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“His wife called me this morning,” says the first man. “Apparently, he never picked up their son from preschool yesterday, and he never went home last night.”
“Does he have a habit of wandering off?”
“No. And then, when he didn’t show this morning, I figured I’d better call. I wish I could tell you more.”
The footsteps come to a stop on the other side of the door.
“He was last seen here?” asks Ki
“Coach Kris saw him in his office before the bell rang.”
Ki
The footsteps fade along with the voices as the two walk away. I let out a deep breath, resting my hands on my knees.
“This is all your fault,” I say. “If you hadn’t dragged those people through—”
“Really it’s yours,” counters Owen, “since you pushed me into the void. But who’s counting crimes?”
The bell rings in the distance, and I check to make sure the coast is clear before pushing the door open.
“The detective is,” I say, Owen falling into step beside me. I have to remind myself as I step onto the quad that no one else can see him. And even if they could, he’d blend in. His silver-blond hair glitters in the sunlight, and I can almost imagine what he must have looked like as a student here. His simple black attire lacks any gold piping, but otherwise he’d look just like any other senior. I don’t know how much of that has to do with the fact that he is—was—Crew and how much is the fact that, even though he seems old, he’s not.
Within seconds of entering the tide of students, I realize how hard it will be to keep my ring off. The path is crowded, and I’m instantly buffeted by a chorus of what color tights should I wear tonight will Geoffrey even notice I’ll never pass x to the ninth is what how many references do I need should have added art Coach Metz better not make us do sprints I’m still sore from Mom is going to kill me I’m going to kill Amelia I hate this place Wesley Ayers better dance with me why did I agree to so weird sometimes metatarsal is co
I grit my teeth against the crush of people’s lives.
“It’s time to let the world in,” presses Owen beside me. He brings his hand down on my shoulder, his quiet pressing through me, and instead of talking—ostensibly to myself—I think the next question.
And what happens once you’ve done that? I challenge. The living would, what? Be free to visit the dead?
“Why not?” says Owen aloud. “They already do—in graveyards.”
Yeah, I think, but in graveyards the dead can’t wake.
I roll my shoulder, shaking him off before he can hear my thoughts spi
People aren’t smart when it comes to the dead. That’s what Da said, and he was right.
How many would claw their way toward their loved ones, rip them from sleep to keep them close? How long would it take for the walls to come down as well as the doors and the world to tear itself apart?
How can he not see that this is madness? Is he truly that blind to the consequences? Or is he really willing to tear the world apart just to get his way? Either way, I have to stop him. But how? Even in his weakened state, the odds aren’t in my favor. Owen ca
I pause on the path and pretend to look through a notebook. Owen rests his chin on top of my head, hushing everything but his voice. “Pe
If you’re so convinced that everyone else will follow you, why do you need me?
Owen pulls away, and by the time he comes around to face me, his features have grayed into something unreadable. “Before I can call on anyone, there’s something I need,” he says. “The Archive has it, and I have a plan to take it—but that plans requires two.”
My pulse quickens. But it’s not fear that makes it race, it’s excitement. Because Owen has just handed me the way to beat him. I might not be able to drag him back to the Archive, but I can follow him in. No one else has to get hurt. No one else has to die.
I start walking again, and Owen follows in my wake, a swell of students carrying us into the building on a wave of was there a test what was I thinking please let this day be over.
We move in silence through the crowded hall, and come to a stop outside my class.
“What is it we need to steal?” I ask under my breath.
Owen smiles at my use of we. He tucks a strand of dark hair behind my ear. I can feel the quiet spreading through me with his fingertips, feel him reading me for lies, but I’ve learned his tricks, and I’m learning my own. As he reaches through my mind, I focus on a simple truth: Something has to change.
“I’m glad I have your attention,” he says, his hand falling away. “And I appreciate the collective pronoun. But before our partnership goes any further, I need to know that your heart’s in it.”
My heart sinks a little. A test. Of course it wouldn’t be as easy as saying yes. Owen Chris Clarke doesn’t gamble. He only plays games when he thinks he’ll win. Am I willing to play? Do I really have a choice?
I hold his gaze as the second bell rings and the hall empties around us.
My voice is barely a whisper, but my words are firm.
“What do you want me to do?”
TWENTY-SIX
“GO TO THE ARCHIVE,” says Owen, “and steal me something.”
“What kind of something?” I ask, clenching my fingers around my backpack strap. Pain flickers through my wrist. It helps me focus.
“Something small,” says Owen. “Just a show of good faith. If you succeed, I’ll tell you what we’re really going to take from them. If you fail, there’s no point. You’ll just be in my way.” His eyes go to a clock on the wall. “You have until lunch,” he says, turning away. “Good luck.”
I stand there, watching him go, until someone clears his throat behind me.
“Avoiding my class, Miss Bishop?”
I turn to find Mr. Lowell holding the door open for me.
“Sorry, sir,” I say, and follow him inside. His hand grazes against my shoulder as he guides me through, and I’m hit with worry strange girl distant trouble at home I see the bruises quiet clutter ink stains before I continue forward out of his reach and take my seat. Sixteen people in a classroom without the buffer of a ring make the air feel like it’s singing. I sit there, wincing faintly every time a student gets too close, Owen’s warped ideas playing through my head while Lowell lectures on the warped ideas of others. I’m not paying much attention until something Lowell says echoes Owen.
“Every uprising starts with a spark,” says Lowell. “Sometimes that spark is a moment, tipping the scale. And sometimes that spark is a decision. In the case of the latter, there is no doubt that it takes a certain amount of madness to tip that first domino—but it also takes courage, vision, and an all-encompassing belief, even misguided, in their mission.…”
Owen sees himself as a revolutionary, exposing the Archive his cause. That single-minded focus acts both as his strength and his weakness. But is it a weakness I can use?
He’s so fixated on his goal that he can’t see the flaws. It’s proof that even someone as cold and calculating as Owen was once human. People—the living and the dead alike—see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. Owen wants to believe in this mission, and he also wants to believe that I am salvageable.
All I have to do is prove it.
The moment the bell rings I’m on my feet, moving through the halls and their mess of sum total of silver or gold silver or gold Saturday school for purple laces if he ever hits me again I’ll out the doors and across the quad to the Narrows door set into the side of the shed, where I pull the key out from under my collar and pass through. Wesley’s coding system is different from mine, but I soon figure out that he’s labeled Returns with a white plus sign and the Archive with a white X, and I slot my key, take a breath, and step through into the antechamber.