“This is Mrs Yoder’s place,” I say, crossing the leaf-covered yard to the porch. Sunlight warms the top of my head.
Porter nods and rocks back and forth. “She rents the top floor to me.”
I stand at the base of the porch steps, my hands in my coat pockets. “How long have you been here?”
“Renting from Mrs Yoder? About three years. Before that I lived in that apartment complex on Baybury. Before that I rented a house on Maple.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’ve been spying on me my whole life?” The thought gives me the creeps. What had he seen?
He points his cigar at me. “I’ve been protecting you. There’s a difference.”
“How do I know you’re not just a filthy old man who has a thing for nerd girls?”
He frowns at me. “Do you think I look like a filthy old man?”
I shrug. “How would I know? I don’t exactly keep a checklist for profiling pedophiles.”
He makes a face, the kind I make when I try a sip of coffee. “That might be the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever heard you say. Do you speak like that to all your elders?”
Elders. That makes me snort. “Sadly, I haven’t met too many elders worthy of respect outside my family. Adults seem pissed off because of their life choices and take it out on us kids because, unlike them, we still have time; or they’re blind and forgot what it was like to be a kid so they try to put us in a glass box; or they’re jackasses just for the fun of it; or they’re blissfully ignorant of, like, everything. Which one are you?”
He levels his eyes at me. “I’m not a liar.” He flicks his cigar and flecks of ash sprinkle to the porch floor.
I level my eyes back at him, my chin lifted. “All adults are liars. They lie under the guise of protection, but it’s still lying.”
“Protection can be a good thing,” he says. “It can give a child freedom to grow, to live their life without shadows of despair lurking beyond every turn. It gives a child boundaries, a sanctuary within the cruel world. Protection builds walls. Keeps a child safe, just like I’ve kept you safe all this time.” He leans forward in his rocking chair. “Tell me, are you happier now that you know the truth? Or have you been wishing you’d never met me at Ristorante Cafferelli?”
I scowl at him. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because he knows too damn much, or because he makes too much damn sense. “So what exactly have you been protecting me from?”
He sucks on his cigar, then puffs out a cloud of smoke that veils his face for a moment. “From Durham Gesh.”
A cold breeze rustles the leaves and bites through my parka, making me shiver in the sunlight. I pull my sleeves down over my wrists. “What does the founder of AIDA want with me?”
Porter raises an eyebrow. “If I tell you more of the truth, the truth you say you want to hear, do you promise not to storm off again?”
I roll my eyes and flop down on the porch steps. “Come on. I stormed off because you made me erase everything, and I was trying to wrap my head around all this time travel and reincarnation stuff, and I was frustrated, and you were super confusing and annoying.”
I catch the smallest grin behind his cigar. “Fair enough,” he says. “Shall I try to be less confusing and annoying today?”
I push my glasses up. “That would help. Seriously.”
“How about you ask the questions this time?” he says. “I’ll answer as simply as I can.”
I lean my back against one of the porch pillars, hoping Porter’s serious about keeping things simple. “OK. Start with Durham Gesh. Why do I need protection from him?”
He breathes in another mouthful of smoke, then drops his cigar and flattens it with his heel. “Because at the end of your last life, you and Gesh had a falling out. You didn’t agree with his methods anymore, so you left AIDA. Escaped is a better word for it. He’s been looking for you ever since. It’s my job to make sure he never finds you.”
The way Porter says that makes me feel like a rabbit out in the open with wolves on the prowl. “What happens if he finds me?”
“He’ll force you to work for him again.”
“And what if I refuse?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
Porter glances down the street in the direction of my house. “There are exactly six reasons why you won’t, and four of them share your last name.”
My family.
“He’d threaten my family?”
His rocking chair creaks. “He’d do much worse than threaten.”
My hands are fists on my knees. My heart is in my ears. “That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never done anything to him.”
“Not in this life, no. But he knows you were reincarnated again. He knows I’m hiding you. For him, that’s enough.”
I shake my head. “Then I’ll work for him. I don’t care. I worked for him before, right? If it keeps my family safe, I’ll do anything.”
Porter stops rocking. “You can’t work for Gesh.”
“Why not? All of this,” I say, waving my hands, “my ability, the visions, being a Descender, it’s caused enough trouble for my family already. It needs to stop. If I can stop it by working for Gesh again, then I will.”
Porter scrubs a frustrated hand over his face. “He can’t find you, Alex. If he finds you, it’ll ruin everything.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a Transcender.” Porter says it like I’m stupid. Like that should mean something to me. “You’re more powerful than all of us, all of the Descenders combined, which makes you dangerous. You’re the only one who can bring Gesh down, and he knows it. So he wants you contained. If he finds you, he’ll break you. Make it so you can’t fight back, can’t do anything except follow his orders. He did it to you once before. He’ll do it again. It’s his specialty.”
A memory flashes before me. I’m that little girl with braids again, the same little girl playing Polygon, but this time I’m strapped to a chair in the middle of a sterile medical room. The lights above are harsh and bright. The boy with the wire-rimmed glasses watches me from the doorway. He looks worried for me, his dark eyes round and wide. A tall man in a white lab coat shines a blinding light in my right eye. It’s Gesh, I know it is, I remember it being him, but I can’t see his face past the light.
“Kan du huske hvem du er?” he says. Do you remember who you are?
I shake my head no.
He slaps me, hard. So hard I almost pass out.
“Husker du nu?” he says. Do you remember now?
Tears spill down my cheeks and lips. My whole body trembles. I rub my bare forearms and wrists, my palms sliding over rashes and scars and burns and bruises.
I cower as he raises his hand to strike me again.
That’s all I can remember. The memory is gone. Out of reach. But I can still feel the sting of his hand on my cheek. I can still feel the painful scars on my wrists.
I let go of my sleeves, which I’d been gripping this whole time. I push them up to expose the bare skin underneath. I run my fingers over my wrists. They’re pink and perfect. No scars. But I remember them now. Burning cigarettes pressed into my flesh. Ropes tied tight, rubbing my skin raw. Serrated knives slicing patterns in blood.
My nails bite into the palms of my fists. I squeeze my eyes shut. That memory of Gesh awakens a mixture of fear and hatred I hadn’t known was inside me. I don’t remember anything else about him, or my last life, but I have a feeling Porter was right to keep me hidden.
My teeth chatter, and I start to shiver, suddenly feeling cold and bitter. Porter notices my discomfort and motions for me to follow him inside. We climb painted stairs to the top floor. Porter’s apartment is sparse, to say the least. A tiny kitchenette in the corner looks out over the street, and a futon and over-stuffed armchair take up all the space in the living room. It smells like burnt toast, coffee, and cigar smoke. It’s hard to believe Porter has lived like this, without anything to his name, for so many years.