Chapter 30 James
James
Chapter 30
“So, what have we learned?” says Kenji, tugging a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket. He flips them open with one hand, balancing a to-go mug in the other.
“Nothing,” says Winston, looking more irritable than usual, dragging his feet down the sidewalk. “We’ve learned nothing.”
“That’s not true,” says Kenji, pausing to nod good morning to someone he knows, then promising to stop by a bakery later. He glances at Winston as we walk. “We’ve learned that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet new people on your own.”
“We already knew that,” I point out. “We’ve known that for years. Why did you let him go out last night?”
“ Let him go out?” Kenji whips off his sunglasses, immediately regrets it, then shoves them back on. “The man is a hundred and fifty years old—”
“Forty-one,” Winston says miserably. “I’m forty-one.”
“Like I said, he’s a thousand years old, nose practically crumbling off his face, and it’s my job to keep him from going out at night?”
“I don’t like people,” says Winston. “I know this about myself. It’s just that I forget I don’t like people until I actually meet people, and then I remember why I never meet people. It’s because I don’t like them.” He rubs at his eyes from underneath his glasses, the action setting them off-kilter on his face.
“God,” he says, groaning. “I’m too old for this. Brendan told me to my face I was too old for this.”
“He did not say that.”
“He implied it.”
“He wanted to see the world!” Kenji says, forcing enthusiasm. “He didn’t want to settle down—he wanted to do young-people shit, find his inner star, swim in the radiation-infested waters of life—”
“I’m going to die alone,” says Winston.
Kenji claps him on the back. “C’mon, man. Grandpa Winston has at least five good years left in him before the arthritis takes him out.”
“Fuck you.”
I smile into my own travel mug. It’s a perfect winter day and we’re heading to our favorite breakfast spot, so all things considered, I’m pretty happy. Here, a few miles inland from the ocean, the sun doesn’t disappear in the winter. It just cools off. I take a breath and savor it. I love the soft light, the crisp breeze. We used to live in a part of the continent where winter meant months and months of oppressively gray skies and dirty snow, and I hated it. I was made to live near water. Mountains. Open land. When I was kid, I used to pretend to be a kite. I’d jump off chairs and tables and eventually dumpsters and squat buildings, hoping to catch the wind.
It usually ended with a scream.
Anyway, I already know I won’t be getting outside as much these next few weeks, so I’m trying to appreciate the time I’ve got with the sky.
We move down the sidewalk, nodding to familiar faces as we pass, Winston and Kenji exchanging barbs. Our neighborhood is located directly above the underground HQ, so, with the exception of the rehab facility—which is a couple miles out—our daily commutes are easy. The elevator in my living room goes straight down, twenty floors. I love it. I love that our headquarters are sleek, state-of-the art facilities but our houses are old. We live in pre-Reestablishment-era residential builds with patched roofs and groaning floorboards. We have spotty yards. Rusting mailboxes. Occasionally, termites. We’ve been renovating slowly over the years, but what matters most is that we all live right next to each other. The first homes we lived in post-revolution were small, refurbished houses, and we liked the style so much we kept the tradition alive even after we moved.
We had no choice but to move.
Things had gotten bad. We were living off the kindness of Castle’s daughter, Nouria, who’d built a sanctuary for her own minor resistance group. She and her wife, Sam, allowed us to shelter there for a while, but our presence was causing them problems, exposing them to danger—and after the fifth terrifying attempt on Juliette’s life, Warner was done. He decided it was time to finally fulfill one of his wife’s biggest dreams: to design a dedicated, fortified mini city purpose-built for our needs; a place where we’d be able to live with the pretense of freedom. After a rough winter, we decided collectively to plant our flag in a more temperate area.
It started out as a single street, then two, and now our humble neighborhood has since expanded into a sprawling campus that includes hospitals and parks and small businesses. The residential zone exists on a more heavily fortified plane of security and access, but everyone who steps foot in this city-within-a-city has to go through a screening process. From the janitors to the baristas to the scientists and engineers. No one comes here unless they work here, and no one lives here but us.
It’s informally called The Waffle.
We call it The Waffle because that’s what Roman called it the first time he saw the grid map. He then asked for waffles with extra syrup and said, Uncle James, I have a booger.
“Look,” Kenji is saying to Winston. “It could be worse, right? Take James, for example.”
“What?” My head snaps up in alarm. “What about me?”
Winston looks over at me, cataracts of gloom clearing from his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Okay.”
“Right?” Kenji is nodding, too. “Young, handsome, well-connected. Girls literally throw themselves at him—”
“That happened once,” I protest.
“At least ten times,” Winston says with disgust.
“ Literally throw themselves at him, camp out in the streets waiting for him to walk by—”
“Wait, how is that my fault? People think I’m Warner. That’s why I don’t like leaving The Waffle—”
“—and look at him. Just look at him.”
Winston does as he’s told, and looks at me.
“This ungrateful son of a bitch has been single for years,” Kenji is saying. “At least we’ve been in relationships, right? At least we know how to love.”
“Hey, I know how to love—”
“Yeah,” Winston says again, this time with more conviction. His shoulders straighten. He considers the horizon. “Yeah, okay, that’s true. What else?”
We’ve come to a stop, hovering on the sidewalk just steps from The Waffle’s Waffles . I can already smell the syrup. Powdered sugar. Over-brewed coffee.
“Can we go inside?” I ask, looking around. “I’m hungry, and this conversation isn’t even supposed to be about me—”
Kenji counts off on his fingers. “He still lives at home; he still has night terrors; he still sucks at his job—”
“I don’t suck at my job,” I protest.
“Are you joking?” Winston says, his mood visibly improved. “Your track record is shit lately.”
“The audacity,” says Kenji.
“The stupidity—”
“The girl literally murdered a man on your watch.”
“He’s still alive!” I counter. “I healed him almost immediately! We sanitized the dining hall. No permanent damage was done.”
“Whatever,” says Kenji, peering into his empty coffee cup. “You’re lucky you have healing powers, or else that could’ve gotten really messy, really fast.” He hesitates, then pulls off his sunglasses, black eyes narrowing. “Hey, why aren’t you with the mercenary right now? Aren’t you supposed to be there every day?”
“Yeah.” I nod, ignoring the way my chest reacts to the idea of seeing Rosabelle again. “Yeah, but she’s being disciplined. She has to spend a few hours alone in the Emotional Garden this morning. I’m supposed to meet up with her in an hour.”
“What the hell is an emotional— Oh, shit —”
Kenji goes invisible, reappearing a second later in the entryway of The Waffle’s Waffles, flickering in and out of sight. “Shit, shit, shit—”
“ What? ” Winston and I say at the same time.
We crowd him in the entry, on high alert. “What’s going on?” I say. “Did you see something?”
“Okay, I might be out of my mind,” he says, pulling back his invisibility, “but I could’ve sworn I just saw Nazeera walking down the street.”
Winston and I exchange a loaded glance, and a beat later Kenji slaps us both, hard, upside the head.
“Ow,” we shout at the same time.
“What the hell?” Kenji cries angrily.
The owner of the restaurant, a bearded redhead named Kip, is staring at us through the glass door. He frowns at me, like, what’s going on? and I flash him what I’m hoping is a reassuring smile.
“You knew she was here?” Kenji is saying. “You knew Nazeera was coming here, and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“She flies out like every three months,” says Winston, rubbing the back of his head. “You already knew that.”
“Plus, you told us never to discuss her with you,” I add. “You said you didn’t want any details on Nazeera, ever—”
“You’re not supposed to listen to me when I say shit like that,” he hisses, peeking out from behind the doorway.
I know the moment he sees her again, because he stiffens and retreats, collapsing against the wall.
“Oh my God,” he says, appearing and disappearing, his invisibility glitching. “I think I’m dying. Did she get more beautiful? How did she get more beautiful?”
“I think we should take him inside,” says Winston, shooting me a look. “Grab his arm.”
“Is she with a hot Arab dude?” Kenji says, jerking out of reach. He peeks into the street again, then falls back, his eyes squeezing shut. “Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I can’t compete with those dudes. Those dudes are just built different. Oh God, I can’t feel my legs.”
A bell jingles overhead and we look up.
“Hey,” says Kip, pushing open the front door in his apron. “You kids okay? What’s going on?” He jerks a thumb behind him. “People are getting worried.”
“Sorry, Kip,” Winston says. “Everything’s fine.”
“Then what’s with him?” he says, nodding at Kenji, who’s stopped glitching only to begin sliding down the wall.
“Nazeera is here,” I say.
Kip’s face falls. He looks from me to Winston to Kenji and back again. “He didn’t know? She comes through like every three months.”
“I forgot,” Kenji says, groaning into his hands.
“That’s okay,” says Kip, regrouping. “You’ll be okay. She’ll be gone in about a week, right?”
Winston grimaces.
“Two weeks?” says Kip.
“She’s staying for the birth,” I explain, glancing warily at Kenji. “She wants to be here for Juliette.”
“No return flight planned,” Winston adds.
Kenji makes a pitiful, keening sound.
“Aw, kid,” Kip says softly, his eyes pulling together. “We’ve all been there. We’ll get through this.” He throws an arm over Kenji’s shoulder, patting him on the back as he leads him into the diner. They walk inside to a clamor of concern and questions, but Kip waves the people down.
“Nazeera is here,” he explains. “For the birth.”
The crowd inhales collectively, then dissolves into therapeutic, universal sounds of comfort.
“Someone get my boy some waffles,” says Kip, pushing Kenji into the crowd. “And ice cream.”
“And chocolate chips?” says Kenji, looking up.
“And chocolate chips,” says Kip.
“What about me?” asks Winston, following them inside. “I’m also depressed. I also like chocolate chips—”
I’m quietly laughing, about to cross the threshold into a cloud of warm sugar, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I turn around.
It’s Ian.
Ian Sanchez, lead psychotherapist at the rehab facility and old friend of the family. He looks pissed.
“Shit,” I say, alarmed. “Shit, what’d she do now?”