The Eighth Guardian

CHAPTER 26

“Wait,” Yellow whispers. “Your former headmaster is behind Eagle Industries?”

“He’s definitely involved somehow. Whether or not he’s behind it I really don’t know.”

“How old is he?”

“Huh?” I say it louder than I’m intending. A man looks up at us from the next table and glares.

“Your dad,” Yellow whispers. “He called him ‘Old Cresty.’ How old is old?”

“Oh,” I whisper back. “I don’t know how old he is. Pretty old. Grandfather old? In his seventies?” That’s a total guess. “He was a CIA operative for a really long time, then a division chief before he came to Peel. And he’s been headmaster for a while. At least two generations.”

“Two generations to gain influence in all the government organizations. CIA, FBI, NSA . . .”

“And all the other ones we don’t know about.”

“Annum Guard,” Yellow whispers.

“Annum Guard,” I repeat.

Neither of us says anything for a while. Yellow stares down at the picture of the crested eagle, and I look out the window as the snow falls on Copley Square. I know Yellow is trying to figure out what to do now, and I should probably do the same. But all I can think about is my dad. Maybe this really wasn’t his fault. Maybe Headmaster Vaughn corrupted him early on. And maybe—just maybe—if we go back and stop the headmaster before he has a chance to worm his way into Annum Guard, we can prevent my dad’s death.

“We have to go to Peel,” I whisper.

Yellow shuts the book then looks up at me with a blank stare.

“We have to stop this at ground level, just like with the Gardner.” I put my hands on my hips and stand up straight. “We can’t bring this information to the authorities. Both of us are on the most wanted list in the present.”

Yellow leans back in her chair and continues to stare at me. Her gaze is intense. I’m sure it would unnerve most people, but I’m focused right now.

“We’re going back to 1982,” I say. “We’re going to stop Vaughn before he has a chance to start.”

Yellow has a confused expression. “What?” And then her face settles into understanding. “Your dad was at Peel then, wasn’t he?”

I push back the chair and stand. It makes a scraping sound on the marble floor, and every head in the room looks at me. I walk toward the door, and I hear Yellow follow behind me.

“Iris!” she hisses when we’re on the stairs.

I stop on the landing and turn. The marble lion looms overhead.

“What about Alpha?” Yellow says. “Are you just going to keep making up new enemies in your head until we figure out a way for your dad to live? You can try to deny it all you want, but I know that’s what you’re doing.”

I don’t deny it. I deflect it. “You don’t think Vaughn is an enemy?”

“I don’t think he should be our top priority right now, no. We need to bring all the information we’ve discovered to Alpha’s boss.”

“Yeah, that’s a genius plan. Alpha’s boss is the secretary of defense.”

Yellow crosses her hands over her chest and glares at me.

I narrow my eyes. “Fine. You do it your way, I’ll do it mine. Project to the present and march yourself through the Pentagon demanding to see the defense secretary. Have fun with that. I hope you enjoy prison. I’m going to stop Vaughn, which is going to stop Alpha, which, yes, just might save my dad.”

Yellow narrows her eyes right back at me. “You are the most frustrating person I’ve ever met. Will you just listen to me?” Her voice echoes through the entire library, and the woman in the swing coat tears up the stairs toward us. Yellow holds up her hand to her. “I’m sorry!” She flashes her most innocent smile. She does have that virtuous-naivete thing down pat.

The woman adjusts her glasses and gives us an icy glare as she holds her finger to her lips, but then she turns and leaves. Her kitten heels click down the steps.

“Look,” Yellow whispers. “I’m not opposed to going to Peel. It’s the only lead we have right now, and we need to follow it through. But I’m not going to follow you blindly without any sort of plan just so you can resolve your daddy issues.”

I take a breath. I want to lash out, tell her I don’t have any unresolved issues, but that would be the biggest lie told since I was drugged and blindfolded on Testing Day. My head is swimming. Bits and pieces of information are flying through it, and I’m trying to grab on to anything that might make sense.

I take another breath. “There’s a chance that Vaughn recruited my dad when he was still in school, right?”

“I guess.”

“My dad graduated in 1982. If we go back to right before he graduated, then that’s our best shot of figuring out whether Vaughn was already using him. We need to find some sort of physical evidence if we want any chance of being believed. I don’t think our word is going to go very far.”

“It’s not,” Yellow agreed. “Not with all the damage control Alpha is doing in the present. He’s completely discrediting us.”

“So we go back, find something concrete, and we’ll figure out how to get it to the proper authorities. That’s the best plan I can come up with right now.”

Yellow takes a minute. I can see her processing what I said. Her eyes flick back and forth as she thinks. Finally she nods her head. “Okay. We go back right before graduation, 1982.”

I nod back. I don’t tell her the obvious wrinkle, that I have no idea when Peel’s graduation was in 1982. It could have been an early graduation, like mine was, or it could have been a later one, like in May. Or anytime in between, really. It’s a total crap shoot. We just have to pick a date and hope for the best.

“How’s February 25 sound?” I say.

“Cold,” Yellow says.

We project to 1982 inside the library’s basement bathrooms. Warmer that way.

“How much money do we have left?” I ask Yellow.

She counts it. “Enough for two bus tickets and some really, really cheap clothes. And after that we’re totally screwed unless we start stealing. I can’t believe we stayed at the Parker House. What was I thinking?”

“Let it go, Yellow.” I shrug. “We can always bet on football games we already know the outcomes of.”

“Which is what I like to call stealing.”

We take the T from Copley to Park Street, then hit up Filene’s Basement. Yellow hands me twenty bucks and tells me it’s all I’m getting. I find a pair of light-wash, tapered jeans and a really ugly lavender sweater on the clearance rack. But the sweater is thick and oversize and will keep me warm, along with the puffy blue jacket I also manage to find squeezed in between two shirts. The total comes to $19.82, which wakes me right up. It’s like a sign or something.

The bus leaves out of South Station. I slide into the window seat and lean my head up against it. It’s a cold, gray day in Massachusetts. Snow has turned to slush, which crunches beneath the big bus tires. I stare at the dead trees whipping past us, and I can’t help but think of my dad.

I’m going to see my dad. A seventeen-year-old version of my dad. A dad who’s my age. A dad who may or may not have already started down the road of selfishness and corruption. Butterflies flit around in my stomach. I wish there was some way I could convince him not to even join Annum Guard in the first place. Or I could—

I sit up straight as the thought hits me. Oh my God. Yes. I could do that.

I look over at Yellow. She’s slouched down in the seat and has her head resting on the seat back. Her eyes are closed. My teeth find my bottom lip, and I decide to let her be. I still need to think things through. My head isn’t exactly clear right now.

The bus stops in front of the old corner store a quarter mile from Peel’s campus. My heart is still bouncing around in my stomach as we walk through the woods.

“I’m nervous,” I say. “I’m trying to hide it from you, but my hands are trembling; and do you see that tree over there? That’s where Abe kissed me for the first time ever. I’m about to walk into a fountain of memories, then add my dead dad to the mix, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll blow the whole thing.”

Yellow squeezes my shoulder, which makes me jump. She pulls her hand away. “Sorry,” she mutters. “But you’re not going to blow this. I think you’re like physically incapable of blowing anything.”

“Oh, so should I not tell you about what happened at that tree over there?” I point.

Yellow looks at me with shock.

“That was a joke!”

But she’s already grinning so hard that she can’t contain it, and then she collapses into a fit of giggles. I tuck my head down and laugh, too. Just a little at first, but then so hard that it hurts to breathe. It hits me that I’ve forgotten how good it feels to laugh. To completely let go. I look at Yellow and see a similar realization on her weary face. She’s really come through for me. I misjudged her big-time.

Peel comes into view. There’s a guard at the gate, and I pull Yellow out of view.

“Can’t we just slip the guard a twenty to get us in?” she asks. “It will pretty much wipe out the rest of our funds, but if it’s going to get us in, I’ll part with it.”

“Only if you want to pay twenty bucks for the pleasure of getting arrested. Come on, there’s a way in around back.” Or, rather, a way for students to sneak out, frolic in the forest, and buy beer at the corner store. It’s supposedly been there for years. I’m pretty sure the administration knows about it, but no Peel kids have ever gotten into serious trouble on any excursions, so they allow it.

There’s an eight-foot evergreen hedge that runs the entire perimeter of the campus and an iron gate on the other side, but I know where to go. Right to where there’s a small hole in the hedge and the iron bars are bent enough that most kids can fit through them.

I go first, and Yellow follows behind me. We’re way back in the corner of campus. Right in front of us is where the maze was set up on Testing Day. Well, will be set up. Many years from now.

We stick to the perimeter rather than cut across the wide, open field. There’s no one around, so I guess classes must still be in session. I look down at my watch. Nearly eleven thirty. Assuming they haven’t changed the schedule, we have about twenty minutes to kill until the lunch bell rings and everyone fills the quad on the way to the dining hall. Headmaster Vaughn will be among them. He always eats with students, sitting up there on his dais looking down at us. I think it was supposed to make us feel nervous. It did.

We reach the quad, and my heart lifts for just a moment before crashing into my toes. Peel looks the same. The exact same. A wall of ivy snakes up Archer Hall, the dorm where I spent two years and a couple months of my life. The looming oak trees are bare now but come summer will provide a canopy of shade. Sidewalks crisscross in perfect order. It’s almost as if I never left. I half expect the bell to ring and Abe to trot down the steps. We’ll eat lunch together and swap physics homework.

Stop.

I force Abe out of my mind. This isn’t a homecoming, it’s a mission. Maybe the most important mission ever in the history of Annum Guard.

The bell rings and echoes across campus. I stand up straight and look all around as kids wearing the same Peel uniform as mine pour onto the quad. My eyes dart from the science building to the math building, over to the humanities building. I look for Vaughn. Not my dad. I really don’t even know what my dad looks like. My only memories come from the two pictures at home and the one in Alpha’s file. No, I train my eyes on the administration building. Any second now Vaughn will come waltzing down the steps and walk toward the dining hall.

A lock of hair falls in my face, and I flick my neck to bat it away. And then—shit. I see my dad.

He’s coming out of the government building. He’s holding hands with a girl who is very clearly not my mom, and he’s smiling and laughing. My heart stops. Stops beating in my chest. Because there he is, clear as day. He has the same crooked nose as in the picture in his file. The same floppy haircut. But mostly I know it’s him because of my heart. The heart knows.

“Have you seen Vaughn yet?” Yellow whispers beside me, then she turns. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her head whip from me to my dad. “Iris. Is that your dad?”

I choke out a breath and nod.

“Iris.” Her voice is soft, sad.

My legs start walking. I don’t mean for them to. They just do. “I just . . . I have to . . .” I don’t finish the thought. I don’t know what the end of the thought is.

Yellow doesn’t follow. At least I don’t hear her behind me. I’m looking straight ahead, watching my dad run two fingers under his collar, unbutton his top button, and loosen his tie. He drops the girl’s hand, and she plants a kiss on his cheek and takes off for the dining hall. My dad watches her go.

I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s so young. He looks like he belongs here. A student. My body doesn’t know how to feel. My stomach is nervous, but my heart is lifted. I’m light-headed, but I’m thinking clearly. My legs are tingly, but my feet are strong.

My dad is right there, two feet away from me. A real, living human being. I clear my throat, and he turns around. His eyes grow wide with surprise, as if he can’t believe a nonstudent managed to break into one of the country’s most secure government training schools.

“Who are you?” he asks.

His voice. It’s different than it was at the Kennedy assassination. The day he died. His voice isn’t rushed or frantic. It’s as smooth as silk, yet warm and inviting.

“My name is . . .” Amanda. My name is Amanda. I’m your daughter. “Iris.”

“How’d you get in here, Iris?” He looks beyond me, toward the dining hall. I turn my head and peer over my shoulder. Most of the kids are filing inside, but there are a few stragglers, mostly guys, standing around watching us.

“I know about the hole in the hedge and the bent bars,” I say.

My dad makes this face that I only assume is his stern face. The stern face I never got a chance to see. But I can change that. I can change that right now by telling my dad what I know. So why am I hesitating?

“It’s not important,” I say.

My dad’s eyes flick over to the dining hall, then back at me. “Look, do you need me for something?”

I take a breath, ready to open my mouth and spill out everything. How I know that he is going to leave Peel and someday join Annum Guard. How Headmaster Vaughn is going to pay him to go on certain missions. How he’s going to die on one of them. How it is absolutely critical that my dad plays it straight and clean.

And then my dad’s face changes. He looks right into my eyes—the same shape and color as his own—and recognition dawns on his face. I see him struggling to put two and two together.

“Do I know you?” he asks.

I’m going to lose it. I’m not this strong. I want to leap into my father’s arms and have him hold me, to make up for all those scraped knees and wounded souls he wasn’t there for.

Yes! my mind screams. Yes, you know me! You made me. You left me. Please don’t leave me. My mother is sick, and I can’t take care of her. You’re the only one who can. She needs you. I need you.

But the words stay firmly entrenched in my mind, never making it to my lips. Because deep down, this is wrong. It feels all wrong. I can try to pass off my motives as being for the good of the world, but they’re not. They’re purely selfish. I’m doing this because I want my dad back. I want to grow up with a father. And a mother who’s not sick. I want a normal life.

But no matter how much I may want and wish for that, I can’t have it.

“There’s been a mistake.” It comes out barely louder than a whisper. “You’re not who I’m looking for.”

But my dad doesn’t turn away. “I’m sorry, but you look really familiar. You sure I don’t know you?”

I’m about ten seconds away from losing it. “I—” My voice cracks. “I don’t know you.” I whip around and fly down the stairs toward Yellow, and there is the absence of everything. No sound. The scene before me goes fuzzy. I can’t even remember why I’m here.

Then a door slams, and I’m brought back.

“Julian!” my dad calls in a loud, happy voice.

“Hey, Mitch, who was that?” another male voice says from behind me.

“I don’t know,” my dad says. “Some girl named Iris.”

Yellow’s eyes get big, and I look over my shoulder. She gasps. I gasp. Because my dad is standing there talking to a teenage Alpha. An Alpha who apparently went to Peel. And an Alpha whose memories now include a weird teenage girl named Iris showing up at school one day with something important to say to my dad.

“Iris!” Yellow yells, and my head snaps to her.

I race toward her. “Project!” I yell. “Now! This is going to be an ambush!”