Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

“Elizabeth,” I say. “Her name is Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth what?” the woman asks in this totally annoyed voice.

“I don’t know her last name.”

The woman takes her hands off the keys. “I guess you guys aren’t very good friends then, are you? I can’t help you without a last name.”

And now I really have to restrain myself. I’m tired. I’m sore. I’ve lost almost three months of my life. I’ve lost my boyfriend. My father. My father’s friend. Everyone. Everything. I have no idea if Yellow is all right. I’m ready for a release. I clench my fists.

“Iris!”

My head pops up.

“Indigo!”

I push off the desk and run over to him. I run right into his arms, and he wraps them around me and holds me tight.

“How is she?” I ask, my mouth pressed into his shoulder.

“She’s okay.” Indigo’s voice is hurried, scared, exhausted, all in one. “They had to rush her into surgery to repair the damage, but she made it through.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “This is all my fault. Yellow getting shot. I should have stayed when I found out the truth. Then no one would have chased after me and no one—”

Indigo holds a finger to my mouth. “Stop. None of this is your fault.”

“But—”

“None of it.” He steps back and looks me in the eyes. “Your dad really was Annum Guard?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I always wanted to believe you were right. I think deep down I knew it. You’re a good person. You wouldn’t do all those things Alpha accused you of doing. All those months we were tracking you, I was actually hoping we wouldn’t find you. That you’d just disappear and go be free and happy somewhere.”

“There was never freedom and happiness. Not until I ended this.”

Indigo nods. “Everything’s changing. I don’t know where Annum Guard is going to go from here. If we’ll even exist anymore. We don’t have a leader. I mean, maybe my dad will take over when everything gets cleared up, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he wants to. Seems we’re dropping like flies these days. Blue’s gone.”

I should be shocked. But I’m not. Blue has always been gone. Ever since he was betrayed on Testing Day his junior year.

“Tyler,” I say. “His name is Tyler. And my name is Amanda. Not Iris.”

Indigo waits a second and then holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Amanda. I’m Nick.”

Nick. I repeat the name in my head a few times. Nick. Nick . It sounds so weird.

Beside us, someone clears a throat. Indigo—Nick—and I both turn. Zeta is standing there. He looks as if he’s aged twenty years since I last saw him. His blue eyes are weary and weathered, and his hair seems less brown and more gray today. Wrinkles snake across his face. “They just moved her out of Recovery. She’s awake and asking for you.”

Indigo drops my hand. “I have to go.” I nod at him, and he starts down the hall. But Zeta holds out his arm to stop him.

“I meant you,” he says, looking directly at me. “She’s asking for you.”

“Me?” I repeat.

Zeta nods. “I’ll show you the way.”

We trudge down the hall in silence, but then a thought occurs to me. I make a dead stop, and Zeta and Indigo do the same. They turn to look at me.

“Where were you?” I demand of Zeta.

He grimaces. “1942. Sent on a last-minute mission by a very frantic Alpha that turned out to be nothing.” His face contorts into a look of physical pain, and he walks away, as if standing here talking about it is too much to bear. He stops in front of the elevator, the doors open, and we file in. Zeta pushes the button for the fourth floor. “I should have known something was wrong based on his demeanor. I never should have gone. Then I would have been there and—”

He doesn’t finish the thought. I look away. I’m sorry I asked. As it is, I’m sure he’s going to beat himself up for years over being on a bogus mission when his daughter was shot.

We get off the elevator and are greeted by a glass door with a buzzer on the wall. Zeta scans a card that opens the door for us. And then we’re in the ICU. All the doors are glass, and the rooms are tiny. I see Yellow right away. She’s in the third room, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She looks like hell. There are dark-purple circles under her eyes, and she’s whiter than the sheets she’s lying. She looks up and sees me staring at her from the other side of the glass, so I slide open the door and walk in. As I do, I notice her name has been written on a dry-erase strip outside the door.

ELIZABETH MASTERS

She’ll always be Yellow to me. And Indigo is always going to be Indigo, now that I think about it. I’ll probably be Iris to them. It’s who we are.

“Hey,” I whisper.

“Please tell me it’s all over. Please tell me I didn’t take a bullet for no reason.”

“It’s all over.”

Yeah, it’s nowhere close to being over. The investigation hasn’t even begun. But there’s no need to trouble Yellow with the details now.

Yellow nods. “Good.” She closes her eyes, then opens them a few seconds later. “Getting shot hurts like a bitch, in case you were wondering.”

“I would have guessed as much.”

“So that was your boyfriend, huh?”

“ Was my boyfriend is right.” It sounds so wrong when I say it.

“You broke up?”

“No.” I think about it. “Maybe.” I think some more. “No. I don’t know what happened.”

“Are you going to start dating my brother now?”

I turn my head to look out the windowed doors, where Zeta and Indigo are standing with arms crossed looking in. Indigo gives me a little smile, and I return it. Then I look back at Yellow. “Not a chance. Your brother’s a great guy, but no. We’re friends. Besides, he uses finger quotes. I could never be with a guy who uses finger quotes.”

And Abe and I aren’t over. Screw the universe. Screw the house. We’ll find our way back together.

“Okay, good,” Yellow says. “Because that would be totally weird if my friend was dating my little brother.”

“So we’re friends then?”

“Um, duh,” Yellow says. “I took a bullet for you.”

“Technically you didn’t,” I point out. “Blue just got a little jumpy.”

She smiles. It’s a weak smile, and I can tell her eyes are struggling to stay open.

“I’m going to let you rest,” I say. “I’m really glad you didn’t die today, Yellow.”

“That makes two of us.” And then she closes her eyes.

I slide the door closed behind me as softly as I can. Zeta reaches out and squeezes me on the shoulder.

“So where do we go from here?” I ask.

Zeta swallows. Then he shrugs. “You go back to Annum Hall. I go . . . somewhere for now. I’m out.”

I gasp. “What? Why?”

“I’m being investigated, too. We all are, but my generation is being more heavily scrutinized than yours is.” He gives a weak laugh. “My generation. I’m pretty much the only one left from my generation.”

His eyes are sad, and I look away. I can’t take one more sad, defeated person today.

“I’m not allowed within fifty feet of the hall until the investigation is complete,” Zeta says.

I don’t say anything. I look down at my feet.

“And for the record,” Zeta continues, “the investigation is going to show that I knew nothing about what Alpha was doing.”

I look at Zeta. He’s staring at me with those scary, intense eyes. But behind them is a softness, a look of concern.

“You knew my dad,” I say. It’s one hell of a subject change, but I don’t care.

“I did know your dad. I knew him well. Since childhood.”

“And?” I say, looking from Zeta to Indigo and then back to Zeta.