“Lily? Lily?” she asked, her voice a little too loud. There was fear in her tone. Worry.
“Hi, Mom. I’m okay. I just wanted to call.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, relief in her voice. “She’s okay, Mark,” she said, her voice softer now as she reassured my father, who was apparently beside her. “She’s fine. Lily, what happened?
God, we were so worried—Marceline called and said you’d taken a fall?”
I opened and closed my mouth, completely at a loss about how I was supposed to deal with the fact that I now had proof my Mom was on a first name basis with Foley—not to mention Foley’s perspective on my parents’ careers—so I asked the most basic question I could think of. “You know Foley? Ms. Foley, I mean?”
There was a weird pause, just before a crackle of static rumbled through the phone. I pressed my palm against my other ear. “Mom? You’re cutting out. I can’t hear you.”
“Sorry—we’re on the road. Yes, we’re—yes. We know Marceline.”Crackle . “—you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said again. “I’m awake and I feel fine. I just—slipped. Why don’t you call me later?”
That time, I only heard “traveling” and “hotel” before the connection went dead. I stared at the phone for a few seconds before flipping it shut again.
“I just lied to my parents,” I snottily said when I’d returned the phone to the table. I heard the petulance in my voice, but given my surroundings, I thought I deserved it.
Scout opened her mouth to respond but before she could get words out, a knock sounded at the door. Scout met my gaze, but shrugged.
“Come in?” I said.
The door opened a crack, and Jason peeked through.
“My, my,” Scout murmured, winging up eyebrows at me. I sent her a withering look before Jason opened the door fully and stepped inside. He was out of his Montclare Academy duds today, and was dressed casually in jeans and a navy zip-up sweater. I knew this was neither the time nor the place, but the navy did amazing things for his eyes. On one shoulder was the strap of a backpack, and in his hand was a slim vase that held a single, puffy flower—a peony, maybe.
The flower and backpack weren’t Jason’s only accessories. When Michael appeared behind him,
I gave Scout the same winged-up eyebrows she’d given me. A blush began to fan across her cheeks.
“Just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Jason said, closing the door once he and Michael were in the room. He dropped his backpack on a second plastic chair, then extended his arm, a smile on his face. “And we brought you a flower.”
“Thanks,” I said, self-consciously touching a hand to my hair. I couldn’t imagine that anything up there looked pretty after twelve hours of unconsciousness. Scout reached out to take the vase,
then placed it atop a bureau next to a glass container of white tulips.
I pointed at the arrangement. “Where’d those come from?”
“Huh?” Scout asked, then seemed to realize the tulips were there. “Oh. Right. Let’s see.” She pulled out the card, frowned, then glanced back at me. “It just says, ‘Board of Trustees.’ ”
“That was surprisingly thoughtful,” I mumbled, thinking Foley must have given them a call.
“Garcia didn’t want to study,” Jason said, “so we thought we’d amble over.”
Scout arched a brow at Michael. “Does Garcia ever want to study?”
“I have my moments, Green,” he said, then moved toward the bed. When he reached me, he picked up my hand and squeezed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit by a freight train.”
“Understandable,” Jason said behind him, and Michael nodded in agreement.
“Scout was just about to explain to me exactly what’s going on beneath Chicago.” Jason and Michael both snapped their gaze to Scout. I guessed they had mixed feelings about her confession. She waved cheekily.
“But now that the full club has convened,” I continued, linking my hands in my lap, “you can decide amongst yourselves who wants to do the explaining. Blue eyes? Brown eyes?” I glanced over at Scout. “Instigator?”
“I am sonot an instigator,” Scout said. “I was the one being chased, if you’ll recall, not doing the chasing.”
“Instigator,” Michael said with a grin. “I like that.”
When Scout stuck her tongue out at him, he winked back at her. Her blush flared up again. I bit back a smile.
“All right,” Jason said. “You got dragged into the conflict, so you deserve some answers. What do you want to know?”
“Scout already said I was hit by firespell,” I said, “and I’ve figured out some of the rest of it.
You three are in cahoots and you roam around under the convent and battle bad guys who make earthquakes and shoot fire from their hands.”
Silence.
“That’s not bad, actually,” Scout finally said.
Michael cocked his head at me. “How are you feeling about the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part of that?”
I frowned down at the thin hospital sheet, then picked at a pill in the fabric. It was probably time for me to give some thought to whatever it was I’d been dragged into—or, maybe more accurately, that I’dfallen into.
“I’m not sure,” I said after a minute. “I mean, I’m not really in a position to doubt the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part. I’ve felt the earthquakes, felt the fire. It hurt,” I emphasized.
The memory of that burning heat made my shoulders tense, and I rolled them out to relieve the tension.
“I’m alive,” I said, glancing up at them, “which I guess isn’t something I can really take for granted right now. But beyond that, I haven’t really had time to think much about it. To process it, if that makes sense.”
I glanced up at Scout. Her expression had fallen, and she nibbled the edge of her lip. There was fear in her face, maybe apology, as well. It was the insecurity that comes from knowing that someone you’d brought into your life could disappear again, leaving you alone.
“It makes sense,” she quietly said. Her words were a statement, but there was a question in her tone:Is this it for us? For our friendship?
Scout and I looked at each other for a few seconds, and in the time that elapsed during that glance, something happened—I realized I’d been given an opportunity to become part of a new kind of family; an opportunity to trust someone, to take a chance on someone. My parents may have been four thousand miles away, but I’d gained a new best friend. And that was something.
That was the kind of thing you held on to.
“Well then,” I said, my gaze on hers, “I suppose you’d better fill me in.”
It took her a moment to react, to realize what I’d said, to realize that I was committing to being a part of whatever it was they were really, truly involved in. And when she realized it, her face lit up.
But before we could get too cozy, Jason spoke up.
“Before you tell her more than she already knows,” he said, “you need to think about what you’re doing. She was underground for only a little while. That means there’s a chance they won’t recognize her. We can all go about our business, and there’s no need for them to know she exists.”
He crossed his arms and frowned. “But if you bring her into it, she becomes part of the conflict.
Not a JV member, sure, but part of the community. You’ll put her on the radar, and they’ll mark her as a supporter of the enclave. She may become a target. If you tell her more, she’s in this. For better or worse, she’s in it.”