Chasing Before Page 20

  Libby considers this. “Perhaps someone further along in the program than you would be more ideal for such training.”

  “The thing is, I don’t think Julian is so keen to cooperate with anyone but me,” I say.

  Libby looks at Neil, and he shrugs. She twists her hair and puts it up with her pencil, biting her lip. “Let’s discuss with Furukama-Sensei if we can find candidates to train with Julian in addition to you.”

  “That’s really up to Julian, isn’t it?” Anyone who could take on the Morati would be in the seraphim guard class, and that’s precisely where Julian thinks the Morati are hiding out in disguise. Not to mention if anyone else finds the Morati first, I won’t be able to get my memories out of them. I need to be the one who uncovers and confronts them.

  Libby narrows her eyes. She doesn’t like being challenged. “If he won’t comply, perhaps a little more brimstone exposure will convince him,” she says hotly.

  “Great idea. Throw away our one advantage again—”

  “Let Felicia do it,” Neil interrupts. “Look what she achieved in Level Two. She won’t let us down.” Is he defending me because he’s on my side? I want to think so. Maybe he hasn’t forgiven me for last night, or for so many other things, but I’m relieved that he still has faith in me.

  “Fine.” Libby straightens her red scarf. “We’ll all go visit him together.”

  Keegan gets up to join us, but Libby waves him away. “Not you, Keegan.”

  “Aw, man! I miss all the good stuff.” Keegan juts out his lower lip.

  Neil bops him on the head affectionately. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

  Libby, Neil, and I walk down the hallway past three more offices until we reach one with a burly member of the security force standing at attention outside the door.

  Julian’s new room is not much different from his old one—smaller maybe, but as bare. The trusty eggplant-colored sofa is still the central attraction, and he has added a small folding table, like the one Grammy always had me pull out for her so she could eat her evening snack of tinned peaches while watching the evening news.

  When we enter, he looks up from his game of solitaire. “Oh, good.” Julian gathers up the cards and shuffles them. “Now we have enough players for a game of hearts.”

  If his behavior is any indication, he’s made quite the recovery since yesterday.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Neil tells him, not at all unkindly. “And that you’re willing to help Felicia catch the Morati.”

  Neil and Julian size each other up, and I realize that they’ve not had much contact. In fact, this is probably only their third meeting after Julian’s retrieval of Neil in Level Two and Neil being present for Julian’s arrest.

  “It’s my pleasure. I do enjoy spending time with her.” Julian lifts up his palm like he’s offering it to me already for training. “Touching her.”

  “As long as it’s only her palm you’re touching.” Neil steps forward to lace his fingers through mine, clearly drawing a line but remaining outwardly calm. In that moment I know that Neil is worth at least ten of Julian. And that he believes I’m worth a second chance.

  There’s a period of silence as we all let this awkward conversation sink in, and then Libby clears her throat and begins to lay the ground rules for our visits. We won’t be continuously supervised, but the person guarding Julian has permission to come in at any time, so we won’t have complete privacy either. That’s more than fine with me.

  “You can start now if you want,” Libby says as she leaves.

  Both Neil and Julian wait for my decision. I don’t want to let go of Neil’s hand, not after the way I ran from him last night. “Tomorrow,” I tell Julian. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Libby dismisses Neil from their meeting, explaining that she wants to talk to Keegan alone. She’s doing it as a favor to us, and I’m grateful.

  Neil and I walk back to the dorms together. He suggests we take the time to practice a few more songs today, and I tell him about his new fan base. But we don’t discuss Julian or the fact that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with him over the coming weeks.

  Despite my forewarning, when we reach our hallway, Neil shakes his head. A group of maybe thirty fans stands around his door, chatting excitedly. As we approach, they swarm us and call out names of songs they want to hear tonight. Neil materializes a Sharpie and writes their requests down on his hand and forearm until there is no skin left to write on. When their frenzy dies down a bit, he turns and whispers into my ear, “I don’t think it would make a good impression if we practiced in either of our rooms. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  I’m not surprised. He might have recently invited me into his room, but it was when no one was around to see it. He wants to be a good role model for his fans.

  I suggest the lovely spot near the gorge where I spent last night, and Neil agrees. At the gorge we try out some of the song requests, testing out how much of them we remember. We decide that seven of the forty-odd requests are doable, but we’ll have to ask Moby about some of the others since either we’re not very familiar with them or we haven’t heard of them at all.

  Soon it’s time for us to head to Assembly Hill to meet up with Moby for a brief sound check before the next concert.

  “Before we go, I want to tell you something,” Neil says.

  My breath catches in my throat. This sounds serious.

  He takes both of my hands in his and looks me in the eye. “I meant what I said today in there with Libby. I believe that you’ll fight to find the Morati with everything you have.”

  It’s all I can do not to shrink away. We’re both hiding so much from each other, and it seems impossible right now to bridge this gap between us.

  I want to be worthy of the trust he has in me, to go ahead right now and confess everything. The deal with Nate that led to my second betrayal of Autumn. Finding out that viewing my memories is the catalyst for the Morati’s destruction. And that I have a memory globe right now under my bed. After all, it’s the tried and true template for our relationship—that I bare my soul and he listens and forgives. But I want more. I want give-and-take. I want him to bare his soul to me. Until he does that, I can’t confide in him.

  “What’s really going on with you?” I say in an attempt to get him to open up. “You can tell me anything.”

  His gaze falters, and he zones in on my left ear. “I’m fine. Keegan has been on my mind a lot. I’ve been working with him to convert his rage about Kiara’s murder into something constructive. He’s practicing the drums. It would be great for him to get to play with us one day.”

  I want to hear about Neil, not Keegan, but it’s clear that’s not likely to happen. If I press him, we’ll end up fighting.

  “Yeah, that sounds cool.” I nod with fake enthusiasm, but my eyes prickle with tears.

  He touches my cheek. “It’s scary to go up against the Morati again, but we’ll get through this.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I say.

  twenty-nine

  THE NEXT DAY during seraphim guard class, we work on mind stunning. While I’m doing drills with Emilia, Furukama taps me on the arm and asks me to stay after.

  “Oooh, you’re in trouble,” Emilia says in a singsong voice before hitting me with a mind stun.

  When I come to, Emilia is smirking down at me. I wasn’t concentrating hard enough, and Emilia sensed her opportunity to knock me down.

  I get up and face her again. She tosses her long braid over her shoulder and crouches down slightly, back into a fighting stance. We spar twice more, and both times I end up on the floor.

  Next Furukama has us do physical drills such as punching and kicking. He explains that such physical training can gain you the edge in hand-to-hand combat situations. The more you land blows, the more your opponent loses energy and mind control.

  We switch partners. Brady is gentler with me, but by the time Furukama dismisses us, my whole body is sore. Today is
not my day.

  “See ya, Twitchy.” Brady slaps me on the back. “Stay tough.” He files out with the rest of my classmates, leaving me to face Furukama. Does my dismal performance today mean he’ll kick me out?

  Furukama retrieves his black binder from his table at the front of the gym. “My office is more private.” He gestures for me to follow him.

  We walk from the gym to the administration building. On our way everyone either lowers their eyes in respect or looks at Furukama in unadulterated awe. He’s a legend around here.

  When we enter the administration building, the girl at the information desk salutes us. Furukama leads me to the left wing, and we enter a narrow hallway. At the end of the hall he slides open a Japanese-style screen door painted with cherry blossoms, and we enter a room with tatami flooring. At the center there is a low table with two steaming cups of green tea. The walls are bare except for paintings of coiled green snakes near the baseboards—the only aspect that seems out of place with the traditional Japanese décor.

  “Please. Sit.” Furukama removes his sword and sets it gently between the two ceramic cups and then sits cross-legged in front of the table. “Drink.”

  I kneel and then take a sip. The tea is the bitter, frothy brew used in tea ceremonies. I try my best not to gag, but Furukama smiles wanly when he sees my mouth curled in disgust.

  “How do you rate your skills at this moment?” Furukama asks. Here it comes. He wants me to justify why I should stay when Autumn had to go.

  “I’ll get better. I’m training with Julian starting today.”

  “Bold approach.” Furukama doesn’t go near his tea, but he rubs the gold plating on the hilt of his sword in continuous tiny circles. “I must choose the strongest candidates to move on to the guard. You have much potential.”

  Getting selected to the guard is not my goal. “Why don’t you go? You’re the best of all of us.”

  He sighs, and his shoulders droop, showing unexpected vulnerability. He looks at me in a kind of wonder, as if no has ever dared ask him about himself before. I’ve always thought of him as older because of his position of authority, but seeing him unguarded like this makes me realize how young he appears. He was probably younger than I was when he died back on Earth.

  “The unknown,” he says quietly. “I cannot abide it.”

  And then I understand. Furukama clings to all this artifice, his strong, silent samurai persona, because it’s all he’s dared to imagine for himself. He watches as countless students move on, but he stays. Underneath he’s as scared as the rest of us.

  “It’s okay. I can’t abide it either.” Which is true, and the reason I want my memories of what happened between Neil and me so badly. If you know what the future holds, you can prepare for it.

  He laughs, tilting his head back and letting out what must be centuries of bottled-up mirth. He stands up, still shaking, and begins dancing the twist. It’s so un-samurailike and jarring. Is he drunk?

  Something is definitely off about Furukama.

  As I watch him, I become surer of it. Isn’t the twist from the 1960s? He could have picked it up from the former residents of Level Three, those from decades ago. They moved on, but maybe they left the twist behind.

  But it isn’t only his dancing that bothers me. It is his nationality. Are there more sections of Level Three somewhere? There have to be, because this one seems to be the American default. Yes, there is some diversity in races, spoken languages, and nationalities, but based on my admittedly small sampling, everyone here died on United States soil. Except, presumably Furukama, because why would a Japanese samurai from hundreds of years ago be in North America?

  What if Furukama is a samurai poser?

  He stops gyrating his hips and arms and sits with a thud. He wipes his brow. “I haven’t danced in a long time.”

  “You’re not from the thirteenth century, are you?”

  As an answer Furukama offers me his palm. “Take a look for yourself. If you can,” he challenges.

  I lift my palm to his, and before I connect, I decide to look for blue jeans. Those were definitely not around in ancient Japan. When our palms meet, I’m sucked into the same vast white space that I encountered the last time I was in Furukama’s head, at my seraphim guard processing. I run in my bare feet on the slick surface, but I don’t seem to get anywhere. I concentrate harder, imagining the grainy texture of denim under my fingers.

  A trapdoor opens up below me, and I fall into a bedroom, onto green shag carpeting. My hand, or rather Furukama’s hand, is resting on his knee. Furukama wears jeans, the twist plays on the record player, and a yellow rubber duck with an orange beak stares down from his desk.

  I exit the memory with the suspicion that Furukama wanted me to view this. Otherwise, how could it have been so easy?

  “And so you now know my secret,” Furukama says. “I died in 1961 at the age of nineteen. My father was a scholar of the samurai period. We traveled and lived in Japan for two years before moving back to San Francisco.”

  “Why not show people the real you?”

  Furukama gives me a conspiratorial smile. “When I reached Level Three, I reinvented myself. I became a samurai, and I left my small suburban life behind. The real me is the me I decide to be. Do you understand?”

  “Don’t worry.” I push the still-steaming cup of tea across the table. “I’ll keep your secret.”

  He rises and bows deeply. “Thank you for coming.” He transforms into his statue state, which is my signal to go.

  I retreat down the hallway and prepare myself mentally for my first official session with Julian.

  I pass Libby’s office. Inside, Libby and Neil sit in a semicircle of chairs with seven others—all blushing girls except for Keegan. Did they recruit part of Neil’s fan club to be healers?

  Julian lies facedown on his sofa again, and he doesn’t look up when I lightly rap on his door to get his attention. The burly guard snorts. “He hasn’t moved since yesterday that I can tell.”

  I shut the door between the guard and me. “I’m ready for our session,” I say.

  Julian sits up slowly, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead and then stretching as if he’s awoken from a long, satisfying nap. And maybe he has.

  “What shall we do today?” he asks with his trademark smirk. After my meeting with Furukama, I want to see if Julian has anything underneath his slick exterior.

  “Show me something true.” I sit next to him and hold out my palm.

  Julian hesitates. I think he’s going to refuse, or make a joke out of it. But instead he looks at me searchingly, letting his fingertips barely graze mine. “All you had to do was ask.”

  Then he presses his full palm against mine, and I’m jolted into Julian’s memory. It takes me a second to get my bearings, because this is a memory of the two of us. It’s much less fractured than last time, easier to hold on to. Does this mean he’s more in control now? Because this was pre-accident, I remember this day. My own point of view is so strong, I experience the memory as myself.

  Julian and I ride bicycles. It’s warm, but the leaves are already changing color. We race along the Nidda River, much farther out than I have ever been before, and much farther than anyone I know would ever venture.

  Watching the wind ruffle Julian’s hair, I feel free. He pedals fast, so I pump my legs to keep up with him. By the time we reach the dunes, I’m breathing heavily. “Let’s stop here,” I shout.

  Julian slows, allowing me to catch up with him. We jump off our bikes and lay them on the boardwalk. The vegetation is different here; we could be at the Mediterranean Sea. Julian sits down under a stubby pine tree, and I arrange myself so that my head is in his lap. I stare up at him. The early afternoon sun forms a halo above his head, and I shield my eyes with my hand.

  Despite squinting, my eyes fill with water, so I close them. I wiggle around to get more comfortable. A heaviness settles in my limbs. I haven’t slept well in weeks, but now, lying here with J
ulian’s hands in my hair, I’m only a few breaths away from peace.

  “I could stay here all day,” I mumble as sleep overtakes me.

  At this point I feel myself drifting out of the memory, but then something grabs hold, and I find myself snapped into Julian’s point of view. I’m inside his head now, in this memory. It’s such a vast space that I hear an echo in his thoughts. I see through his eyes—he’s gazing down at me sleeping in his lap—but it’s a level removed, almost as if I peer through frosted glass.

  “I could stay here forever,” Julian whispers. He brushes loose strands of Felicia’s long hair away from her forehead, taking a few pieces to weave together into a braid. He is fully immersed in this scene, fully grounded by the closeness of her skin and the sound of her breathing. He knows how easily moments evaporate into the mist. In the future he’ll look back on this day and it will seem like a dream within a dream, but for now it belongs to him.

  By the time Felicia starts to stir, he has woven all her hair into tiny braids and then unraveled them again. Her hair lies in a crinkled fan around her face. If only he could tell her how much he cares about her. But he can’t. She’d never understand the depth of his feelings, or how they could even develop. She might even think it creepy if she knew how he looked for excuses to view her through the Morati’s portal in the palace—that he followed her life on Earth every chance he got. She was like a splash of bright color in his otherwise dull, white world.

  It would be even worse if the Morati council knew of his affection. They would ruthlessly use it against him. No. He’ll have to carry this through, hide his love behind a veil of indifference. In order to keep Felicia safe, he will do anything. No matter how much it hurts.

  The memory changes again then, zooming out of Julian’s point of view and spinning back into mine.

  A fat droplet of water plops onto my cheek and brings me back to consciousness. I open my eyes when Julian shifts under me. “It’s starting to rain,” he says softly. “We should go.”