CHAPTER 10

“HI, INFINITY!” HER SMILE IS bright and genuine as she greets me with my code name. She really was in on it. My insides twist up on themselves, and I swallow a deep breath to try to keep everything where it belongs. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

No, just one. “How could you do this to me?”

Her face falls at the sharpness in my tone, but she recovers quickly. “Infinity, ever since you were a baby, it’s been us. Me and you against the world. You are my whole world. When you were born, it became my responsibility as your mother to keep you safe, healthy, happy. But you’re almost an adult now. You’re becoming such an incredible young woman, and you have the potential to be more, do more, have more than I could ever give you…”

“Shouldn’t I have had the right to decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life?” I challenge.

“Em—” She catches herself about to use my real name, clears her throat, and starts again. “Infinity, if you make it through The Program, the opportunities for you are limitless. You can be anything you want to be.” Her voice is so sure, so solid. She must genuinely believe what she’s saying.

“No, Mom,” I place heavy emphasis on mom to drive home my next point, “they own me now. You just sold me into slavery to the government. I’m theirs for life. I can’t ever leave.”

The light in her eyes dims, and her loving smile falters just a bit. She takes a deep breath, then says, “I don’t want to fight with you. I prayed long and hard about this before making the decision that I did. I’m sure, in time, you’ll come to understand and maybe even appreciate this opportunity for what it is. But right now, I want to know about you. Are they feeding you? Are you getting enough sleep? You look tired.”

My emotions swell, and I have to force myself to tamp them down, to disconnect from my feelings or risk throwing the tablet across the room and not wasting another second on this call. To make it all the way through, I focus on my breathing instead of my mother’s face. For the most part, she does the talking. I give one-word answers to questions when I have to, but I don’t add anything to the conversation.

Her voice becomes ambient noise, a quiet soundtrack to my attempt at keeping my composure. I hear her words, but I’m numb to it, like it’s meant for someone I don’t even know. And from someone I don’t even know. In a way, it is. Even after barely a day here, I’m already changed irrevocably. My life as I knew it has splintered. The me who existed before The Program abducted me is the me whose mother would never have done this to her.

Eventually, our time is up. Old me’s mother closes with a soft and warm, “I love you, and I’m praying for you,” and the screen goes dark.

By the time the call ends, I’m more conflicted than I was when it began. She didn’t offer one valuable reason why she committed me to this program, why she let them kidnap me and hold me hostage and threaten to ruin any chances I might have had at a successful career, no… a successful life. Did they pay her? Did she sell me out? Or did she honestly think this was the best thing for me? She said she’d prayed about this, but how could sending me away to The Program possibly have been God’s answer to that prayer? There’s no evidence of God at work here. I find it really hard to believe He has His hand in any of this.

I don’t know how long I sit there, staring at the closed bedroom door. It could be minutes; it could be hours. I consider going downstairs and grabbing something for dinner, but my stomach is in knots and anything I eat will just sit like a stone in the turmoil. My stomach is just as incapable of digesting as my brain is right now. Eventually, I float through a shower and get into bed, but I still can’t process the fact that my mom participated in this madness. Until I talked to her, I almost convinced myself they were making it up. I believed she couldn’t possible have done this to me.

But she did.

Sim gives a soft knock, and when I don’t answer, comes into the room quietly, almost on tiptoes. Like she’s trying not to spook me. She rifles through her drawers for spare clothes, then disappears into the bathroom for a shower.

I’m still in the exact same place when she comes out several minutes later, turns off the lamp on the desk between our beds, and climbs under her covers. “My mother knows. She knows they kidnapped me and doesn’t care,” I whisper into the darkness.

“Mine, too,” Sim whispers back.

Soon, the soft sounds of Sim’s even breathing fill the room as proof that she’s fallen asleep. Even though my muscles are tight with the day’s exertion and my body is sorely in need of rest, my brain won’t quit. I stare into the darkness for many long minutes before giving up and rising from the bed. I pad out of the room and downstairs on bare feet. I’ve yet to go into the game room, and this seems as good a time as any. Maybe some activity in there will help me work out enough of my agitation to get at least a few hours of sleep tonight. The lights in the house are dim, but not off, and I wonder briefly if the instructors have some sort of control room where they can sit and watch us on the cameras and even control the lighting. But I shake the thought away. They obviously do. Why else have cameras everywhere if they don’t use them to watch us?

I don’t expect the game room to be empty when I get there, but I also don’t expect Maverick to be the only person there. But here he is at the pool table, alone. My gaze is drawn to him like he’s the only thing that exists in the room. The balls are racked but not broken, and he’s standing over the cue ball like he’s contemplating the best angle.

When he sees me, he straightens, sets the heavy end of his cue on the floor, and crosses one ankle over the other. He studies me, and I let him, standing still under his scrutiny. What does he see? Does he see a girl so lost she doesn’t know which way is up anymore? Am I a mess of rumpled black clothing and wild hair I never bothered brushing after my shower? Are my eyes as swollen and bloodshot as they feel?

I must pass inspection, because he indicates the table with his cue and says, “Wanna play?”

“Sure.” I’m not very good at pool, have only played a handful of times at the arcade with friends, but I’m hoping it will be a welcome distraction.

Maverick hands me his cue and grabs another off the wall behind him. “You wanna break?”

I shake my head. I can’t break to save my life. It’s entirely possible I could miss completely, or worse, the cue ball could go flying off the table. It’s better if he does it.

He takes the shot and the balls scatter. One drops into a corner pocket, and he goes to check it out before announcing, “Stripes.”

I’m supposed to aim for solids now, I guess. And that’s about the extent of my knowledge of playing pool. But I don’t tell him that. Instead, I study him as he lines up his next shot. The muscles in his forearm flex as he slides the cue through his fingers to hit the ball. He plays pool the same way he does everything else, with movements that are fluid and purposeful. He’s in complete control. Here, in a place where we have so little control over anything, he carries himself with an air of authority.

Another ball sinks into a hole, and he circles the table for his next shot. He brushes by me on his way around, and my skin tingles where his arm grazes mine. How can one small, accidental touch leave my skin sensitized and electrified? He bites his bottom lip in concentration when he leans over the table again, and I catch myself raising a hand to my own lips. Something about Maverick has me utterly enthralled. There’s no easy banter like with Ghost, no fun interplay. But maybe that’s part of the allure. He’s more mysterious, more dangerous.

He misses, and it’s my turn. “So, were you having trouble sleeping, too?” I ask as I bend over the table and squint one eye for a better line up. His only response is a grunt that sounds a little like a yes.

“I couldn’t sleep after I talked to my mom.” Why am I telling him this? I hit the cue ball, and it misses the ball I was aiming for entirely, bouncing off first one side wall, then the other.

“Why not?” he asks from behind me. His voice is made of gravel, and the rough timbre sends a shiver down my spine as sure as if he’d touched the back of my neck. I move across the table from him when he goes to shoot again. The closer I am to him, the more I react to him, and he seems completely unaffected by me. I do not want him realizing I’m attracted to him if he’s not into me.

“I’m just really upset with her for doing this to me.” Just stop talking already. He doesn’t need to know about my family drama. I don’t even know his real name, and here I am talking to him about my feelings.

He looks up at me from where he’s half bent over the table. His eyes are dark, his gaze shadowy. “You might thank her one day, you know.”

And that’s when I remember he actually wants to be here.

“How did you know about all this?” I wave my hands to indicate the general area. “You know… before they brought us here.”

He sinks his shot and moves on to the next. “My brother was a recruit.” Plunk. Another ball lands in another hole, and I’m left reeling. His admission was so matter of fact, so perfectly normal.

I need to know more. I close the yard or so of empty space between us until we’re almost toe to toe. “And he’s the one who told you about The Program?”

Maverick rises to his full height, which is miles above me. I might come up to his chin if I were wearing shoes, but barefoot as I am, I’m at eye level with the small divot beneath his Adam’s apple. I watch the muscles in his throat work as he swallows hard. Then, he whispers, “He’s dead.”

His words are a punch to the gut. I wandered in here all, “Pity Party, table for one,” and never stopped to consider I’m not the only one with baggage. And Maverick’s baggage is some heavy stuff. I’m trucking around with a tiny carry-on, and here he is lugging a trunk the size of a dead brother.

Part of me wants to tuck my tail and run from the room. Still, another part of me wants to know more, as much as Maverick will tell me. But I can’t ask him. I’m not that insensitive. I back away slowly, putting several feet between us one step at a time until I’m close enough to the wall to lean against it. Maverick stays where he is for several long seconds after, then moves back to the game. He leans over the table with his back to me.

I try not to pay attention to the way his shirt pulls tight over the lean muscles of his back, or the way his bicep flexes as he pulls the cue back to shoot. The conversation is too heavy for me to be checking him out like this. So, I avert my gaze, looking anywhere and everywhere except at him until he’s finished with his shot and standing safely next to the table.

“He almost made it,” Maverick says as I push off the wall to take my turn. “He got all the way to the last round before… washing out.” His voice drops on the last words so they’re barely audible.

I have a hundred questions, a million maybe. But they all lead back to the most important one: how did he die? The one question I can’t ask. So I don’t say anything except, “I’m sorry.”

His only response is a sad smile.

Then he circles the table, circles me. To take his next shot, he has to lean over the table, dangerously close to me, and my heart flutters a little. I almost move, give him his space, but some masochistic part of me can’t bear to lose this horde-of-butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling that roils to life every time he steps within arm’s length. And right now, he’s only about half that far. Close enough for me to catch a whiff of shampoo and laundry detergent. It’s almost comforting to be this near to someone. Someone who is at least somewhat safe, that is. Someone in the same situation I’m in. I don’t feel quite so much like an island in this moment.

“Do you play a lot?” I indicate the table with the end of my cue after he makes his shot. Maybe I can take the conversation in a lighter direction.

“Some. There’s not a lot to do back home except go to the pool hall.” His answer is casual, but there’s something missing from it, like he’s disconnected from his own words.

“Small town?” I ask, partly because I want to know and partly because I want to check his answer, see if his tone still doesn’t match his story.

“One-stoplight, one-screen-theater, small. The kind of town you either outgrow before you’re grown or get stuck in your whole life.” This time, there’s a bitter quality to his answer that belies the truth in it.

“I can’t imagine.” Because I come from a city that’s 30% suburban sprawl and 70% miniature NYC. Urban decay, gentrification, arts districts, and microcosms of world cultures all married in one location. My bustling, never-sleeping, ever-expanding world is likely the antithesis to his sleepy, suck-you-in-until-you-die small town. But I don’t tell him that. Instead, I say, “I’m from the city.”

He nods as if he already knew. And maybe he did. Maybe my city upbringing is obvious; maybe it radiates off me the way he exudes grace and power. Do I walk like a city girl the same way he moves like an agile athlete?

I’m almost as disappointed as I am relieved. If other recruits think I’m nothing more than a city girl, they will underestimate me. But I don’t want Maverick to underestimate me. I want him to like me, to find me intriguing the way I do him. I sway closer to him without meaning to, and if he notices, he doesn’t back away.

Loud voices carry in from the hall outside the room a half-second before Hazard and Havoc burst in. They stop in their tracks when they see us, and after assessing the scene for all of two seconds, they erupt into mockery. Hazard raises his hands in front of his face and mimes making out with an invisible person, kissy noises and all. Havoc is only slightly less obnoxious, cooing at us and announcing, “I smell romance.”

“Oh good, you’re here,” I say flatly. Maybe if we don’t react, they’ll just leave.

“Do you two lovebirds want some privacy?” Hazard asks.

Maverick sets his cue in the middle of the half-empty table and steps back. “I’m gonna head to bed,” he says to me as if they aren’t there. As if they aren’t the reason he’s leaving. Without waiting for an answer, he spins on his heel and cruises past them and out of the room.

“Trouble in paradise?” Havoc asks me at the same time Hazard draws out a dramatic, “Uh-ohhh!” Then they high five.

I set my own cue down next to Maverick’s and head toward the door. “You two are walking clichés, aren’t you?”

I’m halfway to the stairs when Hazard calls out, “Ooh, sick burn!” And I’m pretty sure they high five again. Maverick is nowhere to be seen as I climb the stairs, and by the time I get to the landing, his bedroom door is shut. I stare at it for a long minute before heading to my own room. Sim is still asleep as I climb into bed, but I’m going to be awake for hours replaying the last twenty minutes in my head.