Isabela grabbed the duplicate by the arm. “I’ll escort this . . . thing back to campus,” she said to Rhodes. “You can still make the briefing.”
Rhodes nodded, relieved to be away from both Halima and Caleb. The clone went silent as Isabela walked it towards the nearby gate where Caleb waited. Isabela ground her teeth, not wanting her annoyance with Caleb to show.
“Escorting this stray back to campus,” Isabela said to the Peacekeepers at the gate.
They waved her through. Caleb absorbed his duplicate and sulked alongside Halima until they were out of sight of the gate. Only then did Isabela shape-shift back into her true form. They walked back to campus side by side, like they were just out for a stroll.
“I had that under control,” Isabela said sharply.
“Oh,” Caleb replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought that soldier was going to bust you. Figured I could provide a distraction.”
“I had a juicy cover story all ready to go,” Isabela said, her eyes shining. “The boring-ass colonel is having a secret affair with Halima.”
“Um, that would be really inappropriate,” Caleb countered. “You could get Archibald in a lot of trouble if that got out.”
Isabela rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so uptight. Besides, if we find out he’s the mole, the dirty rumors I made up will be the least of his worries.”
“I don’t think Archibald’s our guy,” Caleb said.
“Of course not. You love your army men.”
Caleb frowned at that. “Just because I grew up on a base doesn’t mean I think everyone in a uniform is a saint. But my uncle told me when I first came here that Archibald was a good man. That I could trust him.”
“This is the same uncle who Nigel curses to this day because he stole his pet raccoon?”
“Our Chimæra, yeah,” Caleb replied, looking off into the distance. “They needed to quarantine them, I guess. Not saying my uncle’s always right but . . .”
“And this is the same uncle who pulled some strings so you can go home for Christmas this year while the rest of us are stuck here,” Isabela added.
“I didn’t ask for that,” Caleb replied. “I don’t even want to go home.”
“Sure.”
Caleb looked over at her like he might defend himself further. Instead, he blew out a sigh and fell silent. The two of them walked back to the dorms without speaking. Isabela wasn’t sure why she felt the need to pick on Caleb so much. He’d just been trying to help and she even agreed with him—Archibald probably wasn’t the mole. He was too boring for that.
“Well, sorry I got in your way back there,” Caleb said flatly when they reached the dorms.
“Apology accepted,” Isabela replied with a huff.
Caleb trudged into the dorms while Isabela continued on towards the faculty building to deliver the USB drive to Lexa. She pursed her lips, feeling bad for how she’d spoken to him. Oh well. He’d get over it. Hopefully.
“This teamwork shit,” Isabela muttered, “is not for me.”
Chapter Five
NIGEL BARNABY
HEALTH AND WELLNESS OFFICE
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
THE NIGHTMARE ALWAYS STARTED THE SAME. NIGEL was barefoot, in the cozy pajama pants he used to wear as a kid, his arms shoved inside his T-shirt sleeves and crossed over his stomach to keep warm. His breath misted in a cloud in front of his face. His toes were numb, but he could still feel the brittle ice beneath him, cracking and buckling with his every step.
He was back in Iceland. Out on that frozen lake.
Nigel looked over his shoulder. There should’ve been land behind him, a cabin, but there was nothing. Nothing except for ice in all directions.
So, he staggered onwards, unable to do anything else. His teeth chattered. The sound of the ice snapping echoed in his ears. A snow flurry blew across his face and he could feel snot frozen to his upper lip.
There were shadows in front of him. People, barely visible in the gloom. If he could just make it to them . . .
But then he heard their voices, their cruel laughter. Mocking him for his stupid pants. They were the boys from the Pepperpont Young Gentlemen’s Preparatory Academy. His old school, the one he’d left behind when the invasion happened, when he leaped at the opportunity to become someone else. The old dread came over him. He wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go.
They were coming towards him now. Some of them brandished lacrosse sticks and riding crops.
Nigel gritted his teeth to stop them from chattering. He wasn’t weak anymore. He had Legacies. But somehow, he knew, they wouldn’t work out here. Not on the ice. He couldn’t decide whether to run back the way he had come or submit to whatever humiliations the prep schoolers had in mind.
It was in that moment of painful indecision that Nigel fell. Always the same. The ice parted underneath him and the dark water swallowed him up, freezing cold as it rushed into his lungs.
“And then I wake up, gasping for breath,” he told Dr. Linda. “What do you make of that, eh? Used to be I dreamt about cool shit, like the one where I’m running round the burbs, busting windows with Siouxsie Sioux.”
Dr. Linda stared at him blankly, her pen poised over her notebook.
“Siouxsie Sioux?” Nigel reiterated, aghast. “Siouxsie and the Banshees? Bloody hell, Linds, weren’t you alive in the seventies?”
“Yes, Nigel, I was alive.”
“Don’t sound like it,” Nigel replied. “Anyway, what’re we going to do about these nightmares?” He ran the back of his hand across his pockmarked cheek. “Not getting my beauty sleep.”
Nigel sunk deeper into the cozy couch in Dr. Linda’s office, his gaze flitting around the room. Her office was cluttered with tchotchkes from all over the world; the little objects served as conversation pieces for Dr. Linda to break the ice with some of the foreign students. On the walls were variations of the same multicolored splotchy painting, which, considering Nigel still had to come here at least once a week, he was totally sick of looking at.
“It isn’t unusual for two traumatic experiences to bleed into each other, particularly when they share a unifying theme—”
“Huh?”
“Your experience in Iceland and your background at the prep school,” Linda explained patiently. “There are similarities.”
“What’re you on about?” Nigel replied. “Buncha pricks who tormented me for years got nothing to do with drowning.”
“Is it the drowning that frightens you?”
“Drowning sucks, don’t it? I was playing would-you-rather the other night with the lads and we had total agreement that we’d all rather burn to death. You’d think that would hurt more, right?”
“Nigel.”
“But the thing of it is, you pass out from the smoke long before your actual skin gets to roasting.”
“Okay, Nigel. That’s lovely.” Dr. Linda sighed. “The point I’m trying to make is that, despite your close call, you don’t have anxiety about drowning.”
“Says you,” Nigel replied. He put his combat boots up on the coffee table. He’d been meeting with Dr. Linda often enough that this no longer got even a raised eyebrow from the woman.