The Archived

TWENTY-NINE

T

HE WEEK

before you die, I can see it coming.

I see the good-bye in your eyes. The too-long looks at everything, as if by staring you can make memories strong enough to last you through.

But it’s not the same. And those lingering looks scare me.

I am not ready.

I am not ready.

I am not ready.

“I can’t do this without you, Da.”

“You can. And you have to.”

“What if I mess up?”

“Oh, you will. You’ll mess up, you’ll make mistakes, you’ll break things. Some you’ll be able to piece together, and others you’ll lose. That’s all a given. But there’s only one thing you have to do for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Stay alive long enough to mess up again.”

The moment the Returns door closes, there is no door, and the white is so bright and shadowless that it makes the room look like infinite space: no floor, no walls, no ceiling. Nothing but dizzying white. I know I have to focus, have to find the place where the door was and get out and find Owen—and I can do that, the rational Keeper part of me reasons, if I can just breathe and make my way to the wall.

I take a step, and that’s when the white on every side explodes into color and sound and life.

My life.

Mom and Dad on the porch swing of our first house, her legs draped across his lap and his book propped against her legs, and then the new blue house with Mom too big to fit through the door, and Ben climbing the stairs like they were mountain rocks, and Ben drawing on walls and floors and anything but paper, and Ben turning the space under the bed into a tree house because he was scared of heights, and Lyndsey hiding there with him even though she barely fit, and Lyndsey on the roof and Da in the summer house teaching me to pick a lock, to take a punch, to lie, to read to be strong, and hospital chairs and too-bright smiles and fighting and lying and bleeding and breaking into pieces, and moving and boxes and Wesley and Owen, and it all pours out of me and onto every surface, taking something vital with it, something like blood or oxygen because my body and mind are shutting down more and more with every frame extracted from my head.

And then the images begin to fold inward as the white recovers the room square by square by square, blotting out my life like screens being switched off. I sway on my feet. The white spreads, devouring, and I feel my legs buckle beneath me. The images blink out one by one by one, and my heartbeat skips.

No.

The air and the light are thinning.

I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on the fact that gravity tells me I’m on the floor. Focus on the fact that I have to get up. I can hear the voices now. I can make out Mom’s voice chirping about the coffee shop; Dad’s telling me it will be an adventure; Wesley’s saying he’s not going anywhere; Ben’s asking me to come see; and Owen’s telling me it’s over.

Owen. Anger flares strong enough to help me focus, even as the voices weaken. Eyes still shut, I beg my body to stand. It doesn’t, so I focus on crawling, on making my way to the wall I know exists somewhere in front of me. The room is becoming too quiet, and my mind is becoming too slow, but I keep crawling forward on my hands and knees—the pain in my wrist a reminder that I am still alive—until my fingers skim the base of the wall.

My heart skips again, falters.

My skin is going pins-and-needles numb as I manage to reach into my boot and pull Da’s Crew key out. I use the wall to get myself up, brace myself when my body sways, and run my hands over the surface until I catch the invisible lip of a door frame.

The scenes have all gone quiet now except for one with Da.

I can’t make out the words, and I can’t tell anymore if my eyes are open or closed, and it’s terrifying, so I focus on the smooth Louisiana lilt in Da’s voice as he talks, and I bring my hands back and forth, back and forth, until my fingers graze the keyhole.

I get the key into the lock and turn hard to the left as Da’s voice stops. Everything goes black a moment before the lock clicks and the door opens. I stumble through, gasping for air, every muscle shaking.

I’m back in the Narrows. Crew keys aren’t even supposed to lead here. Then again, I’m pretty sure Crew keys aren’t supposed to be used from within a Returns room. As I force my body to its feet, my pulse pounds in my ears. I’m thankful to still have a pulse. A scrap of paper is crumpled on the floor. My list. I lift it, expecting names, but there are no names at all, only an order.

Get out of the Narrows. Stay out of the Narrows. It’s too late.

—

R

I look around.

The Narrows are empty and painfully quiet, and when I round the corner I see that my cluster of numbered doors have all been flung open. The rooms beyond are cast in shadow, but I can hear shouting in the lobby and the coffee shop—orders, the cold, composed kind given by members of the Archive, not Histories or residents. Only the third floor is quiet. Something in me twists, whispers wrong wrong wrong, and I shut the other two doors and step out into the hall.

The first thing I see is the red streaking across the faded yellow wallpaper.

Blood.

I drop to my knees and say a prayer even as I touch the floor and reach. The memory hums into my bones and numbs my hands as I roll it back. The scene is right at the top, and it skips away too fast, a blur of black-spiked hair and metal and red. Everything in me tightens. I slam the memories to a stop, and play them forward.

Anger washes over me as I watch Owen step out from the Narrows door and pull a pen and slip of paper from his pocket. It’s the same size as the one with my list. Archive paper. There’s a muffled sound down the hall, like knocking, as Owen leans the page against the mirror and writes one word. Out.

Moments later, a hand writes back. Good.

Owen smiles and pockets the slip.

The knocking stops, and I see Wesley standing by my door. He turns, his fist slipping back to his side; and judging by the way he’s looking at Owen, he saw quite enough when he read my skin.

Owen only smiles. And then he says something. The words are nothing more than a hush, a murmur, but Wesley’s face changes. His lips move, and Owen’s shoulders shrug, and then the knife appears in his hand. He slips his finger into the hilt’s hole, twirls the blade casually.

Wesley’s hand curls into a fist, and he swings at Owen, who smiles, dodges fluidly, and follows upward with his knife. Wesley leans back just in time, but Owen spins the blade in his fingers at the top of its arc and swings down. This time Wesley isn’t fast enough. He gasps and staggers back, gripping his shoulder. Owen strikes again, and Wes avoids the blade but not Owen’s free hand, now a fist, as it comes down across his temple. One knee buckles to the floor, and before Wes can get up, Owen slams him back into the wall. Wes’s shoulder leaves a blossom of red against one of the hall’s ghosted doors, and the left side of his face is stained with blood, a gash on his forehead spilling down like a mask over his left eye. He collapses to the floor, and Owen vanishes into the stairwell.

Wesley staggers to his feet and follows.

And so do I.

I spring up from the floor, the past vanishing into present as I race down the hall and up the stairs. I’m close. I can hear the footsteps floors above. I vault up past the sixth floor—more blood on the steps. Above me, I hear the roof door slam shut, and the sound is still echoing as I reach it and stumble through into the garden of stone demons.

And there they are.

Wesley catches Owen once across the jaw. Owen’s face flicks sideways, and the smile sharpens before Wes throws another fist, and Owen catches his hand, pulls him forward, and plunges the knife into his stomach.