Otherbound

11

How come you’re not rehearsing with your friends?” Nolan asked, perched in Pat’s desk chair. The extra pill would need time to kick in. He had a hard time sitting still, though. He kept pushing the notebook on her desk back and forth and tapping his foot and spending a second too long in Amara’s world—

—Cilla was reading on one side of the room while Amara finished up lunch at the fire pit with Jorn and Maart, rootpatties in hand, acting as if nothing was wrong. Jorn was looking at her with prying dark eyes, but he hadn’t said a word about how long she’d taken to find the mage—

“—I am.” Pat frowned. “Our drama teacher makes us rehearse together in the gym, but we don’t have a lot of time since we also have to build the set. That’s why we need volunteers. I asked Mom, but she’s too busy working.”

Nolan held back a cringe. “Rehearsing with your friends at home, I mean.”

“I just don’t want to make a big deal out of it. What if I screw up?”

“You won’t. I promise.”

Pat fought a tiny surprised smile. Straight teeth pushed into her bottom lip to keep it in line. Nolan couldn’t recall the last time she’d taken anything he said so seriously. For a moment he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

“Thanks. Um—so I’m in the ER, and a girl just went missing from her room …” Pat stood by her bed, chest puffed out, ignoring schoolbooks and bags scattered around her feet. “No!” she bellowed. “I have to know where she went—”

—Maart stood to clean up the mess, leaving Jorn and Amara at the fire pit. She should be calm. Jorn couldn’t know she’d contacted the mage. But if he did … Already, tension was locking up her spine; already, she was crushing her rootpatty between her fingers. Jorn had burned her simply for daring to read. He’d do so, so much worse for this.

A clap shook the granary. She jerked. Thunder?

“Again? This must be backlash.” Cilla kept one finger in her book.

“Yes. I sense it.” Jorn smelled clean, a whiff of fish on his breath as he spoke—

“—know I’m a nurse! Don’t tell me what my job is!” Pat took a threatening step forward—

—Jorn’s and Amara’s eyes kept meeting without a reason, and every time it held Amara still. She wanted to suck the patty’s remains off her fingers, just so she wouldn’t be stuck like this, but any movement might make Jorn snap.

Just say it! Amara wanted to shout. Say what you want to say! She tried to slow her breathing, and her frustration alongside it. She felt too loud. Too present. She needed to be invisible. Nolan fought off her fear, because he couldn’t let it crawl into him, he had to stay an observer, shouldn’t even be here—

“—you awake?” Pat was gathering thick bunches of hair into a ponytail, her movements irritated. Nolan found himself staring somewhere over her shoulder, swallowing as he tried to get a grip. Why was his throat so dry? He shouldn’t let Amara get to him.

“Right. Sorry.” In his absence, his hands had pressed onto the notebook enough to warp the paper. Ink dotted his fingers. He flattened the pages, the familiar paper grain a comfort. He’d meant to jot down notes to show Pat he took her seriously, but he hadn’t written a word. “You’re doing great.”

“Really?” Her hands dropped to her sides. She sounded at once suspicious and hopeful. Did she care that much about his opinion? Why did that thought make him so damn uncomfortable? “I’m trying for a Michelle Rodriguez vibe, you know.”

Was he supposed to know that name? Dad had Rodriguez family down in Mexico, but Nolan guessed Pat meant an actress rather than that great-aunt they’d met as kids.

“Would you … if you saw me in a movie … Never mind. You don’t have to do this if you don’t care.”

“I do care,” he said immediately. That wasn’t true. But he wanted to care. He was trying to care.

He shoved Amara from his mind. Her fear wasn’t his. He wanted to stay here, in the safety of Pat’s tiny room with its dusty shelves and dorky mirror and neon gym bag dumped in one corner. He didn’t want to go back, but—

“—when I’m queen,” Cilla was saying, “I won’t let any ministers abuse magic like this. We’ll keep the world in balance.”

“It’s repulsive how they’ve treated this country,” Jorn said in a clipped voice.

But you’re working with them, Amara thought. Was all this an act? Or were he and Ruudde working against the other ministers?

All Nolan could think was, You know I’m here, Jorn, don’t you?—

—he needed to say something, and fast, because the way Pat looked at him, he knew he’d blown it. Their second practice session and he’d spent half of it with Amara. He wiped sweat from his hairline and stared at the notebook as though studying his earlier, nonexistent notes. “You might be over-playing this scene. You’re shouting a lot.”

“But I’m talking to my boss. I’m supposed to hate him. I told you: my character thinks he knows something about the missing patients. Oh, and she’s scared because he might’ve left those voice mails.”

“I’m not seeing fear.” He focused on Pat with all his might, to the point where his staring would probably creep out anyone else. “You’re just shouting.”

“You said I was doing fine!”

“You are. I’m impressed,” Nolan rushed to assure her. He’d promised to be critical, though. “I just think you can play that fear more convincingly. Fear, true fear—you can’t cover that up. There’s always this voice at the back of your mind: What if I’m not safe? It changes everything.” He didn’t know what he was saying. He rubbed his thighs while he talked, hoping to avoid blinking. He didn’t want to mess up again—

—Amara was eating her rootpatty, stuffing it into her mouth faster than she ought to. She couldn’t swallow all this, not without her tongue, not without sauce to help it down, but she needed something to do and no, no, Nolan didn’t want to know any of this—

“—true fear?” Pat didn’t move. Nolan wasn’t used to her so still. Normally she’d fiddle with her hair or cross her arms, or her eyebrows would move weirdly across her forehead. Now, her eyes drifted to his stump. He scratched it self-consciously. Pat should be blowing him off by now—he got plenty of concern from their parents already. He’d liked seeing Pat this way, as far removed from his issues or Amara’s panic as possible: making over-the-top proclamations, waltzing around her room with a fake stethoscope around her neck …

But Amara still—always—won out. It wasn’t fair to Pat. Nolan rubbed his face. “True fear is the kind you can’t reason away. It makes you want to puke. To do anything, anything, except face—whatever it is you fear. And every time you think of it, even for a flash, part of you panics.”

Pat still didn’t move. “But if you’re really angry?”

Nolan thought of Amara, who pushed her anger down so deep it couldn’t escape. He thought of Maart, who let it burst out in pieces. He thought of Jorn, who gripped Amara’s hands and— “It depends, I guess.” When he talked next, the words came more easily. This was about a school play, nothing more. “You could make your character shout, then step back, like she realizes what kind of trouble she’s getting into.”

“OK. Thanks.” Nolan didn’t recognize Pat’s high-pitched, nervous laugh. He’d freaked her out, hadn’t he? He breathed deeply, then let the air escape. He should go to his own room, see if the extra medication was working the way he’d hoped.

“I’m nauseous,” he lied, and hated himself for it. “I should go.”