“Shocking,” I say as the whistle blows.
Wes throws a punch, and I dodge and catch his wrist.
“Waste of gas,” he says, before I turn and flip him over my shoulder. Instead of resisting, he moves with the flip, lands on his feet, and throws a kick my direction. I lunge backward. We dance around each other for a moment.
“So you live in walking distance?” I ask, throwing a punch. He catches it—his grip oddly gentle around my bad wrist—and rolls my body in against his, one arm snaking around my shoulders.
“I use the Narrows,” he says in my ear. “Fastest transportation around, remember?” He shoves me forward before I can try to flip him again. I spin to face him and catch him in the stomach, on his good side.
“You could only do that if Hyde School was in your territory,” I say, blocking two back-to-back shots.
“It is,” he says, clearly trying to focus on the match.
I smile to myself. That means he lives nearby—and the only houses nearby are mansions, massive properties on the land that rings the campus. I try to picture him at a party on one of the stone patios that accent many of the mansions, staff flitting about with trays of champagne. While I’m busy picturing that, Wesley fakes a punch and takes out my legs. I go down hard.
The whistle blows, and this time when Wesley tries to help me up, I let him.
“That’s how it’s done,” says the gym teacher, shooing us off the mat. “A little less chitchat would have been nice, but that’s the idea.”
I tug my helmet off and toss it into the equipment stack. Wesley’s hair is slick with sweat, but I’m still picturing him with a butler. And maybe a pipe. On the Graham family yacht.
“What are you grinning about?” he asks.
“What’s your real name?” The question tumbles out. There, in the sliver of time after I ask it and before Wes answers, I see another one of his faces. This one is pale, raw, and exposed. And then it’s gone, replaced by a thinner version of his usual ease.
“You already know my name,” he says stiffly.
“Cash said Wesley is your middle name, not your first.”
“Well, aren’t you and Cash just thick as thieves?” he says. There’s a tightness in his voice. He’s a good enough liar to hide discomfort, so the fact that he’s letting a fraction of it show makes me wonder if he wants me to see. He strides away across the gym, and I rush to follow.
“And for the record,” he says without looking back, “it’s still real.”
“What?”
“My name. Just because it’s not my first doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to keep up, “it’s real. I just want to know your full name.”
“Why?” he snaps.
“Because sometimes I don’t feel like I know the full you,” I say, grabbing his sleeve. I drag him to a stop. His eyes are bright, reflecting specks of mottled brown and green and gold. “The other girls here might think your air of mystery is cute, but I know what you’re doing—showing everybody different pieces and keeping the whole secret. And I thought…” I trail off. I thought if you could be honest with anyone, it would be me. It’s what I want to say, but I bite back the words.
Wesley squints at me a little. “You’re one to talk about secrets, Mackenzie Bishop,” he says. But the words are playful. He turns to face me and surprises me by bringing his hands to rest firmly on my shoulders. My head fills with the cluttered music of his noise.
“You want to know my full name?” he asks softly. I nod. He brings his forehead to rest against mine and talks into the small window of space between our lips. “When Crew are paired up,” he says, his voice easy and low over the sound of his noise, “there’s a ceremony. That’s when they have their Archive marks carved into their skin. Three lines. One made by their own hand. One made by their partner. One made by the Archive.” His eyes look down into mine. His words are little more than a breath between us. “The Crew make their scars and take their vows to the Archive and to each other. The vows start and end with their names. So,” he whispers, “when we become Crew, I’ll tell you mine.”
And then the bell echoes through the gym, and he smiles and pulls away. “About time,” he says cheerfully, heading for the locker rooms. “I’m starving.”
Da won’t talk about his Crew partner.
He once said he’d tell me anything if I asked the right question, but somehow I never ask the right one to get him to tell me about Meg. He doesn’t even tell me her name; I learn it later, after he’s gone and I’m packing up his things.
They all fit into one box.
There’s a leather jacket, a wallet, a few letters—to Dad, mostly (and one to Patty, my grandmother, who left him before I was born). There are only three photos in with the letters (Da was never very sentimental). The first one is of him as a young man, leaning up against an iron fence, looking lean and strong and a little arrogant—really the only difference between young Da and old Da is the number of wrinkles on his face.
The second one is of him with Mom and Dad and me and Ben.
And the third one is of him with Meg.
They stand close, shoulder to shoulder but for a small gap, Da tilting his head slightly toward hers. His sleeves are rolled down, but hers are rolled up, and I can see, even in the faded photo, the three parallel scars of the Archive carved into her forearm. It’s a mirror image of the one etched into Da’s skin, the two of them bonded by scars and oaths and secrets.
Neither one of them is smiling in the photo, but they both look like they’re about to, and all I can think is that they fit. It’s not just the way their bodies nest, even without touching. It’s the knowing way they share the space, sensing where the other ends. It’s their mirrored almost-smiles, the closest I have ever seen Da to happy. I know so little of this woman, of Da’s days as Crew—only that he left. He told me he wanted to live long enough to train me himself (what would have happened if he’d died first? Would someone else have come?), but seeing him—this strange, vibrant, happier version of my grandfather—it hurts to think he gave her up for me.
“Do you think they were in love?” I ask Roland, showing him the photo.
He frowns, running a thumb over the worn edges.
“Love is simple, Miss Bishop. Crew isn’t.” His eyes are proud and sad at the same time, and I remember that underneath the sleeves of his sweater, he bears the scars as well. Three even lines.
“How so?” I press.
“Love breaks,” he says. “The bond between Crew doesn’t. It has love in it, though, and transparency. Being Crew with someone means being exposed, letting them read you—your hopes and wants and thoughts and fears. It means trusting them so much that you’re not only willing to put your life in their hands, but to take their life into yours. It’s a heavy burden to bear,” he says, handing the picture back, “but Crew is worth it.”
ELEVEN
I TAKE A LONG, cold shower.
Wesley’s touch lingers on my skin. His music echoes through my head. I remind myself as I scrub my skin that we are both liars and con artists. That we will always have secrets, some that bind us and some that cut between us, slicing us into pieces. That we will never see each other whole…until we become Crew. But I don’t know if I want to be Crew with Wesley. I don’t know if I’m willing to let him see all the pieces.