The Marked Read online

  A week passed. Grandma and I got back into our old routines and I caught up on my sleep. Pretty soon, it was hard even to believe that there was a Delcroix, or people with talents, or an Irin.

  On Friday night, as I was finishing the dishes from dinner, Grandma suddenly turned up the sound on the TV. I set down the frying pan I’d been cleaning and went into the living room to see what had her so excited.

  The words Breaking News scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and a reporter began speaking excitedly into a microphone. “I’m Katie Campbell, reporting live from Washington, D.C., where we’ve just received word that police have uncovered the early stages of some kind of plot against the president.”

  The camera cut away to reporters clustered outside a huge building. The entrance was busy with police cars and people running in every direction. “The details are just beginning to emerge,” the reporter continued. “What we know right now is that about four hours ago, police discovered, in this warehouse less than five miles from the Capitol building”—she gestured behind her—“three dead bodies, a cache of guns and ammunition, and detailed maps of the White House.”

  I sank down on the sofa while the reporter continued chattering. They didn’t know much. The police had begun searching the area when nearby residents reported that they had heard what they thought was a series of explosions. No actual damage had been discovered, and the location of the explosions was unknown. Then police were given an anonymous tip to check the warehouse. They found the bodies in there, along with a stack of documents that detailed the conspiracy.

  The speculation around the person or group that had foiled the crime and killed the president’s would-be attackers was fierce. Was it a Good Samaritan? A disgruntled associate? No one knew, and the police said it was far too early to speculate.

  I sat there dumbstruck.

  I knew who was responsible. I just wondered if the finger on the trigger had been Cam’s.

  Every day for the next week, the evening news brought a fresh round of stories about the murdered men and the strange events in the D.C. warehouse. The dead were all in their twenties, unemployed, and college-educated. One had been a math major at Georgetown. Another went to Harvard. The third, Charlie Scholz, had graduated from University of Washington in Seattle. They had been living together in D.C. for a couple of years.

  Reporters found people who knew the men and interviewed them endlessly. A neighbor said they were quiet boys who mowed her grass when she was out of town. She couldn’t believe they’d done anything wrong. Charlie Scholz’s uncle said he’d never trusted his nephew. He told the reporters that when Charlie was little he was always hiding in the basement of his house, doing something secretive.

  Most of the weapons had been stolen. Based on the location of the bodies, the police had concluded that the men had been surprised, and that there hadn’t been much of a fight. The police didn’t find much else, and they never did figure out where the noise had come from. There was an office in the warehouse, but no documents other than the ones covering the White House. I wasn’t surprised. The Governing Council would have kept any documents of value.

  I tried not to fixate on Cam’s role in the whole thing. After all, he wasn’t a real Watcher. They would have used Cam to track the bad guys, not kill them.

  I checked my e-mail every day but didn’t get any messages from him. I figured he was busy. After all, they’d just prevented some huge national disaster. But I still wanted to talk to him and hear what had really happened. The police suspected that more people had been involved, based on the number of guns, the cars they’d recovered around the warehouse, and the multitude of fingerprints around the area. I wished I knew exactly what the men had been planning, and how they had died.

  On Sunday night, I threw my clean clothes into my laundry bag and packed up my things for school. Grandma had just settled in for some hour-long news show when my phone rang.

  The caller ID said Ethan Hannigan. I stared in horror at the screen.

  Grandma gestured irritably at me from her easy chair. “Answer it, won’t you? I’m trying to hear the television.”

  Indecision locked my hands at my sides. The phone rang again.

  “If you don’t answer it, I will,” Grandma warned.

  I jerked it up to my ear and pushed the button. “Hello?” I whispered.

  “It’s about time you picked up.”

  “Hey, Esther,” I said, for Grandma’s benefit. “What’s up?”

  Grandma turned back to the television. I started for my bedroom, then turned and went toward the bathroom. As soon as I closed the door behind me I hissed, “Jack, you shouldn’t be calling me.”

  He laughed. “You called me the last time. Why can’t I call you?”

  I straightened the faded blue-and-white hand towels, lining them up by their embroidery. “That was a mistake. This is dangerous for both of us. Especially right now.”

  Jack’s voice turned grim. “They murdered three people this week, Danny. Three guys who had done nothing more than refuse to be controlled by their Governing Council.”

  “They were trying to kill the president!”

  Jack made a sound of disgust. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  I perched on the edge of the bathtub. “They found papers. Maps. Drawings. What else could they be for?”

  “It was a setup. Someone planted those papers, to distract everyone from the fact that your Watchers murdered our men. Going after the president is just plain stupid. We’d attract hundreds of police and probably get a bunch of our people killed, and it wouldn’t do a thing toward our ultimate goal. Think about it. Why would we do that?”

  Even though I knew he was one of them now, a chill descended on me at Jack’s casual use of the phrase our men. “Well, then,” I said, “what were all the guns for?”

  “We have to have guns. To defend ourselves.”

  “That’s crazy. Who do you think you’re defending yourselves from?”

  “Your boyfriend, for one.”

  I sat straight up in shock. Had Jack seen Cam? Was Jack in D.C.? “You leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Start hoarding automatic weapons and they’re going to pay attention. And what do you mean about Cam, anyway? He’s still in school. He isn’t a real Watcher.”

  “He is now.”

  I closed my eyes, running my fingers through my hair, feeling the ringlets pop apart. “This conversation needs to end. You can’t imagine the kind of trouble I’d be in if people thought I was talking to you.”

  “Did you ask them about Ethan?”

  “No. He committed suicide. There’s nothing more to say.” I paced the two steps from the door of the bathroom to the sink and back.

  “You know that’s not true. When are you going to admit that they’re dangerous?”

  “When are you going to admit that you’re on the wrong side?” I pulled hard on a curl and yanked out a snarl of hair.

  Was Jack telling the truth? Had Cam known the documents were fake?

  “Your ‘right side’ is awfully comfortable with killing people.”

  “We’re trying to make things safer,” I said, thinking of all the things I’d heard Mr. Judan say. “You didn’t stay long enough to learn what the Program’s actually about. It isn’t just about the Watchers. It’s other things too—doctors, scientists, and diplomats. It’s all to make things better.”

  “If that’s the goal, you aren’t doing a very good job,” Jack replied. “The Watchers just killed people with friends in high places—and they aren’t happy. From here on out, things will only get worse.”

  I SLAMMED the phone shut and shoved it back into my pocket. Nausea roiled in my stomach. I leaned over the sink and closed my eyes, waiting for the feeling to recede. When it didn’t, I grabbed a washcloth and wet it, drawing the cool rag over my cheeks and the back of my neck. I studied my face in the mirror; my eyes were sunken and dark, the hair around my face a fri
zzy mass.

  I shouldn’t, I thought, have taken his call. He was lying to me. He had to be lying.

  As I pulled my hair into a ponytail, I heard voices at the front door. My heart sank. I took a deep breath and threw open the bathroom door, certain I would see a group of Watchers standing outside.

  Grandma was blocking the doorway, but she was so short I had no trouble making out the person in front of her. A smile of relief split my face. “Cam! What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you, of course,” he said. He was wearing his forest green Delcroix T-shirt, the one with the gold dragon on the front. The light from the setting sun left a rosy glow on his features.

  I recalled with horror that I had picked my old Danville Middle sweatshirt and matching sweatpants from the dirty laundry basket that morning, but then I caught Cam’s eyes and realized it didn’t matter. Energy rippled off him; his body was practically vibrating. He shifted from one foot to the other, and I knew he didn’t care what I was wearing.

  We shared a quick hug under Grandma’s watchful gaze. “Did you just get to town?” I asked.

  “A couple of hours ago. I borrowed a car as soon as we got to Delcroix so I could see you. I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.”

  Grandma pointed at the television. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m right in the middle of this program. Maybe you two should go in the kitchen.”

  “Actually, I’ve got a whole bag full of laundry,” Cam said. “I had hoped that Dancia could come with me to the Laundromat while I get it started? If I don’t get it done tonight, I’ll be wearing dirty clothes all week.”

  Grandma scowled. “You could do a load here. While you talk.”

  Cam took firm hold of my hand. “That’s very kind of you, but I’ve got at least three, and it would save a lot of time if I could do them all at once.”

  She grabbed a tissue from the table and dabbed at the corner of her eye. “You can’t do laundry at school?”

  “The washers were full. I guess I wasn’t the only one who brought a load of dirty clothes back from vacation.”

  The persuasion oozed from him. It was only his Level Two Talent, but Grandma didn’t have the strength to resist. “You’ll bring her back in before nine?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I suppose I can’t fault a boy for wanting to do his laundry.”

  I flung my arms around her. “Thank you, Grandma!”

  We got into the car at the curb. It was a tan Buick. I raised a curious eyebrow. “Does Mr. Judan know you’ve got this car?”

  “He said it was okay. He understands.”

  We drove away from the curb in silence. At the first stop sign, Cam put the car in park and leaned over to kiss me. I couldn’t tell what emotion pulsed through him, but it was almost frightening in its intensity.

  Another car pulled up behind us.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere more private?” I said.

  Cam gunned the motor, and we headed toward town.

  “So.” I tapped my foot on the floor of the car. “How was your trip?”

  “I suppose the news made it to Danville?”

  I snorted. “Did you see what Grandma was watching? There’s been nothing else on TV all week.”

  Cam rested his hand on the top of the steering wheel as he slid through a stop sign. “I don’t mind the coverage. It’s good. We wanted to send a warning anyway.”

  My throat started to tighten. I cleared it and said, “A warning? What do you mean?”

  “For the rest of them. Those three weren’t working alone, you know.”

  “Oh.” I turned away and gazed at the houses beside us. I thought about the people inside who had no idea what had really happened in D.C. and wouldn’t have believed it if you told them. Sometimes I wished I were one of those people.

  A few minutes later, Cam pulled into a dead-end street and parked well away from any houses. He angled his body toward mine and took my hands in his. “I’m sorry I couldn’t write,” he said. “We were moving around too much. I thought about you all the time.”

  “Who were you with, exactly? Were there other people from Delcroix?”

  “Mr. Judan was there,” he said.

  I waited, expecting to hear Anna’s or Trevor’s name, but that was all he said. I didn’t want to ask him directly. I didn’t want to know that Anna had been with him while I was home with Grandma.

  “So…” I groped for the right words. “What did you…”

  “I helped them find the warehouse and track the men. Then they brought me in to find talent marks once they narrowed down the area.”

  “What were they actually planning to do?”

  He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Something terrible.”

  “Like what?” The air in the car was heavy and still.

  “Kill someone. Probably the president.”

  “Did you see the plans?” I had to work hard to keep asking questions, because he was touching my neck now, and the heat in his eyes was melting me down to my core. “The ones for attacking the White House?”

  “No. I stayed by the front when they went in.”

  “So you didn’t see them…you didn’t see the Watchers…?”

  “If you’re asking if I saw them shoot, the answer is no,” Cam said.

  “I just wondered if maybe they could have arrested them. Sent them to jail instead of killing them.”

  Cam kissed my cheek. He spoke between soft brushes of his lips against my skin. “One of those men was a shape-shifter. There’s no jail in the world that could hold him. Another one was a computer genius. He needed to get access to a terminal only one time, and then he could open the prison gates. The last one could manipulate sound waves. With a little training, he could blow out the eardrums of every person in a two-mile radius. Jail wasn’t an option.”

  Manipulate sound waves. A connection lit up in my head even as Cam’s kisses sent ripples through my body. “He was one of the ones who broke into Delcroix at Initiation.”

  “It was the same guy. I saw his marks.”

  “Did he make that noise before they killed him?”

  “Please,” Cam said, pausing. “Don’t ask those things.”

  I tried to focus on how lovely his hands were, how strong and warm. But I kept hearing Jack’s voice, and what he’d said about the men being set up. “You’re sure they were planning something, though? I mean, there was no chance they were going to do something else with those guns?”

  Cam pulled back. “Like what? Send them to underprivileged children? Open a shooting range?”

  I squirmed, amazed at myself for pushing things this far. “I don’t know. Maybe they had them for self-defense. It’s not illegal to have guns, is it?”

  “The guns were stolen semiautomatic weapons that they rigged to be automatic. It was illegal to have those guns. We have absolutely no doubt how they would have been used, and it wasn’t for show-and-tell. We don’t let bad things happen just so we can find out exactly what they were planning. We stop bad things before they happen.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t believe you,” I said. “I just need to understand.”

  “Fine—but can you understand later?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking and talking about this for the past two weeks. I hoped maybe I could forget about it for a while.”

  I took advantage of the space between us to wriggle out of my sweatshirt. “It’s just that I haven’t seen you, and you didn’t write or anything. I’ve been waiting all week to hear the real story.”

  Cam’s jaw tightened. “You want to know about it? Okay. I’ll tell you. It made me sick. That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?” His voice turned rough, and he cleared his throat.

  I winced and touched his leg. “Cam, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It was me, the Watchers, and Mr. Judan,” he continued, ignoring my interruption. “They wanted me to tell them whenever I saw a mark. We traced the men thr
ough the city and ended up at that warehouse.”

  He flexed his hands compulsively on the steering wheel. “We didn’t think they’d be expecting us, but you never know for sure. They could have had a talent for foresight, or a gift for hearing, like Claire. Mr. Judan told me to stay at the entrance with a phone. I was supposed to call for backup if something went wrong. There was one shot, and then the explosions. Then two more shots, and it was over.”

  I shuddered, imagining the moment, incredibly relieved he hadn’t been inside the warehouse.

  “I thought it would feel good to be a part of something like that,” he said. “We protected innocent people. Hundreds of them, maybe more, I don’t know. The president, even. But I keep hearing that sound, and thinking about those men.…It feels wrong, somehow, knowing I was a part of that. I’m sure they could have found them some other way, but I led them there.” He punched his chest. “Me.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “You did what you thought was right.”

  He shook his hair from his eyes. “I know. I just thought it would feel different. Better. Easier.”

  “I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy. Not something like that.” I shifted in the seat, tucking my legs underneath me so I could face him more fully. The heat of the car and my fear of the Irin fell away under his steady gaze.

  “You know what I thought about afterward? When I was confused and didn’t know what to feel?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You. You’re like the other part of me, Dancia. Nothing makes sense when you aren’t around.”

  He squeezed my hand, and I felt a little crackle in my heart, like a leaf or a twig bursting into flame. It wasn’t persuasion, or his talent, or anything like that. It was love. Love for and pride in this incredible person who, for some crazy reason, wanted to be with me.

  I felt a deep ache in my chest when I realized Cam was struggling—maybe even more than me. He was actually out there fighting for what he believed in, while I sat at home thinking I was brave for asking questions and typing Ethan Hannigan into a search engine.