Darkhaven, page 13
Stephen glanced at me in the rear-view mirror as he drove us out. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘Why the casino, though?’
Liam shrugged. ‘Donovan has a contact in the security department. We knew we could call it all off at any time. Good idea not giving them your licence, though. It’s best if people don’t have documents with your picture on them floating around.’
‘It felt like the right thing to do. I didn’t plan anything. I knew, without knowing I knew, where the exit was and which door to take. If that makes any sense.’ I rambled, elated at having passed the test.
Liam squeezed my shoulder. ‘You’ve done well, given the short time we’ve been working together.’
‘But you knew how this would all pan out, anyway,’ I said, sitting back, feeling the adrenaline start to seep away.
‘Your snap decisions do sometimes mess with my clairvoyance. But it was a safe test, and I hoped you would have some fun.’ He flashed me a playful smile.
‘I did,’ I replied, realising it was true – set up or not, I had enjoyed being in my intuitive zone. Blocking out all the background sensory noise had been easier when I thought the stakes were real and didn’t have Donovan’s aggressive expectations to deal with. I could imagine having a fun night out with Cecelia and Zenna when we were officially old enough, and enjoying it, not having to worry about the safety of three girls out in the city. I wondered if Liam’s excitement had been about the casino outing, or more about seeing how I handled his test. He was so at home in his garden at Darkhaven.
I voiced my thought. ‘Why the casino for the test? It doesn’t seem like your scene.’
‘It was convenient.’ Then he looked aside. ‘I’ve lived at Darkhaven most of my life. I don’t really know what my scene is.’
It was the first time I’d noticed his wistfulness, but now I realised it had been there all along. We sank into silence for the rest of the drive back to Darkhaven, each of us deep in thought.
Zenna bailed on my offer to catch a movie, so I slept through all of Saturday morning and spent most of the weekend hanging out with Alex, practising using my intuition in the real world. I was cautious though, and it was hard to keep my mind focussed on managing sensory input and still get into my calm place. It didn’t work on everything. My mess of homemade pizza dough on Saturday night proved that my cooking was not enhanced. It seemed like my strongest points were sensing people’s intentions and knowing where to go, or when.
After the pizza disaster, Alex suggested Harrys. They were always busy on Saturdays, but I followed my intuition to wait fifteen minutes, and we arrived just as a couple left and our favourite table became available. Maybe it was coincidence. Or maybe I actually stood a chance of succeeding at the Taskforce and winning my deal.
Chapter 14
Apologies
Cecelia became more and more insistent about a study date. I’d stalled her so far with my maths tutor excuse, mortifying as it was, although it was not as humiliating as the fact that she wasn’t surprised.
‘Well, good. I’m glad you’re taking this seriously now,’ she said as we spent a Monday lunchtime in the library. I had to make it up to her for skipping our old after-school routine, but despite being behind on homework and English reading, I wasn’t really studying. It was nice to just have half an hour to chill out.
‘What are you, my mother?’ I teased, lowering the library’s copy of A Tale of Two Cities and flicking the pages of her human biology book over to annoy her. She snapped a ruler in between the pages, too late to save her place. Zenna pored listlessly over some maths. Even in a non-ATAR program, there was no escape from maths. But she seemed to be doing better now, and Alex had not expressed any further concerns.
‘Can we go outside?’ she asked, staring out the window. ‘The sun’s out.’
‘It is nice,’ I agreed, following her gaze to a free bench gleaming in the wintry sunlight. I’d spent most of the last week indoors, even for Liam’s sessions, because of the rain.
‘For July, at least,’ Zenna said, with a soft sigh.
Cecelia slammed her pencil onto the desk to pick up an eraser. ‘It’s not July, it’s August!’ she snapped.
Zenna cringed. ‘All right, keep your freckles on. It’s only the first of August.’
Cecelia scribbled furiously in the margin of her notes page. ‘First of August! It’s six weeks until mock exams, and some of us need to study! I guess it’s okay for those who don’t have to work because they aren’t even doing exams.’ She got all of this out without even looking up, pen still scratching over her page. The minuscule sound wasn’t enough to fill the silence that expanded over the table.
Zenna stuffed her working-out pages into her book and slammed it shut. ‘Fine. I guess it’s okay for those who think they’re better than everyone else just because they’re going for an ATAR of a hundred-and-fucking-one.’ She stood up stiffly, pushed her chair in and turned to leave. I stared at the first page of A Tale of Two Cities. Age of foolishness indeed.
‘You can’t get a hundred and one, it’s 99.95,’ Cecelia said. I wilted inside. I knew she hadn’t meant to sound condescending, but it was like she couldn’t help herself. Zenna turned around and swiped Cecelia’s pencil case onto the floor, its contents spilling across the carpet.
‘I hope you fucking fail,’ Zenna snarled. She started out tough, but her voice cracked at the end. She spun around and ran out of the library, shouldering past the elderly librarian, who called pointlessly after her.
I bent down and collected Cecelia’s pencil case, stuffing the stationery back in. I straightened to find her still writing, but with tears running down her face. A fat drop fell onto the paper and smudged the ink.
‘Dammit!’
‘Let’s pack up, Ceel.’ I placed a hand on her arm.
She jerked away. ‘No! I need to get this chapter revision finished.’
‘We can do it later. I’ll come over…’ I began, unsure how I could possibly finish that sentence. Alex had claimed me for this afternoon; we were going to look at cars.
Cecelia did it for me. ‘When, Gabby? When was the last time you were free to come over?’
‘I’m sorry! It’s just Dad has me doing these tutoring sessions, and –’
‘And what? It would be inappropriate for me to sit at the same table? Something is going on, because you’re not at the library most days! And you don’t even care about university.’ She was crying openly now, cheeks shining with tears. But she kept writing.
I sat back. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’ My voice was small. ‘What can I do?’
Cecelia swiped at her face with her jumper sleeve and picked up a different coloured pen.
‘Just go. I’m going to keep working.’
‘Cecelia, I –’
‘I don’t want to hear it. Please go.’
I wandered out of the library, completely forgetting to check out Dickens until the machine blared at me and the librarian tottered out, roast-irresponsible-students mode engaged. I apologised vaguely and handed the book back to her, definitely not in the mood to read it now. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my last class – a double period of Economics, a subject I’d long ago lost interest in – that I realised what had happened. I’d walked right through an alarm ringing in my ears and not freaked out. I grinned to myself and was caught completely unawares when Mr Digby-Williscroft asked me a question, then requested that I share my personal joke when I couldn’t tell him what the day’s class was even about.
So much for intuition.
I was still feeling buoyed by my success over the alarm the next afternoon. Donovan was less thrilled about my breakthrough.
‘So whenever you’ve had a fight with a friend, you’ll be good for the next hour?’ She seemed, if possible, even crabbier than usual.
I was undaunted, even having the audacity to shrug. ‘Maybe two,’ I joked. Donovan glared at me. I’d always thought I had a pretty strong glare, but I was no match for her.
She picked up her jacket. ‘We’re going out today.’
Better than staying in her office all afternoon. ‘Where?’
‘You’ll see.’
Donovan drove the same way she walked around: maniacally, and with no consideration for the things or people around her. I clung to the armrest, wishing I could take more time to appreciate her Nissan GT-R, and grateful I’d never had to ride on the back of her motorcycle.
We pulled up in a lonely little car park next to a tall mesh fence. At the end of the car park was a steel gate and a little gatehouse. A truck rumbled towards it. I got out of the car and jumped as a loud crash echoed around my ears.
‘What is this place?’
‘A quarry.’ Donovan rummaged around in the boot and pulled out a shoebox. ‘You’ll be a seven, right?’ She ripped open the box and tossed a pair of sneakers to me. They still had scrunched paper packing in the toes. I had never replaced the pair that got destroyed in the lightning strike. I gave her a disgruntled look.
‘You can’t run in those.’ She flapped a hand at my heeled boots.
‘We’re running?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do I have to?’
’”Do I have to?“′ she mimicked.
I grimaced at the childish tone – and more so at the fact that it was accurate.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Genetic advancement isn’t free licence to be a sloth. If you want the perks, you have to work at it. Put them on.’ She started stretching while I fiddled with the laces.
‘And hurry up. We haven’t got all day.’
I’d barely got my feet in them when she took off, loping effortlessly on her long legs. Within seconds, I was puffing and panting as I shuffled along behind her. We ran around the perimeter of the quarry, which would have been bad enough without heavy machinery roaring and clattering. The bare stone faces were perfect surfaces for sound to echo and amplify, bouncing around in my skull like it too was a stone quarry. I might have tried to strangle the blonde woman striding along in front of me, if I could have caught up.
At what I hoped was past the halfway mark – the GT-R was well out of sight, and it felt like we’d been running for hours, even the machinery sounds had faded to nothing – Donovan looked at her watch and stopped. I pulled up several metres away and leaned against the wire fence, trying to not fall over in the dirt.
BOOM.
I gasped out the tiny breath of air I’d caught as I crumpled to the ground. It was like the Shack on the first day. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, and within moments, I couldn’t see either as everything around me dissolved into crushing blackness. More explosions fired from the quarry. I curled into a ball, unsure if I was screaming or if that was just more noise in my head.
Something slapped me across the face. The stinging broke through the blackness, and I opened my eyes to find Donovan standing over me, barely breaking a sweat, with a vicious gleam in her eyes.
‘How’s that breakthrough going now?’ Her voice was laced with malice. I wondered if it would be better or worse for me if I slapped her back. I couldn’t have summoned the strength anyway. She stepped away.
‘What was that?’ I asked. I hated the weakness in my voice. I hated that Donovan had put it there.
‘Drilling and blasting.’
‘Nobody would be ready for that.’
Donovan’s face was hard. ‘Get up.’
‘Why do you want me to fail?’ I’d meant the question to be rhetoric and under my breath, but it came out somewhat louder than that, and whiny. Donovan heard. I cringed inwardly.
She didn’t even look at me. ‘I don’t.’ Without any further elaboration, she took off again, jogging easily along the fence line. Since the alternative was lying out in the bush until someone or something found me, probably shattered into a million mental pieces by more blasting, I clambered to my wobbly feet and stumbled after her.
I spent three-quarters of the drive back to West Beach imagining all the sharp, witty things I might say to Donovan’s face if I could somehow turn my wrath into actual courage. Stephen cast me worried glances but said nothing. I sighed and pushed the thoughts out of my head. It would all be so much easier to handle if I could talk about it with Cecelia. Or, at this point, if we were talking at all. I needed time to patch things up with her. I twisted to face Stephen. ‘Can I have tomorrow off?’
He frowned.
‘Please? She’s getting suspicious and she knows I haven’t been at the library.’ I gave him a pleading look, sensing that it would work on him.
‘Okay, one afternoon. Only because Liam says you’re doing well.’ Stephen finished with a hint of pride in his voice.
I grinned. ‘I knew you’d say yes.’
‘I see. Do you know what my condition is?’
Oh no. ‘Not Saturday.’
‘Yes, Saturday. But it’s not with Liam. It’s with me. If you want to make it through the Taskforce expedition, we still have more to do.’
I was curious, but Alex was waiting on the other side of the school. I’d find out on Saturday.
After school on Wednesday, I sent Cecelia a message suggesting that she meet me in the library. We hadn’t spoken since the fight on Monday. She came to class right as the bell rang, sat at the front of the room without a glance in my direction and left as soon as we were dismissed. Bereft, I dragged myself through lessons in a miserable haze and spent lunchtimes sulking in the media lab with Zenna, who didn’t want to hear about Cecelia and was barely talking to me herself.
Cecelia replied. Don’t you have a tutoring session?
I sighed and messaged back. I cancelled it. You’re more important.
Nothing.
I went to the library anyway, figuring she might be there and if not I could actually use the time to catch up on school work. With my improved memory, I was having no trouble maintaining pass grades in my homework without studying, but I knew I should lift my game if I wanted a shot at university.
Apparently every Year 12 had the same idea, because there were no free tables in the common area. Nor was there any sign of Cecelia. I circled around, surreptitiously checking to see if anyone had started packing up their books, and saw a familiar head of scruffy, black hair. He sat alone at a corner table, reading, tapping his fingers on the table to some imagined beat. I dumped my backpack into the chair next to him.
‘Hello, Gabby,’ he said, flashing a dazzling smile. He was wearing his sunglasses again. My twin reflections scowled back at me.
‘Keraun,’ I said, sitting opposite him and pulling books out of my bag. ‘What are you doing here?’
His cheeky grin didn’t slip. ’What are you doing here?′
‘This is my school. I study here.’ I maintained a dignified poise and flipped my Mathematics Applications book open to my homework bookmark – Chapter 7. The class was up to 22. Whoops.
He gazed at me intently. ′I hoped I might run into you. Your friend was here earlier.′
‘How do you know my friends? Actually, don’t bother, I don’t want to know about spooky god things.’ Not true, but I was in a churlish mood.
‘It’s not spooky. This was the only table not full, so I asked to share it. I glanced at the person’s phone and saw the messages with your name at the top.’
He sounded earnest. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. ‘How is that not spooky?’
‘Anybody could have read them. The phone was just sitting there.’
‘Fine, not spooky. Creepy.’
He cast his hidden gaze down. ‘Yeah, I guess. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise to me. It’s Cecelia’s privacy you’ve invaded.’ I went back to my homework, trying to find a fresh piece of paper.
‘She typed a reply before deleting it. Do you want to know what it said?’
I looked up. He was being serious. ‘She’ll tell me when she’s ready.’
‘You are an admirably patient person. She’s lucky to have you for a friend.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m lucky to have her. She’s under a lot of pressure at the moment, but we’ll be okay.’
‘It’s nice. Your friendship.’
I closed my maths book with a snap. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get any work done.
He grinned, victorious. ‘Shall we get out of here?’
I smiled in spite of my annoyance. Maths could wait. ‘Sure.’
We wandered out of the library and into the mild winter sun. I fell into step beside Keraun as he headed for the car park. Once we were away from people, he took off his sunglasses. It was nice to feel the sun on my face; as much as I hated the relentless heat of summer, I still enjoyed the warmth. Spring was my favourite season. It suddenly occurred to me that the weather today may not have been an accident. I eyed Keraun suspiciously. He met my gaze and arched an eyebrow. ‘What?’
I looked away, feeling silly. ‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
‘What, you can’t just pluck it straight out of my head? Some god you are.’
He chuckled. ‘I’m the god of weather. I’m not an all-seeing, all-hearing, omnipresent being.’
‘I thought it was god of lightning.’
‘Lightning sounds cooler, right?’ He gave me a cocky grin. ’Technically, god of weather. But I’m pretty new to the team, and most of it was set up before I got here. I tweaked the systems a bit so it pretty much does its own thing. I kept the lightning though, ‘cause that’s the fun part.’
He made some corny shooting motions with his hands, and I half-expected sparks to emanate from his fingers. Before he could request another admission of my foolish thoughts, I asked my own question. ‘These systems, do they create lightning themselves?’
‘Yeah. I just add my own when I feel like it.’
We arrived at his car, today a bulbous, two-door thing that had to be from at least the 1970s.
I smirked. ‘So you’re basically the horse and cart of meteorology. As in, totally obsolete. Like this car.’
