Disclose, Page 3

  “Excuse me?” the woman asks.

  “You said you were looking for Chris Tapper,” I say. “He doesn’t work here.”

  “You started today and you know everyone in the building?” the male Marshal asks, taking a terrifying step closer.

  “I wish.” I force a laugh that sounds stupid even to me as Rose ducks back into the doorway she came out of. “Everyone was talking about him because he came up with the new logo that debuted today—just before he moved.”

  “Did anyone say where he went to?” the woman asks.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. Just that he got a new job.” Hopefully, my story will help confirm the cover Mrs. Webster created.

  The two exchange another look before the man says, “Well, that’s too bad. We really wanted to talk to him. We appreciate your help.”

  This time when they turn away, I don’t stop them. I don’t move. Not when they step into the stairwell and the door closes behind them. It isn’t until an older woman I recognize as one of the Gloss editors emerges from her office and smiles as she passes that I finally head down the hallway to the door Rose disappeared behind.

  “Holy crap,” Rose says when I close the door behind me. “Mom is meeting with two Marshals and some guy from the City Pride Department right now in her office. I didn’t realize there were others walking around.”

  “Do you know what they’re saying to your mom? Are they going to make her change the logo back?”

  “Not unless they want people to ask why the government insisted the design be changed,” Rose says with a smile. “Dozens of people have called Mom to compliment the new logo since the meeting started. Mom’s secretary has been interrupting with an update on the number of congratulatory messages every few minutes. Some of the messages Mom arranged in advance so she could demonstrate that the design has already made an impression. The rest are unsolicited. Most from high-profile people in the industry.”

  As long as they believe the documentation Mrs. Webster has about the designer and that she has no knowledge of the Stewards, it will be impossible for the government to justify asking her to change the logo back without drawing even more attention to the design—and the change.

  “I’m going to meet Dad tonight and drop how strange it was for government people to meet with Mom after the reveal.”

  Rose and her mother were certain Mr. Webster would use his influence to get the Marshals to back off—if only because family scrutiny would continue to make him look bad after Isaac being taken. If Mrs. Webster’s correct, those things combined should keep her and Rose and the rest of the Gloss staff safe—but for how long, it’s impossible to say.

  I tell her about my meeting for tonight. She assures me again that her mother has everything under control and that I shouldn’t worry. But I can’t help it when I spot another Marshal watching Gloss’s front door from a café table across the street as I walk away.

  My phone chimes. I stop midway up a sidewalk flanked by a line of blue and white flowers. The burgundy brick three-story house it leads to is now my home. Rose’s message is short: Goons gone. Mom’s good. Going to meet Dad.

  I grab the railing and climb the steps up to the porch. A group of baseball fans walk by in their blue-and-white-striped jerseys. I mutter, “Go Cubs.” The excited group gives me a thumbs-up, as I pull out my house key and let myself inside.

  The house I lived in with my parents wasn’t large, but it was filled with cheerful colors—each selected when I was little by my mother and me. Sunny yellows edged in white, brilliant blues, and dusty pinks. The fabrics were worn from use. The floors a bit scarred. I didn’t realize how much I loved that house until it was gone. This place couldn’t be more different.

  The sand-colored tiles where I gratefully shed my shoes are cold despite the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the glass window above the door. The foyer walls are stark white. So are the ones in the adjoining living room with its impersonal brown leather chairs, steel and glass tables, and wrought-iron lamps. It may as well be the lobby of a midrange hotel. The pictures that fill the screens on the living room walls provide the only personality in the room.

  There is a shot of the baseball field from just blocks away. An image of a man wearing a dented gray hat that is only slightly different from the one that I’ve actually seen him sporting playing a guitar in a pop band—as if he would ever do anything that fun. There is also a picture featuring me with my short red-and-white-streaked hair and heavily made-up eyes standing at the edge of Lake Michigan. The sky is impossibly blue. The water shimmers in the background and I am flanked by two smiling people that I have never met. But if asked I am to say those people are my parents and that the man in the hat rocking out on guitar is my uncle.

  A fake photo history for “Uncle” Dewey and I that took almost no time to create.

  Quickly, I walk by the pictures, through the dining room, which is furnished with an unused long black table and six high-backed black leather chairs.

  Faint strains of classical music and the rich scent of coffee greets me as I step into the stainless steel and gray-ceramic-tiled kitchen. A mostly empty pot sits on the warmer. The bowl of sugar and a spoon rest on the linoleum counter. The coffee calls to me, but it’ll have to wait since I’m running late and there are things I have to do before tonight’s meeting.

  The flowing orchestral music grows louder as I head up the stairs to the bedroom I’ve been using. The plush carpet is not quite dark enough to be called beige. The bed has a high oak headboard. The only real color in the room is the ruby-red comforter I found buried in the closet and the electronic map of the city displayed on the wall screen.

  I shed my work clothes, and making sure I check for any tags I might have missed, change into workout gear and slip into my not-quite-broken-in pair of running shoes. Then, shoving my phone in my back pocket, I head for the bedroom door, open it, and yelp.

  “When Lord Byron spoke of children that only scream in a quiet voice, he was not speaking of you.” Dewey shifts the battered brown hat on his head and sighs. Unlike mine, Dewey’s clothes aren’t new. His brown pants are faded and the plaid green-and-yellow button-down shirt is worn at the elbows. As a Steward, Dewey rarely left the underground Lyceum and its hundreds of thousands of books. But according to Dewey, just because he spent thirty years of his life underground didn’t mean he believed he would always be safe there. Which is why he bought this place years ago and had Atlas’s father maintain it.

  It has been weeks since I returned to the building the Stewards used as an exit station—a location we could use as a safe house that would also covertly allow us to reach our underground headquarters—the Lyceum. I will never forget how my father reacted when I came through the entrance after making the decision to continue to fight for the truth. His hands were shaking, but his eyes were mostly clear when he gave me an ultimatum: “If you make the choice to stay, you’re on your own.”

  I still can’t decide what hurt worse—those words or watching him walk out the door the next morning knowing that the dad I’d counted on most of my life had left long before that moment. My mother’s death and the drinking that he used to cope had changed him. Still, realizing he didn’t love me enough to stop drinking—or to stay and help me when I needed him the most—made me feel as if I were being pulled underwater.

  The whispered click the door made as it shut behind my father on that day almost sent me to my knees. Then Dewey said, “It goes on.”

  His matter-of-fact tone cut through the emptiness and had me turning to look at him. He was holding his hat in his hands, giving me an unshadowed view of the greenish-yellow outline of a fading bruise on his cheek. The last signs of the injuries he had received at the hands of the Marshals because of the plan I insisted would work.

  “What goes on?” I asked him—wishing my father would come back through the door and say he made a mistake.

  “Life,” he said simply. “No matter how dark the moment or deep
the pain, life continues. The bravest are those who are willing to face the new day uncertain of what will come with the dawn.”

  “Who said that?”

  He placed his hat on his head and adjusted it before saying, “I did. And while you face the uncertain dawn, you will stay with me.”

  “Where?” I asked, looking around the now-abandoned Steward exit station we had been using. “We didn’t go along with the lockdown. Do you think we should still stay here?” The exit station had been a refuge, but after everything that happened it no longer felt safe.

  “I don’t think making camp in a Steward station is a good idea.” Dewey shook his head. “I doubt Scarlet would react well if she found us here.”

  I doubted the current head of the Stewards would be happy to run into us anywhere. Not after we convinced dozens of her members to defy the lockdown she’d ordered. It was her anger with us that revealed how she betrayed Atlas’s father to the Marshals simply because they disagreed on the future of the Stewards. Scarlet was willing to sacrifice anyone—even friends who trusted her—when she believed she was right. Since I was most definitely not her friend, I could only imagine what she would do if we ever met again.

  “Not to fret. I took the advice of Miguel de Cervantes to heart.” Dewey smiled at me. “‘Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.’ Which is why I arranged to have a station of my own.”

  I shake off the memory and frown at Dewey, who now is standing in my bedroom doorway waiting for me to recover from my surprise. “Mrs. Webster decided to launch the new Gloss campaign today.”

  “I know,” he says, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Between the two news channels and a variety of websites, I’ve seen the Gloss advertisement over a dozen times. Mrs. Webster already contacted me through my alternate email. Our cover is holding.”

  “A Marshal was watching the building when I left.”

  “There is no turning back for Mrs. Webster or her company now.”

  Which means there is no turning back for me. “Stef contacted me just after the new ad launched,” I say, thinking of the girl Atlas and I helped save from the Marshals weeks ago.

  “And?”

  “And Stef’s friends have finally agreed to meet—tonight at eight.”

  I wait for Dewey to smile or nod or say something positive about finally getting Stef and her friends to consider helping us. Instead he glances at his watch, then holds out the paper in his hand and says, “You don’t have much time.”

  I grab the paper, unfold it, and study a map of a small section of the city, the route I should take and the stops I need to make along the way.

  “Our package will be ready when you arrive at the first stop,” Dewey says. “Don’t forget . . .”

  “I know where to go and what to say,” I snap, even though I am grateful for the carefully drawn directions.

  Dewey merely lifts an eyebrow and calmly says, “I will have food waiting for when you return.” For some reason, that only stokes my annoyance.

  Grabbing my backpack, I brush past Dewey and head downstairs and out the door. On the porch, I double-check to make sure I have the money and ID cards, then swing the bag onto my shoulders and start running.

  A bunch of girls I went to school with used to gush about their love of running. How each day they did it made them love it even more. I don’t know who they were trying to impress or if they were just insane, but after running every day for several weeks I can honestly say I despise it more now than ever. When my dad left the city, I ran hoping I could out-distance the crushing ache. After ten minutes, each breath of air was like shards of glass scratching at my throat. But I refused to stop. I knew I would need to be faster and stronger now that everything had been taken.

  My family.

  My home.

  Even my name.

  I won’t let them take anything else.

  Rubber slaps against sidewalk. My breaths come high and fast. After three blocks my calves ache. Not stretching before starting out was a mistake. Just one more thing to add fuel to the frustration churning inside me.

  The memory of the Marshals appearing outside Gloss—the looming threat of what they could do to Mrs. Webster and Rose—makes me run faster. Past the corner market. The hair salon. A gelato place with a sculpture of David eating ice cream standing proudly next to the front door. Not a scrap of gum on the walkway or a scratch on any of the signs that I pass. Everything looks perfect. Everyone I pass doesn’t understand the price being paid for the illusion.

  Finally, I reach a narrow doorway. A bright blue sign with white scripted lettering reads Screen It. A bell jingles when I push the door open. I step into the air-conditioned space filled with screens of every shape and size—from small handhelds to one that takes up most of the store’s back wall.

  “Can I help you?” the tan, dark-haired man behind the counter asks.

  I glance around the store. There is a customer absorbed in the task of selecting a cable. Other than him, the place is empty.

  Keeping my voice low, I ask, “Can you verify if you have an item on hold for a friend of mine?”

  The man behind the counter sits up straight. “I’m always glad to verify information.” He reaches under the counter and comes up with a white plastic case. “Everything is in here. Tell our friend I had to make it a bit bigger than what he asked for, but it was necessary to handle both functions.” He drops the case in the palm of my hand and says, “Tell him I can guarantee at least a hundred hours of battery life. It should go a little longer than that, but—” The man sighs. “Just make sure he doesn’t try to push it much further.”

  A hundred hours. Just over four days.

  I shove the case in my backpack and ask, “May I use the bathroom?” as the customer approaches the counter.

  The man behind the counter smiles. “In the back to the right.”

  I nod and leave him to deal with the guy and his cables, head to the back hallway, and instead of going through the left door marked Restroom, I follow the clerk’s directions, which are a match for Dewey’s, and open the Employees Only door on the right.

  Despite the Stewards going into lockdown, underground in the Lyceum, this switching station is still open for business. This clerk was willing to help with our package and is allowing me to use the back exit in defiance of Scarlet setting the rails to red. Unlike a lot of Stewards Dewey has reached out to, this one is still committed to the cause. With any luck, Atlas will return with news that he has found more. Their help, combined with the reach of Gloss and the device I carry with me, will finally allow us to uncover what happens to the people the government has disappeared. We’re going to learn what we don’t know and share that information in a way that will make everyone in this country see facts they won’t be able to deny.

  I jog down the alley. When I reach the end, I turn south past a line of brown and white brick apartments and red-and-white-checkered sidewalk tables filled with people. The tangy scent of oregano and garlic wafts from their plates. Mitch Michaels, a movie-star-handsome news anchor I’ve grown up watching, smiles from the public screen halfway down the block. He’s replaced by a commercial for TRAVEL USA and its upbeat, sea-to-shining-sea celebratory music. I tune out the sales pitch of majestic images of the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, and the Mississippi River and keep running. It’s only when I reach the next block and the screen changes to the bright colors of the new Gloss logo that I come to a stop. I take the moment to watch it without the threat of the Marshals or the chatter of everyone from Gloss.

  Thrill and anxiety bubble inside like one of Mr. Reid’s chemistry class experiments. No matter how carefully I measured the light blue crystals or the sugar-like white powder or the acrid-smelling clear liquid, the combination was never quite right. Everyone else’s experiments turned pale pink or opaque. My vials gurgled and overflowed onto the blue-orange Bunsen burner flames.

  The new Gloss logo flashes once again on the screen and then chan
ges to sports news.

  If this experiment goes wrong, more than a few chemicals will be spilled. I—

  Something shuffles on the sidewalk behind me. I wait for the sound of footsteps to tell me the person has moved on. Someone shouts in the distance. Cars whoosh along the street. And whoever is behind me is still there—waiting.

  I ease one strap of the backpack off my shoulder.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  My heart leaps at the familiar voice even as I get a tight grip on my bag. “That’s what you think.” With that I pivot, swinging the bag as hard as I can at Atlas’s face.

  Atlas lunges to the side and has the nerve to grin when the bag barely glances off his shoulder. Before I can recover my balance, he grabs the free strap and pulls. I pitch forward. The bag hits the ground, but Atlas’s arm wraps around my waist before I can land next to it.

  “Your weight wasn’t balanced over the balls of your feet,” he says into my ear. My back is pressed against him. His arm still holding me tight. “A Marshal wouldn’t have stopped your fall.”

  “A Marshal wouldn’t have expected me to swing my bag. You taught me that trick.” I lean my head back against Atlas’s warm chest. The arm around me relaxes and I smile. “You also taught me this.” I stomp down on Atlas’s foot, then jam my elbow into his stomach. He lets out a satisfying yelp with the first and a grunt with the second.

  “Good to know you haven’t forgotten while I’ve been gone.” Atlas rubs at his side, then grins. The sharp lines of his features soften. The contours of his deep brown face catch the light differently, creating something too compelling to be called something as ordinary as handsome.

  He’s here. Safe.

  I take a step toward him.

  “Are you going to hit me again?”

  Before he finishes his question, I lock my arms around his neck and pull his head down to meet mine. His lips are warm and strong. He pulls me closer and I lose myself in the liquid heat spiraling through me, thankful for this moment filled with excitement, sparks of color and light, and the tugging need for what could come next.