Текст книги "The Wall"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

I threw the knife and it landed just left of the center of the trunk of the tree. I let myself smile a little. Realizing he still had his hand wrapped around my own, I wiggled out of his grasp and turned to face him. “Thanks.”

He shrugged. “Just get on with it. We don’t have time for this.” He looked to Careen, who was beaming like a proud parent. “We don’t have time for you either but we’re stuck with you,” he said, pointing a knife at me accusingly.

He beckoned Careen over, nuzzling into her neck and turning my stomach. Was that what Joseph and I looked like to others? I hoped not. “Why don’t you show her how it’s done, honey,” he said into her hair. Ick!

Careen gathered up five short-handled knives and threw them in succession. When I looked at the tree, she had made a circle pattern. “Show off,” I muttered. Her ears pricked but she ignored me, strolling elegantly to the tree and plucking out the knives with ease. This was never going to be my thing. I felt sorry for the tree.

After I’d proved to Pietre that I could at least throw the knife so it landed blade first into a target, he let me move on to something else.

He fished around in his small duffle bag and I was worried he was going to pull out another weapon for me to master. Instead, he withdrew a handful of dark grey material and threw me a wad. On closer inspection, I could see they were gloves and little booties. “Put those on. This is mission specific and you must be able to do this if you want to come with us.”

I rolled my eyes. Who did he think he was, Genghis Khan? I put on the equipment, wondering what possible use they could have.

As Pietre shoved and cursed his way through the slapping branches, I watched his back ripple and tense with fascination. He was wound up tighter than a spring and I knew I was the one that wound him even tighter. He wore a dusty blue t-shirt and dark jeans, the standard canvas shoes wrapped around his ankles. He was not as tall as Joseph and not as broad. He looked like a Survivor, strong, lean, and ready to jump to action at any second. His hair was the part that amused me the most. He seemed to always need to be in control but his hair didn’t cooperate. Light brown in color, it was spiky and stuck up at all angles, like he had just rolled out of bed. He was forever trying to smooth it down. I wished he would leave it. It was the only part of him that seemed accessible and less hard. Careen followed him, her feet barely touching the ground as she walked. She was like a cat, lithe, beautiful, and slightly feral.

I, on the other hand, moved quietly but carefully, around the trees, under the branches. I inhaled and reveled in the smells of the woods. I treated them as I would my home, with respect.

I followed them until we found ourselves at the Great Wall.

Pietre spun around to face us, running his hand through his hair for the hundredth time. I clambered my way through the brush, always lagging behind, and stood before them. Pietre’s body lurched as if stunned and he strode towards me with an angry look on his face. I suppressed the feeling that I should run. He grabbed my arm and jerked it to his face, inspecting it.

“What?” I shook him free, looking to Careen for help. He pulled a cloth from his back pocket and clamped it to my wrist. His stare was intense and I didn’t like it.

“You’re bleeding,” he stated, wrapping a large gash on my arm quickly and tightly.

“Huh,” I remarked, fascinated with the fact I hadn’t felt a thing. I peeled back the cloth and the cut bubbled blood like a backed-up plughole. It was quite deep but I had no recollection of how I did it.

“You need to be careful; you’re not paying attention to your surroundings,” he snapped, irritated. “Remember, you have a low sensitivity to pain at the moment.”

“Are you concerned about me, Pietre?” I teased.

His eyes flicked to me disparagingly as he kicked off his shoes. He wasn’t concerned, just annoyed. I was a bothersome bug he wanted to squash.

“Just help yourself, so I don’t have to.”

Help yourself. The words crushed me as I remembered the last time I’d heard them or thought them. I tightened the bandage over my bleeding wound, and wrapped a mental bandage around the oozing wound Cal had left in my head.

“Fine,” I said shortly. “What are we doing now?” I gazed up at the wall. It was in full shadow, with the sun hovering just past the turrets. It felt cold and oppressive. I didn’t like being this close. It still gave me the chill associated with being closed in. I’d managed to find some history books, books with real facts in them, during my stay in the hospital. The Wall had been built to protect the Chinese Empire from various threatening groups but also to control trade. The books also revealed there were bodies sandwiched between the great stones that made up the beastly structure. It was a towering graveyard.

Careen narrowed her eyes at me as she handed me the booties. “Put these on your feet and follow us.” I wondered what her chilly stare was about but I had no time to ask.

I watched as Careen and Pietre approached the wall and jumped suddenly, landing on the surface like two lizards. They scrambled up the wall, keeping their bodies pressed as flat as they could to the sandy, grey stone. I followed, slipping a little, but managing to keep my grippy hands and feet flush with the wall. They were both sitting between the turrets, legs swinging over the edge, when I got to the top, somewhat breathless, but my heart drumming in a fulfilling rhythm. That was much more fun than throwing knives.

They held hands. Careen made a point of leaning her head on his shoulder and glaring at me suspiciously. Her mood had changed since our altercation in the woods and I had the sense she was jealous at Pietre’s concern for my arm. I scoffed at the thought. Pietre was not interested in me, and I certainly wasn’t in him. We were just stuck with each other, as he’d said.

“Well, at least we know you’ll survive getting over the wall,” Pietre said, grimacing. I think he’d hoped I would fail at this also. “Now, let’s discuss the rest of our mission.”

We talked and planned until the sun dipped below the wall and bits of fluffy, pink clouds wafted towards the sky. I’d lost track of time. I was going to get home late, after Joseph.

I lowered myself over the turret and scrambled down the Wall, skidding and scraping my arms as I went. I felt less in control, like I was sliding down ice. I tried to put my shoes on as I walked, hopping on one leg whilst trying to jam a shoe on my foot, but I tripped over. “What’s the rush?” Careen said as she caught my arm.

I explained to Careen I hadn’t told Joseph about the training and he would be angry. She nodded through my huffed explanations and waited until I finished to speak. She blinked at me with her perfectly symmetrical blue eyes. “You have to tell him, Rosa. He’ll understand.” Her faith in him was not reassuring. She flipped her hair and shrugged off her seriousness. “That was fun wasn’t it, the climbing?”

I looked at her, confused by the sudden change in her mood and conversation, I should have been used it by now but she was so strange sometimes. “I guess…” I said, raising my eyebrows. We slowed down to a walk as we approached the edge of the trees.

Careen said goodbye and I watched her gracefully pluck her way between the plants at the tree line. She made sure she stayed just out of sight, practicing her camouflaging skills.

Pietre stayed with me. He was acting shifty and it made me uncomfortable. I stepped out of the cover of the trees, peering back and forth to check for people. I could see our house from here. I wondered if I had time to run to Odval’s and collect Orry before Joseph returned but decided against it, too much too explain. I took two steps towards home and Pietre called me back. I turned around and he approached me. He took both my shoulders and sort of shuffled me into position so my back was completely facing my home. He held up my arm and ran his fingers along the blood-soaked cloth. “Take care of this properly,” he said and then he leaned in slowly and whispered into my ear. “There. All done—now he knows.”

I turned and felt the sound clipped from the air, my heart stopped beating and the ground wobbled under my feet. Joseph was standing at the top of the road, having just stepped off a spinner. He regarded the two of us for a moment, then his eyes fell to the ground and he walked calmly into the house. Panic rose. I don’t know what he thought he saw. All I knew was—Pietre was a bastard.

I shoved Pietre’s chest hard but he was unaffected, giving me an unfeeling stare. Unsympathetic. “Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I was doing you a favor.” The hell he was.

I thought about the way he’d purposefully moved me and leaned in so close, his lips brushing my ear. “But he could have thought that you and I were…”

At this, he laughed wholeheartedly and cruelly. “You and me? You know, that’s why I like Careen. She’s simple; she knows what I need and she gives it to me,” he sneered. “This,” he motioned between the two of us, “would so not be worth it.”

“You’re disgusting,” I spat.

I turned towards my house and ran with desperate, stumbling footfalls. Although, I wasn’t sure what I was running towards.

As I ran towards the house, I pulled out the handheld communicator I’d been given and called Odval. My fingers were shaking so hard I missed the buttons several times.

“Can you hold onto Orry for a while longer?” I asked, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt, my feet trying to pick their way between the cobblestones and only managing to trip up on every loose one.

She paused. I could hear Orry babbling in the background. “That’s fine. Is everything ok?”

I forced myself to smile while I spoke, “Yes, yes, everything’s fine. Um… Joseph and I just wanted some time to ourselves, if that’s all right? Just a couple of hours…”

“You know I love having him here. How about I keep him overnight and you pick him up in the morning? I need you to have a look at my bed; I think some of the springs need…”

I cut her off. “Yep! That’d be great. I’ll come by early in the morning.” I was at the door. I cursed myself. We were leaving tomorrow. How had I let it get this far without telling him?

I’d ruined everything.

I steeled myself, taking a deep breath and pushed the door ajar, listening to it creak and screech with anticipation. Or maybe that was just the noise in my head.

I stood in the doorway, panting, watching him move around the house, changing out of his work clothes, putting dirty clothes in the hamper. Doing normal things when there was nothing normal about what he’d just seen. I stood on the edge, an observer. I was gripping the sill with my toes but I didn’t want to step in. Stepping in meant owning up. I just kept my eyes on Joseph, noticing him, noticing the changes I’d failed to see before now.

Before he used to have to fill every gap, every break in conversation with chatter. Now there was a stillness to him, a contemplative age that smoothed his face and dwarfed my own maturity. Was it his purpose, his need to help people? I envied it so much. I couldn’t quiet my thoughts for even a second. I was a whirlwind, a hurricane that swept in and destroyed everything in my path.

His control was unbearable. I’d expected him to come at me. Shout and scream. But he ignored me.

I pulled a bandage from the first aid kit and wrapped my wrist tightly, while he moved to the kitchen and tried to wash the dishes. The dull collision of ceramic against steel the only sound the house could abide. I stepped forward and the floorboards creaked under my feet. I was sneaking up on him like a thief in my own home. He stopped washing, letting a cup fall into the sudsy water, gripping the sides of the sink with his head bowed. Every muscle in his arms was tensed, like he was silently trying to rip the sink from the bench. It warned me not to come any closer.

“It’s not what you think,” I squeaked, my throat closing over slowly like the petals of a night bloom. “Pietre and I, he… we…” Damn it!

He turned to face me, suddenly looking huge, a powerful man looming over me, daring me to come up with something to explain my behavior. “What do you think I think?” His face was tight but I could see the hurt in his eyes.

“That there’s something going on between Pietre and me…?” As I said it, it seemed the most unlikely conclusion to come to.

He laughed at me and I shrank smaller still. It was a bitter sound. “You and him? That’s ridiculous. I know exactly what you’re doing. Damn it, Rosa, you’re training. You’re… leaving me.” He started muttering to himself, saying something like he should have guessed but he didn’t want to see it. The words sprinkling out like salt onto the weathered floor.

I took a step closer and he took a step back. “No,” I whispered. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll be back.” I was pumping my hands now, trying to calm him. It didn’t work.

His whole body shook and he put his hand up as if to say, Stop! Don’t come any closer.

“Where’s Orry?” he asked, his eyes flitting around the room, avoiding my own.

“He’s with Odval. He’s safe.” I felt pitiful. How could I explain this to him?

He turned his back to me again, turning on the tap and leaning down to take a drink. Every breath in his body was exaggerated, the anger building, his chest and shoulders seeming to swell with it.

He spun to face me; I felt my own resolve hardening. This was not the best way to tell him but I still felt this was the right thing to do. I straightened myself and faced him front on, nose pointed upwards in defiance.

“When do you leave?” he asked, the words squashing their way out of his hard-set lips.

“Tomorrow,” I said quietly.

He sighed deeply. “Then I’ll go with you,” he said determinedly.

Watching the heat and anger swirl around the both of us, I wondered, How do you break someone? Do you have to be callous and unfeeling? Or did you think your bond was strong enough to take it? And it wasn’t, you were wrong.

“No. You can’t.” I watched his face crumple, his eyes looking right through me. “Someone needs to stay with Orry. Besides, you’re too loud,” I said with a weak smile. “You couldn’t sneak up on Addy, and she’s deaf!”

He wasn’t amused.

He stood two meters from me, his arms folded calmly across his chest. I watched them rise and fall with his breath, watched him try to control his anger.

“Well, I guess you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” he said resentfully. Then his eyes sparked. “Except for one thing.”

I didn’t want to ask but I had the feeling he would say it anyway. “What’s that?”

His eyes were fuming, the green boiling over, his temper rising. Gold could be an angry color.

“I won’t let you go.”

I took a deep breath. “Joseph, you know you can’t stop me. I’m going.”

He was losing it, throwing any argument at me he could to stop me from going. He was pitching his arms in the air, pacing back and forth, “Don’t you think I would like to rescue my parents? Why do you get to and I don’t?”

The answer to that question was easy. “It’s different, you know that. Your parents are safe. They are happy. They… love each other. I’m thinking of my baby brother or sister too. Orry’s blood.”

Silence followed for what seemed like forever as he glared at me. I hadn’t moved and my legs started to ache. I shifted my weight back and forth. How could I make this make sense to him? Could I? I leaned on the back of an armchair and waited for him to speak.

When he opened his mouth, the force was still strong but some of the anger had drained away. “Why is this so important?” He knew why. “Aren’t you happy with Orry and me?” His tone was bewildered, strained.

It broke my heart to hurt him like this. But then, it was already kind of broken. I considered his question. Didn’t he realize that’s why I needed to do this?

I slid towards him slowly, gliding across the floor in my socks like an ice skater, talking as I moved. “Of course I am.” I grasped his hands but he shook me free like I was trying to cuff him. Surely, we had to be stronger than this. “That’s why.”

“I don’t understand.” He laid his head in his hands like the words were giving him a headache.

“Don’t you think everyone deserves this, what we have?” I pleaded.

Recognition flickered in his eyes.

“Rosa.” He jolted back suddenly, wringing his hands. He pulled his hair back from his eyes. My heart skipped and all I could see was him. Like one of Orry’s pop-up books, he stood clear, the rest of the world turned blurry—boring two-dimensional representations of the real thing. “I’m so angry with you,” he stuttered. “How could you… I mean, what am I supposed to do if… damn it.” He clasped his hands together and looked at the floor. He was never lost for words. The gravity of our situation had pulled them away.

I could have walked away. Maybe I should have. Let him cool off or tried harder to convince him I was right. Instead, I took two steps towards him and connected with his lips before he could speak again.

His arms were slack at his sides for a moment, like I’d shocked him into submission. But I pressed hard against his chest. I literally threw my body at the problem, holding the two crushing walls, the opposing opinions, at bay with my twig-like arms. I felt heat taking over, lips colliding and kissing deeper than they had before. I thought, He may set me back, put me in my place, be the sensible one as always and tell me to stop. But after a few seconds, his arms gripped me tightly. They dragged up my back and under my shirt with such pressure I could barely breathe.

He pulled my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. Lifting me up, he moved towards the bedroom door, bracing my back against the doorframe as he kissed my neck and slipped my bra strap off my shoulder to kiss my collarbone. I shivered, goose bumps growing all over my skin. He ran one hand over the lace of my bra and wound it behind my back to release the clasp. When he did it so swiftly, I resisted the urge to ask him if he’d done it before. Then words would never have hoped to find me as he brushed his lips across my chest and I thought I would die.

Joseph lowered me onto the bed, keeping his hand in the small of my back, my body arcing over his strong forearm. He paused and looked at me for what seemed like forever. The curtains were closed, sunlight creating a golden frame around the fabric. It felt like the room might burst into flames, the light sparking and curling upwards. I sat up and pulled his shirt over his head. Pressing my palms to his chest, I marveled at his body. Strips of yellow light danced across his sun-kissed skin. Undeserving didn’t really cover it.

This was the point of no return. But we were already too far gone. There was no going back from here. He tugged back the covers and folded me into them, sliding in next to me. I wiggled out of my pants, kicking them to the side. The world was melting around us. Breath was quick, taken between lips meeting each other, to skin, to be lost in layers of fresh-smelling hair. Hearts were beating strangely. We didn’t know what we were doing but we knew exactly what to do. He rolled over until he was hovering above me, just like he had done a hundred times before, but now there was nothing between us. All I could think was, I want to be closer. I want every bit of my skin to be touching every bit of his. I pulled him down, feeling the warmth enveloping me. The soft pressure of his lips on mine, drawing me in, tasting dewy and sweet.

He pulled back, coasting above me, too much space between our bodies. His arms flexed under his weight. His beautiful, green eyes were glistening like faceted emeralds, roaming all over my tiny frame, waves of heat touching every inch of my skin.

Shyness disappeared. I felt desperation, an aching need, and I tried to pull him into me. But he hesitated.

“I love you,” he said.

I thought, Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Show me.

And then the whole room was humming gold as we discovered more about each other than we’d ever imagined. We were undone and pulled back together. Even the dust in the corner was sparkling like dying stars.

Nothing prepared me for it, the moment. I was moving on a river, my body ebbing and moving with the current and then, suddenly, I was pulled out and cracked open, a fissure of gold light pressing out of my chest and skimming forth over the room.

I was nothing before this.

This was forgetting.

This was living.

Somewhere, I lost my thoughts. I was weightless, tied to a hundred birds in flight, soaring through empty space. Thoroughly warm and entirely safe.

This was everything.

Now I know you. I know me. And I know how much you will hate me when you find out I am gone.

It was still dark. I shuffled out of bed, carefully lifting Joseph’s heavy arm from my waist without waking him. A lamplight shone from the lounge room, casting heavy shadows across the door and softly illuminating his sleeping face. I stared at him for one terrible minute, watching him breathe, the pulse in his neck beating slowly, calmly, my own heart stretching through my shirt and reaching out to lie back in his arms. Could I leave him? All of my doubts sprung up between the floorboards and wrapped around my ankles like vines, threatening to tie me to this spot, hovering over him forever.

My mind shifted back through the night and the notion I might not be able to do what we did again weakened every joint in my body. I wanted to fold up like a wooden puppet and give in. It would be easy to lose myself to this, to the shrug of love, let it wrap me up and ignore all the horrible things going on around me. I sighed deeply, feeling it catch in my throat. Maybe someday that’s what I would do, but not today.

I padded out of the room as quietly as I could, feeling less and less sure. I couldn’t say goodbye. He would only try to stop me or follow me. This was best. Oh God! I hoped he would forgive me.

As an afterthought, I grabbed Orry’s carved train, clutching it reassuringly to my chest. I touched it to my chin, feeling the roughness, the unfinishedness of it. I’d broken so many promises.

I changed into my camouflaged clothing in the lounge room, grabbed my backpack, and placed the train at the bottom. Without a flourish, without an admittance or noise, I slipped out the door. I didn’t look back but my whole body was straining against my will to climb back into bed with Joseph. I walked down the street, feeling as if I was tied to my home and, with every step, the ropes were stretching and snapping. This was so much harder than I thought it would be. But I couldn’t regret what we did. Never.

What was I going to do for two hours? We were leaving at dawn. I felt restless and wasted. Tears started to come and I found myself kicking into a run and tearing down the dark streets towards the one place I thought I might find some consolation.

I rapped on the worn, wooden door frantically, my chest feeling hollow, a painful lump rising in my throat as I became more and more hysterical. No one responded so I started knocking more loudly, the skin on my knuckles busting and white. A light clicked on and I heard her creaking across the floorboards, surprised her weight even made a noise. A shadow passed in front of the curtain.

“Addy, let me in. Please,” I pleaded, pressing my forehead to the door, the ‘please’ sounding more desperate than I meant it to.

The door opened a crack and the old woman peered out into the darkness hesitantly. When she recognized me, she relaxed. “Rosa, what are you doing here? It’s four AM. Goodness child, come inside before you freeze to death.”

“I’m sorry to wake you. I’m sorry, I… oh, damn it.” Addy raised her eyebrows at my cursing but she softened when I succumbed to crying. Nothing I tried to say came out right. Nothing made sense.

Addy led me to the living room and sat in an armchair. I laid my head across her lap and soaked her dressing gown with salt water. She shushed me and stroked my hair until I calmed down long enough for me to tell her what was going on.

I lifted my head and stared into her grey eyes. “He’s going to hate me. He thinks I’m leaving him. I don’t know, maybe he’s right. Maybe I am, but not forever. Oh Addy, do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

She took both my hands and squeezed them hard, looking deep into my defective eyes, looking past them and into me.

She said, “I was told once, we can’t choose when we are born. We can’t choose when we die either. The important thing is what we do with the time we have.”

I stared at her blankly. “What do you mean? Do you think I am doing the right thing or not?” I was shaking her arms. It was like shaking a handful of barley.

“Think about it, Rosa,” she said, winking one crinkled eyelid at me.

I scrunched up my blotchy face. I wasn’t in the mood for riddles. I stared around her cluttered dwelling. Handmade dolls and little porcelain ornaments covered every available space. Crocheted rugs and scarves dripped off the ends of coffee tables and chairs. There was a lifetime of possessions here, a lifetimes worth of making, sharing, living.

Right then, I got it. This wisdom, this unearthly knowing that the crumpled-up woman had inside her, was more valuable than most things I could think of. That’s why they separated us. We can never be full, never have that understanding, when we are forbidden to seek counsel from our elders. It was very clever. Clever and evil.

Without it, we were like a packet of shiny pins, all looking for a hold, always ending up clattering to the dirt, half-buried or finding someone else’s sharpness. I felt gratitude and guilt for the privilege of being able to pin part of myself to her. The other thing I knew was, like she said, I had to make my time count for something. I had to try to save my mother and her child. Whether it was right or wrong, I was going to try and Joseph might never forgive me. The realization filled me with renewed hope and a plummet of dread.

Addy insisted on making me tea and feeding me. I knew better than to argue with her. But as the sun rose, I said my teary goodbye, hugging her and kissing her forehead, which felt like dry hessian and smelled like dried lavender.

As I walked towards the hospital, pictures of Orry floated around in my head. Orry smiling at me, blinking his odd eyes, and gurgling. The pain I felt for leaving him was so strong I could barely breathe. I should have said goodbye to him but I was too much of a coward. I knew if I saw him, saw the adoration in his eyes when he looked at me, I would never go. I felt bad I was leaving Odval out of the loop but Orry was safe with her and she knew where to find Joseph.

Goodbye, my loves. Please wait for me.

I climbed the stairs wearily. Soon, Joseph would wake and notice my absence. I should have left a note but I had no idea where to start or how to explain. Nothing I could write or say would make this hurt any less. I touched my neck and ran my finger along the edge of my pledge charm, thinking of when I was wearing nothing but that necklace and letting my breath hum out of me for a second of recollection.

Apella’s door was ajar and the soft glow of candlelight shone through the gap.

“I think you should tell her. She’s much stronger than you realize,” I heard her calm, cool voice say.

“Yes, but will it really help her to know? Won’t it just hurt her more?” I recognized Matthew’s low tones, the protective strain behind the words.

“Matt, I have come to love Rosa as a daughter and I would do anything to protect her. But she must know. She will find out eventually. So it should be sooner rather than later and in a way we can control.” Alexei’s voice was shaky but strong in its meaning.

I leaned closer to the door. My heart warmed but in an uneasy way at the word, ‘daughter’. I had no idea he felt that way about me. Did I see him as a father? Perhaps. I certainly found him embarrassing. I had affection for him but little patience. From what Joseph explained to me, that was precisely how one should feel about their father. Family was wrapping itself around me in defense. Don’t go.

I knocked lightly on the door with my knuckles. It creaked forward slightly. The room went silent. I wondered if I should pretend I didn’t hear anything. Probably.

I walked in and Apella was sitting at her kitchen table, hands warming around a steaming mug. Matthew was standing facing Alexei, who was wearing pajamas, what was left of his hair sticking straight up, with his glasses sitting too loosely on the end of his nose. What a ridiculously awkward man he was.

I kept my eyes on Matthew. “Just tell me. I don’t want to be lied to anymore. Whatever it is, just say it.” So much for pretending I didn’t overhear.

Matthew stood over me. His blue eyes shone in the candlelight but were barely able to draw attention away from the dark circles that hung under them. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Cal passed away earlier tonight.”

I stepped backwards like he had punched me in the stomach. Dead.

Dead?

It was harsh to say it but I muttered under my breath, “Well, I guess it’s all worked out quite neatly for you, hasn’t it?”

Apella walked over to me and helped me into a chair. Well, she arranged my frozen limbs and forced them to cooperate into a sitting position. “Rosa, you’re being unfair.”

“I know,” I said woodenly. “Why didn’t you use the healing machine on him?”

“It doesn’t work on cancer. It can only repair normal cells. Even if we had used it, he would have continued to get sick.”

“Right,” I said, blinking unevenly. I didn’t know what to say. Was I supposed to be relieved? I didn’t feel much of anything. I didn’t really know Cal, not the real Cal. I should have been sad for him and his family but all I felt was a bottomless nothing. “Thanks for being straight with me,” I said.

“Are you all right?” Alexei asked, crouching down to look into my eyes. I managed a half-smile balanced with confusion.

“I think so?” It came out like a question.