The Eighth Guardian (40 page)

“I did.” Ariel sits up. “And I also failed you. I knew who you were the second Abraham called and said he’d met a girl. I knew and never told you. You were right. I knew the Guard was going to take you, although I had no idea they’d take you so soon.” He looks at Abe now. “I knew where she was, and I didn’t tell you.” His old eyes are sad, regretful.

“You didn’t know what Alpha was up to.” Abe says it like a fact, not like a guess.

“I did not.”

“Maybe I should have told you in 1963.” My voice is weak. My mouth is dry. I swallow. “Maybe you could have stopped Alpha from the start. Maybe then my dad—”

“Let your father go,” Ariel says. “I didn’t want you to tell me about the past, because I didn’t want it to influence my future behavior. And I’m glad you didn’t tell me, because now I’ve been able to watch the organization unfold over three generations; and there is no doubt in my mind that I no longer believe in it and will fight to shut it down.”

“But you founded it!”

“When I was very young and very naive. Back when I thought changing the past was the right thing. I no longer think it is. There’s a reason I never let my son join, as well as a reason the president himself received a phone call when I found out they’d taken Abraham.”

Abe takes my hand. “But I’m in the Guard now. If Amanda is in, I’m in.”

“No, you’re not,” Ariel says. “You’re done, and you’re going back to school, and you’re moving on with your life.”

“Grandpa!” Abe protests.

Ariel squeezes my hand again. “I can’t make that call for you. But I hope you’ll make the right decision.” Then he stands up as much as he can in an ambulance and backs his way to the door.

“We’re not done talking about this!” Abe throws at his grandfather.

“Yes,” Ariel says as he climbs down, “we are.”

Abe’s head whips back to me, and he leans down close. “I meant what I said. If you’re staying, I’m staying.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whisper. It’s the truth. My head is spinning in a million different directions. Between Alpha and Yellow and now Ariel and Abe, and I just want it to stop. I want it all to stop.

“Abe, I don’t know if I can do this.”

He takes my hand. “If it’s what you want, I’ll help you. We’ll both be Annum Guard together. And if it’s not what you want, we’ll both be CIA together. And if you’re sick and tired of everything, then we’ll just go be normal together. Go to college. Get a place together someday. You and me.”

Once upon a time that idea would have filled me with excitement. But now I don’t know. I don’t understand anything anymore.

“Abraham!” Ariel’s voice booms from outside the ambulance. “Now!”

Abe squeezes my hand. His eyes are moist. “I’ll find a way for us to be together. It will happen, Amanda. It will.”

I nod my head. Tears are forming in my eyes, and I don’t know how to hold them back. Abe lets go of my hand, breathes a good-bye, and disappears from the ambulance.

And then the tears fall. I don’t try to stop them. I cry for my dad, for my mom, for Yellow, myself, even Alpha. And especially for Abe. It’s as if the universe doesn’t want us together, and I don’t know how long I can keep fighting it.

Abe’s gone. He’s gone. And I don’t know when I’ll see him again. Whether I’ll ever see him again. I choke.

“Abe!” I yell after him.

He doesn’t respond. But someone does. Many someones. And then the secretary of defense, the director of National Intelligence, the National Security adviser, the FBI director, and the vice president all squeeze into the back of the ambulance and shut the door.

I don’t go back to Annum Hall. I don’t want to. I’m so tired. I lost my leader, then my boyfriend, and maybe even my friend. I went through a whole night’s worth of questioning. It’s seven in the morning, I haven’t slept since Dallas, and I don’t want to contemplate anything: Vaughn, CE, XP, the charred notebook. I just want to go to Mass General. So I do. To the reception area.

“My friend was shot,” I tell the very no-nonsense woman with frizzy hair sitting behind a computer. “I need to find her.”

“What’s her name?” the woman asks as she places her fingers over the keyboard.

I open my mouth, then close it. Because I don’t know. Somehow I’m going to doubt she’s here under “Yellow.” But then I remember Indigo’s anguished screams piercing the sky. The name he called her. The name he yelled over and over again.

“Elizabeth,” I say. “Her name is Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth what?” the woman asks in this totally annoyed voice.

“I don’t know her last name.”

The woman takes her hands off the keys. “I guess you guys aren’t very good friends then, are you? I can’t help you without a last name.”

And now I really have to restrain myself. I’m tired. I’m sore. I’ve lost almost three months of my life. I’ve lost my boyfriend. My father. My father’s friend. Everyone. Everything. I have no idea if Yellow is all right. I’m ready for a release. I clench my fists.

“Iris!”

My head pops up.

“Indigo!”

I push off the desk and run over to him. I run right into his arms, and he wraps them around me and holds me tight.

“How is she?” I ask, my mouth pressed into his shoulder.

“She’s okay.” Indigo’s voice is hurried, scared, exhausted, all in one. “They had to rush her into surgery to repair the damage, but she made it through.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “This is all my fault. Yellow getting shot. I should have stayed when I found out the truth. Then no one would have chased after me and no one—”

Indigo holds a finger to my mouth. “Stop. None of this is your fault.”

“But—”

“None of it.” He steps back and looks me in the eyes. “Your dad really was Annum Guard?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I always wanted to believe you were right. I think deep down I knew it. You’re a good person. You wouldn’t do all those things Alpha accused you of doing. All those months we were tracking you, I was actually hoping we wouldn’t find you. That you’d just disappear and go be free and happy somewhere.”

“There was never freedom and happiness. Not until I ended this.”

Indigo nods. “Everything’s changing. I don’t know where Annum Guard is going to go from here. If we’ll even exist anymore. We don’t have a leader. I mean, maybe my dad will take over when everything gets cleared up, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he wants to. Seems we’re dropping like flies these days. Blue’s gone.”

I should be shocked. But I’m not. Blue has always been gone. Ever since he was betrayed on Testing Day his junior year.

“Tyler,” I say. “His name is Tyler. And my name is Amanda. Not Iris.”

Indigo waits a second and then holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Amanda. I’m Nick.”

Nick. I repeat the name in my head a few times.
Nick. Nick
. It sounds so weird.

Beside us, someone clears a throat. Indigo—Nick—and I both turn. Zeta is standing there. He looks as if he’s aged twenty years since I last saw him. His blue eyes are weary and weathered, and his hair seems less brown and more gray today. Wrinkles snake across his face. “They just moved her out of Recovery. She’s awake and asking for you.”

Indigo drops my hand. “I have to go.” I nod at him, and he starts down the hall. But Zeta holds out his arm to stop him.

“I meant you,” he says, looking directly at me. “She’s asking for you.”

“Me?” I repeat.

Zeta nods. “I’ll show you the way.”

We trudge down the hall in silence, but then a thought occurs to me. I make a dead stop, and Zeta and Indigo do the same. They turn to look at me.

“Where were you?” I demand of Zeta.

He grimaces. “1942. Sent on a last-minute mission by a very frantic Alpha that turned out to be nothing.” His face contorts into a look of physical pain, and he walks away, as if standing here talking about it is too much to bear. He stops in front of the elevator, the doors open, and we file in. Zeta pushes the button for the fourth floor. “I should have known something was wrong based on his demeanor. I never should have gone. Then I would have been there and—”

He doesn’t finish the thought. I look away. I’m sorry I asked. As it is, I’m sure he’s going to beat himself up for years over being on a bogus mission when his daughter was shot.

We get off the elevator and are greeted by a glass door with a buzzer on the wall. Zeta scans a card that opens the door for us. And then we’re in the ICU. All the doors are glass, and the rooms are tiny. I see Yellow right away. She’s in the third room, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She looks like hell. There are dark-purple circles under her eyes, and she’s whiter than the sheets she’s lying. She looks up and sees me staring at her from the other side of the glass, so I slide open the door and walk in. As I do, I notice her name has been written on a dry-erase strip outside the door.

ELIZABETH MASTERS

She’ll always be Yellow to me. And Indigo is always going to be Indigo, now that I think about it. I’ll probably be Iris to them. It’s who we are.

“Hey,” I whisper.

“Please tell me it’s all over. Please tell me I didn’t take a bullet for no reason.”

“It’s all over.”

Yeah, it’s nowhere close to being over. The investigation hasn’t even begun. But there’s no need to trouble Yellow with the details now.

Yellow nods. “Good.” She closes her eyes, then opens them a few seconds later. “Getting shot hurts like a bitch, in case you were wondering.”

“I would have guessed as much.”

“So that was your boyfriend, huh?”

“
Was
my boyfriend is right.” It sounds so wrong when I say it.

“You broke up?”

“No.” I think about it. “Maybe.” I think some more. “No. I don’t know what happened.”

“Are you going to start dating my brother now?”

I turn my head to look out the windowed doors, where Zeta and Indigo are standing with arms crossed looking in. Indigo gives me a little smile, and I return it. Then I look back at Yellow. “Not a chance. Your brother’s a great guy, but no. We’re friends. Besides, he uses finger quotes. I could never be with a guy who uses finger quotes.”

And Abe and I aren’t over. Screw the universe. Screw the house. We’ll find our way back together.

“Okay, good,” Yellow says. “Because that would be totally weird if my friend was dating my little brother.”

“So we’re friends then?”

“Um, duh,” Yellow says. “I took a bullet for you.”

“Technically you didn’t,” I point out. “Blue just got a little jumpy.”

She smiles. It’s a weak smile, and I can tell her eyes are struggling to stay open.

“I’m going to let you rest,” I say. “I’m really glad you didn’t die today, Yellow.”

“That makes two of us.” And then she closes her eyes.

I slide the door closed behind me as softly as I can. Zeta reaches out and squeezes me on the shoulder.

“So where do we go from here?” I ask.

Zeta swallows. Then he shrugs. “You go back to Annum Hall. I go . . . somewhere for now. I’m out.”

I gasp. “What? Why?”

“I’m being investigated, too. We all are, but my generation is being more heavily scrutinized than yours is.” He gives a weak laugh. “My generation. I’m pretty much the only one left from my generation.”

His eyes are sad, and I look away. I can’t take one more sad, defeated person today.

“I’m not allowed within fifty feet of the hall until the investigation is complete,” Zeta says.

I don’t say anything. I look down at my feet.

“And for the record,” Zeta continues, “the investigation is going to show that I knew nothing about what Alpha was doing.”

I look at Zeta. He’s staring at me with those scary, intense eyes. But behind them is a softness, a look of concern.

“You knew my dad,” I say. It’s one hell of a subject change, but I don’t care.

“I did know your dad. I knew him well. Since childhood.”

“And?” I say, looking from Zeta to Indigo and then back to Zeta.

“And let me make it clear to you that I didn’t know you were Delta’s daughter until today. I want you to know that. I’d never met you or seen a picture of you or anything like that until the day Alpha brought you to us. Your mom was fiercely protective of you, Iris. She completely cut you off from our world, and for good reason, I now see.”

I swallow the lump in my throat.

“And what if I decide that I’m done with Annum Guard? That I don’t want to be a part of it anymore?”

“Well, that’s your choice. But I know that I’d be disappointed. You’re a good addition to the Guard. We’re a broken, bleeding Guard, but we’ll continue.”

I nod. “I want to come back.” I do. I don’t think I realized it until this exact moment, but I do. I’m going to go to Vermont, make things right with my mom, and then I’ll be back. Annum Guard feels like a part of me. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am. And I feel like I owe it to the Obermann name to prove that we can do it right, without the corruption. “But what if they don’t want me back?”

“Of course we do!” Indigo says.

“I broke just about every rule we have. I projected in front of people. A lot of people. I changed the past.”

“Oh, of course you changed the past!” Zeta says. “That’s what we do. We give you the ‘enhancing, not altering’ lingo in the beginning; but when it comes down to it, a change is a change. A minor tweak has the potential to change the past just as much as a material alteration. We just try to do our homework ahead of time and make sure we’re not in danger of changing the world for the worse.”