I walk around the small basement apartment, making my promised appearance, but also needing to ask Miesha something. The apartment takes up about half of the basement of the gallery. I look up at the small window that looks out at street level. Everything about the basement is different from when Kara and I used to hang out here with Jenna, except for the stone walls and the windows. “It doesn’t look anything like I remember.”
“It’s been centuries. The whole house has been gutted and restored several times over,” Jenna says. “It took some hits during the Civil Division too, and that had to be repaired. Only father’s study on the second floor is still intact with all the original walls and contents—right down to the books in his library and the pen on his desk. I guess when you create something as groundbreaking as Bio Gel, people want to get a glimpse of the mind that created it. But most of the house is devoted to the art gallery now.”
“It’s strange to think you’ve been here before,” Miesha says. “I keep forgetting how far back you two go.” She walks over and brushes hair aside that hangs over my eye, like she’s still my caretaker at Gatsbro’s estate. “You’re looking better than you did yesterday.”
“What else would you expect?” I answer, trying to put her at ease. I even add one of my impish grins.
She balks. “Don’t even try to use that on me. I know you too well.”
I put away the smile and pretense. “You do know me, Miesha. And there’s something I need to know about you. But no questions asked.”
She delivers a long slow blink, clearly not fond of conditional information, but waits silently for me to continue.
“When you lived in Cambridge with Karden all those years ago, who knew your address?” She looks startled and I tell her I’m only curious, trying to piece together the early activities of the Resistance. “I remember you told me that you and Karden lived under the radar and moved frequently, but you must have told some people where you lived.”
She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have done it, but when we returned to Boston I contacted my parents. I wanted them to see their only grandchild. I thought if they saw Rebecca, that might change things between us, but they refused to come. They rejected her the same as they rejected me. They would never accept me being with Karden.”
She pauses, looking down as her hand slides over her scarred forearm, the lasting proof that her long-ago nightmare really happened. Her gaze jerks back to me. “But if you’re wondering how Security found us, it wasn’t them. My parents had plenty of opportunities to turn me in before but they never did. They may have hated Karden but they didn’t hate me. I told you before that Karden had been working on his next maneuver. We stayed in Cambridge longer than we had ever stayed anywhere before. Too long. I think Security must have traced his activity.”
“And no one else knew your address?”
“Only a trusted few in the Resistance.”
“Who were they?”
“You’ve already met them. Carver, Livvy, and Xavier.”
I try to process what this might mean. Her estranged bitter parents versus three trusted members of the Resistance. “Was Karden close to the three of them?”
“Carver and Karden were childhood best friends.” She shrugs. “But they all had a long history together.”
“You don’t seem to like any of them.”
She steps over to a hutch that holds a few dishes for the tiny kitchen, checking a plate like she’s just noticed a speck of dirt on it. “It has nothing to do with liking. It has to do with reminders. I can barely stand to look at them because when I do all I see are memories.” She pauses, rubbing her thumb across the plate. “They make me remember all the nights I lay on my cot in prison, staring at the ceiling and wishing it had been them and their families in the burned rubble instead of mine. Every ugliness in myself and every horror from that day are what I see when I look at them.” She pulls a towel from the drawer and begins wiping down each plate and restacking them. “When I saw you yesterday…” She shakes her head. “I thought, they have no right to do this to me again. No right.”
I walk over to her and pull the towel from her hands so she has to look at me. “They aren’t doing anything to me, Miesha. I’m here because I want to be. I don’t know how all these things work, how any person ends up in a place where they never expected to be, but maybe sometimes we find ourselves in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time and then maybe there’s just as many of those other times too when we’re in exactly the right place just when we need to be there. I’m hoping this is one of those other times.”
She’s silent like she’s trying to weigh the odds. “Me too,” she finally whispers, and then dismisses me in her trademark Miesha way, snatching the towel back from me and wiping a final plate.
When it’s time for me to leave Jenna says she’ll walk me out. Miesha and I don’t say good-bye, as we never do. Maybe some scars last forever.
When we’re in the dark stairwell that leads up to the street, Jenna pulls me closer and whispers, “Did you tell Raine?”
She already knows. I hear it in her voice. I shake my head. “No.”
“Why? Are you afraid?”
“No. I just didn’t get the chance.”
“That’s probably the poorest excuse I’ve ever heard for not telling someone that you love them.”
Yes. It probably is. But I can’t begin to tell her all the reasons why speaking to Raine is no longer an option, so I just nod in agreement and walk up the stairs to the street level.
* * *
I hide in the shadows, watching my apartment from across the street. I wear my black government charity coat as camouflage, but maybe for other reasons too. I remember when I saw land pirates wearing them, filled with swagger. The first time I put one on that’s what I needed, swagger and to feel dark and dangerous the way Miesha described Karden. That was my purpose then, to feel strong enough to survive. I know a coat doesn’t make someone into something else—it’s only a symbol of what you want to be—but it’s a good reminder too.
I know who I am and it’s not a rich kid living in a luxury apartment going to school with rich kids. It’s freeing not to have to play that role anymore, even if it makes me a target. I suppose one’s true character is impossible to hide for long. On that much, the Secretary and I agree.