The Archived

“What does that mean, ‘blacking out’ rooms?”

She hesitates.

“Carmen, I already know what a disruption is. So what does this mean?”

She bites her lip. “It’s a last resort, Miss Bishop. If there’s too much noise, too many Histories waking, blacking out a room is the fastest way to kill the disturbance, but…”

“What is it?”

“It kills the content, too,” she says, looking around nervously. “Blacking out a room blacks out everything inside. It’s an irreversible process. It turns the space into a crypt. The more rooms we have to black out, the more content we lose. I’ve seen disruptions before, but never like this. Almost a fifth of the branch has already been lost.” She leans in. “At this rate, we could lose everything.”

My stomach drops. Ben is in this branch. Da is in this branch.

“What about the red stacks?” I press. “What about Special Collections?”

“Restricted stacks and Archive members are vaulted. Those shelves are more secure, so they’re holding for now, but—”

Just then, three more Librarians rush toward her, and Carmen turns away to speak with them. I think she’s forgotten me altogether, but as I turn to go, she glances my way and says only, “Be safe.”

“You look sick,” says Wes once we’re back in the Narrows.

I feel sick. Ben and Da are both in a branch that is crumbling, a branch that someone is trying to topple. And it’s my fault. I started the search. I dug up the past. I pushed for answers. Tipped the dominoes…

“Talk to me, Mac.”

I look at Wesley. I don’t like lying to him. It’s different lying to Mom and Dad and Lyndsey. Those are big, blanket lies—easy, all-or-nothing lies. But with Wes, I have to sift out what I can say from what I can’t, and by can’t I mean won’t, because I could. I could tell him. I tell myself I would tell him, if Roland hadn’t warned me not to. I would tell him everything. Even about Owen. I tell myself I would. I wonder if it’s true.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” I say. “That’s all.”

“Oh, I don’t see why you would. It’s not like they just put us on trial, or our branch is falling down, or your territory is out of control in a seriously suspicious way.” He sobers. “Frankly, Mac, I’d be worried if you had a good feeling about any of this.” He glances back at the Archive door. “What’s going on?”

I shrug. “No idea.”

“Then let’s find out.”

“Wesley, in case you haven’t noticed, I can’t afford to get in any more trouble right now.”

“I have to admit, I never pegged you as such a delinquent.”

“What can I say? I’m the best of the worst. Now, let the Librarians do their job, and we’ll do ours. If you can handle another day of it.”

He smiles, but it seems thi

“Nine it is.”

Wes veers off into the Narrows toward his own home. I watch him go, then squeeze my eyes shut. What a mess, I think, just before a kiss lands like a drop of water on the slope of my neck.

I shiver, spin, and slam the body into the nearest wall. The quiet floods in where my hand meets his throat. Owen raises a brow.

“Hello, M.”

“You should know better,” I say, “than to sneak up on someone.” I slowly release my hold on him.

Owen’s hands drift up to touch mine, then past them to my wrists. In one fluid motion, I’m the one against the wall, my hands pi

“If I remember correctly,” he says, “that’s exactly how I saved you.”

I bite my lip as he leans in to kiss my shoulder, my throat—heat and silence thrumming through me, both welcome.

“I didn’t need saving,” I whisper. He smiles against my skin, his body pressing flush with mine. I wince.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, lips hovering beneath my jaw.

“Long day,” I say, swallowing.

He pulls back a fraction, but doesn’t stop brushing me with kisses, leaving a trail of them up my cheek to my ear as his fingers tangle through mine above my head, tighten. The quiet gets stronger, blotting out thoughts. I want to escape into it. I want to vanish into it.

“Who was the boy?” he whispers.

“He’s a friend.”

“Ah,” Owen says slowly.

“No, not ‘ah,’” I say defensively. “Just a friend.”

Willingly, necessarily just a friend. With Wesley, there is too much to lose. But with Owen, there is no future to be lost by giving in. No future at all. Only escape. Doubt whispers through the quiet. Why does he care? Is it jealousy that flickers across his face? Curiosity? Or something else? It is so easy for me to read people and so hard for me to read him. Is this how people are supposed to look at each other? Seeing only faces, and none of the things behind?

He can read me well enough to know that I don’t want to talk about Wesley, because he lets it drop, wraps me in silence and kisses, draws me into the dark of the alcove where we sat before, and guides me to the wall. His hands brush over my skin too gingerly. I pull his body to mine despite the ache in my ribs. I kiss him, relishing the way the quiet deepens when his body is pressed to mine, the way I can blot thoughts out simply by pulling him closer, kissing him harder. What beautiful control.

“M,” he moans against my neck. I feel myself blush. In all the strangeness, there’s something about the way he looks at me, the way he touches me, that feels so incredibly…normal. Boy-and-girl and smiles-and-sideways-glances and whispers-and-butterflies normal. And I want that so, so badly. I can feel the scratch of letters in my pocket, now constant. I leave the list where it is.

A faint smile tugs at the corner of Owen’s mouth as it hovers above mine. We are close enough to share breath, the quiet dizzying but not quite strong enough. Not yet. Thoughts keep trickling through my head, warnings and doubts, and I want to silence them. I want to disappear.

As I run my fingers through his hair and pull his face to mine, I wonder if Owen is escaping too. If he can disappear into my touch, forget what he is and what he’s lost.

I am blotting out pieces of my life. I am blotting out everything but this. But him. I exhale as he brushes against me, my body begi

And the quiet is wonderful.

“Why do you smoke, Da?”

“We all do things we shouldn’t, things that harm us.”

“

I

don’t.”

“You’re still young. You will.”

“But I don’t understand. Why hurt yourself?”

“It won’t make sense to you.”

“Try me.”

You frown. “To escape.”

“Explain.”

“I smoke to escape from myself.”

“Which part?”

“Every part. It’s bad for me and I know it and I still do it, and in order for me to do it and enjoy it, I have to not think about it. I can think about it before and after, but while I’m doing it, I stop thinking. I stop being. I am not your Da, and I am not Antony Bishop. I am no one. I am nothing. Just smoke and peace. If I think about what I’m doing, then I think about it being wrong and I can’t enjoy it, so I stop thinking. Does it make sense now?”

“No. Not at all.”

“I had a dream last night.…” says Owen, rolling the iron ring from Regina’s note over his knuckles. “Well, I don’t know if it was night or day.”

We’re sitting on the floor. I’m leaning against him, and he has one arm draped over my shoulder, our fingers loosely intertwined. The quiet in my head is like a sheet, a buffer. It is water, but instead of floating, like Wes taught me, I am drowning in it. This is a thing like peace but deeper. Smoother.