24 Whys & Wherefores
Whys it’s that she cannot.
Any tether with Adele is uneven, one of us clinging to her, a one-sided labor.
Zara isn’t the only one whose magic I’d call messy and unrefined.
Though Adele has considerably more practice throwing around raw magic than Zara does.
“Why don’t you turn yourself into a werewolf, then, if you want power without tethering?” I ask. It’s a bold statement, calling her out like that. Even more so, suggesting she become a creature when she seems to view them as lesser.
“Because that’s not the point,” she says, exasperated. “That’s not what I need to accomplish.”
“What are you trying to do? If you told me, maybe I could get better results in my research.”
For a long second, she stares at me, as if sizing me up.
As usual, she finds me lacking. “Maybe I will when you figure out a way to access the gate that exists inside his mind,” she says.
“I don’t care what it takes, but get moving.
Time is running out. This human body of mine is failing faster than I expected.
” This last part, she mutters to herself.
I’m not sure what she means or if she even knows she said it.
“Access the gate for . . . ?” I push my luck.
“That part is none of your business,” Adele says curtly. “You’re better off not knowing.”
As if she cared about what’s best for me.
I decide to make it my business to find out.
While I know better than to trust anyone at the agency—they all work for Adele when it comes down to it—I’m not entirely without allies.
A few careful questions in the right places and I hear about an unusual shipment arriving in a few days.
Maybe I’m off base, but I decide it’s worth my time in case it pertains to the werewolf project.
With a little patience and careful spying, maybe I’ll discover what Adele is really up to.
I bring Luca a set of clothes the next day, a standard set of navy-blue scrubs from the general lab supply. And a plain white pair of socks.
I turn my back while he changes, and ask, “What happened to your shoes?”
“Dunno, must have lost them somewhere along the way when they picked me up. I think they slipped me something. I don’t remember much, only that I stopped for a beer after work and next thing I know, I’m waking up here.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an astronaut.”
“Really? Have you actually been to space?”
Luca gives me a strange look. “Just joking. I’m a mechanic.”
“Like cars?”
“Yep, and motorcycles,” he says, hesitating slightly before asking, “Have you ever driven in a car before?”
“Yes. I can drive. Took a virtual driver’s ed course and everything,” I say smugly. I don’t say that while I have all the rules for driving memorized, I’ve never driven on a paved road with other cars, just around the nearby desert on dirt trails behind tall fences.
Then I spend much longer than I need to down in the dungeon with him, trading facts and conversation.
“I’m collecting background. History of the subject is important for experimental procedure,” I try to justify aloud.
“I’m a person, not a subject,” Luca says coldly.
“I didn’t mean that. I just mean, I have to justify my time. Adele will ask for an update soon. If I don’t meet her expectations, you might have my company down here a lot more often.” I gesture toward the cell next to his.
The tightness in Luca’s face loosens by an increment. “And here I thought I had crappy parents.”
He tells me about his life, neatly covering tragedy in a matter-of-fact tone.
He’s an only child. His father died from an overdose when Luca was five, and his mother was an alcoholic who was sloppy about covering the bruises she gave Luca.
After a teacher noticed, he bounced from foster home to foster home, seminomadic.
He ran away from his last foster home when he was sixteen, couch surfing until a friend’s uncle took pity on him and gave him a job in a garage.
Luca thinks he would have liked to be an engineer if he’d had the opportunity and money for a degree.
A dark pit of shame spreads through my stomach as he speaks. I’ve never wanted for physical comforts, and I’m four years older than he was when he struck out on his own, and I’m still here. I have enough cash squirreled away from my runaway attempts to pay for at least a year or two of college.
“What’s your name?” Luca asks me in the silence that follows his story. “The one you actually like to be called, not Kingsley.”
“Reggie,” I say.
He nods. “It suits you.”
“Give me your old clothes,” I say before I leave.
Luca hesitates.
“I’ll take care of them. I figured I’d wash them for you,” I explain.
He hands them over, then. They smell like him. Like fresh air and freedom.
“Ask your mom to let me out,” he pleads. “I won’t tell anyone about this place. Let me go.”
“I can tell you right now what her answer would be.”
“Please? Try?”
I promise nothing. I tell myself that it’s because I know what the answer will be, that Adele would stop my visits to the dungeon.
I pretend it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve already started to wish impossible wishes.
For Luca to want to stay here, with me. For him to escape and want to take me with him when he goes.
Later, in the privacy of my room, I bury my face in Luca’s shirt before I hide it in a wash load of my own clothing. The feeling of loss for something that isn’t mine to lose fills me as I throw the laundry detergent in the washing machine and start the cleaning cycle.