Victoria Schwab - The Unbound

“It doesn’t work that way,” says Wes. “We’re part—”

“We’re not partners!” I snap. “Not yet, Wes. And we’ll never be, not unless I get through this.”

“Then let me help you.”

I press my palms against my eyes. Every bone and muscle in my body wants to tell him, but I can’t. I’m willing to bet with my life, but not with Wesley’s.

“Mackenzie.” I feel his hands wrap around mine, his bass playing through my head as he lowers them, holding them between us. “Please. Tell me what’s going on.”

I bring my forehead to rest against his. “Do you trust me, Wes?”

“Yes,” he says, and the simple certainty in his voice makes my chest hurt.

“Then trust me ,” I plead. “Trust me when I say I have to get through this, and trust me when I say I will, and trust me when I say that I can’t tell you more. Please don’t make me lie to you.”

Wesley’s eyes are bright with pain. “What can I do?”

I manage a sad smile. “You can help me put my makeup on. And you can take me to the festival. And you can dance with me.”

Wesley takes a deep, shaky breath. “If you get yourself killed,” he whispers, “I will never forgive you.”

“I don’t plan on dying, Wes. Not until I know your first name.”

He hands me the towel from the table. “You get the blood off. I’ll get the makeup kit.”

“Okay. You can open your eyes.”

Wes holds up a mirror for me to see his work: dark liner dusted with silver and shadow. The effect is strange and haunting, and it pairs well with his own look. “One last touch,” he says, rooting around in his bag. He pulls out a pair of silver horns and nestles them in my hair. I consider my reflection, and a strange thought occurs to me.

When I pulled Ben’s drawer open, his History was wearing the red shirt with the X over the heart. The one he had on when he died. And if things go wrong tonight and I die, I’ll die like this: sixteen and three quarters in a plaid skirt with silver shadow on my face and glittering horns in my hair.

“What do you think?” asks Wes.

“You make a perfect fairy godmother,” I say, looking toward the clock on the wall. “We’d better get going.”

I head for the Narrows door in the hall, but Wes takes my hand and leads me downstairs instead, through the Coronado’s door and out to the curb.

There’s a black Porsche parked there. My mouth actually falls open when I see it. At first I think it can’t be Wesley’s, but it’s the only car around, and he heads straight for it.

“I thought you didn’t have a car.”

“Oh, I don’t,” he says proudly, producing a key chain. “I stole it.”

“From who?”

He presses a button on the key and the lights come on. “Cash.”

“Does he know?”

Wes smirks as he holds the door open for me. “Where’s the fun in that?” He sees me in and shuts the door, jogging around to the other side of the car and climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Are you ready?” he asks. There are so many questions folded into those three words, and only one way to answer.

I swallow and nod. “Let’s go.”

“A RE YOU AFRAIDof dying?”

Wesley and I are sprawled out in the garden a week and a half before school starts. He’s been reading a book to himself, and I’ve been staring at the sky. I haven’t slept in what feels like days but might be longer, and the question slips through my mind and out my lips before I think to stop it.

Wes looks up from his book.

“No,” he says. His voice is soft, his answer sure. “Are you?”

A cloud slices through the sunlight. “I don’t know. I’m not afraid of the pain. But I’m afraid of losing my life.”

“Nothing’s truly lost,” he says, reciting Archive mantra.

I sit up. “We are, though, aren’t we? When we die? Histories aren’t us, Wes. They’re replicas, but they’re not us. You can’t prove that we are what wakes up on those shelves. So the thought that nothing’s lost doesn’t comfort me. It doesn’t make me any readier to die.”

Wes sets the book aside. “This is kind of a morbid topic,” he says. “Even for you.”

I sigh and stretch back out on my stone bench. “Our lives are kind of morbid.”

Wes goes quiet, and I assume he’s gone back to reading, but a minute or two later he says, “I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m terrified of being erased. Seeing what it did to my aunt…I’d rather die whole than live in pieces.”

I consider him. “If you could leave the Archive without being altered, would you?”

It is a dangerous question, one I shouldn’t ask. It whispers of treason. Wes gives me a cautious look, trying to understand why I’m asking.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“But if it did? If you could?”

“No.” I’m surprised by the certainty in his voice. “Would you?”

I don’t answer.

“Mackenzie?” he prompts.

“Mackenzie, we’re here.”

I blink to find the car sitting in the Hyde School lot. Wes is twisted in his seat, looking at me. “You okay?” he asks. I will myself to nod and offer him a reassuring smile, then climb out of the car. With my back to Wes, I slide the silver ring off and loop it on my necklace chain, wishing I could cling a little longer to the buffer and everything that comes with it. But I can’t afford to miss Owen.

“Wesley Ayers!” calls Safia from the edge of the parking lot, “you look ridiculous.” All four of them are there waiting for us: Saf and Cash with gold streaks in their rich, dark hair, Amber with blue ribbons and butterfly patterns on her cheeks, Gavin in green, thick-framed glasses that take up half his face.

Wes runs a hand over his black spiked hair. “You say ridiculous, I say dangerous.”

Cash arches a brow. “Dangerous as in, you could probably impale a low-flying bird?”

“Love the horns, Mackenzie,” says Amber.

“I thought you had a date, Safia,” I say.

“Yeah, whatever, I bailed.”

“She wanted to be with us,” says Amber. “She’s just too proud to admit it.”

“Is that my car?” asks Cash.

On campus, the buildings are dark, but the light from the festival glows against the low clouds, and the air is filled with the distant thrum of music—nothing but highs and lows from here. We reach the front gate with its wrought iron bars and its sculpted H — abandon all hope, ye who enter here —and pass through. Then we head down the tree-lined path toward the main building and around it, the noise growing louder and the lights growing brighter as we approach. When we pass into the glowing center of campus, Fall Fest rises up before us.

Silver, black, green, and gold. The colors trail in streamers down the building fronts to every side and across the lawn, forming a colorful canopy. Lanterns hang from the trees, lights line the paths, and the grass below the streamers is filled with students and edged with booths. The music seems to come from everywhere, not the way it does when I touch Wes—not filling my bones—but simple and normal and real and loud and all around. A group of girls in brightly colored wigs is perched on a bench eating and laughing, a huddle of boys is playing booth games, and a ton of students decked out in wild makeup and glittering accessories are dancing. The air is alive with their bodies and voices.

Teachers dot the crowd, chatting with one another—none of them with face paint or fake hair, but all in dark clothes like shadows cast around the festival. Mr. Lowell and Dallas hover in front of a booth; Ms. Hill and Ms. Wellson sit on a bench at the edge of the grass dance floor. And there, leaning against a drink stand, is Eric. I tense when I see him, looking grim as he surveys the crowd. I should have known he would be here, watching. But is he still acting as Roland’s eyes? On the other side of the lawn, Sako sits perched on the edge of another bench. She is definitely here for Agatha. I scan the crowd for any other vigilant eyes and spot a third—a man I’ve never seen before, one with dark skin and Sako’s same cold grace—which means that somewhere there’s probably a fourth, his partner, but I don’t see her. Everyone else looks like they belong. And really, somehow, so do the Crew.