not to sound like Bree’s mom interrogating a hostile interviewee. “Does he talk about her a lot? Gabrielle?”

“Not really,” he says. “But you can tell he misses her. You saw the portrait of her in his other office?”

“What about Mom? Does he talk about her?”

“Never,” Oz says. “Your mysterious family is something of a favorite topic of gossip though. You should be prepared. You’re a celebrity. Like royalty, if the Society had royals. It’s not going to be like British tabloids or anything, but we were banned from talking to you before. You’ll be noticed.”

The cookie tastes like sand in my mouth. “You knew about me?”

“We all did. Strict orders not to make contact. Your mom and dad’s wishes. Your mom’s mostly, I think.” He shakes his head. “I upset you.”

I wave it off. “Nah,” I say, “finding out your parents basically conspired to keep you in the dark your whole life… it’s nothing. Happens to everyone.”

I can tell I fool him not at all. “Well, if it were me, I’d be pretty thrown.”

I wonder again what his story is. Where are his parents? Why is he Bronson’s ward? But I can’t ask those questions. I don’t have the right. In this moment, I’m keenly aware that the pretenses I’m here under are false.

It bothers me that I want to
not
have to trick Oz, to confide in him. Because there’s not going to be any way around it and I can’t. “Will you show me around tomorrow?” I ask.

“I’m sure your grandfather will. He was really happy you came. Maybe… I know this is a tragedy for you. What’s happening with your dad. But maybe it won’t all turn out to be one?”

I think of blood and doom and death. Of that snarling Was scepter at the center of everything. “Do you trust Bronson?”

Oz does me the favor of considering. “He took me in. He’s demanding, but kind when it counts. Yes,” he says, and it seems like he had to talk himself into it. “Yes, I do.”

“Good,” I say. “I better get back upstairs. Sleep. Another long day tomorrow.”

I move to breeze past, but he touches my upper arm right where the T-shirt stops. I try to recall if I ever had this many nerve endings before, if it felt like this when Tam casually touched me. The reaction could be because Oz is an impossibility.

“Maybe tomorrow won’t be so bad,” he says. “We’ll help get you through it. I promise you that, Kyra Locke.”

The sound of my name on his lips is almost as strange as knowing he was aware of my existence for years. Years that I didn’t know about any of this.

The fact is, though, he’ll hate me before this is all over. That’s a given, and something I
do
already regret. Thinking about tomorrow, I find my appetite’s gone. So I say, “Good night,” and put the dead woman’s cookie back on the plate as I leave.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next time I wake the room is light, so I can see what I missed the night before. Which isn’t much, except wallpaper with cotton candy pink stripes and curtains with an over-the-top prissy flower print. The curtains have also been tied back. Perhaps it’s a subtle nudge to get out of bed.

Between the color scheme and the flowers, I realize… This could have been my mom’s room.

I’m almost afraid to find out if it is. The room is so stuffy compared to our house, which she decorated in old maps and photos and watercolors and warm shades. I can’t imagine her growing up with all this heavy wood furniture and cold classiness. Conflicted about whether I want to know, I climb out of bed and check the dresser for evidence. The drawers are empty of anything but spare sheets. The closet door is open and it’s empty too – except for a lone outfit on a hanger.

I walk over to get a better look, disbelieving.

When I came back up the night before, I took off my boots and tossed them on the floor. They’re neatly arranged below the clothes. Which means the ensemble
is
for me.

It isn’t a
uniform
. Not exactly. But it’s close. Maybe this is what operatives wear when they’re training? Or studying? It’s almost too good to be true. They left me a costume that will show precisely what I want them to see. That I’m here to become one of them. Bronson’s granddaughter, operative.

More like “traitor’s freak daughter we all already knew about”, but I have to cling to my illusions to make it through this. I’m well aware that even with them I may be in for major trouble.

The adjoining bathroom has towels waiting and expensive travel-sized bottles of goop in the shower. So I take a quick one, making an attempt to be fresh-faced and scrubbed clean of the last remnants of the face paint. I consider pulling my hair back into a ponytail afterward, but I don’t want to go overboard.

Dressing in the clothes is odd. The navy fabric is stretchy, fitted, and
so
not my style. No awful bulky padding, at least.
But
also no stripes. I was really hoping for stripes.

I dig in my backpack for lipstick, because hello? Despite everything, I would like Oz to remember me as that devil girl who’s cute. After I find it and put it on, something clicks. I empty the backpack to confirm what’s no longer there. Someone has taken most of the money, leaving me only a hundred bucks. They must know I can’t get far with that. The fake ID is gone too. Knowing someone snooped through my stuff is worse than the loss, but I’m not that surprised. I don’t trust anyone here, so there’s no reason to expect them to trust me.

Stuffing the hundred in my pocket, I repack my stuff – including the Ramones T-shirt. I’ll have to leave the backpack here today, but I want everything ready to go. In case.

As soon as I open the door and start into the hall, Bronson greets me. “Good morning. Well, good late morning.” He grips a giant coffee mug with both hands. “We wanted to let you sleep in. I see you found the clothes. They’re OK?”

Why’d you take the money?
But I simply nod. “This is why I’m here. My parents, they took this from me. This life.”

“You can have it now.” He can’t hide how much the idea pleases him. “But are you positive you’re not just angry at your dad? He does bring that out in people. From the admittedly little I’ve seen, this” – he waves his hand at the outfit – “doesn’t seem like your style.”

I meet his eyes, unflinching. “My dad and I… We’ve never been close. He’s always been too distracted to pay attention to me. When I met you the other day, I was in shock. Then I guess I thought since I knew the lie, since it was out in the open, it would be different. That things between Dad and me would be different. That he’d
care
about being there for me. But you saw what he did. You were there. He left me without a thought. Again.”

“I don’t think it was that easy for him. And you seemed pretty upset with me.”

“I was.” I force myself to keep meeting his eyes, to sell every last bit of this as gospel. Besides, it’s not so far from being true. “All I’ve wanted, since Mom left, was my family back.”

He starts to speak, but I hold up my hand. “I don’t know you. But we
are
family, like you said. And I want to. I want to have a place in the world. Somewhere to go. Dad, he just told me to leave town, and Mom isn’t able to be there for me. I know you took the money out of my backpack and I don’t care. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want a
place
here. I want to know who I am now, after all the lies are gone.”

Bronson rakes a hand through graying hair. He really does look like the definition of a kindly grandfather. What I want to ask is:
How did you wake them? How did you do it without getting caught? You really think you can pull this off too?
Instead I add, “You believe me, don’t you? I have no reason to lie.”

“You remind me of your grandmother,” he says, finally. “She would adore how direct you are. You take after her in that. Not me. I’m the politician. But I’ve wanted to build our family back since your mother left it too. I can help you find that place you want. It would be my honor, in fact.”

I reach out and take the cup of coffee he’s holding. After a sip, I ask, “Where do we start?”

“Breakfast,” he says, “and then we’ll visit the family reliquaries.”

I hesitate.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I’ll probably cry at some point. I can’t help it. He’s my dad, still. Just warning you.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” he says. “I hope I’m there when you do, so I can help.”

After showing me to the long empty dining room table where I’m to eat breakfast solo, Bronson goes into his office. Ann, the cook and housekeeper, brings me eggs over easy and toast. She’s a nice middle-aged woman with curly red hair and a service uniform. I’m betting she’s the one who crept into my room for the leaving of things. When she sees I’m alone, she returns to the kitchen and then sneaks two pieces of bacon onto my plate. “Mr Bronson can’t have it anymore. But you’re a growing girl.”