Anathema (14 page)

Alexander manhandles the whimpering Russell across the hall, hauling him to the fire escape I’d been searching for. He kicks open the door and hurls him through. Then he slams it behind him.

 
I watch in a haze, my eyes fixed on the door. I half-expect Russell to spring back through. I stay rooted in place for so long that my legs grow numb beneath me. It takes me a while to become aware of Alexander’s gaze resting on me.

“Are you all right?” he asks me.

I swallow. Swallow again. “I need a minute.”

He folds his arms, leaning back against the wall, just watching me. Waiting. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. I hope it’s not for me to act, to move. I can’t. My muscles are locked.

My body is hot and cold all over, my palms tingling. My brain begins to fill with a big, static blur of noise. The thunder of my heartbeat is mounting in my ears. I can’t focus. I can’t move.

“Kathryn?”

“Just a minute,” I say hazily.

I sit down in the middle of the hallway. There’s something comforting about the cool, solid plaster beneath me. Beneath my thighs, my palms. My face is starting to throb, my skin hot where Russell punched me. My fingers probe my skin.

Alexander’s boots stride up in front of me. He offers a hand. I draw my eyes up the long expanse of him and stare at his palm, but don’t touch it. I still remember him that day in class. Trapping me in my chair, cold menace in his blue eyes. Warning me off. I would have been afraid an hour ago to find myself alone with him in an empty service corridor.

Right now I can’t even think.

He sighs. “Come on.” Then he reaches down and pulls me to my feet. His long, cool fingers grip mine, his other hand at the small of my back. “You’re in shock. It’s normal.”

I gape at him. Normal? Is there a normal anymore? Two months ago Russell was Amanda’s jerk boyfriend. Just another face in my group of friends. Today he tried to… to…

That really happened. It really just happened.

“Where’s your phone?” Alexander says, leading me down the hall.

“My phone?”

“I’ll call someone. Your parents.”
“No,
don’t
!” I cry, my first coherent thought breaking through the fog. If Mom and Dad find out I was attacked in school, they’ll never let me leave the house again. Then they’ll become anathemas—for killing Russell.

“What about your friends? That girl you’re always with. Amanda.”

For a moment, I look at Alexander, a strange feeling settling over me as I realize he classifies
Amanda Sykes,
Empress of the School, as the girl always with me—not the other way around. Then I digest his words, and shake my head vehemently. “No. Don’t call her.” I can’t face Amanda right now. If it was anyone but Russell… But it’s not. “Don’t. Just… just leave it alone.”

“Kathryn,” Alexander says quietly, “is there anyone who can come take you home?”

It occurs to me dully that he always calls me by my full name. Never Kat. I wonder why. Then again, he always goes by his full name, too. “You don’t have a nickname. Why is that?”

He blinks at me in the fluorescent light. He’s eyeing me in a way like he’s questioning my state of mind.

“Alexander’s a long name. Most Alexanders have nicknames,” I point out blearily.

“I just don’t have one. Come on.” He shoves open a door.

My head is spinning. “What if I called you Al?”

“I wouldn’t answer to it.”

“Here’s a million dollars for you, Al. You’d answer that. Everyone would.”

“You don’t have a million dollars.”

“Oh. Good point, I guess.” I wouldn’t be in this situation if I did. I’d be in Europe with my shiny new exit visa. With French boys. Or Scotsmen. In kilts.

“My father used to call me ‘Alex’,” he says after a moment.

His father. The reminder sobers me. The father whose surname he cast away.

“You need to sit down,” he says, watching my face.

I sit on a plastic chair by the door. He sweeps across the room and begins rifling through a bag. My eyes find a large, plastic jug of water. It’s just resting against the wall beside a sagging pallet. A makeshift bed. There’s food, too. Prepackaged food that looks to have been pilfered from the cafeteria. A laptop sits in the corner on an overturned box.

Alexander turns back around with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a washcloth.

My head grows clearer. A strange notion occurs to me. “Have you been living down here?”

His eyes are careful beneath his coal black fringe. “Yes.”

So this is why the
Showdown
people haven’t gotten him. He hasn’t left the school. It must be how he came to my rescue so quickly: he was right nearby, close enough to hear me scream.

“Does anyone else know?”

“The other keys have gone missing over the last two years. I’m the only one with access to this room now,” he replies simply, pouring hydrogen peroxide on the cloth. He hands the damp cloth to me, and I hold it, looking at it. After a moment of me sitting there stupidly, he takes my wrist, and presses my hand with the cloth to my cheek. I feel a sting. When I draw the cloth back, it’s smeared with blood.

“You’re going to have a black eye.” He peers at me intently. His blue irises have swirls of hazel in them. He pronounces, “Your pupils look even. No concussion.”

It sinks into me that I now possess dangerous information. This is the very information Mitch with
Showdown
wanted me to pony over. If the
Showdown
people found out how Alexander had evaded them, they’d contact the school district. They’d clear Alexander out of here. He’d never be allowed to live here.

If I tell the
Showdown
people this, it will save my life. They’ll pay my exit visa. They’ll kill Alexander.

And I know I can’t do it. He just saved me.

“I’m the one who owes you now,” I whisper.

“You owe me nothing,” he says harshly. “I’d never stand by and let something like that happen. Not to anyone.”

Alexander must be thinking of Noelle. For a moment, there’s pain in his eyes—and then he looks down a moment, and his expression is wiped clean like it was never there. I feel a pang, wondering what his life has been like, that he’s able to clamp down on his own feelings so easily.

 
“I don’t know why my sister told you what she did. She must trust you.” He reaches down and fishes something else out of his bag. It’s a plastic pack with a blue substance inside. I recognize it as a gel ice pack from dance. “When I was a kid, I thought we had a great father. He took me fishing. He taught me to throw a football. He went to all my Taekwondo matches. He read us bedtime stories. After our mom died, he was there for us.”

A hard twist comes to his lips.

“I had no idea,” he says, “that he was raping my sister.”

My heart aches like something has stung me there. All I can offer is, “I’m sorry.”

Then he reaches out, slowly and carefully, and presses the ice-pack to my face. It’s cold now. I take over, holding it here, the ice drilling into my skin.

“I missed what was happening to her. I failed her. Now I have to make up for it by protecting her. I have enemies, Kathryn. They would go after my sister to get to me. People don’t know that I’m connected with her. We don’t even have the same last name. Writing that article would be like waving a red flag. I can’t risk drawing attention to her like that.”

I suddenly understand his reaction that day in the computer lab. Shame floods me as I recall how cavalierly I’d announced my plans to write about them. I hadn’t even asked him if he wanted it as much as Noelle did. I’d just been caught up in my own plans. It never occurred to me I’d be endangering anyone.

“Does Noelle know she’d be at risk?”

“She does.” His eyes are hard. “She’s willing to take that chance for me. I’m not willing to let her.”

“I won’t write it, Alexander. I won’t put her in danger.”

He nods slowly, his lips a tight line. “I should have explained this to you earlier.”

“It’s okay.” I knew now why he’d reacted that way. That’s how he’d been living since losing citizenship, wasn’t it? He’d been on edge, standing against an entire world that posed a threat. No wonder he resorted to intimidation. It was probably the only thing that had kept him alive for so long.

Yet even after that, he’d run from the car to draw the hunters from me. He’d spared Conrad and his friends. He warned me of danger after the viral video. He even stepped in and saved me from Russell.

There has to be some way I can repay him. And it won’t be through treachery.

I won’t give the
Showdown
people what they want.

Even if it costs me my life.

My state of mind is just clear enough that I text Amanda about catching a ride home early. I hop into a car with Heidi. Amanda replies with,
K! Omg I totally failed test. Why did you guys let me get so drunk??? Btw u seen Russ?

By now, I’d bet he’s in the hospital. I can’t go into it. I don’t reply.

Heidi is shaken by the sight of my face, bruised and battered. She buys my explanation about tripping down the stairs, though. She isn’t, however, nearly so cool as Amanda about running the barrier of hunters. She frets as we approach the
Showdown people
. I stare straight ahead, knowing they want something from me, and it’s not my death.

Indeed, when they see it’s me, they smirk and wave us onward. The sight of their smug certainty settles deep inside me like a black stone.

I’m alone inside my house but I don’t hole up in my panic room. Instead, I study my face in the mirror and cover up the fresh bruises as best as I can. I’ll tell my parents Siobhan and I got in a fight. I’ll exaggerate details from our spat in the locker room to make it sound authentic. I can pull it off. I’ll say we got into hair pulling and punching. My parents will get mad at me for being an idiot. A bit of anger is better than the killing rage that would ensue if I told them the truth about Russell.

For a long while, I sit in my room gazing up at the Susan B. Anthony poster. I bought it after my big article for the school paper. My mind had been spinning with visions of… I don’t know what. Changing the world. Inspiring people. Maybe I didn’t want to be a journalist so much as I wanted to be an activist.

For a while I sit there reading the quote beneath her, in stark white letters against the back background.

“Careful, cautious people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to… avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”

It used to give me chills whenever I read it. Then I stopped seeing the words, stopped noticing the poster. For a while I covered up that part of the poster with a poster of a band, or a movie poster.

Today, I feel it again, the old sense of goosebumps prickling down my spine.

I’ve been afraid. I’ve been hunted, tense, anxious. But everything that’s happened since losing citizenship happened fundamentally because I tried to do the right thing. Something that I
knew
was right. Something I would do again.

So in Susan B. Anthony’s words, this is me ‘bearing the consequences’. And somehow just that thought strengthens me somehow, vindicates me.

Vindicates what I’m going to have to do tonight to save Alexander from the
Showdown
people.

That night after my parents finish yelling at me, they go to bed. I listen from the hallway, making sure they’re truly asleep. Then I slip quietly downstairs and out into the night.

They’ve taken my car keys so I begin to walk to school. The one place where I know the
Showdown
people are.

It turns out I don’t have to go that far.

Headlights blare on when I’m on the sidewalk before our next-door neighbor’s house, and a car rolls up to me. A chill races through me as it slows. A window slides down, a grinning face leering out at me.

“Taking up Mitch on his offer?”

It takes me a moment to force my voice to speak.

“Yes.” My voice rings clear in the night. “I know where you can find your anathema. I’ll take you there.”

The speed and ferocity of their response astounds me. They drive me to the school to intercept the rest of the
Showdown
crew. We wait ten minutes, and then a helicopter sweeps down from the night overhead and lands on the street beside us.

More hunters than I’ve seen before are pouring out of vehicles as they arrive. Suddenly I feel a dreadful certainty this is going to backfire big time.

And then the woman is being escorted out of the helicopter. The flash of red hair, the glint of light across her pierced nose. A scarlet grin across her lips.

The very same woman from the side of the van. Ezra. The female host.

They actually flew her into town for this.

As I gape at the unexpected celebrity presence, another face from the van appears. It’s Ezekiel, stepping out of the helicopter in his cowboy hat.

“Do they always come in person?” I wonder.

“This is a big episode, sugar.” Mitch’s voice makes me jump. I look over quickly as the
Showdown
producer strolls over to me, hands me a coffee. His smile is almost demonic amid the steam rising from his own cup. “We’re going to air this in November sweeps. We like to get some location shots of Ezra and Ezekiel right at the capture.” He winks. “Of course, we don’t risk the talent when it comes to the dirty parts. That’s what all these other folks are for. The hosts pose with Metz once we’ve nabbed him. That’s all the audience needs to see.”

If this doesn’t work, these people are going to kill me. My eyes sweep over the chaos of lights and cameras. How many times have they assembled together to hunt one anathema or another? I saw the clips of their past victims on YouTube. One was a frightened sixteen-year-old boy with an unfortunate talent for martial arts. They locked him in an arena with a three-hundred-pound serial killer. Ezra and Ezekiel hosted the festivities for that event, too.

I watch now as they transform from grumpy, disgruntled celebs dragged out of bed, to cheerfully bloodthirsty hosts discussing the imminent capture.

My blood boils. Even if these people aren’t murderers themselves, they’re accessories. I won’t let myself doubt this.

Then I’m hustled into the lead van, while they’re in the limousine at the back. We wind together down the dark street.

“Where to, sugar? We need exact directions,” Mitch says in my ear. He’s buckled into the seat beside me, his breath reeking of onions in the stifling car.

I swallow down the last of my misgivings. I’ve committed to this course. There is no going back now.

“Head for the beach,” I tell him.

Our cars form a line along the dark freeway, winding along the side of the cliff, red taillights cutting through the night. They turn where I direct them, then pull off the road. Mitch seems dubious when he gets his first whiff of the air around here.

I tell him, “This smell is normal for the Waste.”

My nerves have become frantic animals clawing inside my gut. My legs are growing shaky. It’s apparently not possible to burn out on fear, because surely the situation with Russell should’ve done it. But no. Terror springs to fresh life inside me with every step. I could be making a deadly mistake.

Mitch is carrying his prized possession: a replica ‘Ulfberht’ blade just like the ancient Vikings used. He told me all about it while we waited for the helicopter. He’d personally killed nine anathemas with it.

“Only in my free time, of course,” he’d said jovially, with a wink. “We have to bring ‘em in live for the show.” He smiled fondly at me like we were good friends now. “I’m a lucky guy, because my work is also my play.”

The worst part was, he said it all like he was proud of it.

Now Mitch peers around us as we travel over lumpy sands, his sword slung over his shoulder. The water throws itself against the jagged shoreline near us. All I can see is the frothy white fringes of waves against the black ocean.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” Mitch notes. “I’m hoping we didn’t mobilize this crew for nothing.”

My voice shakes. “Trust me, you’ll find exactly what you’ve come for. This will be the biggest episode in
Showdown
history.”

He laughs. “I like how you think.” His thumb brushes my cheek. I jump. “Cute little thing. If we weren’t buying you an exit visa tonight, I’d be your patron.”

“I’d never do that.” My voice is cold, filled with loathing.

“Too bad. I’d be good to you. I wouldn’t even kill you when we were done.”

You sicken me,
I want to tell him. Instead, I press my lips tightly together.

I’ve never been this far into the Waste. We wind around heaps of trash, twisted metal, car parts. The cliffs rise beside us, black hulks hiding the stars, isolating us from view, trapping us by the ocean. The stench of rotting seaweed and garbage wars with the briny ocean smell in my nostrils. Icy wind whips at us, the roar of the waves thundering in my ears, droplets of saltwater splattering my skin.

Where are they? Where
are
they?

“This is taking an awful long time, little girl—” warns Mitch.

But at that moment, we see the first sign of them. The first indication of someone lurking in that pitch blackness. It’s a single flame from a lighter somewhere in front of us. Waving in a zigzag pattern. Some sort of signal.

When they get nothing back, more lighters flash on. More and more, glowing sparks against black. A sense of menace fills the air.

Mitch straightens hopefully, raising his sword. The cameramen rush forward. I catch my breath, dread forming a lead weight in my gut.

The anathemas have found us.