UnSouled

“Hope?” suggests Lev.

Co

Then from behind him he hears, “Sonia who?”

It’s Cam, stepping out of the bathroom. He’s been locked in the basement for safekeeping, but Una must have sent him up on one of his regular bathroom runs. Co

“None of your goddamn business!” Co

Cam raises his eyebrows, causing the pattern of multiracial seams in his forehead to compress. “Hot button,” Cam says. “This Sonia must be important for you to react like that.”

Their plan has been to leave Cam in Una’s basement until Lev and Co

However, Cam now has a name as well as the city they’re headed to. If he does go back to Proactive Citizenry, it won’t take long for them to realize that this particular Sonia is the long-lost wife of their disavowed founder.

Co

48 • Lev

More things have changed than Co

He watches as Co

“What are you going to do?” Lev asks.

Co

“So is Cam coming to Ohio?” she asks.

“Why on earth would Co

Grace shrugs. “Friends close, enemies closer kind of thing,” she says. “Seems to me there’s three choices. Leave him, take him, or kill him. Since he knows too much, that brings it down to the last two, and Co

“It was an accident,” Lev reminds her.

“Yeah—anyways, best strategy is to bring him along. You watch. Co

Lev looks to her, a little shocked, a little angry. He had told no one of his decision yet. No one. How did she know?

“Don’t look at me so fu

“You’re relieved that I’m not coming, aren’t you?”

Grace looks away from him. “I never said that.” Then she adds, “It’s because I know you don’t like me!”

Lev grins. “No, actually, you’re the one who doesn’t like me.”

“That’s because I keep thinking you’re go

Lev responds by swinging his hands together. Grace flinches, but nothing comes from Lev’s clap but a clap—and not even a loud one.

“Now you’re just making fun of me.”

“Actually,” says Lev, “there are a lot of people I’ve come across that think ‘once a clapper, always a clapper.’ But I didn’t blow us all sky-high when I got hit by the car, did I? If I was go

Grace shakes her head. “You’re still not safe. Maybe you won’t blow up, but you’re not safe in other ways. I can just tell.”

Lev isn’t exactly sure what she means, but he senses that she’s right. He’s not a clapper anymore, but neither is he the model of stability. He’s not sure what he’s capable of—good or bad. And it scares him.

“I’m glad you’re going with Co

“I’ll take care of him, you mean,” Grace says, a bit offended. “He needs me, because you can’t win a thing like this without the brains. I know they call me low-cortical and all, but even so, I got this one corner of my brain that’s like Grand Central Station. Stuff that other people can’t figure out comes easy to me. Argent always hated that and called me stupid, but only because it made him feel stupid.”

Lev smiles. “Co

“Right!” Grace says proudly. “And I even know who the shooter was—but like my mama always said, tellin’ all you know just gets your head empty. Anyways, I thought on it and saw no need to tell.”

Lev feels himself really warming to Grace for the first time. “I figured it out too. And I agree with you. No one needs to know.” But, thinks Lev, maybe there are things Grace needs to know. He thinks about the situation with Starkey and realizes that if Grace is the strategist she appears to be, perhaps the challenge should be put to her. “I have a train for you to run through Grand Central Station,” he says.

“Send it on through.”

“The question is: How do you win a three-sided war?”

Grace frowns as she considers it. “That’s a tough one. I’ll think on it and give you an answer.” Then she crosses her arms. “ ’Course I can’t give you an answer if you don’t come with us, can I?”

Lev offers her an apologetic smile. “Then don’t give the answer to me. Give it to Co

49 • Co

Holding tightly to Cam’s arm, Co

“You sent him up there without warning any of us!”

Una looks up from her work with only mild interest, as if, in her mind, they’ve already left. “I sent him to the bathroom. It’s not like he was going to escape.”

Co

“So,” says Cam, with irritating nonchalance. “Someone named Sonia in Akron.”

Co

“Maybe,” says Cam, “but not without a trial—and everything I tell them will become a matter of public record.”

Co

“Stop,” he tells the shark. Reluctantly, the muscles of Roland’s fist relax. Cam is the prisoner here, not Co