The Gryphon Project (16 page)

“There’s Tariq!” Fawn took off in his direction, but he ran right past her. Phee thought he was coming to see her. Later she would remember feeling a tremendous sense of relief that she’d switched the soiled sundress for a clean one. Later she would look back on that easy sense of relief as being the last easy thing for a very long time.

Tariq stopped when he reached Nadia. He grabbed her shoulders as though he was about to shake her. In those few seconds, Phee knew it was bad. She thought of Saul, of course. No recon. His precarious web of lies. Maybe the guys found him out? Maybe he’d been seized? Relocated to where he was supposed to belong. Tariq said only a few words before Nadia crumpled to the sand. It was Saul! Something terrible had happened! Phee broke into a run, but no matter how she willed her legs to go faster, she felt as if the distance between her and Nadia stretched out forever, as if she’d
never get to her friend’s side when so clearly she needed her the most.

“What’s wrong?” Fawn fell into step beside her.

“I think it’s Saul.” Phee kept running, the sand slowing her down. At last she was at Nadia’s side. She fell to her knees beside her and folded Nadia into a tight embrace. “What is it?” She looked up at Tariq. His mirrored sunglasses prevented her from reading his eyes. She saw that his hands were clenched into fists, that he was holding himself apart from whatever had happened. “What happened?” Phee could hear the panic in her voice. “It’s Saul, isn’t it? He’s hurt? What
happened
?”

“Oh, honey …” Nadia shifted to face Phee. Now it was Nadia hugging
her
. “Everything will be okay. He’ll be as good as new. Better, even.”

“What?” Phee’s heart crumpled, taking her breath with her. “What are you talking about?”

Tariq opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come at first. “Phoenix … I came … there’s been …” With a deep breath, he tried again. “It’s your brother. Gryph is dead.”

Phoenix had no recollection of how she got home. One moment she was gasping for breath, feeling as if Tariq had punched her hard in the gut, and then the next thing she knew she was stumbling up the back steps, desperate to be with her parents.

“Mom?” She flung open the door. No answer. “Dad?”

“You have to slow your breathing down, Phee. You’re going to pass out.” Nadia gripped her hand. “Maybe they’re down at Chrysalis already.”

Tariq came in last, carrying Fawn, who clung to him, bawling. She looked even smaller in her polka-dotted bathing suit, her head resting on his shoulder, as if she were just a toddler. Phoenix lifted her from him and held her. She sat on a kitchen chair with her little sister in her lap, not sure what to do. Fawn whimpered, snot running down her face. Nadia found a napkin and wiped her cheeks dry.

“They wouldn’t leave without me.”

“Check your phone. And the lync.” When Phee was clearly not able to move from where she sat, Nadia nodded at Tariq. “You do it.”

Tariq crossed the kitchen to the little desk where Eva kept the household organized. Under the glass surface of the desk the lync
screen swam with the dim clouds of its standby mode. Tariq ran a finger across it to wake it up. “They’re at your grandparents’,” he said after reading the message Eva had left. “They’ll be back—”

The front door slammed open. “Phoenix? Fawn!”

Eva ran into the room and drew her two daughters into her arms with a sob. Oscar came in behind her, his face drawn with worry. Phoenix raised her eyes to greet her father and knew immediately that things were far worse than they should have been. Her unshakable father looked deeply, deeply shaken.

“What’s going on?” Phoenix set Fawn down and stood. Fawn clung to Eva’s leg. Eva sank into the chair. They should already be down at Chrysalis, collecting his things, sending him to the recon lab with a kiss and a prayer.

“They say he jumped.”

Tariq hadn’t told her anything yet. Phoenix had no idea what her mother was talking about. She looked from Oscar to Eva to Tariq and back again. “What?”

When Oscar finally spoke, it was with his minister’s voice. Calm, steady, and careful. “He was hit by a train. At the Steveston Pier. ”

BY THE TIME
her parents had to leave to meet with Chrysalis, Fawn had fallen asleep, exhausted from all her crying and an afternoon in the sun at the beach. Tariq carried her upstairs, Phoenix trailing behind him, to tuck her into bed. She folded down the quilt and sheet, the cheerful pink rabbits on the linens at odds with her heavy heart. Tariq set Fawn on the bed and drew the sheet up to her shoulders. He reached for the quilt, but Phoenix stopped him.

“It’s too hot.”

Tariq nodded and then reached for her hand. He pulled her out of Fawn’s room and steered her to hers. He sat her on the bed and then retreated to the doorway, not sure what to do with himself.

“Tell me what really happened.” Phoenix glanced up, eyes rimmed red from all the crying. “Please?”

He’d told her parents before he’d come to the beach. And her parents had told her. Oscar had described what had happened as if he were ministering to one of his parish families. In plain language. No euphemisms or platitudes. As he’d spoken, Phoenix’s shock and confusion had lifted briefly to let in a tiny slice of anger at her father. But almost as quickly as it had occurred to her, it vanished, and she was only thankful for her father’s steadfastness. His calm amid such uncertainty. She wanted the story from Tariq now, though. She wanted to hear it from someone who’d been there. From someone who’d
seen
.

“We were on the way to the arcade—” Tariq started.

“From where?”

“Me and Huy and Neko had been at my place. We were meeting Saul and Gryph.”

“Where?”

“At Steveston. They’d been in the Industrial Sector.”

“Why?”

“They … I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” Tariq took a step into the room and leaned against the wall, just inside the door. “I told your parents that he tripped.”

But it did matter! Phoenix wanted to know everything. She wanted to hear Tariq’s version, and then the other boys’ too, in their own words. And she wanted to see the security footage too. Any pictures bystanders might have captured. People were always taking pictures of Gryph. Why should this have been any different? A sudden thought catapulted her off the bed. She brought up her own lync screen at her desk and drew her finger to the News icon.

“I told your parents that he tripped—” Tariq insisted, watching her.

The screen darkened momentarily and then lit up mid-newscast.

“World-famous Chrysalis-sponsored athlete Gryphon Nicholson-Lalonde was struck and killed by a train earlier today.”
As the newscaster spoke, the screen shifted to play footage of the train station up in one
corner. Yellow tape was strung from wall to rail, and a knot of Crimcor agents were down on the tracks, on their knees, combing the ground.
“An official statement is expected later today from the Chrysalis-Crimcor joint task force.”

Phoenix narrowed her eyes at Tariq. “What does Crimcor have to do with it?”

Tariq reached over her shoulder and paused the image. On one side of the screen the lips of the carefully coiffed newscaster were frozen open, her eyebrows furrowed in appropriate sobriety and concern. The little side box showing the agents searching was frozen too, the camera in mid-swing toward a massive pool of blood on the far side of the tracks. The side nearest the wall. Where no one had cause to be. Ever. No doors opened on that side at that station, and the rail was normally electrified. It would’ve been shut down only after the incident so that the Crimcor agents could investigate. So that Gryph’s body could be collected. Phee looked hard. She didn’t know that station well, had only been to it that one time the night of the rave, and on a Saturday it wouldn’t have been busy. Businesses in that district were Monday to Friday. So Gryph couldn’t have lost his footing in a pushing crowd.

“He didn’t trip, though. Did he?”

“No.” Tariq’s reply was almost a whisper. “He didn’t trip.”

“Of course he didn’t! He has the balance of a superhero!” Phoenix kept her eyes on the screen as she spoke. “I don’t believe for one moment that he tripped. And my parents won’t either.” She stabbed at the screen, breaking it from its pause.

“There has been no word from Chrysalis, but they are expected to launch the investigation into this tragic incident as soon as this afternoon. Again”
— here the woman paused for effect—
“we are saddened to be bringing you the news that much-loved athlete and world-class champion Gryphon Nicholson-Lalonde is dead for the first time at the age of eighteen.”

A file photo filled the screen. Gryphon and his lopsided grin, the bright blue of his eyes catching the sun at the surfing competition.
His hair was slicked back, damp, and the gold medal around his neck caught the hot glint of the sun.

“Why is she talking like that?” Phee’s heart sank. “Why hasn’t she mentioned his recon? What really happened, Tariq?”

Tariq stood very still. “I didn’t see anything until it had already happened.”

“Phee?” Nadia stood in the door, hugging herself. “You okay?”

“No!” Phoenix shut the screen. She pointed an accusatory finger at Tariq. “He says he didn’t see anything. I know he’s lying.”

Nadia drew Phoenix back to the bed and sat beside her, her arm slung across her shoulders. “Everything will be okay.”

“It might not be, Nadia.”

“He’ll be as good as new. Better, even. I bet they’ll put titanium kneecaps in, seeing as he’s cracked both. And a new whatever cuff.”

“Rotator cuff.”

“Yeah. And maybe they’ll clear up his acne problem too.”

“He has perfect skin.” Phee smiled sadly at Nadia’s attempt at humour. “And you know it.” A horrible thought occurred to her. Gryph had been destroyed. He hadn’t quietly died as she had the first time, her skin duskier until her lungs finally gave up. And he didn’t die intact, as she had the second time when she’d drowned. He’d died violently. With pain and blood and terror. She opened her mouth, a mute protest against the images playing in her mind. The train, the screeching brakes, the thump, the fall, the blood. The screams. She felt a meltdown cresting inside, but then Nadia spoke and broke the swell.

“Everything
is
going to be fine”—Nadia squeezed her in a hug— “and you know it.” Any remnants of the girls’ earlier spat had entirely vanished, and Nadia smiled at her now with eyes filled with equal parts fear and support. “Honest.”

Awkwardness filled the space between the girls and Tariq. They looked up at him, waiting for him to chime in and agree that everything would be fine, but he just fixed his eyes on the floor, his hands shoved resolutely into his pockets.

“Tariq!” Phee shouted. “Say something!”

But Tariq turned in to the hall. He took the stairs so quietly that Phee wasn’t sure if he was just lurking in the hall or had left. When she stepped into the hall to see, he was gone. “He left.”

“He didn’t.” Nadia’s eyes widened in surprise. “That prick!” She ran out of the room and stomped down the stairs and out the front door. Phee hurried down the hall to Fawn’s room and looked out the front window. Fawn was fast asleep, her cheeks still flushed from crying, arms buried under her pillow. Nadia had caught up to Tariq at the corner. Phee quietly pushed the window all the way open and leaned out, but she couldn’t hear them. She could only see Nadia scolding him. And he stood there, taking it, shoulders curved in defeat. And then Nadia’s voice rose into a yell and Phee could hear her clearly.

“You get back in there now and
talk
to her!” she yelled at him, her fists planted on her hips. “Now!”

As Tariq backed away, he pulled his hands from his pockets and raised them in submission as he shook his head, refusing.

“Don’t you walk away from me, Tariq!” Nadia was the way she’d been any number of the times when she yelled at Saul during an argument. And Saul always stayed, always gave as good as he got. But this time it was Tariq, the boy of few words. He kept walking. At the end of the block he broke from his slow pace and headed for the station at a dead run.

NADIA GLANCED BACK
at the house and saw Phoenix at the window. She shrugged in bewildered apology. Phee waved for her to come back and then went downstairs to meet her at the door.

Nadia started talking when she was halfway up the path. “I told him he had to tell us and that we deserved to hear it from him. I told him we know something is fishy.” Nadia was at the door now. She looked at Phoenix with sad eyes. “We do know something is fishy, right? This is not happening like it should.”

“You’re right. It’s not. The news is talking like he’s never coming back.”

The girls retreated to the kitchen, where Nadia poured them each a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the fridge. Phee stared at the amber liquid. Had it only been that morning when her mother made it? Had it only been that morning when she and Nadia were arranging date squares on china platters and cutting crusts off cucumber sandwiches? Had it only been—and now she glanced at the clock above the stove—not even an hour since Nadia had stalked off in a huff, convinced Phee and Saul were up to something?

Saul
. And the others. “What about Neko? He was there.”

“He won’t talk,” Nadia said. “Not if Tariq told him not to.”

“We can make him talk. He’s your brother. Call him.”

Nadia brought her phone to her ear. “No answer.”

“Try Saul.”

“I did.” Nadia set the phone on the table. “When you were upstairs. No answer.”

“Text him, then. And Huy. Copy them all on it. Tell them I want to talk to them!”

“I already texted Saul a hundred million times.” With a wary eye on Phee she picked up the phone again and started a new text. “I’ll try again, but they’re not answering. I’m telling you, Phee. They’re in some kind of brotherly lockdown. Neko too.”

“Then get your parents to call Neko and order him to come home.” Phee stood. She paced the kitchen, cutting through the same slice of sunlight, back and forth, back and forth. The chime at the front door sounded and her grandparents shuffled in, neither of them looking all that concerned.