Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

And all I can think about is my dad. He’s going to be there. Trying to stop it. And he’s going to die.

The driver drops us off in front of the Dallas County Records Building, a white, window-filled building that rises several stories in the air. The weather is crisp—almost cold. Across the street, kitty-corner to where we’re standing, is the seven-story, redbrick Texas School Book Depository.

“That’s it,” Yellow whispers.

I nod my head and look to a window on the corner of the sixth floor. That’s where Lee Harvey Oswald is going to be when he shoots and kills President Kennedy tomorrow. And where Alpha is going to try to earn a boatload of money off of stopping it.

I feel sick.

If this was a normal mission, I would be all over that building, all over this plaza. I’d scour every inch of the place and come up with a plan of attack. But it’s not a normal mission. I don’t even know what we’re doing here. How on earth are we supposed to figure out who CE is?

Yellow and I check into the cheapest motel we can find. There are two double beds covered in thread-bare dark-green comforters, a wobbly night table between them, a beat-up old dresser, and carpeting that I assume used to be beige at one time.

“I can’t believe we wasted all that money on the Parker House,” Yellow says as she drops down onto one of the beds.

“Mmm-hmm.” I stare at the dresser. There are scratches on the top of it, dozens of them. I trace my finger along the deepest ridge and wonder how it got there. Hotel key? That’s a scratch of anger. Of contempt. That scratch makes me think of Alpha.

“Iris,” Yellow says.

I turn.

“You need to be honest with me right now.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Are you planning on stopping the assassination tomorrow?”

“No.” I drum my fingers across the dresser, then wipe them on my dress. Dusty. “Why would I stop it? If I do, Alpha gets ten million dollars, and who knows how we’d affect the world. I’m not going to risk it.”

Yellow nods her head, moving barely more than an inch in either direction. “And what about the other assassination?” She holds up a hand. “I’m not judging, but I need to be prepared.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Yellow raises an eyebrow. “Honestly, I don’t. I just . . . want to be there . . . when it happens. It’s the only lead we have right now.”

Yellow doesn’t say anything for a while. Then she simply says, “Okay.”

I don’t sleep very well. I toss. I turn. I imagine my dad’s face. I wonder if I’ll recognize him. There are only two pictures of my dad in my house. One sits on a side table in the living room. It’s a picture of my dad holding me as a baby, staring down into my eyes. My mom stands above him, watching us. My dad’s face is hidden, partially obscured behind a mop of floppy hair that covers his eyes. That picture is part of the reason I have such a complicated relationship with my mom, because you can see it written all over her face in the photo: She only has eyes for him. She tolerates me, but she loves my dad.

Except that now I know she did love me. She tried so hard to protect me. I shake my head; but the guilt remains, firmly nuzzled, no intention of budging.

The second picture sits on my mom’s dresser in her bedroom. It was taken on their wedding day. They’re looking right at the camera. I spent hours staring at that picture as a child. I used to talk to it. Talk to my dad.

In my head, my dad is going to look exactly like that picture tomorrow. Young. Handsome. Wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie.

Okay, that’s probably not going to happen. But it might.

I wake up Yellow at six the next morning, mainly because I’m jumpy, and I can’t sit there and watch her sleep anymore.

“Plan,” Yellow says as she flops our cocktail napkins full of poorly thought-out gibberish onto the bed. “We need to have a better idea what we’re doing.”

I nod. She’s right. I pull out my dad’s file and flip to the very end. I read over the details I only skimmed before.

“According to this, the main confrontation with Beta happens on the landing in between the fifth and sixth floors.”

“And Lee Harvey Oswald is on the sixth?” Yellow says. “How close to the stairs is he stationed?”

I realize I have no idea what the layout of the building is. That’s such a simple, basic detail, and I don’t have a freaking clue.

“He can’t be too close to the stairs,” Yellow says, “or else he would have heard the argument; and as far as I know, the assassination happens just like it always has.”

“Or he does hear it and carries on anyway.”

“Either way, we need to figure out where we’re going to be. How many floors does the building have?”

“Seven,” I tell her. At least I know that.

“Okay, so we could set ourselves up on the sixth floor where Oswald is”—Yellow cocks her head to the side—“which just seems like a recipe for disaster, or we could be on the stairs too, on the landing above.”

“Yes, the landing above,” I say. “That way we can be there the whole time and just wait for it to happen.”

It’s seven in the morning by the time we cross Dealey Plaza and head over to the book depository. The president isn’t due to arrive for more than five hours, but already the crowds are gathering, setting up to get the best look.

“These poor people,” Yellow whispers. “They have no idea what’s going to happen.”

A pit forms in my stomach. They don’t know. The president doesn’t know. No one knows except for me and Yellow and Lee Harvey. For a second I wonder if maybe we should stop the assassination. Reading about something in a history book is so much different than actually being there.

Kind of like the time my mom took me to Disney World when I was seven. She’d been on a high for a week already. My mom is almost always a happy manic. Anything is possible during that time. It’s when she gets all her painting done. Passionate swirls of color thrown onto canvas that sell for enough money throughout New England to ensure that the rent gets paid. She always paints first whenever mania hits—exhausts the muse, as she calls it—and then it’s onto whatever else she feels like in the moment. This time it was Orlando.

We started driving in the middle of the night, and I was so excited I barely slept. Before the trip, I could have cared less about all that Disney princess crap, but there was something about being inside the park. Seeing the characters right there. Getting my picture taken with Cinderella. I had to have the merchandise. Dress-up clothes and wands and dolls. Plates and cups and straws. My mom bought it all.

I’m feeling the same urge today. I’m in Dallas. On the day of one of the biggest tragedies in American history. And I can stop it. Alpha will get a windfall, yes, but I could save my dad, too.

Yellow looks at me. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

Am I being that obvious? I shake my head. “No,” I lie. “Of course not.”

“Don’t get caught up in this.” Yellow gets right in my face and stares me down. “It’s so hard to do, but you have to distance yourself. You have to , Iris.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I brush past her and open the door to the depository and hold it for Yellow. I pass through and then Yellow’s in my face again.

“Seriously,” she says. “Get yourself out of the moment. Think with your head, not with your heart. You’re a trained government operative.”

Of all the things she could have said, this is the worst. Because she’s right. She’s so right. This excitement is a feeling—nothing more. It will wear off. Just like my mom’s high suddenly stopped in Virginia on the car ride back from Disney World. It was the first time she rapid cycled, so there was no normal phase. She sank straight to the bottom. We spent three awful nights in a motel that rented out rooms by the hour, as my mom cried and wailed and drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. I pitched all the princess crap into the parking lot Dumpster and never thought of it again.