Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

I close my eyes. I have to focus. I don’t want to focus. I’m sick of putting on a strong face. I’ve been doing it my entire life. For once it would be nice if I could just lie down, curl into a ball, and cry. But the only way I’m ever going to be able to do that is if I end this. If we end this.

“I do,” I whisper.

Yellow’s head whips around. “Huh?”

“I know where we can get help. We need to go back to Massachusetts. Cambridge. MIT.”

Neither Yellow nor I say much on the plane. I take the window seat and stare out of it the entire flight. I don’t want to think about my dad. It hurts too much. But my mind won’t stop replaying the moment when my dad mentioned the ten million dollars. When I discovered he orchestrated an assassination, only to be betrayed and murdered himself.

How many other kickbacks had he taken before that—gotten away with?

I know the truth, but I don’t want to believe it. It’s Alpha. It’s all Alpha. He corrupted my dad. Blackmailed him, maybe. My dad would not have done this on his own. Please let that be the truth.

I puke in a tiny, cramped airplane bathroom.

We’re climbing down the metal stairs onto the tarmac at Logan when I lean over to Yellow. “What happened to Beta?”

Yellow cranes her head around, and her face turns pained. “I don’t think you really want to know the answer to that, do you?”

“Tell me.”

Yellow sighs. “He committed suicide. Years ago. Probably not too long after . . . uh . . .”

“Committed suicide or got taken out just like my father did?”

Yellow presses her lips together.

“Whose father was Beta?”

She hesitates for a moment. “Green’s.”

I nod once. I never got a warm and fuzzy feeling from Green; but here we are, locked together in a mess of corruption and murder. He and I will be forever linked. And I’m kind of glad Beta got his due, all things told. He murdered my father.

Even if my father deserved it.

Maybe.

Probably.

I don’t know.

It’s a short cab ride from Logan to MIT, and I know exactly where I’m going now. Yellow pays the driver while I start walking, head down, toward the building in front of me. I hear Yellow take quick steps to catch up. We are the only two souls wandering the campus right now.

“Are you sure he’s going to be here?” Yellow looks down at her Annum watch. “It’s eight o’clock the day before Christmas Eve.”

“The man practically lives here,” I say. “Besides, Ariel’s Jewish, so it’s not like he’ll be rushing off to trim a tree or anything. He’ll be here.”

“But if he’s not?”

I sigh. “Then I know where he lives.” Although I’d like to avoid going to his house. I don’t know if I’d have the strength not to collapse into a puddle of tears and mourning in the living room.

We round the corner. The sky is dark, and a window on the fifth floor is illuminated. I point.

“Bet you anything that’s Ariel’s office.”

The front door is locked. I jiggle the handle a few times to make sure, but it doesn’t budge. Christmas holidays. Of course the door is locked. I don’t know what I was thinking. We’re going to have to break in.

I turn to tell Yellow, but she’s already standing in front of a first-floor window with a fallen tree branch. “Is there an alarm?”

I shrug. I have no idea. But I guess we’ll find out.

Yellow heaves the limb through the window, but apart from the sound of the glass shattering, it’s quiet. We clear out the glass, then I hoist Yellow up through the window. She scoots a chair over, and I jump to grab her hand.

We’re in.

The hallway on the fifth floor is dark, but light spills from Ariel’s open door.

“Told you,” I whisper to Yellow.

Ariel sits in the corner of his cluttered office with his back to the door. He’s hunched over a stool, tinkering with a small metal object. Papers are piled up and pushed to either side of the desk. I clear my throat, and Ariel turns at once. He somehow looks older than the last time I saw him, which seems weird. That was in 1962. Just over a year ago. Yet the Ariel who’s looking at me now has a harder face, more lines. There are bags under both of his eyes.

“Ah,” he says when he sees me, “Miss Hart, was it? I was wondering when I’d see you again.”

There’s a coyness in his voice. I look over to Yellow to see if she’s caught it, but Yellow’s just standing there staring at Ariel with her mouth open.

Chills dance up and down my arms. “My name isn’t Miss Hart.”

“I am very well aware of that,” Ariel says. “When are you from?”

“I—” Wait. Did he say when am I from?

“You—you know who I am?” My head snaps over to Yellow again. But she has the same shocked expression on her face.

“Not specifically, but when you showed up out of nowhere, begging me to change the design of my machine, I was willing to bet that you were, in fact, already using it at some point in the future. So now I’m asking you when you came from.”

Yellow’s fingers grab my bicep. “Don’t tell him,” she whispers.

I turn to face her. “What?”

Yellow starts backing out of the room, one foot at a time. “We need to go. Now.”

“Yellow, what are—”

“That’s Seven,” she whispers.

My mouth turns bone-dry as my mind races back to my Annum Guard orientation. The first generation Guardians were code named numbers. Only one of that generation is still alive.

Seven.

Ariel.

Which means . . . Abe .

I gasp. No. NO! Not Abe. Not Abe. NOT ABE! I whip my head back to Ariel in a flash. I’m not going anywhere.

“You’re a liar!” I say. “I know you. I’ve known you for years, which means you knew exactly who I was all those times. All those dinners. All those holiday celebrations. And you never said a goddamned word!”

Ariel holds up his hands and rises from his stool. “You need to stop talking right now.”

“Do you know what Annum Guard is?” I ask.

“Of course I do.” He waves his arm in the air. “It’s been in place for over a year. We’ve experimented, and we’re still at least another year away from consistently traveling, but we’re getting there. I’m Seven.” He looks right at Yellow. “I think you already know that, don’t you?”

Yellow doesn’t say anything, and Ariel looks back at me.

“Now will you please tell me who you are, when you are from, and what you want?”

“Iris, don’t,” Yellow says.

I look right at Ariel. “I know your grandson.”

“No.” Ariel holds up a hand with a very stern look on his face. “I don’t want you to tell me anything specific. Nothing at all. Anything you tell me has the potential to completely alter my life’s course, and I’m not interested. I’m on a path for a reason, and I will follow it to the end. So just keep it all to yourself.

“I only want to know who you are, when you come from, and what you want.”

Why should I? Why shouldn’t I tell him every tiny detail of his life to come?

But I know, deep down. Abe. Anything I tell Ariel could affect Abe’s future.

Me being here right now could affect Abe’s future. My first visit, too, when I pointed out Mona. What if I planted that idea too early, and she and Ariel have already dated and broken up? What if Ariel marries someone else, which means no Abe? Ever?

I open my mouth, but my tongue can’t find the words. I don’t know if I can do this. I have to do this. We’re at a dead end. Without help, we’re going to fail. Breathe.

I tell Ariel that I’m Annum Guard, too, and give him the date I ran away. My voice cracks as I do.