CHAPTER 14

DINNERTIME IS EERILY QUIET, ESPECIALLY for a house with ten teenagers. I float through the house like a phantom, like I don’t really exist in this space. I drift into the kitchen where Sim is making dinner. This is two nights in a row. “Hey, mom,” I joke, but my voice falls flat.

Sim shrugs. “I cook when I’m stressed. With a family as big as mine, sometimes that’s the only way I can get some me time.”

“Sometimes all I have is me time,” I tell her. I don’t tell her that my mom travels a lot for work these days, or that I’ve wished—in vain—for a brother or sister ever since I knew what a sibling was. I get the impression she’s missing her large family right now, and I don’t want to make it worse. By the time she finishes cooking, several other recruits have joined us in the kitchen, likely lured in by the scents promising a full belly and happy taste buds.

“Aw, it’s my little emo mother hen.” Houdini coos at her as he enters the kitchen and goes for a plate. I can’t say for sure, but I think that might have been his attempt at flirting with her. And if her pink cheeks and shy smile are any indication, she’s digging it.

Just like last night, several of us move to the dining room to eat together, and just like last night, it’s a serious affair. But unlike last night, Maverick isn’t with us. In fact, I haven’t seen him since I arrived home after my walk with Ghost.

“So, how about what happened this morning?” Hazard asks around a mouthful of potato.

“I know. Weird, right?” Havoc answers, then shoves a spoonful of peas into her mouth and chews wide for us all to see. Ew.

Sim sits up straighter in her chair. “Do we know why he did it?”

“Obviously, he couldn’t hack it in The Program.” Hazard spits little bits of mashed potatoes back onto his plate while he speaks. I’m tempted to ask if he and his sister were raised in a barn, but I’m a little scared of what the answer would be.

I want to look away, but I can’t.

Havoc seems to have no issue with her brother’s lack of table manners. “Some people just aren’t made for this sort of thing.”

My stomach clenches with some unnamable emotion, something fierce and angry. “What sort of thing is that?” I ask, already dreading the answer.

“Awesomeness.”

Sim sets her fork down on her plate. “There is nothing awesome about any of us or this program.”

“I’d say we’re pretty awesome.” Hazard puffs his chest up proudly. “How about you, Havoc?”

“We were made for The Program. Unlike Prodigy.”

“Yeah,” Hazard agrees. “He was pretty pathetic doing what he did.”

I’m only halfway through my food, but I’m suddenly not hungry anymore. I push my plate away and stand. “He was not pathetic.” Then I say what I wanted to say to Ghost earlier. “Prodigy was a real person. A real kid—and seemed really sweet. And he had a real family and a real future. He had feelings just like me and—I assume—you. And now he’s gone. Forever. We’re all in this together, and if we don’t start supporting each other, any one of us could end up just like Prodigy.” My hands are clenched into such tight fists my nails bite into my palms, and adrenaline is a furious burn in my chest and up into my face.

“Whoa, chill out. We didn’t mean anything by it.” Hazard tries to defend himself and his sister, but it only makes me angrier.

“I will not chill out. If you want to be a jerk and talk about Prodigy like this, I can’t stop you. But I don’t have to listen to it.”

I don’t have to go through the kitchen to get to the stairs, but the door to the kitchen is a lot closer than the doorway to the front hall, and I need a quick escape. I storm out of the room. And right into Maverick.

I set my hands against the hard lines of his chest to put some space between us and open my mouth to apologize. Before I’ve said a word, I get a look at his expression. It’s pure menace, like he’s barely reining in his anger. Is he angry with me? Did he overhear some of what just happened? I don’t have the guts to ask. Instead, I brush past him and head for the stairs.

I fume all the way up to my room, but it isn’t until I’m sitting on my bed that I realize there’s nothing here to distract me from the maelstrom of emotion churning in my gut. I search the desk and find a sketch pad and a brand new box of pencils in the top drawer of the side closest to me.

Did they leave these supplies for all the kids, or was it left specifically for me because I like to draw? It doesn’t really matter, does it? Regardless of why the supplies are here, I’m going use them. I sit down at the desk to draw my feelings.

This is where Sim finds me two hours later, at the desk, bent over a mostly finished drawing of the scene from Maverick and Prodigy’s room this morning. I feel her walk up behind me, but I don’t stop drawing, don’t turn to face her. I know the exact moment she sees my work because she inhales sharply. Then, without a word, she turns and heads for the bathroom. The water kicks on a minute later.

I hadn’t meant to upset her. Drawing is my outlet, but I never intended for my outlet to be upsetting for anyone. I tuck the sketch into the desk drawer, wipe the graphite smears off my hands onto my pant legs, and try my best to shove the day’s events way down to the depths of my memory, hopefully to a place it will never rise from.

#

Extra time off—or liberty as Wraith had called it—having three days with zero demands on my time sounds great, until I spend two and a half days wondering listlessly through the house looking for something, anything, to do. I’ve watched five movies, played three games of darts with two different recruits, gotten my butt handed to me in some car racing video game, and even let Sim start teaching me chess. I’m not at risk of becoming a grandmaster anytime soon, but I can almost hold my own. I even considered going over to Ghost’s house to see him, but I don’t want to let on that we might be working together. And even if I was considering changing my mind, it’s too late now. The exits lock themselves at dusk, and anyone on the wrong side of the door when it locks gets to spend the night outside and lose points at the next elimination. Most people are in their rooms by this time of night. I should be, too, but my brain is still running hot. I need a distraction to settle my racing thoughts so I’ll be able to sleep.

Eventually, I find myself perusing the books on the shelf in the living room. It’s a wide shelf, taking up almost half the wall and extending from floor to ceiling, and it’s fully stocked with books. New books, old books, fiction and nonfiction alike. There’s a wide assortment to choose from. I settle on a love story with a comforting title and a picture of a lake on the front. Seems like the perfect way to escape for a bit. The chaise in the far corner calls to me, and I answer, curling into the cushioned curves like it was made to fit me specifically.

I’m still reading in that same chair when Maverick ambles into the room some time later. He’s been MIA since I ran into him as I ran out on dinner the other night, to the point that I started to imagine he’d run away from The Program. He doesn’t look my way; maybe he doesn’t realize I’m here. I clear my throat softly to make my presence known.

“Hey,” I greet him when he looks at me.

He nods his greeting, then sits in the center of the sofa facing the cold fireplace.

“You okay?” I know even as I ask the question that he isn’t.

He doesn’t answer, instead just stares into the nonexistent flames.

I try to go back to my book, but the words all blur together. So, I just pretend.

We sit in silence for so long, I jump a little in my seat when he says, “It’s weird sleeping in there now.”

What am I supposed to say to that? It’s not that I don’t want to respond. I just don’t know how. I’ve never been the shoulder-to-cry-on type. But if I’m ever going to give it a shot, this is the time. I close my book and set it down on the cushion next to me. Then I get up and cross the room, slowly, like if I move too quick he might stop me. Or bolt.

When I sit down on the couch next to him, he says, “Did you know he was supposed to graduate high school this year? Four years early. He wanted to be an astrophysicist.”

“Stars are cool.” Okay, so I’m not adding anything useful to the conversation, but at least I’m not acting like Prodigy was a plastic person like Ghost did two days ago.

“He’d never even had a girlfriend.” Maverick’s tone is a mix of awe and dismay.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know why I’m apologizing. It just seems like the right thing to do. I twine my fingers in my lap, hoping to expel all this awkward energy building in the room.

Maverick ignores my errant apology. “I keep wondering if there was some sign I missed. Could I have known how he was feeling, what he was going to do?”

“No!” I tell him emphatically, and he looks up at me in surprise. “You knew the kid what, five days? How could you possibly have known what he was thinking?”

“But I knew the signs.” His voice is so soft I can’t be sure I heard the words clearly.

“Signs?” I ask for confirmation that I heard him right.

He must take my question as something else, because he answers with, “I’ve seen them before. With my brother.”

Maverick’s brother committed suicide. The thought drops in my mind with the weight of a wrecking ball. Demolishing anything else I may have been about to say.

“None of us knows anything about each other, let alone what might be going through one another’s brains. Nothing about this is your fault.”

The silence between us stretches like a tether, tying us to each other and the moment. Finally, he breaks it. “I was ten when my brother was recruited. We didn’t know anything about The Program. There were rumors, sure. But I didn’t think it was real. I don’t think Matt did either.”

“Were you close?”

He shakes his head slightly. “We were seven years apart. Mostly, I just got in the way. But when he came home, he was different. Sad. Lost. Before The Program, he was wild and funny and full of life. Washing out broke him in a way he never recovered from. It was all he thought about, all he talked about, all he wanted. And it was lost to him forever. And then he was lost to us.”

Maverick stares ahead for several long moments, focusing on nothing. I don’t think he’s waiting for me to speak. I’m not even sure he remembers I’m here.

“I was the last person to see my brother alive.”

And then he was the one who found Prodigy. No wonder he’s taking it so hard. Did he see his brother in Prodigy’s lifeless eyes when they cut him down?

“I’m so sorry,” I say and set my hand gently on his where it’s splayed on the cushion between us, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing could possibly be enough right now. All I can do is tell him what I think I would want to hear. “There was no way you could have known what either of them were going to do. Beating yourself up about it isn’t going to change anything, and I don’t think either of them would have wanted you to take personal responsibility for their deaths.”

He takes a deep breath and visibly relaxes on the exhale. My words must have broken through some of the guilt he’s clearly carrying right now. “My brother is in a better place now. I know he believed and where his heart was. But all of this has reopened some old wounds, I guess, and I don’t know if Prodigy even believed in God.” And I hear the words he doesn’t speak: what about Prodigy’s immortal soul?

We hold eye contact for so long that I become self-conscious about how close we are, how little space exists between our two bodies.

While I’m not upset about being this close to him, the proximity feels entirely too intimate for such a somber conversation. I break eye contact and shift away from him, pulling my hand back to clasp with the other in my lap. He clears his throat and stands; the spell is broken.

“Thanks,” he half-whispers. “I guess I’ll try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, me too.” I wait for him to leave the room and the sound of his footsteps to fade overhead before I head up to my room. I’m tired but feel too heavy for sleep. Because tomorrow is a new week here in The Program, and a new opportunity for something horrible to happen.