Scripted (15 page)

I shiver
as I knock on the door of the Graysons' beach house. I'd changed into the Delton's dress in the bathroom of the Tram stop near the beach, and now I'm wondering if I should have worn something with sleeves instead. After seeing the Patriots running around in their camouflage, I feel foolish in the sexy dress and new makeup.

I smush my face against the front window, trying to see through the thick curtains, wanting to find Scoop as soon as possible.

“Nettie, why are you out here all alone? Did you knock?” Selwyn scampers up the steps. “Oooh, you look nice. Is that mascara?” She seems to be shaking off the blues that have dogged her all week.

“Yeah, a little,” I mumble, knocking again. I wish I could tell her what I'd seen at the Center, but she'd freak out again, like she did at Delton's. Freak out big time. She might even faint or something. I feel resentment prickling in me. I want her to be stronger.

“You look a little like Lia,” she observes. “With your makeup like that. Sharper cheekbones.”

“Really?” Til must show everyone the same techniques.

“It looks good, though, don't worry. Lia won't mind,” she assures me. She's wearing heels, and we can see eye to eye. Her wide smile is a flash of white in the darkness. “And this looks as plus ten as it did on Sunday.” She reaches over and plucks at the fabric of my dress, and I realize she's in a sweater and jeans. The sweater isn't even
voxless
; it's a soft pink cashmere, probably from
blueblood.
And there's another turtleneck underneath it.

“You're kind of dressed down, aren't you?”

She giggles and tosses her head. “The antithesis, silly! I'm wearing the
opposite
of what I'd normally wear.”

“Yeah, you sure are.” I knock on the door again, harder. Nothing.

Selwyn reaches around me, turns the knob, and pushes it open. She walks in, grinning at me over her shoulder. “You're out of it, huh?”

“I can't believe I didn't try that earlier.” I follow her inside. She has a skip in her step . . . it's almost too much, like her last suggestion was to
be incredibly peppy and upbeat.

Hypnotic
voxless
music, at the highest volume allowed by Media1, pulses through the house, and we go to the den, which is teeming with drunk teenagers. Their faces are glistening with sweat, and the room stinks of beer.

“Yikes.” Selwyn presses closer to me as we dump our bags in the pileup at the entrance and make our way through the crowd, aiming for the table at the back where beverages are usually laid out.

“Nettie! Selwyn!” Martin booms, looking foolish in convict stripes—the opposite of a politician, I guess? They hug his middle-aged-man belly, and his glasses are steamed from all the heat in the room. He's pressed against a cabinet containing nautical-themed china. I smile tightly, deliberately staying on the move. Caren Trosser tosses handfuls of confetti in the air as she leaps across the room like a deer. Beryl Shiner, a freshman, and Shar Corone, the guy from my art class who used to sit next to Belle, are twined together in a corner.

The host himself, Lincoln, is wearing torn-up jeans and a T-shirt with an obscene word in large bold letters. He's directing a drinking game that involves pebbles on a cleared-off coffee table. Witson drinks, then slams a shot glass down after he . . . loses a pebble? He clamps his hand over his face, worried he's going to throw up. I make the mistake of gawking—I've never seen Witson so much as sip a beer—which he takes as an invitation and comes wobbling over.

“Nettie, you're here! So plus ten,” he gushes. “I was waiting for you.” His thin brown hair has been teased up with massive amounts of gel.

“Hi, Witson.” I grimace, moving firmly ahead, Selwyn still at my side. He follows us all the way to the drinks table at the back of the room, right in front of a window.

Moonlight falls over his face, illuminating it in a ghastly way. I remember the way Belle's face was lit up in the courtyard, and I shudder.

“Are you all right?” Witson asks, lurching forward and touching my elbow.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” I pull away, and he's clearly crestfallen. Annoyance twinges me. Why can't he just move on?

“I wish you still came to the store,” he says, in this way where I can tell he's been waiting to say the words forever. He takes a breath.
Oh, no, there's more.
“Nettie, I—”

“Witson, can you help me find a cider?” Selwyn tugs his sleeve and steers him toward the table. I know he won't stop until he finds it.
Thank goodness for Selwyn.

I don't usually drink at parties. Mostly because Lia's mom's antics turned her into a teetotaler. I grab a Kofasip and turn to watch the crowd, recalling for the first time all evening that I need to talk to Callen a third time to accomplish the suggestion. I'm looking for Scoop instead. Before I lay eyes on either Callen or Scoop, however, I see a slash of red.

Lia, her flame hair down, matching her long, flowing, gossamer dress of pinks and reds. She's nodding, her long arms crossed in front of her, clutching a Kofasip and listening to Henna Shelter. Her eyes don't leave Henna's face, and an intense yearning grips me. I know what it's like to have Lia's attention.

I should tell her.
She needs to know that we can't trust Media1. Our lives might be in danger.

I set my Kofasip down on the crammed tabletop and move toward them. “Lia, can you come to the bathroom with me?” I smile winningly, pretending I don't see Henna. “I need to borrow your lipstick.”

“You need lipstick? Since when?” She laughs, but then she peers closely at my face. “Whoa, you don't just need lipstick—you need
more
lipstick, hmm?”

“Yeah.”

I pull her out of the den, and she shouts, “Be right back,” to Henna over her shoulder.

I usher Lia into the bathroom in the hall, and the lenses swivel toward us. We stare at them together and avert our eyes at the same time.

“So, I heard that Lincoln tried to slip Mollie some tranquilizer-pill-thing at the last party,” Lia says.

“Oh, come on, even Lincoln wouldn't—”

Lia shoots me a silencing glare, and I obediently shut up, catching on as she swings open the cabinets, pokes her head in, and clucks. “Nothing here but some aspirin, but maybe . . .” She kneels and opens up the cabinet underneath the sink. “Help me look for the magic pills, Nettie.” I sit next to her, checking the cabinet for cameras behind the jumble of disinfectants and toilet paper rolls. We're concealed.

I take a deep breath. “I was in my Session—”

“You had a Session?” Lia interrupts, then, quickly switching to on-mic: “Geez, who buys this many toothbrushes at a time?” She picks up a stack of unwrapped toothbrush boxes and waves them above her head, giving the cameras something to see.

“Rich people,” I respond on-mic, before whispering into her ear, “To teach me how to do makeup. But that's not important. I'm close to finding out what happens to the Patriots.” I'm too caught up in my story to spend time thinking of how to go back on-mic to fool Media1. I mouth everything I saw in the courtyard, then tell her Dana Cannery's theory. Her eyes wander over my face while I speak, like she's more interested in my makeup than what I'm saying. When I'm done, she takes her time responding, fiddling with the toothbrush boxes.

“I'm not sure what to say, Nettie,” she mouths finally.

“Don't you think it looks bad?” I prompt her. “Like they're sending them into battle or something? They didn't want to be there.”

“I don't know, Nettie. To me it sounds like the Patriots need exercise. We have gym.”

“That wasn't
exercise,
Lia. They were wearing uniforms. Revere was vomiting. And why would they get sent to the Drowned Lands?” My own words sink in. “Oh, God, are they sending them to fight
Drowned Landers
?” The Reals we're most closely related to.

“Your imagination is out of control. Besides, Scoop's aunt was always kind of weird, so I wouldn't believe anything she said. It doesn't make sense—they're doing experiments on them
and
making them exercise too hard?” She places the toothbrushes back into the cabinet and sighs. “I told you Revere wasn't your fault. You need to stop worrying.”

“Are you serious?” I say, pushing her hand aside. “We
should
be worried. We could be next.”

“That's
always
been true. Nothing's changed, except you saw something you shouldn't have been looking for.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “Unsee it,” she hisses, loud enough for the mic to pick up on it.

There's a sound of shattering glass in the den, and she scoots back from the cabinet, a dazed look on her face, taken aback by her audiotrack slip. She gets to her feet, flicking her mic firmly up. “Let's go back. Seems like it's getting crazy in there.”

I stand and readjust my battery pack. “Yeah, hope no one's getting hurt. That would be the worst.” I push past Lia and head out into the hall. I should have known she wouldn't care.

“Nettie,” she calls, but I ignore her, entering the den and trying to locate my Kofasip.

Thora, Selwyn's cello competitor, is next to me, shouldering her way to the beer. She uncaps a bottle and hands it to me. “Here, Nettie,” she says. “You look like you need one.” I take a sip and look for Scoop again.

But he's not here.

I find Callen, though. He's sitting with Rawls in front of the smoldering fireplace. For the Antithesis, Rawls has changed teams—he borrowed a red cap and jersey from an Ant. Callen has forgone the required switch entirely. He's wearing a dark blue jacket, zipped all the way up.

Usually the sight of Callen can obliterate all my angst, but seeing him doesn't make me better tonight.

Terra comes up to the table wearing a low-cut dress. Her chestnut hair is loose, instead of in pigtails, and she looks great.

“Do you know if Scoop's coming?” I force my voice to sound lighthearted, relaxed. I brace myself for a snide remark.

Terra gapes, taken aback that I dared address her. She opens and closes her mouth, wavering before finally deciding just to answer plainly. “He's at home. He said he didn't want to be hungover at the Flower Festival.”

“Thanks,” I say. Depressed, I slump against the drinks table.

Selwyn sidles over to me. “Beer?” she exclaims. “Don't let Lia see you.” Her face is red, and I guess that the cider in her hand isn't her first.

“I don't care, Selwyn. She's not in charge of me.”

“Have you talked to Callen yet?” she asks, smiling mischievously and scratching her ear.

“Nope.” I take a long swig.

“This place is packed.” Henna Shelter comes up to us. Her hair is out, unleashed from her makeshift turban, and it turns out she has bangs. She's wearing a demure solid black dress. She seems uncomfortable in it, sort of hunching down, like she wishes the dress were a shell she could fold into.

“Yeah, one of Lincoln's best parties yet,” Selwyn agrees.

I wonder if Lincoln is having such an excessive bash to prove that nothing has really changed since Revere was cut.

“Lia's coming,” Henna says, her eyes shifting to focus behind me. She runs a hand down the skirt of her dress, and the sight of the pleats triggers my memory.

“Wait. Is that Lia's dress?” I ask. Lia wore it to some dance last season, I realize now.

“Yeah, fits like a glove, doesn't it?” Henna says, taking a sip from her wineglass. Standing behind her, Selwyn raises her eyebrows, and I shrug.

“It's nice,” I say. Despite the friction between Lia and me, I feel a stab of jealousy. It doesn't feel good to be replaced.

Lia saunters over to us, balancing her elbow on my shoulder. She looks down at my hand and purses her lips. “Nettie, are you drinking?”

“Yes,” I say unapologetically. I see Rawls get up from the couch, leaving the space next to Callen free.

“You don't need that,” Lia says lightly, reaching over and giving the bottle a tug.

“Stop it,” I mutter, tightening my grip.

“Oh, come on, you never drink beer,” she insists, smiling tightly. Her cat eyes search my face. She's scared she lost me.

“That's not true.” I wrench the bottle out of her grasp.

She holds her palms up in a surrender gesture. “Whatever. It's probably time you start making your own decisions.”

“To the basement! The antithesis of the first floor!” Lincoln shouts, flicking the light switch for a strobe effect to capture everyone's attention.

“All right, let's go,” Lia says, and starts moving out of the room, Selwyn and Henna at her heels. I look back at the couch, but Callen's gone too. I catch up with my friends, and when we reach the hall, I see him again, gliding out the front door.

“I want to grab some Caddy Gum from my bag,” I say. Lia stops in her tracks.

“Gum?” She raises her eyebrows quizzically.

“Yeah, go on downstairs. I'll be back in a few.” I smile and return to the empty den, where I grab another beer, hesitate a few seconds more, then head outside. To find Callen.

The porch
is empty. The wind coming off the surf is just as cold as it was earlier, but after the suffocating heat of the Antithesis, I welcome it. I stand beneath bamboo wind chimes, just me and my beer, surrounded by darkness.

If I left the beach now, I could reach Treasure Woods in twenty minutes. Knock on Scoop's door. Make up something about homework or a school project if his parents answer.

“Nettie?” Someone says my name from the path to the shore.

I squint and see a glint in the darkness, moving closer. “Callen? Is that you?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, stepping into the circle of dim light spilling out from the house. “You had to get out of there too?” He brushes the sand off his bare feet, and now I see his abandoned sneakers on the top of the porch steps.

“Too noisy,” I agree. I set the mostly full beer down next to his discarded sneakers. I slip off my heels, place them next to his sneakers, and trot down the steps. “Definitely saner out here than inside. Everyone's so rowdy.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking past me at the house. “I'm not sure where I belong at those parties.”

“It's another world in there,” I say. In wordless agreement, we walk back toward the beach together.

“Totally.” Callen puts his hand out flat, fingers separated slightly, feeling the wind, then stops abruptly when he realizes I'm watching, plunging both hands into his jacket pockets. He looks away, then back at me, and then away again.

We're nearing the jetty. It curls out like a fallen ribbon onto the ocean, and I pause, memories returning as the cool tide tickles my feet.

“Do you remember coming here in sixth grade?” I say while tiptoeing onto the rocks. The camerapoles on the beach loom far above us. I know this scene will be broadcast.

“Sort of,” Callen says, keeping up with me across the rocks.

“Aieeeeeeeeeeeeee!” A scream that sounds almost operatic, coming from the beach house, reaches us as a whistle, flying over the crashing waves.

“The party of the century,” Callen observes, the glimmer of his eyes bright in the darkness.

“Shame that we're missing it,” I say absently. “Wait, stop,” I say suddenly, crouching down to where three rocks rise up like a fortress, creating a space where water collects into a natural well. I've hiked my sexy Delton's dress up over my thighs, but it doesn't matter out here, in the darkness. This is the crevice where Belle found the bottle. I peek inside, half expecting to see it nestled against the rocks.

“Are you looking for something?” Callen asks.

I can't mention Belle. “No, just—I remember being here, in sixth grade. Things were so simple back then,” I say. I sit on the rocks, stretching out my legs so my toes skim the water, and he settles down next to me. We're as close as we were on the porch swing. I want to be closer.

“Not always so easy,” he says. His leg is alongside mine, and every once in a while, our feet touch.

“Well, that's true. I remember being lonely, even back then,” I admit. I wasn't friends with Lia—in those days, to me, she was just the Popular Tall Girl.

“I was lonely, too, and also . . .” He trails off.

“Also?” I prompt, noticing that now our toes are touching and not moving.

“I don't know. Trapped?” he says tentatively. He moves his hand over mine, just like I wanted him to on the porch. Sensation shoots through me, and I find it hard to listen. “That's when everything began to feel like a trap—classes, homework, my parents.” He's even closer to me now, his breath feather light against my ear. “It felt like the island was one big trap.”

I know he just shared something important, but all my attention is focused on our hands. And on his mouth, so close to my ear. The sound of the ocean is overwhelming, but I swear I can hear his heartbeat. I turn to him to signal that I need him to fill the silence, but when I do, the urge to be closer overwhelms me. I don't say anything, but I shift until our shoulders are touching. I feel like I can't breathe.

He kisses me, and energy spikes out and burns through any need to fulfill suggestions or think about Patriots or worry about Lia or anything at all. Kissing Callen is utterly natural and explains in an instant why talking always felt too complicated. This is familiar and new. His lips, the ones I've daydreamed of so many times, are eager and tender, and all I want to do is keep kissing him forever.

Another scream. Then more like a squeal that ends in a burst of laughter. At first, my only response is to draw Callen closer, but then I hear a higher-pitched scream, definitely a girl, and think it might be Lia. Reluctantly, I pull away, glancing behind me. Shadows are racing around in front of the Grayson's beach house, and I start thinking about the Patriots.

Callen touches my cheek, and I turn back to him. His hand drops and traces the line of my collarbone. “Ignore them,” he says, leaning forward to kiss me again.

I decide to follow his lead, closing my eyes and melting into the kiss. But I'm tense and aware of the growing noise coming from the shore—the Graysons' screen door screeching open and shut, Characters carousing.

I break off the kiss, but keep my hands in Callen's, our foreheads touching, our eyes drinking each other in. I'm caught between wanting to stay with him and needing to be on guard—Lia might come out. I was thinking she'd just have to accept Callen and me being together if it ever happened—but
not now.
This feels too soon.

“We need the Antithesis of a bonfire.” Lincoln's voice. That ultraflat calm way he speaks whenever he's very drunk and wants to pretend he's not. “A smoke pit?”

“A smoke pit, no!” someone yelps.

“I think these are Nettie's shoes.” It's Selwyn. Lia might be close behind.

I tear away from Callen. “I have to go, it's just—”

“You don't want Lia to see us,” he says, running his hand through his hair, rumpling it more than ever, as I stand up, brushing off grit.

“Sorry.” I turn around, trying to make out her silhouette among the others in the yard. No sign of her. I glimpse the cameras on the beach again and feel a glimmer of excitement, thinking about the Audience getting to see us. For them, it's the fulfillment of unrequited love.

We're separated now, and I feel the magic fading and worry creeping in. Like if I'm not literally holding him to me, I can't trust anything.
I can't lose Callen.

“I'm getting out of here. But I want to see you soon,” I say, glad now that I can't really see his face.

“Me too.” He speaks with an urgency I've never heard from him before. “I wanted to ask you in the cafeteria this afternoon—come to the Brambles with me tomorrow. Skip the Festival.”

The Festival. I was already wavering, and now I picture girls sashaying around downtown with their garlands and Lia judging them all. As she said, whatever. I'd much rather be alone with Callen for a few hours.

“Well . . . okay. I mean, yes. Yes, I'd love to. When?”

“Eleven? Let's meet at the statue at the gates.”

“All right.” I grin, feeling ridiculously, stupidly lucky. I just kissed Callen Herron.

“Let's just do a bonfire,” Lincoln declares from the beach. “Bring out the logs from the basement.” Someone howls.

“We should go back, before they notice.” I smooth my hair down and try to rub away what I imagine is smudged eye shadow and mascara. Callen kisses my cheek one last time, and we leave the jetty, walking down the shore side by side but keeping a carefully platonic distance between us. There are twenty or so Characters outside. Some are setting up the wood for the bonfire; others are stretched out on the porch, tipsy. Lia isn't there.

“Callen, give us a hand,” Lincoln says briskly, like he's directing a servant, barely noticing me. He can trade in his fancy clothes for beaten-up ones, but he can't trade in that aristocratic hauteur.

Callen flashes me a rueful grin as Lincoln drags him away. A shiver of pleasure runs through me. I feel weightless.

Selwyn jogs over from the porch, meeting me on the sand, huffing and puffing, clasping Callen's sneakers and my heels.

“Here are yours.” She shoves mine into my hands. “Now, where is he, and
what happened
?”

She's loud, and I look around, worried someone will hear her.

“Come over here.” I hustle her behind the house for privacy, stopping behind some shrubbery.

“You did it,” she says, with a mix of awe and pleasure. “You did . . . something.”

“We kissed,” I confess. Now it's out there. I bury my face in my hands, embarrassed and giddy. “I can't believe it. We kissed.”

“Finally!” Selwyn squeals, dropping the sneakers and hugging me.

“Selwyn, I really like him.”

“I
know,
” she says.

“We're going to the Brambles together tomorrow,” I add. The wind intensifies, and I wrap my arms around myself, freezing. My eyes drift up to the cameras pinned to the side of the house. What would Kat Deva want to hear? “I think we're going to be together.”

• • •

The Tram ride home seems to take forever. Without the party or Callen around to distract me, all I can think about is the courtyard. A very Bad Thing.

Lia didn't want to hear it. She might even have thought I was making it up. We needed to get proof from the Sandcastle, something to give Characters the same visceral shock I got. Something that will force them to confront Media1.

I glance at the window reflection and fix my messed-up hair. Tall brick buildings slide by. The outskirts of the Heights.

I won't get to see Scoop tomorrow if I'm with Callen in the Brambles, so I bolt off the Tram at Treasure Woods and head toward the Cannery house. Treasure Woods is noiseless, utterly still, but I feel uneasy. Exposed. The mansions and trees are set farther back from the road than in the Arbor, and there are lights and cameras lining the telephone wires instead of perched discreetly in the trees.

I walk fast, skipping my usual turn onto Lia's block and making a left onto Pearl Lane, or Luxury Lane as it's sometimes called. But Scoop's house is unassuming for Treasure Woods: no columns, no fountain. Chalkboard white with blue trim. Flower boxes full of geraniums.

I cross the lawn. There's no light on in Scoop's room on the second floor, so I slow down to pick up a few pieces of gravel from the driveway and aim carefully, praying I don't wake anyone else up. The stones ping against the windowpane and shower down into the grass.

I hear the window slide open. “Nettie?” Scoop whispers, a note of disbelief in his voice. “Be right there.” I scurry backward, into the shadow of a tree, reclipping my microphone that got knocked off my collar when I bent down. Seeing it reminds me that I have to come up with some sort of reason for being here.

When he comes around, he's carrying a cable-knit wool sweater. “I thought you might be cold,” he says, passing it to me. “It looks like you got in a fight or something.” He gestures toward my hair, messy from the wind on the beach and probably from Callen running his hands through it.

I put on the sweater. “No fight,” I say, sheepishly gazing up at all the cameras pinned to the back of the house. I'm at a loss for what to say. No one's going to buy that we need to talk about math. If I were running into his arms after kissing Callen on the beach, it'd be the kind of ratings gold Lia spends late nights dreaming up, but I can't pull it off, and it seems stupid to care about ratings now, with the memory of the courtyard hovering over me. “But—I want to tell you something, um, about the party. Walk to the playground with me?”

“Okay,” he says, steering me around the house and back to the road. As we trek toward the Arbor, I ramble on about the party.

“Lincoln's parents would kill him if they saw him in that shirt. Shar and Beryl were, like, in maximum exhibitionist mode, and it was awkward—you know Shar's hands are like flippers.” I do a credible imitation of Shar's hands, flopping around Beryl. “Then Lincoln ordered us down to the basement, but I went outside with Callen.”

“Oh, Callen was there?” he teases.

“We, you know, anyway, I guess you were right, about him liking me, because we kissed.”

“Cute. For everyone but Lia, I guess.” He looks at me sideways as I undo the latch on the gate to the waist-high playground fence.

“She doesn't know yet.” I fumble with redoing the latch.

“You wanted to do it, right?” He's digging to find out if it was because of the Initiative. I finally get the gate shut and face him.

“No . . . ?” He scratches behind his ear.

“Yes,” I say hotly, tugging him toward the swings. “I wanted to.”

“Well, maybe Lia's over it,” he says. “Although she did kind of have crazy eyes for a week after he dumped her.”

“Sit there,” I say, ignoring him and gesturing at a swing. I sit on the one next to him and start swinging. He probably used this trick when he was a kid too.

“Yeah, and the nearest camera is broken too,” I mouth, jerking my head over to where the dead red eye droops.

“Crisped,” he mouths. “That's what the Reals say when the cameras break. That they crisped. Just like—”

“Like when someone's cut as a Show Risk, people say they crisp?” He nods. Charming. Puppets, equipment—anything but people.

“I saw something tonight.” I tell Scoop about the courtyard, and it's such a relief to be with someone who cares.

The more I say, the more he frowns, all traces of his customary good nature vanishing. “If Aunt Dana's right, they could be getting them into shape before they start the experiments.”

“That was my first thought,” I mouth grimly. “But it seems unlikely, especially with the camouflage. I had an idea. What if they're fighting against Drowned Landers, as some sort of Media1 legion?”